0:11

Hello everybody and welcome back to

0:13

critically acclaimed a movie review podcast

0:16

where we're doing some little different

0:18

This time we're talking about one

0:20

of our favorite filmmakers who sadly

0:22

no longer with us mr. David

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Lynch my name is willing to

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be oni I am a film

0:29

critic I write for the rap

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and everybody calls me Bebs. My

0:34

name is Whitney Seibold I too

0:36

am a film critic. I'm a

0:39

senior staff writer of its slash

0:41

film and we've been really busy

0:43

with David Lynch news Director

0:46

of films like Eraserhead and Lost

0:48

Highway and Mulholland Drive and The

0:50

Elephant Man, Lou Velbeck, co-creator and

0:53

peaks Giant in just in both

0:55

art and popular culture at this

0:57

weird sort of crossover appeal passed

0:59

away on January 15th 2025 and

1:02

we like him. So we just

1:04

wanted to talk about him a

1:06

little bit He's I think it's

1:08

I think it's fair to say

1:11

unless and you know We reached

1:13

this like saturation point, I feel,

1:15

where at some point around

1:18

the mid-20th century, we just

1:20

started... having more celebrities that were

1:22

kind of like a regular part of our

1:24

lives. There was television, there was simply a

1:26

greater volume of media that started hitting the

1:29

world and that means a higher volume of

1:31

celebrities and that meant of course now there's

1:33

a big wave of these people growing older

1:35

or dying. 60 years later people are coming

1:38

to the end of their lives and it

1:40

feels like every other day some amazing person

1:42

is no longer with us and if we

1:44

it would be kind of a depressing show

1:47

but we could do a bug a better

1:49

get it to nothing. that because there's

1:51

so many celebrities. And so we

1:53

don't, you know, take the time

1:56

to do a tribute episode for everybody.

1:58

I wish we could. But

2:00

David Lynch is someone who

2:02

is, you know, there's a lot

2:05

of great filmmakers. Substantial.

2:07

Well, he's substantial, but

2:09

a lot of people

2:11

are substantial. I feel

2:13

like there's a lot of

2:16

great filmmakers in the world, and

2:18

yet not many, living or

2:21

dead, who were so distinct, were

2:23

so beloved. It's so many works

2:25

of art that you're right.

2:27

You know, there's this arthouse

2:30

audience for David Lynch, but

2:32

he had this incredible mainstream

2:34

appeal as well. People knew

2:36

David Lynch, even if they

2:38

didn't know him. But also, just

2:41

frankly, for me, he's one of

2:43

the most influential filmmakers of my

2:45

life. when I was first like getting

2:48

into movies, because I wasn't always a

2:50

movie guy, I wasn't a movie kid,

2:52

so I was more into like video

2:54

games and cartoons when I was a

2:56

kid. Ah, you were so naive. Yeah,

2:58

so it wasn't until I was like

3:00

in high school that I really started

3:03

delving into cinema kind of in earnest

3:05

and you know, kind of following it

3:07

as an art farm. And I had

3:09

a local video store. 2020 video is

3:11

on Wiltshire and 20th. I was there

3:13

many a time. And they did decent

3:15

business, but porn kept them afloat. They

3:18

were one of those. A lot of

3:20

the independent video stores because

3:22

the big chain video stores

3:24

like Blockbuster and other video,

3:26

they didn't carry x-rated movies.

3:28

So the independent video stores

3:30

could stay afloat on nothing

3:32

but x-rated movies because you

3:34

couldn't but x-rated movies because

3:36

you couldn't get them from

3:38

the other business. You want to leave

3:41

with like a legit video? That you can

3:43

put on top of the porn tape? Yeah,

3:45

like it run into your your priest on

3:47

the way out like, oh yeah, no, sorry,

3:49

yeah, no, I just I picked up a

3:52

copy of this really interesting arthouse film, Blue

3:54

Velvet, and then he still shoots you a

3:56

look. Because that movie is really dark. But

3:58

the 2020 video was really fantastic. because they

4:00

had something that I had never encountered

4:02

before a cult section oh and I

4:05

didn't know what that really meant when

4:07

I was like 13 years old I

4:09

hadn't thought about that in a while

4:11

yeah we used to have that it's

4:13

like oh this is the weird stuff

4:16

you might not like section yeah this

4:18

this is like I even asked my

4:20

mom on it was like 12 or

4:22

so it's like what is a what

4:24

is a cult section what does that

4:27

mean it's just really really weird Movies

4:29

like small audiences and like even she

4:31

couldn't really define it very well But

4:33

I remember going past that section a

4:35

lot all the John Waters movies were

4:37

in there So I got to know

4:40

divine very well Before I even saw

4:42

John Waters movie and there was this

4:44

one film that was always really kind

4:46

of weird-looking and appealing called Eraserhead. Yeah,

4:48

and I didn't know what that was

4:51

and until I was maybe 15 or

4:53

16 I finally got worked up the

4:55

courage to rent this thing Did you

4:57

have any idea what you were in

4:59

for? Did anyone talk to that? I

5:02

didn't know. I didn't know what it

5:04

was, didn't know what it was, didn't

5:06

know who David Lynch was at the

5:08

time. I watched it and the world

5:10

bloomed open. Eraserhead is still to this

5:13

day one of my favorite movies. It's

5:15

sort of like this strange nightmare story

5:17

about this guy named Henry who lives

5:19

essentially in hell via Philadelphia. It's like

5:21

this this. It's like this like beat

5:23

down industrial. Yeah, this weird black and

5:26

white dirty is like he goes back

5:28

to his apartment. It's tiny and dark

5:30

and dark and the lights don't like

5:32

all flicker in the radiators always hiss.

5:34

He opens his window and it's just

5:37

a brick wall. Yeah, not a lot

5:39

of people live there and the ones

5:41

that do are miserable. Yeah. He's he's

5:43

dating somebody but they don't really see.

5:45

other a lot anymore and they have

5:48

a baby and there's this terrifying line

5:50

of dialogue they're not even sure it

5:52

is a baby and so he's like

5:54

forced into this domestic situation that he

5:56

doesn't like and starts like having these

5:59

weird bizarre fantasies of people in his

6:01

radiator and I just want to say

6:03

real fast normally this would be a

6:05

point where I would be apologizing for

6:07

the hum from my refrigerator But it's

6:10

actually kind of fitting for David Lynch.

6:12

If I'm talking about a racer head.

6:14

Well, a racer had the stairwell from

6:16

Louisville, but David Lynch was really renowned

6:18

for his oppressive soundscapes. Yeah, and for

6:20

a racer head, it was David Lynch

6:23

and his sound designer, David, Alan Splitt

6:25

was his name. And they created this

6:27

very particular, very unique. kind of industrial

6:29

groaning humming noises that just played throughout

6:31

the movie. You can get the soundtrack

6:34

of just those noises. And you can

6:36

doze off to that. It's like white

6:38

noise. Can you? Okay, I can, but

6:40

I'm weird that way. Those noises have

6:42

always comforted me. But I'm watching Eraserhead

6:45

as a teenager and I am being

6:47

introduced to something. I am discovering that

6:49

films can do that. You can just

6:51

like have these weird kind of surrealist

6:53

dreamscapes and that's your feature and I

6:56

feel nothing but fear and I can't

6:58

tell you why this is like the

7:00

scariest thing I've ever seen in my

7:02

life and I just I instantly fell

7:04

in love it made me realize that

7:07

movies are more than just sort of

7:09

pop entertainments or storytelling media. It is

7:11

kind of a pure emotional experience. I

7:13

felt like I was like David Lynch

7:15

Later on I learned his name was

7:17

like kind of opening up his brain

7:20

and letting me look straight inside Yeah,

7:22

and I didn't get that experience with

7:24

any filmmaker before that No, I remember

7:26

when I was when I was young

7:28

when I was a elementary school junior

7:31

high You know the movie availability was

7:33

not the same that it is now

7:35

and there's little things that are hard

7:37

to get but You know, there was

7:39

no... You really had to search. Like

7:42

there was definitely mainstream stuff that would

7:44

be at every video store, but video

7:46

stores didn't have everything. And even if

7:48

you had a good one, there was

7:50

no guarantee that they had a racer

7:53

head or that they had... whatever. So

7:55

there were these movies that people would

7:57

talk about on these kind of hushed

7:59

tones, like, oh my God, have you

8:01

seen a racer head? And that was

8:03

a film that came up all the

8:06

time. People like, I... Like I had

8:08

a gym teacher who was talking about

8:10

it, Mr. Fouda, in my middle school,

8:12

which is now burned to the ground,

8:14

actually. That's a hell of a thing.

