David Lynch
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DOC NYC 2017: Peter Braatz on Blue Velvet Revisited
The past year has proven to be a uniquely rewarding time for David Lynch obsessives, with the Showtime revival of Twin Peaks being the obvious highlight, but also marked by recent Criterion Collection Blu-ray/DVD special editions of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me and the new documentary, David Lynch: the Art Life, focused on Lynch’s painting roots. However, one of the most fascinating Lynch-related features in recent memory has yet to receive the widespread U.S. exposure it richly deserves, and it reflects back to a more traditionally structured Lynch favorite (indeed, still the film that some cite as his key work) that those […]
by Travis Crawford on Nov 14, 2017 -
Watch: How David Lynch’s Unmade One Saliva Bubble Shaped Twin Peaks
From the LowRes Wünderbred account comes this video essay, the first in a series that will explore how the unmade comedy One Saliva Bubble — co-written by David Lynch and Mark Frost as a Steve Martin-Martin Short vehicle (!) — shaped Twin Peaks. (The screenplay, at least a version of it, can be found here.)
by Filmmaker Staff on Nov 7, 2017 -
“…Much More Truthful and Much More Alienated than Anything I Would Produce Myself”: Jonathan Lethem on Fred Barney Taylor’s Lethem
Last week I was very much looking forward to talking with friend Jonathan Lethem about the new film Lethem, directed by Fred Barney Taylor, which screens at the Metrograph on Sunday, September 17, with the author in attendance. Before that happened though, we both received the news that Michael Friedman had died. A beloved friend and collaborator, Friedman co-founded The Civilians, a theater company where I’m an associate artist. He also wrote the score and lyrics for the musical adaptation of Fortress of Solitude, Lethem’s 2003 novel. Fortress of Solitude tells the story of Lethem’s childhood on Dean Street in […]
by Alix Lambert on Sep 15, 2017 -
David Lynch and the Nightmarish Meanings of his Hollywood Star Casting
In episode four of Twin Peaks: The Return, an older gentleman has an obscure conversation with Gordon Cole (David Lynch) as he escorts him to the office of FBI Chief of Staff, Denise Bryson (David Duchovny). Their scene together is short but just by his brief appearance Richard Chamberlain evokes a mass of associations in the viewers who recognizes him, maybe as Cannon Films’ Allen Quartermain, maybe as the ambitious priest with impure thoughts of Rachel Ward in The Thornbirds, or maybe as Julie Christie’s husband in Petulia. An icon of classic television thanks to his performance in the prime-time […]
by Gillian Wallace Horvat on Aug 31, 2017 -
Twin Peaks: The Return: Last Looks Before the End
I took a break from writing about Twin Peaks: The Return to let things shake down a bit, but now seems like a good time to make a few more notes before the end. The first 2.25 of 18 parts were almost total abstraction, and it seemed a matter of necessity to largely abandon that mode for extended stretches before increasingly reintegrating it. We seemed, for a long time, very far from where we started, but The Return has allowed for increasing interventions of the abstract and fantastical alongside its rising dramatic arcs, which have finally run long enough to allow nearly […]
by Vadim Rizov on Aug 21, 2017 -
Watch: David Lynch’s Bonkers MacDowell Colony Medal Acceptance Speech
David Lynch is an alumni of MacDowell, the storied New Hampshire artists colony. He was awarded this weekend their MacDowell Medal in a ceremony hosted by author and MacDowell Colony chairman Michael Chabon but, due to a prior engagement, was unable to attend. He did send, however, a personalized, appropriately Lynchian video thank-you. Watch it above.
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 14, 2017 -
Kafka, Renoir and the 99 Percent: Ten Thoughts about Twin Peaks: The Return
“…there would remain the terrified feeling of the return.” — Maurice Blanchot, The Step Not Beyond. 1. Whatever else you say about Twin Peaks: The Return, it seems that to talk about it, if you are in good faith, you must begin by talking about the difficulty of talking about it. 2. Twin Peaks: The Return issues some fairly unique challenges to summary or description. It is difficult to describe what is happening in the story, if there truly is a story, if one of its many threads has some kind of priority over the rest. The original series had, […]
by Larry Gross on Aug 7, 2017 -
Watch: David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: The Return Comic-Con Message
David Lynch delivers a message to Comic-Con attending fans of Twin Peaks: The Return in the only way we could expect.
by Cliff Benfield on Aug 2, 2017 -
Twin Peaks: The Return: “Something is Missing”
To a generation viewers groomed by two and a half decades of “outside the box” television ranging from X-Files, Northern Exposure, and Six Feet Under to the arabesque mysteries of Lost, Broadchurch, The Killing, True Detective, and Westworld (to name but a few), the hype over Twin Peaks must have always felt overblown. Those of us who lived it the first time around can only say, “Trust us, you had to be there.” Played straight (maybe even a little corny), but with a twist, Twin Peaks captured the American imagination and became the must-watch event of 1990. Simultaneously nostalgic and […]
by Gabriel Wardell on Jul 31, 2017 -
Twin Peaks: The Return: The Cult of Faith
The original Twin Peaks was some kind of scary dream woven from the psychic residue after a binge of soap operas and donuts. The new episodes are the scary dream after you watch Twin Peaks. I know this because on several occasions during the last quarter century I experienced quite vivid dreams in which I was watching (or inside of) a third season of Twin Peaks, and it always felt pretty remarkably like this new Return does. (I cannot predict what recursive night terrors might follow from these episodes.) But, perhaps because it seems already vetted by my subconscious, I say […]
by Andrew Bujalski on Jul 17, 2017
