David Lynch
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Ten Lessons on Filmmaking from David Lynch
After 25 years, the wait is over for Twin Peaks fans. David Lynch and Mark Frost have announced a return to the mythical town coming in 2016 to Showtime. The show is often credited for having paved the way for the golden age of television today, when many TV programs rival cinema for compelling stories. Through the episodic medium of television, Lynch was able to create a multi-layered world full of rich stories, diving deep into the lives of its characters. The season will pick up in the present day and bring back many of the show’s iconic roles. Shortly […]
by Ariston Anderson on Nov 24, 2014 -
David Lynch and Patti Smith Talk Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks and More on the BBC
David Lynch can be a tough interview — check out my attempt back in 2001. Patti Smith does a bit better in this joint interview on the BBC2 Newnight’s Encounters series. They both discuss their memories first hearing the song “Blue Velvet,” and Smith’s reflexive lyricism brings out something allied in Lynch. Check it out.
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 21, 2014 -
Save the Baby! On the Benefits of the Three-Act Screenplay Structure
Poor old three-act structure. It gets hammered away at, like an old punching bag, every time someone wants to challenge the primacy of the formulaic Hollywood screenwriting methods. “Take that! You follow-the-dots, color-within-the-lines, stodgy old armature!” Poor, poor three-act structure. So much to offer. So misunderstood. What if I were to tell you that in the 2,500-year history of Western dramatic literature, three-act structure is actually a radical new innovation? What would you think if I also said that its radical impact, towards the end of the 19th century, was to finally free dramatists from a highly proscriptive, closely dictated […]
by Jennine Lanouette on Nov 19, 2014 -
Watch: David Lynch in Conversation at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
David Lynch is notoriously averse to discussing the meaning of his movies, so this recent “in conversation” exercise from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts gets above-average results by getting him to focus on the process of making his artwork instead. There are anecdotes about creating art using mice, discussions of his love of stone lithography, and this unbeatable evaluation of what’s changed about Philadelphia since Lynch’s mid-’60s art school time there: “There was a lot of fear and insanity and violence, and then we’d hear about corruption and police brutality, and there was a lot of sickness in the people, and […]
by Vadim Rizov on Nov 13, 2014 -
Watch: The Teaser for Twin Peaks’ Unexpected Return in 2016
This is unexpected but welcome: in 2016, 25 years after its abrupt and terrifying finale, Twin Peaks will return to Showtime in 2016. Variety has the story, but for now here’s a teaser trailer with zero new footage that’s still mildly bonechilling. Fans, you may recall that abrasively loud Frost/Lynch production company logo that ended every episode; it’s the stinger here, so maybe turn down the volume.
by Vadim Rizov on Oct 6, 2014 -
Watch: David Lynch Walks Through his Philadelphia Museum Exhibition
Here’s a change of pace for David Lynch: a video in which he’s silent. Apparently coveting the type of foot traffic drawn by MoMA’s Tim Burton retrospective in 2010, which (at least at the time) drew the third-largest attendance numbers in the museum’s history, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts is hosting the first big US retro of its alumnus’ artwork. Here, Lynch strides through the museum, looking at the fruits of his work to the strains of his own “The Night Bell With Lightning” from 2011’s album Crazy Clown Time. If you want a quick walk through this part of the art-school […]
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 17, 2014 -
Watch: David Lynch Takes the Ice Bucket Challenge
David Lynch’s broad sense of humor has always been a bit of an acquired taste, especially when he’s the one on-screen delivering it (recall all those deafness/earhorn jokes in Twin Peaks). This minute-ish video gets the much-discussed ice bucket challenge right, as Lynch is drenched by two buckets — one with coffee added to it for Laura Dern, one straight-up for Justin Theroux — while giving a game stab at playing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” on his trumpet. It ends (spoiler alert?) with a good punchline, as Lynch nominates Vladimir Putin to step up and take the challenge next. No […]
by Vadim Rizov on Aug 27, 2014 -
Watch: David Lynch and Mark Frost’s On the Air
Following the warm reception of Twin Peaks (1990-1991), ABC commissioned a little seen follow-up from Lynch/Frost Productions in 1992 called On the Air. The series was a characteristically off-kilter sitcom about a ’50s television network struggling to rejuvenate their variety spot, The Lester Guy Show. What sounds like a quixotic collision of Network and 30 Rock instead turned out to be an unmitigated disaster: ABC put the ax on On the Air after only three episodes. Still, as cult followings are want to do, the series attracted a cluster of devotees when it screened in its entirety in the UK and Australia. The first (and only) season is now available on YouTube, […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Aug 14, 2014 -
Watch: David Lynch’s New Rouge Louboutin Commercial
David Lynch recently confirmed that he has no plans to direct a new film, but he’s still available for commercials. Rouge Louboutin is a $50 nail polish inspired by the Ballerina Ultima, the tallest shoe Louboutin has ever designed. You can see where this is going: the video is about as festishistic as it gets, filled out by CGI landscapes that look more like The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus than anything in Lynch’s filmography.
by Vadim Rizov on Aug 5, 2014 -
Stray Links, 7/21-7/25
Starting this week, I’ll be posting a round-up of stray news items and articles — mostly film, though not all — that caught my eye. Let’s get started: • The great Michael Almereyda’s short film Skinningrove won the short film jury award at Sundance this year, and now you can watch it at the New York Review of Books. It’s about 15 minutes of photographer Chris Killip discussing and showing mostly unpublished photos of the titular Yorkshire village from the ’80s. • Here’s an interesting obituary for Thomas C. Senesac, owner of Chicago’s Acme Prop Rental, a company which got […]
by Vadim Rizov on Jul 25, 2014