8:17

But yeah, even my gym teacher was

8:19

selling. He was like, no, that movie

8:21

is messed up, man. I don't know

8:23

if I could recommend you kids seeing

8:25

that movie. Like, you know, it's like,

8:28

not that it was like, you know.

8:30

There's nothing really horrible. There's some there's

8:32

some violence in it, but it's nothing

8:34

really it's not like an ultra violent

8:36

horror movie or anything like that. No,

8:39

but it's it's just there's no Conventional

8:41

entertainment value in it. It's it's not

8:43

designed to be Lived in and oppressed

8:45

by David Lynch was going to film

8:47

school and he had a script for

8:50

a racerhead and he was like I'd

8:52

like to this to be my final

8:54

project. It was an AFI. He was

8:56

at AFI. And he was at AFI.

8:58

And he had a script. I remember

9:00

the exact, it was like, it was

9:03

like 30 pages. 21 pages. Sorry. 21

9:05

pages. 21 pages. I studied, I got

9:07

the number. I got the number. I

9:09

was 21 pages. And he took it

9:11

to his professors. I'd like, I'd like,

9:14

I'd like, I'd like, I'd like, I'd

9:16

like, I'd like, I'd like, I'd like,

9:18

I'd like, I'd like, I'd like, I'd

9:20

like, I'd like, I'd like, I'd like,

9:22

I'd like, I'd like, I'd like, I'd

9:25

like, I'd like, I'd like, I'd like,

9:27

I'd like, I'd like, I'd like, I'd

9:29

like, I'd like, I'd like, traditional wisdom.

9:31

Yeah yeah it's not it's not it's

9:33

a general vibe it's usually about right

9:36

and everyone's like no it's gonna be

9:38

a bit longer than that okay so

9:40

like what like 40 minutes no it's

9:42

gonna be a feature fucking like movie

9:44

with a 21 page script yeah and

9:46

they were like oh and he took

9:49

so long to make it they forgot

9:51

he went to school there they gave

9:53

him like a grant they funded him

9:55

part of this film and he He

9:57

would run out of money and then

10:00

like friends would fund it. He'd fund

10:02

some of it out of his own

10:04

pocket. His production designer, Jack Fisk, who

10:06

was dating Sissy Spaceick at the time

10:08

and I think they're still married. Skyler

10:11

Fisk is their child. makes sense. He

10:13

also played The Man in the Planet,

10:15

the guy pulling the levers, that was

10:17

also Jackfist. Oh, okay. They put up

10:19

a lot of money just to get

10:22

this thing, and then they would spend

10:24

months not shooting. And then they come

10:26

back and shoot whenever they could. It

10:28

took them five years. Or I think

10:30

it took them four years of shooting

10:33

and then another year of sound design.

10:35

Yeah, because it's a, you know, I

10:37

got the post-production, it's a big fucking

10:39

deal. I don't maybe like this. A

10:41

racer had, when it finally came out,

10:43

and it was a little before my

10:46

time, but I've heard the legends. It

10:48

was released in 77. Yeah. It had

10:50

an impact. People noticed. It was too

10:52

weird not to be recognized as really

10:54

fucking weird. And it wasn't like a

10:57

hit, but it got good notices. Yeah,

10:59

people, people, the right people admired it.

11:01

Like people in the industry admired it.

11:03

I think Cuba was a fan. Mel

11:05

Brooks was a huge fan. Mel Brooks

11:08

was such a huge fan that he

11:10

actually became a booster for David Lynch's

11:12

early career and he helped get to...

11:14

Stop hitting the Microsoft, or not David

11:16

Lynch, you don't get the fuck with

11:19

the sound design. Try and try and

11:21

cross my lights there, sorry about it.

11:23

And he shouldn't have crossed him. But

11:25

Bellbrooks was a big booster, David Lynch's

11:27

early career, and yeah, he helped get

11:29

a second movie made, and the second

11:32

movie was, a second feature, anyway, some

11:34

shorts. Was it... Joseph Merrick was Joseph

11:36

Merrick in real life, but it was

11:38

John Merritt. John Merritt. They changed his

11:40

name to John Merritt. I don't know

11:43

why they bothered with that, but they

11:45

did. And he's better known, and this

11:47

is the title of the movie, as

11:49

the elephant man. And Joseph Merrick was

11:51

a man who had like these facial

11:54

tumors. Look like he was hit a

11:56

series with the part of his life

11:58

in the traveling show. Yeah, he had

12:00

a series of He had like health

12:02

maladies like trouble breathing and he had

12:05

consumers, he had conditions that made his

12:07

skin look loose and he had, yeah,

12:09

sort of like a condition that enlarged

12:11

his skull. And because of the way

12:13

he looked, he was toured around as

12:16

the elephant man by a circus. And

12:18

Freddie Jones plays the circus master and

12:20

the elephant man. Yeah, like he's such

12:22

a good actor. And he's appeared in

12:24

several David Lynch movies. But

12:26

yeah, Mr. Bites is his character's

12:28

name. But yeah, David Lynch decided

12:31

to take sort of the eraserhead

12:33

aesthetic and tell sort of a

12:35

biography of Joseph Merrick, aka John

12:37

Merrick, in the movie. And in

12:39

life and in the movie, he

12:41

was actually a very gentle, thoughtful

12:43

person who could read and was

12:45

actually very religious. But because he

12:47

was toured around in the circus,

12:49

He was treated like an animal.

12:51

They kept him in a cage

12:53

and he was abused and it

12:55

wasn't until a doctor, an English

12:57

doctor, discovered him and wanted to

12:59

study his medical conditions and he

13:01

realized, wait a minute, he's not,

13:03

he's not intelligent like an animal,

13:05

he's a human being and he's

13:07

actually speaking and he's articulate, everyone

13:09

assumed that he couldn't talk because

13:11

he was so badly mistreated. And

13:14

this, and look, this is a

13:16

huge part of, it was a

13:18

colonialist mindset really, which is basically,

13:20

we're going to take anything that

13:22

is other. and we're going to

13:24

parade it around for our amusement.

13:26

And that could be, that could

13:28

just be people from another culture,

13:30

that could be, yeah, ants, unusual

13:32

animals, this could be people with

13:34

disabilities. It was like, it was

13:36

a big part of like the

13:38

circus mindset, you know, PT Barnum

13:40

was a big part of this,

13:42

but most circuses, tried to find

13:44

the quote exotic, you know, look,

13:46

he's a real person, like the

13:48

wild bill. cock show was like

13:50

in England. Yeah, yeah. that like

13:52

it was that kind of like

13:55

oh look at these exotic Americans

13:57

like even that was a thing.

13:59

What I appreciate about David Lynch's

14:01

movie I think it's his most

14:03

emotional film that one in the

14:05

straight story are the ones where

14:07

he's actually going for the heart.

14:09

Well there's something that's a little

14:11

bit more. traditionally recognizable all say.

14:13

It's a more conventional narrative. It

14:15

has a conventional beginning, middle, and

14:17

end, it's a little surreal at

14:19

times, but like it's not, it's

14:21

not challenging the form of cinema,

14:23

the way most of David Lynch's

14:25

other work does. Yeah, that's a

14:27

good way to put it. Yeah.

14:29

And something that he actually puts

14:31

in the movie that's in his

14:33

screenplay is that the, this doctor

14:35

who quote, quote, discovered him, is

14:38

essentially doing the same thing, that

14:40

the circus master's like, And there's

14:42

even a scene early in the

14:44

movie where he actually literally has

14:46

him stripped, Joseph, stripped naked in

14:48

front of a bunch of other

14:50

doctors. And like just pointing out

14:52

his health maladies as if that's

14:54

any better. And he's convinced himself

14:56

that he's actually a lot more

14:58

civilized when really he's doing the

15:00

same thing. And I like that

15:02

that irony is brought up. And

15:04

right at the center of all

15:06

of this is John Huritz's amazing

15:08

performance. Because they actually made some

15:10

molds off of the real Joseph

15:12

Merrick's head and made some makeup

15:14

that really fit on him. There's

15:17

some controversy about the movie, about its

15:20

depiction of disabled characters, but it was

15:22

praised by the Academy, all of a

15:24

sudden this upstart who had done this

15:26

weird nightmare film with a razorhead. Yeah.

