The latest trailer-but-not-really for the much-anticipated return of Twin Peaks has David Lynch “in character” as FBI agent Gordon Cole eating a donut.
by Filmmaker Staff on Dec 19, 2016Uncanny, unsettling, disturbing, surreal — David Lynch’s work summons up no shortage of adjectives. But one that gets applied surprisingly rarely is scary. But precisely because of its inflection of horror with the qualities listed above, Lynch’s films can be terrifying in a much deeper way than your normal, well-executed jump-scare thriller. The folks at Blumhouse certainly know horror, and this week site contributor Gregory Burkart posted a nicely curated list of annotated clips speaking to Lynch’s ability to scare, particularly nailing a couple that have long haunted this Lynch fan. The first is from Eraserhead, the “ooh, you are […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 25, 2016David Lynch’s earliest short film is in fact a home movie, and he’d prefer it be labeled as such: a record of the artist Bushnell Keeler (an important figure for Lynch) sailing. The young director is briefly visible throughout.
by Filmmaker Staff on Aug 15, 2016Summer’s still upon us, so it’s not too late to post this improvised commencement speech given by director David Lynch this past June at the Maharishi University of Management. Presented with a Doctor of World Peace honoris causa degree, Lynch, a proponent of Transcendental Meditation, gives a typically anodyne set of answers to students wanting to balance the practicalities demanded by the job market with the searcher for a higher consciousness. Time, Inc’s Motto provides a complete transcription of the talk. Here is Lynch answering a question about his own school years. From Motto: I was very lucky. I was […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 6, 2016“Life is a festival of disruption,” according to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Now filmmaker and Maharishi disciple David Lynch will create his own Festival of Disruption. Taking place at the Ace Hotel in Los Angeles on October 8 and October 9, the festival will feature film, music, photography, multimedia, dance, and discussions all curated by Lynch himself. On the film side, the festival will screen the documentary Blue Velvet Revisited, The Elephant Man, and rare David Lynch shorts. There will talks by architect Frank Gehry, Mel Brooks, Kyle McLachlan & Laura Dern, and Blondie’s Debbie Harry & Chris Stein. Chris Milk will exhibit […]
by Paula Bernstein on Jun 21, 2016In his latest, The Nerdwriter considers how David Lynch manipulates audience expectations to subvert cliches and mess with your response as a viewer. Central talking points: Betty’s audition and, of course, Club Silencio.
by Filmmaker Staff on May 16, 2016“As many viewers of Maya Deren‘s Meshes of the Afternoon and David Lynch‘s Mulholland Drive have recognized, there are many similarities between these two filmmakers,” writes Joel Bocko over at Fandor Keyframe. “An ordinary key is charged with dangerous supernatural power; characters multiply, bending space and time; an Angeleno atmosphere in which daydream becomes nightmare — these are just a few of Meshes‘ and Lynch’s common touchstones.” This video finds the visual connections between Lynch’s work from Twin Peaks onwards and Deren’s best-known short.
by Filmmaker Staff on Apr 26, 2016Last August we posted the trailer for the reissue of Peter Bratz’s Blue Velvet Revisited, a feature-length, Super 8 documentary on the making of David Lynch’s classic with a new score by Tuxedomoon and Cult with No Name. The footage in that trailer consisted on square, black-and-white video. Now, not one but two new teasers have been posted online with restored, color-corrected footage that reveals the full range of the film, including strange, behind-the-scenes moments, interview footage with Lynch, and the director in a nicely starched shirt buttoned up to the collar. For more on Blue Velvet Revisited, check out […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 14, 2016We’ll just start by apologizing up front — at Filmmaker, you know, we don’t report on every trailer, one-sheet or still photo released in support of projects of interest. These things are marketing items, you know? Advertisements. But I suspect we will be making an exception for Twin Peaks, especially now that David Lynch is back behind the camera of this Showtime 25-years-later series. A new teaser has just dropped. It’s not much, but it’s something.
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 18, 2015What defines the unmistakeable cinema of David Lynch? This recent video essay explores this question, using text from David Lynch: The Man from Another Place, the new book by Dennis Lim. “The paradox of the Lynchian sensibility is that it is at once easy to recognize and hard to define,” intones Kevin B. Lee in What is “Lynchian”? over at Fandor Keyframe. From the quaint small towns of Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet where darkness lurks beneath the surface to the haunted Los Angeles nightscapes of Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive, Lynch’s films find skewed perspectives on familiar settings. Returning to certain indelible images, Lynch has mined the same themes […]
by Paula Bernstein on Dec 16, 2015