Lynch on Lynch - Softcover

David Lynch; Chris Rodley

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0571195482 ISBN 13: 9780571195480

Publisher: Faber & Faber, 1999

Synopsis

The career of the creator of Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks in his own words.

Trained as a painter, David Lynch erupted into the cinema with the cult classic Eraserhead. He has been dubbed "Jimmy Stewart from Mars" (Mel Brooks) and has been categorized as a Magritte for the masses. But he is also a true surrealist in the tradition of the great Spanish filmmaker Luis Bunuel.

His films are disturbing and dangerous, with a delicious mystery lurking just beneath the surface of normality. Films such as Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, and the TV series Twin Peaks keep surrealism and hallucination in perfect balance with a sense of Americana that is as pure and simple as his compelling storylines.

Famous for his reticence about his work, Lynch here talks openly not only about his movies, but about the full range of his many activities: a lifelong commitment to painting; his continuing work in photography; his early experimental shorts; his extensive work in television; the musical collaborations with Julee Cruise and Angelo Badalamenti; and his first movie in four years, Lost Highway.

About this title

Review:

You know David Lynch as the director of terminally weird movies such as Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, and Wild at Heart, as well as the bizarre and highly influential television series Twin Peaks. But did you know that it was Mel Brooks who gave him his first big break? That the idea for Blue Velvet grew out of a fantasy Lynch had about sneaking into a private room and learning the secret to a murder mystery? That Twin Peaks came about because co-creator Mark Frost was obsessed with Marilyn Monroe?

In Lynch on Lynch, a 250-page interview book, editor Chris Rodley does a superb job of getting Lynch to talk at length about the high and low points of his life and career. Their conversation covers his early work as a painter through the making of his major films of the 1980s, the fiasco of Dune ("It is what it is."), and the recent and very obscure Lost Highway ("I just *loved* this title.").

Lynch is particularly interesting when he talks about the creative process: "I don't want to give the impression that I sit around thinking up horrible things. I get all kinds of different ideas and feelings. If I'm lucky, they start organizing themselves into a story--then maybe some ideas come along that are too eerie, too violent, or too funny, and they don't fit that story. So you write them down and save them for two or three projects down the road. There's nowhere you can't go in a film--if you think of it, you can go there." Lynch on Lynch is a treat for Lynch fans of all shapes, sizes, and fetishes.

About the Author:

Chris Rodley is the editor of Cronenberg on Cronenberg and of Lynch on Lynch. He has made films for televison, as well as a short film based on a story by Raymond Carver.

About this edition

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0571195482
• ISBN 13: 9780571195480
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 290