15:29

This kid from Missoula Montana, an Eagle

15:31

Scout, who was really kind of polite

15:33

and unassuming and even kind of boring

15:36

in person, has all these like weird

15:38

nightmare visions and is so, you know,

15:40

devoted to art, is now an Academy

15:42

of darling. Really in his career, it

15:45

was nominated for eight Academy Awards and

15:47

it won zero. Yeah, and it wasn't

15:49

nominated for makeup. Which is a travesty.

15:51

I'm not exactly sure. Although to be

15:54

fair, to be fair. the makeup category

15:56

was pretty new. In fact, the very

15:58

first makeup category I believe only had

16:01

two nominees in American World from London

16:03

and Heartbeeps. Which has great makeup. It's

16:05

a bad movie, but it has great

16:07

makeup. It's a bad movie, but it

16:10

has great makeup. But here's a robot

16:12

film with Andy Kaufman and Bernad Peters.

16:14

Yeah, but like... I've seen Heartbeaps, but

16:16

it's so weird for me because... I

16:19

honestly think because Alpha Man came out

16:21

in 80, and Heartbeaps and American World

16:23

of London, we're 81... ready for elephant

16:26

man. So we have to we have

16:28

to invent a new one now because

16:30

they've given special awards to make for

16:32

like for the Plan of the Apes

16:35

for example and and they might have

16:37

combined that with visual effects in the

16:39

past but like it's like no we

16:41

that's be its own thing and I

16:44

think it's like no we that's be

16:46

its own thing. It's like when Wally

16:48

and the dark night weren't nominated for

16:51

best pictures so they expanded it back

16:53

to 10 just so they get like

16:55

bigger pop. Yeah, but David Lynch was

16:57

up for Best Director, is up for

17:00

Best Picture, is up for Best Picture?

17:02

None of its A Oscars. But now

17:04

David Lynch is sort of a household

17:07

name. The Eraserhead guy. This will always

17:09

blow my mind. That he and other

17:11

filmmakers, like Tim Burton is another one.

17:13

Yeah, Tim Burton has more mainstream sensibility.

17:16

He wants to be entertaining. I suppose

17:18

so, like he can do something like

17:20

Batman and make it a hit. But

17:22

he's also kind of a coook. tops

17:25

trading cards and monster movies, not things

17:27

that were traditional mainstream things at the

17:29

time. No, yeah, no, he made the

17:32

mainstream. Like he was a huge part

17:34

of why God and weird cult culture.

17:36

became hot topic. Exactly. We would not

17:38

have hot topic without timber. I don't

17:41

think we would. But yeah, all of

17:43

a sudden David Lynch has all of

17:45

this like Oscar acclaim. He's got clout.

17:47

And he has and the studios started

17:50

coming up coming up. And he's at

17:52

a blank check. The story goes that

17:54

George Lucas offered him return of the

17:57

Jedi. Oh, he. I'm sure our listeners

17:59

have perhaps seen the video where he

18:01

tells the story about when he met

18:03

George Lucas. Yeah, because because the thing

18:06

with George Lucas is, you know, he

18:08

didn't he didn't direct empire and the

18:10

return of the Jedi. But he wanted

18:12

to get interesting people to work on

18:15

them. And he thought David Lynch is

18:17

a guy who has a vision. I

18:19

have a vision. Maybe we could work

18:22

together. Maybe we could collaborate. Maybe this

18:24

could be really exciting. And David Lynch

18:26

like toured the facility. to Lucasfilm and

18:28

it was basically he just like couldn't

18:31

figure out what the fuck a Wooki

18:33

was so he left. He showed me

18:35

this thing called a Wookney and about

18:37

then I started to get a little

18:40

bit of a headache like it's it's

18:42

a really hilarious thing. It's amusing to

18:44

me that David Lynch just hadn't seen

18:47

Star Wars. Yeah. He didn't know what

18:49

a wooky was. He was not familiar

18:51

with Star Wars. That wasn't his world.

18:53

He like, you know, he went to

18:56

art school. He liked, you know, painting.

18:58

Yeah, he wasn't gonna, David Lynch was

19:00

not the kind of filmmaker who was

19:02

gonna get swooped up to do some

19:05

big. budget, studio, sci-fi, extravaganza. He's not

19:07

gonna do that. He didn't do it.

19:09

Dino de Laurentius approached him from Universal.

19:12

Dune was in development hell for a

19:14

long time. Oh, famously. It's still one

19:16

of the best selling books ever. I

19:18

remember when like the Dene Villanova movie

19:21

came out. And people were like, oh

19:23

yeah, it's just like... It's like it's

19:25

like it's this isn't like a franchise

19:27

movie or it's starting a new franchise

19:30

I'm like it's one of the best-selling

19:32

books of all time I'm sorry you

19:34

don't read well I'm sorry that it's

19:37

a well-known material the way people use

19:39

the the word franchise has used a

19:41

little to loosely amongst like just casual

19:43

film conversational it wasn't an original IP

19:46

was it was a famous book they

19:48

were adapting and they were remaking it's

19:50

part of that franchise but yeah they

19:52

made the David Lynch movie they made

19:55

the sci- original like mini series too

19:57

many series yeah I know and so

19:59

like it was all part of the

20:02

thing But David Lynch was the one

20:04

who got to adapt at first after

20:06

Jodorowski tried and failed. There's a big

20:08

documentary about that called Jodorowski's Dune. And

20:11

Jodorowski's would have been great. Jodorowski and

20:13

David Lynch kind of ran in similar

20:15

circles and not just because they both

20:17

worked on Dune. Jodorowski's film Atopo kind

20:20

of opens the midnight. and letting people

20:22

smoke weed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was

20:24

a big part of it. At a

20:27

theater in New York, let sort of

20:29

distributors, or exhibitors, excuse me, know that

20:31

they could show these like really strange

20:33

movies. There was an audience. Yeah, there's

20:36

an audience. Yeah, there people will go.

20:38

Maybe not five times a day, but

20:40

they will go. But yeah, like you

20:42

can't show this thing on a Sunday

20:45

matine, nobody's gonna come, nobody's going to

20:47

that. People dug out their old copies

20:49

of Night of Living Dead, so that

20:52

was the second big cult. Right, which

20:54

was, which was public domain because they

20:56

fucked up the registration. Came out, came

20:58

out, came up before El Topo, but

21:01

it kind of rolled things forward. I'm

21:03

going to get to a racer in

21:05

a second. No, we got to a

21:08

racer, we get to Dune in a

21:10

second. Yeah, but, uh... point being the

21:12

whole midnight movie circuit was rounded out

21:14

by your racer head. One of the

21:17

reasons people knew about David Lynch was

21:19

because of the midnight movie circuit. You

21:21

know, we had the rock air picture

21:23

show, we had Pink Flamingos, we had

21:26

the heart of it come, which people

21:28

don't talk about so much anymore. Yeah,

21:30

that was big one. It was huge.

21:33

And we had, and also there was

21:35

the grind house circuit as well, there

21:37

were a lot of, there was a

21:39

pornography that was going very mainstream. Yeah,

21:42

like like like like like the high

21:44

movies and movies and like like the

21:46

high movies and movies and movies and

21:48

movies and movies and movies and movies,

21:51

like, like, like, like, like, like, like,

21:53

like, like, like, like, like, like, like,

21:55

like, like, like, like, like, like, like,

21:58

like, like, like, like, like, like, like,

22:00

like, like, like, like, like, like, like,

22:02

like, like, like, like, like, like, like

22:04

a sizable audience mostly. Yeah, these these

22:07

these theaters that were came out came

22:09

out came out before El Topo, but

22:11

it kind of rolled things for it.

22:13

I'm gonna get to a racer in

22:16

a second. No, we got to a

22:18

racer. We get to a dune in

22:20

a second. Yeah, but point being the

22:23

whole. midnight movie circuit was rounded out

22:25

by Eraserhead. One of the reasons people

22:27

knew about David Lynch was because of

22:29

the midnight movie circuit. We had the

22:32

rock and hair picture show, we had

22:34

pink flamingos, we had the heart of

22:36

it come which people don't talk about

22:38

so much anymore. Yeah that was big

22:41

one, it was huge. And we had

22:43

and also there was the grindhouse circuit

22:45

as well, there were a lot of,

22:48

there was a pornography that was going

22:50

very mainstream. Oh yeah. Like the hide

22:52

the movies and movies and ears. a

22:54

sizable audience, mostly these theaters that were

22:57

catered to. The grind house scene in

22:59

like the late 70s and early 80s,

23:01

and early 80s, which was when Eraserhead

23:03

was really kind of gaining traction, was

23:06

this wonderland of porn garbage. Kung Fu

23:08

and the most difficult art you could

23:10

ever hope to encounter. Often in the

23:13

same film. Yeah, like kind of mashed

23:15

together. All of these things were like

23:17

where a lot of the voices were

23:19

coming from. I've been trying to coin

23:22

the phrase trash plus time equals culture.

23:24

Yeah. Because I think that's where. There's

23:26

this weird kind of trashy primordial soup

23:28

where all of the most interesting ideas

23:31

kind of evolve. Yeah, the mainstream is

23:33

far from that. At least one other

23:35

prominent critic has picked up on that.

23:38

Darren Mooney quoted you in a video

23:40

he did about the back. drop or

23:42

the back drop. It's the backdrop. The

23:44

backdrop. Yeah, over at second wind on

23:47

YouTube. But like, yeah, he did a

23:49

video about, I think it was the

23:51

acalyte. And he quoted it. He just,

23:53

but he, and here's the thing, he

23:56

couldn't remember where he said it. He

23:58

just sounded like a tripe and true.

24:00

I went, I was like, oh, Whitney

24:03

says that. He was like, oh, I

24:05

realize that I would, I would, he's,

24:07

he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's,

24:09

he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's,

24:12

he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's,

24:14

he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's,

24:16

he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's,

24:18

he's, he's, he's, gained a lot of

24:21

his traction from Eraserhead being part of

24:23

the midnight movie circuit, specifically the New

24:25

Art here in Los Angeles, where I

24:28

worked. So, you know, I know a

24:30

little bit about that history. But yeah,

24:32

then he made a Hollywood film. it

24:34

got a lot of awards attention. Mel

24:37

Brooks produced it. They had to change

24:39

his name to Brooks films. Oh yeah,

24:41

because if it said Mel Brooks presents,

24:43

people would have assumed it was a

24:46

comedy, probably wouldn't have had the same

24:48

impact, or at least it would have

24:50

been harder to get people to take

24:53

it seriously. But then wouldn't you know

24:55

it, the same thing happened in 1984

24:57

that happens today. Some indie director has

24:59

a little bit of cred, and the

25:02

studios try to scoop them up. Uh.

25:04

He altered the script, he wrote multiple

25:06

drafts, which he wasn't really used to.

25:08

He tried to play the studio game.

25:11

He went by all of the studio

25:13

suggestions, but he was never comfortable with

25:15

it. Well, and if they were, studio

25:18

suggestions, he still managed to make it

25:20

fucking weird. That's a weird, fucking movie.

25:22

I mean, it's a dense, unusual story

25:24

to begin with, but David Lynch tried

25:27

to kind of make it his own.

25:29

He introduced a lot of wood. carving

25:31

in this science fiction fan. The mutated

25:34

spacing guild is this gigantic monster that

25:36

he designed. He had to explain a

25:38

lot of the exposition because it is

25:40

such a dense story with these weird

25:43

kind of whispered voiceovers, which is a

25:45

late edition to the production. He discovered

25:47

Kyle McLaughlin. Yeah, that was a nobody

25:49

at the time and he made him

25:52

he made him Dune wasn't the starmaker

25:54

Blue Velvet was a starmaker for John

25:56

McLaughlin, but he did Like Alicia that

25:59

was in that when she was like

26:01

six years old Yeah, like Patrick Stewart

26:03

was in that before he was well

26:05

known like a lot of people like

26:08

a lot of people who ended up

26:10

on Twin Peaks were in that movie

26:12

was criticized as being impenetrable when it

26:14

came out and to be fair it

26:17

is. Which yeah, it's about to say,

26:19

that's a fair criticism. Let's not pretend

26:21

that it's that it's easy to access

26:24

and yet that's kind of what love

26:26

about David Lynch is doing and I

26:28

realize David Lynch is not very proud

26:30

of doing he's been he's been reticent

26:33

to talk about it very much in

26:35

interviews it's not wasn't a great experience

26:37

for him fair enough that doesn't mean

26:39

it's bad it's not as bad so

26:42

maybe but like it is a fascinating

26:44

experience I love how David Lynch looked

26:46

at this giant epic sci-fi I mean

26:49

it's got a lot of political commentary

26:51

and religious commentary but he looked at

26:53

this giant epic adventure, thrill, it's got

26:55

everything. And if you've seen the Danie

26:58

Villenev films, you know that like, this

27:00

could be Hollywood. Donie Villenev took it

27:02

seriously, it feels like a real movie,

27:04

look at me wrong, that's not like

27:07

a flight of fancy, but it could

27:09

be conventionally thrilling. And David Lynch was

27:11

like, no, fuck that. All of the

27:14

things that make Dune alien. Yeah, yeah.

27:16

And I fucking love that about his

27:18

tune. I would argue that... Well, it's...

27:20

The Nevelinos, because David Lynch's Dune is

27:23

mostly the events of the first DeNivolinov

27:25

film. He really skims over the second

27:27

half of the book. But, I would

27:29

argue that... Denise Villeneuve's Dune, good movies,

27:32

especially the second one. The first one

27:34

is having more functional than anything. The

27:36

second one has like a little bit

27:39

more on its mind. Yeah, yeah. The

27:41

first one is basically getting to the

27:43

second one, but it's more clear. It's

27:45

easier to follow the plot. Once you

27:48

understand the plot by watching Denise Villeneuve's

27:50

movies, if the book is too impenetrable

27:52

for you. Then you're ready for David

27:54

Lynch's because you know what's actually happening

27:57

and you can focus on yeah What

27:59

if this was less concerned about exciting

28:01

me and more concerned about enveloping me

28:04

in something truly unknowable? Yeah It takes

28:06

place that and that it's those alien

28:08

things those things that are Not just

28:10

unique, but even kind of off-putting about

28:13

this future world. It takes place in

28:15

such a distant world that there's nothing

28:17

we can even relate to anymore. Yeah,

28:19

it's not like clear analogs like the

28:22

films are. And he also made it

28:24

legit magical. Denevila do have tried to...

28:26

kind of ground-dune a little bit, which

28:29

is not a good approach to that

28:31

material. It's way too fanciful. Like, it

28:33

functions, but it's not as interesting. Yeah,

28:35

David Lynch invented something in the movie

28:38

called The Wearding Modules. I love that

28:40

name. Which is a little device. You

28:42

can wear on your throat and on

28:44

your hand, and it turns your voice

28:47

into like... Bullets like it can turn

28:49

like psychic explosion devices. My name is

28:51

a killing word. My name is a

28:54

killing word. Oh, what a great line.

28:56

It's got nothing to do with the

28:58

book, but it's a great line. And

29:00

he does bring that kind of weird

29:03

dream-like quality, but it has these weird,

29:05

gigantic pop elements as well, like the

29:07

toto music. Sandroom is like fucking great

29:09

in that. Yeah, the special effects are

29:12

really fantastic. I love, but everybody reads

29:14

their lines in this weird kind of

29:16

half-slee way. Which was the Werner Herzog

29:19

film where he hypnotized the cast. Oh,

29:21

yeah, what the fuck was that? Heart

29:23

of glass. Heart of glass. Yeah, it's

29:25

like heart of glass. Everybody feels like

29:28

that like they're just sort of some

29:30

nambulistic and everything feels a little bit

29:32

disconnected. And those are qualities I really

29:34

admire. But that's not going to get

29:37

it's not going to turn dune into

29:39

a gigantic blockbuster. No, there was a

29:41

board game for dune for fucks. That

29:44

was the way. They sold the movie.

29:46

Yeah, especially with Star Wars ending. There's

29:48

a vacancy now, you know, yeah. So

29:50

Dune came out, Dune bombed terribly. Yeah,

29:53

David Lynch heard his career. He hated

29:55

working for the studio system. He was

29:57

never happy with it. They tried to

30:00

recut the film after the fact for

30:02

TV audiences. Well, they expanded it, which

30:04

is unusual. Usually they cut it down.

30:06

Yeah, they found a lot of stills

30:09

of like concept art and added all

30:11

this new. a voiceover to kind of

30:13

explain the whole back story. It's very

30:15

clear. You know the story. The extended

30:18

cut of dune, which is credited as

30:20

an Alan Smithy film. Yeah, David Lynch

30:22

headed it so much. He took his

30:25

name off of the the screenwriting credit

30:27

as well. Yeah. And he gave himself

30:29

the name Judas Booth after Judas Scariot

30:31

and John Rolik's booth. Wow. That's that's

30:34

that's that's a comment. So yeah, this,

30:36

this, this, this, he was like had

30:38

a career trajectory. that got knocked back

30:40

a bit and then he took a

30:43

break and he came back with a

30:45

small weird little movie that really under

30:47

most circumstances would have just come and

30:50

gone and somehow he tapped into something

30:52

really really like he tapped into an

30:54

energy of the 1980s that people didn't

30:56

realize was there until Blue Velvet came

30:59

out and they realized oh we're in

31:01

a warped fucked up version of the

31:03

50s right now. This was during the

31:05

Reagan administration. And America was going through

31:08

a pretty conservative time, going through it

31:10

now. You have to laugh. Well, you

31:12

don't have to, actually. But things are

31:15

pretty miserable right now, too. But in

31:17

the end, we're going through something. We

31:19

went through something similar in the 1980s

31:21

with the Reagan administration, where it was

31:24

all very throwback to the 1950s. There

31:26

was a lot of this baby boom

31:28

nostalgia, because the kids in the 50s

31:30

were also growing up and reflecting on

31:33

that. A lot of the media either

31:35

vaunted the 1950s and were like had

31:37

a very conservative attitude or like blue

31:40

velvet wanted to rip it open. So

31:42

there's a lot of picket fences and

31:44

placid 1950s style suburban scenes, especially right

31:46

at the beginning of blue velvet. place

31:49

in the 50s though which is the

31:51

interesting thing it just it just evokes

31:53

that it's small town America by way

31:55

like the opening is like everything in

31:58

this town is like kind of like

32:00

through a Vaseline filter and everything is

32:02

moving in slow motion there's like I

32:05

forget it's like a newspaper truck or

32:07

like a milk truck it's a milk

32:09

truck drive past the camera very slowly

32:11

and the milkman's hanging off of it

32:14

waving in slow motion it's like it's

32:16

just wrong it's not entirely wrong but

32:18

it's like this is wrong and this

32:20

is good David Lynch like that's his

32:23

comment but David Lynch didn't make films

32:25

Specifically to make comments. He wasn't that

32:27

kind of an artist. Not generally, no.

32:30

David Lynch has famously always hated talking

32:32

about his own work. He feels the

32:34

work speaks for itself. He's not going

32:36

to have a conversation about its symbols

32:39

or its characters. I think his line

32:41

was, that's what the movie was for.

32:43

Yeah. Yeah. So, and it's always been

32:45

frustrating because I was a huge fan

32:48

of David Lynch. I wanted to look

32:50

up his interviews. Yeah. What's his name

32:52

Dennis Rodley. Chris Rodley. who did Lynch

32:55

on Lynch, the book. That is an

32:57

indispensable to him. I think it ended

32:59

with like Lost Highway, it got cut

33:01

off there because he did. Because that's

33:04

when they published it. But like that

33:06

is as in-depth as David Lynch ever

33:08

got about his work. Yeah, and it's

33:10

a really, really good one. And even

33:13

then, he's not going into the details.

33:15

And even then, he's not going into

33:17

the details you want. He's not going

33:20

into the details or things he believes

33:22

he believes in my imagining. about like

33:24

Art House cinema was about Lost Highway

33:26

and he was like it feels like

33:29

you know there there is like Lost

33:31

Highway is kind of impenetrable as well

33:33

and it was like it feels like

33:35

there's something there is a story in

33:38

Lost Highway and we don't know it

33:40

and David Lynch is like no the

33:42

story makes Absolutely sense. I just took

33:45

out all the parts that make it

33:47

make sense. Like all the things that

33:49

explain stuff, all the things that create

33:51

connect with tissue, I removed that and

33:54

you got to figure that shit out.

33:56

He was on records as saying that

33:58

he likes mysteries, but he doesn't like

34:00

solutions to mysteries. The exciting part of

34:03

a mystery isn't learning who done it.

34:05

It was that sense of being lost

34:07

with a bunch of clues. and not

34:10

knowing how to put them together. And

34:12

he would extend that feeling, that experience

34:14

of being lost into a feature film

34:16

and then never give you the conclusion.

34:19

And honestly, that is such a canny

34:21

understanding of the mystery genre that I

34:23

think maybe many people who write it

34:26

don't really appreciate, which is, you know,

34:28

there's a murder at the beginning of

34:30

the novel. Okay, great. Eventually we'll find

34:32

out who did that, but that gives

34:35

you an excuse. to dig into people's

34:37

lives. Everyone who thought, like, oh yeah,

34:39

no one's going to bother me, I

34:41

have with his private life and all

34:44

my secrets are fine, it's like, no,

34:46

no, no, now we're looking for secrets.

34:48

And it's like, oh shit. And that's

34:51

all Twin Peaks was about, well, we'll

34:53

get to that too. Blue Velvet is

34:55

kind of the same way. Cal McLaughlin

34:57

plays a college student who comes back

35:00

to his heart attack. he's at lying

35:02

there, he goes to the police, and

35:04

eventually he and the girl next door

35:06

played by a very young girl, Dern,

35:09

decided to... delve into it themselves and

35:11

the advantage to find that it's all

35:13

got something to do with this lounge

35:16

singer played by Isabella Rossolini and he

35:18

becomes obsessed with her and he breaks

35:20

into her apartment and to look for

35:22

clues to look for clues ostensibly but

35:25

then she like catches him there and

35:27

then she kind of throws it in

35:29

his face but she's going through some

35:31

really weird shit and she kind of

35:34

cards coming on to him and then

35:36

there's a knock at the door and

35:38

she shoves him into a closet and

35:41

he can like see through like the

35:43

lattice and then Dennis Hopper shows up

35:45

giving one of the most unhinged performances

35:47

ever to this day and his career

35:50

or anyone and it turns out he's

35:52

behind the whole thing he kidnapped her

35:54

family and he is using it to

35:56

force her to do unspeakable things with

35:59

him she's being kept as a sexual

36:01

slave essentially basically and he What started

36:03

off as this, you know, almost the

36:06

Scooby-Doo kind of vibe, even though there's

36:08

a severed ear, becomes... Oh, actually, I'm

36:10

a voyeur. Oh, actually, I'm into BDSM.

36:12

Oh, my God. Yeah. It opens up

36:15

this whole world of like, of kink

36:17

and crime and violence and madness that

36:19

is inside every small American town. Yeah.

36:21

You just under where to look for

36:24

it necessarily. What I find is this

36:26

sort of great contradiction of David Lynch

36:28

is that his films are incredibly bleak

36:31

cynical almost pessimistic in a lot of

36:33

ways They don't have a lot of

36:35

bright thing bright observations about the human

36:37

condition They tend to be about our

36:40

capacity to Be lost be terrified and

36:42

the desperate act of violence we encounter

36:44

while we're down there was one extremely

36:46

noteworthy exception to that, but we'll get

36:49

to it Well, I already said the

36:51

elephant man is kind of an exception

36:53

to that and the straight story which

36:56

is G-rated film. Yeah, but uh And

36:58

yet when you talk to David Lynch

37:00

in person he is such a he's

37:02

a hazy He's comes from Montana. He

37:05

didn't even like to curse in real

37:07

life, even though his screenplays are full

37:09

of cousins. Everyone who like said like

37:11

when they met him, they thought he

37:14

was just someone's dad on set. Very

37:16

unassuming. I like to drink milkshakes and

37:18

coffee. Like he'd... seems to be very

37:21

unsophisticated in person. Alicia Vitt was talking

37:23

about like when she you know she

37:25

knew him as a child actor and

37:27

he was very very kind to her

37:30

and he was I guess he was

37:32

trying to cheer up or something and

37:34

he said you know let your smile

37:36

be your umbrella which is such a

37:39

such a Midwest actor and he was

37:41

very very kind to her and he

37:43

was I guess he was trying to

37:46

cheer up or something and he said

37:48

yeah and don't get a mouthful of

37:50

rain and he thought that was the

37:52

funniest thing he laughed for like five

37:55

minutes and that's so god damn wholesome

37:57

so wholesome and and he would hear

37:59

from a Because I was a big

38:01

David Lynch fan and all David Lynch

38:04

fans have this shared experience. You have

38:06

a movie, probably Blue Velvet, maybe a

38:08

racer head, maybe. In my case it

38:11

was Lost Highway. I tried Lost Highway

38:13

as well. You show it to friends

38:15

and they hate you afterwards. Yeah, that's

38:17

not what we wanted today. No, we

38:20

don't want to watch Blue Velvet today.

38:22

Yeah. And I would get the impression

38:24

that David Lynch wasn't one of those

38:26

artists who necessarily was trying to... communicate

38:29

something very specific to an audience. He

38:32

was trying to communicate maybe like an

38:34

emotional experience. We were talking about mystery

38:36

or fear. But I feel like he

38:39

made art because he needed to get

38:41

it out of himself more than he

38:43

needed to show it to somebody else.

38:46

And I think there is a distinction

38:48

between artists who do one or the

38:50

other. There are a lot of artists

38:52

who want to reach a lot of

38:55

people who have a message that they

38:57

need to convey. They're kind of desperate

38:59

about it. They have a politic that

39:02

they need to spread around. David Lynch

39:04

lived in his mind. He needed to

39:06

kind of unpack it and it was

39:09

more of a therapeutic experience just to

39:11

put it out there and if somebody

39:13

saw it saw it, great. And as

39:16

it so happened, something like Blue Velvet

39:18

was a hit. Yeah, it won't really

39:20

respond. It was nominated for Oscars. And

39:22

he was nominated for Best Director again.

39:25

It was nominated for Oscars. It was

39:27

talked about a lot. And consider what

39:29

the best films in the 1980s. It

39:32

was very controversial. Roger Ebert famously hated

39:34

the movie. Give it a very negative

39:36

review. Eventually came around on it. Oh,

39:39

many years later, yes. But at the

39:41

time, I think he gave it like

39:43

a one and a half star review.

39:46

I think because he didn't like its

39:48

depiction of. violence toward the Isabella Rossellini

39:50

character. Sure, sure. He just sort of

39:52

had a moral, like he responded viscera.

39:55

I mean, I understand that. Because she's

39:57

horribly mistreated in that. Yeah, I think

39:59

it's I think it's just a misinterpretation

40:02

to think that the movie is enjoying

40:04

it. Yeah, you know, I think that's

40:06

that's the part, but like, you know,

40:09

you're supposed to be horrified. And it's

40:11

not cool. You can look up, this

40:13

is also on YouTube. the conversation Cisco

40:16

and Ebert had about Blue Velvet, because

40:18

Cisco did like it. Yeah. And he

40:20

actually said, you know, pointed out to

40:22

Roger Ebert, you know, she, Isabelle Rossellini

40:25

is an actress. She knew what she

40:27

was getting into. This is filmed under,

40:29

you know, controlled circumstances. She's not being

40:32

hurt in this circumstance off camera. And

40:34

listen, there have been stories about people

40:36

who did feel coerced into doing things

40:39

they didn't want to do. Yeah. She

40:41

never said that. No, no, no. She

40:43

was down, you know? Like, so, yeah,

40:46

I... Blue Velvet is just one of

40:48

those movies. It's like Eraserhead. It's one

40:50

of those like seminal film-going experiences where

40:53

you are who you are as a

40:55

film fan before you see it and

40:57

then after, I think. And I think

40:59

there was like a pivot point in

41:02

terms of not just David Lynch, but

41:04

the kinds of bleak darkness that mainstream

41:06

audiences were willing to accept. Yeah. And

41:09

all of a sudden David Lynch was

41:11

now... Back in the mainstream. Back in

41:13

the mainstream. Way in the mainstream. Yeah.

41:16

And the next few years he had

41:18

a hit at can and he had

41:20

a hit TV series. Yeah. And the

41:23

hit TV. Okay. No, I hit a

41:25

can. Okay, fine. You've made a bunch

41:27

of arthouse movies. We'll get to that

41:29

in a minute. Hit TV series is

41:32

fucking weird. David Lynch. Now this was

41:34

a time when. prominent filmmakers were starting

41:36

to make inroads on television and like

41:39

people like Michael Mann was creating Miami

41:41

Vice and not just making any old

41:43

show, who was really putting a stamp

41:46

on it. Shelley Duval was, you know,

41:48

tearing up the, you know, sort of

41:50

the Children's Mark with fairy tale theater.

41:53

David Lynch and Mark Frost, and Mark

41:55

Frost doesn't necessarily have a vibe. that

41:57

people respond to and like recognize. We

41:59

don't have a verb called frosting, but

42:02

we do have lynchian. But they created

42:04

a series called Twin Peaks and it's

42:06

a mystery soap opera, but that's not

42:09

an accurate description. Well, here's the thing.

42:11

It's a lot of things. all at

42:13

once. In many respects it's basically just

42:16

paid in place. All right here's a

42:18

small town but there's darkness underneath and

42:20

everyone's got secrets and everyone's kind of

42:23

a bad person and we're gonna just

42:25

get to know the whole town in

42:27

a very soap opera kind of way.

42:29

In fact there's a lot of... really

42:32

soap operatic, like people get amnesia, like

42:34

there's a lot of really soap operatic

42:36

elements in a very kind of corny

42:39

TV way. It can be very very

42:41

funny. People say very silly things, there's

42:43

a funny bit with a llama, like

42:46

it's also that too. But David Lynch

42:48

tapped into it, first of he just

42:50

has an uncanny knack for that kind

42:53

of storytelling. But also, he had a

42:55

hook. And this is something that just

42:57

cannot be overstated. First thing in the

42:59

first episode. A guy who's going fishing

43:02

in a small Northwestern town finds a

43:04

dead girl. on a lake, wrapped in

43:06

plastic. And it's Jack Nence, who the

43:09

star of her razor had. And she's

43:11

played by Cheryl Lee, which is, you

43:13

know, he's a corpse, but she's in

43:16

a lot of flashbacks, and then later

43:18

on, soap opera again, she has an

43:20

identical cousin. Just to give her a

43:23

role, it was great. She was the

43:25

homecoming queen. Everyone loved her. But as

43:27

they investigate, tried to figure out who

43:29

killed her, they realized. she was going

43:32

through something horrible and she was involved

43:34

with a lot of people many of

43:36

them sexually she was involved in criminality

43:39

she was involved in sex work she

43:41

was being abused by multiple people like

43:43

she was in many respects like the

43:46

the sacrifice of this town and People

43:49

were obsessed with finding out who fucking

43:51

killed her because every episode every episode

43:53

basically takes place over the course of

43:55

one day It's like the first season.

43:57

It's like it was like a mid-season

44:00

replacement to it's the first season's like

44:02

13 episodes long or something But it

44:04

was it was all very focused. We're

44:06

going to find out who killed Laura

44:09

Palmer and we'll learn other stuff as

44:11

well But it's always Dale Cooper visiting

44:13

from the FBI and boys that a

44:15

fucking weird character It's that's comic clocklin

44:17

again. It's common clocklin again And he's

44:20

he's a constant professional, but he's also

44:22

silly and funny and has like really

44:24

sweet ideas like hey, you know what

44:26

you should do every day? Get yourself

44:29

a present The fuck! He believes that

44:31

his dreams are able to unlock his

44:33

dreams. His dreams are able to unlock

44:35

clues about the... And here's the thing.

44:37

Nobody looks at this guy like he's

44:40

weird. They undo this entire paradigm where

44:42

like the FBI agent comes in and

44:44

the small town sheriff is like, I

44:46

don't know, I don't like these guys

44:49

messing with our town. No, Sheriff Harry

44:51

S. Truman, which by the way, yeah,

44:53

that's his name. He's like, great! We're

44:55

not equipped for this. I love this

44:57

guy. He's seeing shit in his dreams.

45:00

Awesome. That makes it so much easier

45:02

for us. Everyone's just so fucking lovely.

45:04

But everything is so fucking horrible. And

45:06

people were obsessed with finding out who

45:09

could Laura Palmer. There were magazines. There

45:11

were all kinds of really real obsessions.

45:13

And then what people realized a little

45:15

late. We don't seem to be finding

45:17

out who killed Laura Palmer, do we?

45:20

David Lynch constructed the show and I

45:22

think David Lynch discovered that TV was

45:24

a good medium for him. Yeah, he's

45:26

he's actually gone on record saying that

45:28

he likes the idea of exploring as

45:31

he goes. He doesn't like concluding a

45:33

story. He likes being lost in it.

45:35

Yeah. Creatively he likes just sort of

45:37

keep on exploring, putting it down, keep

45:40

on exploring and just kind of assembling

45:42

as he goes. Yeah. He's only made

45:44

one movie that way and we'll get

45:46

to inland empire. Oh boy. I think

45:48

though people assumed that he had a

45:51

plan. Yeah, I've had people ask. He

45:53

knew who did it. You know, he

45:55

knew who did it, but also he

45:57

was very flexible on it. and how

46:00

and why changed a lot. And when

46:02

you actually get the answer, it doesn't

46:04

make a lot of sense. It's got

46:06

supernatural elements to it. I suppose I

46:08

don't want to say just in case

46:11

it was curious. If anyone hasn't had,

46:13

because let me tell you something, the

46:15

episode where you do find out who

46:17

killed Laura Palmer is one of the

46:20

most horrifying episodes a television ever film.

46:22

It seriously scared the shit out of

46:24

me. Second, maybe only to the second

46:26

season finale of Twin Peaks, which was

46:28

for a while the series finale, which

46:31

is also absolutely fucking, mind shatteringly frightening.

46:33

Here's my confession. I saw Firewalk with

46:35

me, the movie, before I saw a

46:37

TV show. So basically Twin Peaks, by

46:40

the end of the first season, people

46:42

were like, oh, well, we don't know

46:44

who killed Laura Palmer. Oh, well, surely

46:46

at the beginning of the next season,

46:48

we'll find out. And then people kind

46:51

of started straying because some people were

46:53

only interested in the mystery and they

46:55

realized we weren't going to get it.

46:57

So the network was like, you got

46:59

to solve that puzzle. So they did

47:02

way sooner than they ever would have.

47:04

And at that point, the show ran

47:06

out of juice. They had nothing driving

47:08

it anymore. It wasn't replaced with anything.

47:11

There was nothing else pushing the story.

47:13

And so the second half of season

47:15

two, partly because they took out the

47:17

entire sort of... driving element of the

47:19

narrative and also partly because David Lynch

47:22

was busy making the movie wild at

47:24

heart and wasn't as directly involved in

47:26

the show. I was dating Isabella Rossolini.

47:28

He was he was like Hollywood hot

47:31

shit at that point. Yeah, but yeah,

47:33

he left the he left the show

47:35

and those like tabloid fodder is such

47:37

a weird thing for David Lynch to

47:39

go through. When David Lynch left Twin

47:42

Peak and leave it, but when he

47:44

left it in other people's hands and

47:46

just, you know, was busy doing other

47:48

stuff, the first episode after you found

47:51

who killed Laura Palmer. Everything is weird.

47:53

And not good lynch and weird. It's

47:55

like, this feels like someone's trying to

47:57

be David Lynch now. Like, it immediately

47:59

drops off in tone. And it doesn't

48:02

make up against the last couple episodes.

48:04

Because of, and because of wild, because

48:06

of... and because of Wild At Heart,

48:08

a lot of more experimental types of

48:11

TV shows started to hit the airway.

48:13

So we talked about one on Council

48:15

Too Soon called Wild Palms. Oh yeah.

48:17

Which was like Oliver Stone's Twin Peaks

48:19

version. It's like the science fiction thing.

48:22

And it's also like really surreal and

48:24

has a lot of dreams. Kind of

48:26

the Los Angeles version of it. Yeah.

48:28

I don't think it's very good. It's

48:31

interesting, but I think everyone should see

48:33

it because it is interesting, but yeah,

48:35

it doesn't have quite like the same

48:37

Twin Peaks impact. But yeah, people were

48:39

trying to copy that success. And I

48:42

feel like people were trying to copy

48:44

that success. And I feel like people

48:46

were trying to mainstream David Lynch when

48:48

that wasn't his thing. No, it was

48:50

coincidence that he was mainstream. I've had

48:53

friends ask me, why can't he just

48:55

make a normal film for a month?

48:57

It's like... Don't want him to well,

48:59

first of all. I don't think I

49:02

don't think he can I don't think

49:04

he sees films that way Even his

49:06

most normal thing isn't that normal. Yeah,

49:08

like everything he's not influenced by those

49:10

kinds of things He doesn't have that

49:13

kind of storytellers drive. He's not a

49:15

mainstream Hollywood guy even though he was

49:17

Yeah, he's always had that contradiction about

49:19

him. And that's something I've always really

49:22

admired about him. Yeah, and then he

49:24

Yeah, he was making Wild at Heart

49:26

you mentioned Wild at heart was His

49:28

first team up with a novelist named

49:30

Barry Gifford. Yeah, who was a lot

49:33

more of an war type of an

49:35

author He wrote like these scuzzy novels

49:37

about low lives and criminals and he

49:39

and David Lynch Didn't make similar work,

49:42

but they meshed well together. Yeah, they

49:44

met there was a Venn diagram of

49:46

their interests and Yeah Wild at heart

49:48

starred Nicholas Cage and Laura Dern as

49:50

Lovers on the Run He was her

49:53

mother played by Diane Ladd Oscar nominated

49:55

who is Who is Laura Dern's mother?

49:57

Yeah, fucking weird and frightening performance. She

49:59

hates this guy's name is sailor And

50:02

she basically gets in thrown in prison

50:04

at the beginning and then when he

50:06

gets out He's So madly in love

50:08

with, is it Lula? Lula? Lula. Lula.

50:10

Lula. Lula. I almost said Lulu, I

50:13

knew that was wrong. But they're madly

50:15

in love and they basically go on

50:17

the run together and they do, it's

50:19

a big old road trip, Diane, lad

50:21

is. Sending like goons on this trail.

50:24

Yeah, using all of her connections to

50:26

try to stop them and kill them.

50:28

Wild at heart is like. Lynch's Tarantino

50:30

movie. It's just got so much more

50:33

like mad energy. It's got, you know,

50:35

it's criminal edge. What kind of filth

50:37

to it? It's got, it's got, because

50:39

a lot of David Lynch's stuff is

50:41

very, you know, based, yeah, in 50s,

50:44

you know, iconography, but also 50s filmmaking.

50:46

I already mentioned, Peyton Place, it was

50:48

a key influence on Twin Peaks and

50:50

Blue Velvet and other stuff as well.

50:53

It feels like... Wilded Heart is like

50:55

his version of a juvenile delinquent movie

50:57

almost like a scary like you know

50:59

like you're these young passionate, sexy people

51:01

making bad decisions. I saw something more

51:04

like gun crazy like a little bit

51:06

more of those road trip noirs. But

51:08

they play on how young, I mean,

51:10

in the cage is playing in someone

51:13

older, Lula's playing like, you know, just

51:15

playing a older, Lula's playing like, you

51:17

know, just playing a teenager, something like

51:19

18, 18, 18, by the time a

51:21

movie really kicks in. But yeah, it's

51:24

just got that, oh, they're on the

51:26

kids are on the kids are on

51:28

the run, they're going to, they're going

51:30

to, they're going to. striking at the

51:33

time for its violence and for its

51:35

sexuality, there was a lot, just a

51:37

lot of sex and violence in the

51:39

movie. Even more so than in Lou

51:41

Velvet. Like it's really pervasive. And I

51:44

think it also came, this was at

51:46

the early 90s at this point, and

51:48

cinema was changing. Attitudes are shifting away

51:50

from a lot of Reagan-era conservatism and

51:53

to a lot of deconstructionist narrative. It's

51:55

trying to tear a lot of. down

51:57

and David Lynch wasn't immune to those

51:59

trends so I feel like that's that

52:01

was his pivot point was wild at

52:04

heart. Wild at heart feels a lot

52:06

to me is different from all his

52:08

other movies. It feels like he's trying

52:10

to do something a little bit more

52:12

almost deliberately hard-edged. Yeah it feels like

52:15

he's it feels like he's just like

52:17

what are they what are they making

52:19

at Sundance now I'm gonna do my

52:21

spin on that yeah you know. Which

52:24

isn't bad. It's just it's just got

52:26

this again. It's just got this youthful

52:28

vitality to it That's just usually not

52:30

what he's interested in Yeah, but it

52:32

still uses a lot of he uses

52:35

a lot of like Wizard of Oz

52:37

framework as well. All these wonderful lynch

52:39

and oh God my one of my

52:41

favorite scenes in any David Lynch movies

52:44

in Wild and Heart. There's this like

52:46

there's the Freddy John scene I

52:48

try to remember if it's pretty... Where

52:50

has the distorted voice? No, no, no,

52:52

no. It's a little thing. It's so

52:55

tiny. It's one line. We cut two

52:57

like a mob boss or a kingpin

52:59

and he's just sitting in a chair

53:01

and these two naked women are just

53:03

fanning him. And like, that's their job.

53:05

And it's very much like, oh yes,

53:07

look at him. He's like, you know,

53:10

an ancient king with his harem and

53:12

all that kind of that kind of

53:14

shit. I didn't get the line quite

53:16

right, but like that's, it's just like

53:18

a, this is just our job now.

53:20

There's just something so perfect about that.

53:22

We're just creating this like weird, iconic,

53:24

you know, pulp image and then just

53:27

dragging it into reality in a very

53:29

hilarious way. While the heart was a

53:31

huge hit Twin Peaks collapsed after season

53:33

two the ratings weren't there it didn't

53:35

it didn't continue But there was enough

53:37

interest to do a movie and the

53:39

movie was theoretically gonna gonna tie it

53:42

all together I think in between there

53:44

is when he did industrial symphony number

53:46

one Which I've actually never seen that

53:48

one. Oh, okay. Yeah. He actually like

53:50

started to branch out into other things

53:52

He's doing a lot more painting. You

53:54

know did a lot more like plastic

53:56

arts and he did this theater project,

53:59

which you can find. I think it's

54:01

only on VHS and that's why I've

54:03

never seen it. And it was in,

54:05

and I believe it was in, if

54:07

you remember, the David Lynch lime green

54:09

box set. They did this like big

54:11

box on DVD of all of his

54:14

movies. And I think industrial symphony number

54:16

one was in there. He teamed up

54:18

with Julie Cruz is Tom Cruz's sister.

54:20

No. He also produced one of her

54:22

albums, by the way, which is an

54:24

amazing film. But for his two of

54:26

her albums. Two of him. Yeah, I

54:29

only know the first one, I guess,

54:31

but amazing album. Very, and she did

54:33

a lot of music in Twin Peace.

54:35

She was like a singer in the

54:37

nightclub. So she was like a character

54:39

in it as well, but yeah, amazing

54:41

work. Yeah, he was doing a lot

54:43

of other projects, but like he came

54:46

back to Twin Peaks and a lot

54:48

of people were like, okay, we're just

54:50

we're gonna wrap it There was a

54:52

lot of unanswered questions, you know at

54:54

the end of it Dale Cooper was

54:56

in this very bizarre place It was

54:58

ended on the cliffhanger, and people thought

55:01

the movie was gonna wrap it all

55:03

up Nope, the movie was gonna be

55:05

a prequel showing how Laura Laura Palmer

55:07

died And it was gonna bring up

55:09

a whole bunch of shit That they

55:11

didn't know was coming that they didn't

55:13

know was part of the narrative they

55:15

left out a whole bunch of characters

55:18

people loved and Left you more confused

55:20

before but the thing with with the

55:22

Twin Peaks Fairwalk with me which was

55:24

I Almost universally misunderstood when it came

55:26

out people just were not it wasn't

55:28

what they expected it wasn't what they

55:30

wanted and they really weren't able to

55:33

engage with what it was In

55:36

many respects, I think, well, that

55:38

hard, no, about that, I think,

55:41

Firewalk with me, maybe Lynch's best

55:43

film? Because what he does is

55:45

he removes all of that mainstream

55:47

entertaining artifice from Twin Peaks. And

55:50

he makes you focus, there's like

55:52

a opening bit that like feels

55:54

like its own little mini movie,

55:57

but once the movie really kicks

55:59

in. You

56:02

know by that point if you

56:04

watch the show how Laura Palmer

56:06

dies. I'm not going to go

56:08

into detail. It's horrific. And you

56:10

are powerless to stop that. And

56:12

you're just going to... walk right

56:14

on through and instead of just

56:16

alluding to all of her misery,

56:18

we live in it. Cheryl Lee

56:20

gives one of the most pained

56:22

performances I've ever seen in any

56:24

movie. Like, it should have been

56:26

award-worthy. Yeah, it's a all-timer performance.

56:28

It's too big and too strange,

56:30

I think, to get like a

56:32

word. Oh, yeah, no, I get

56:35

it. Yeah, no, 100%. But... It

56:38

is the heart of Twin Peaks.

56:40

It's not the surface of Twin

56:42

Peaks, which is Twin Peaks, don't

56:44

get me wrong. But it's basically

56:46

like, no, take away all that

56:48

fun stuff, all that cutes, oh

56:51

Nadine's doing silent trape runners, ha

56:53

ha, throw all that away. This

56:55

is a story about a girl

56:57

who was abused and murdered. Yeah.

56:59

That's it. That's it. This is

57:01

the way to do it not

57:03

as a who done it, but

57:05

as a slow motion train wreck

57:08

As as a funeral that's that's

57:10

happening like before the person is

57:12

even dead That's a great way

57:14

putting it. It's and And it's

57:16

also Laura Palmer's death was like

57:18

part of a series of murders

57:20

that other victims that the same

57:22

murder was killing which is why

57:25

the opening prologue is is connected.

57:27

It's completely so yeah there So

57:29

there's just death hanging over everything

57:31

and what I like about firewalk

57:33

with me is the whimsy is

57:35

gone. There's no sense of humor

57:37

or oddity about it. The people

57:39

are behaving strangely but it's because

57:42

they're all in a complete nightmare.

57:44

There's a little whimsy right at

57:46

the beginning when Chris Isaac and

57:48

Kiefer Sutherland are a pair of

57:50

federal agents investigating the first crime

57:52

because they're not in it. Yeah,

57:54

they get there. But that opening

57:57

bit is a lot more Twin

57:59

Peak see than the actual Twin

58:01

Peak stuff. There are a few

58:03

funny bits, like that really mean

58:05

waitress of the diamond. Yeah, yeah.

58:07

You want to hear about our

58:09

specials? We don't have any. She's

58:11

my sister's brother's girl. She's my

58:14

brother's... Yeah, what is it? Oh,

58:16

what is it? Her name is

58:18

Lil. She's my mother's sister's girl.

58:20

Yeah, like that whole bit's just...

58:22

That could have been an email.

58:24

If you know the scene, you

58:26

know what I'm talking about. Like

58:28

we did not have to do

58:31

that. There are all these weird

58:33

dream-like things. It's like people are

58:35

just making these weird gestures, the

58:37

David Bowie scenes, the David Bowie

58:39

scenes, the David Bowie scenes, really

58:41

nightmarish. It's a great short film

58:43

in and of itself. It's so

58:45

fucking odd. Or like people are

58:48

watching themselves on security footage, like

58:50

simultaneously like simultaneously. And he just

58:52

gets this idea in his head

58:54

and he stands in a hallway

58:56

looking at a security camera. Then

58:58

he goes into the security room

59:00

and looks at the hallway. Then

59:02

he goes back and looks at

59:05

the security camera. And then he

59:07

goes back to the security room

59:09

and he's still there. Yeah. What

59:11

the fuck is going on? And

59:13

while he's watching himself on the

59:15

camera, somebody appears and walks down

59:17

the hallway, and it's David Bowe.

59:20

Oh my God, it's so fucking.

59:22

And he has like three lines,

59:24

David Bowe. I think he had

59:26

a big a part to talk

59:28

about Judy. And it's like three

59:30

lines, David Bowe. I think he

59:32

had a big a part to

59:34

talk about Judy. Who do you

59:37

think this is there? That's it.

59:39

Yeah. Yeah. I love how just

59:41

brazenly. Surreal it is. And if

59:43

you watch Twin Peaks, there are

59:45

some keys to linking the symbols

59:47

together, even though there's not necessarily

59:49

a direct meaning. Like, what does

59:51

Garmin Bozia mean? I mean, it's

59:54

fear and sorrow. But it's also

59:56

creamed corn. It's like, yeah. pieces

59:58

in and a lot of those

1:00:00

pieces and I wonder I wonder

1:00:02

how much of any of the

1:00:04

stuff that he picked up from

1:00:06

Firewalk with me and ran with

1:00:08

in Twin Peaks the return was

1:00:11

ever part of the plan when

1:00:13

we found out what was like

1:00:15

oh what was what was David

1:00:17

Bowie talking about Judy that's a

1:00:19

whole other thing that is not

1:00:21

you thought it was just some

1:00:23

person named Judy no No, that's

1:00:26

a whole other fucking thing. That

1:00:28

is a whole new chapter of

1:00:30

Twin Peaks that we barely even

1:00:32

get into. I love Firewalk with

1:00:34

me. I remember. When I first

1:00:36

watched Firewalk of Me, I hadn't

1:00:38

seen any pictures of David Lynch

1:00:40

yet. Oh, like the guy. The

1:00:43

guy. In fact, that was true

1:00:45

of a lot of filmmakers. Yeah.

1:00:47

Unless you were, like, subscribed to

1:00:49

film magazines, there weren't just photos

1:00:51

of them everywhere. And then there

1:00:53

weren't many. And there weren't many.

1:00:55

And there weren't many. And there

1:00:57

were, like, Hitchcock, who's, like, pretty

1:01:00

visible. Stanley Kubrick out of a

1:01:02

lineup. Exactly. I didn't know what

1:01:04

Stanley Kubrick looked like for many

1:01:06

years. I thought I thought Sam

1:01:08

Ramey was Japanese. Rahimi. I thought

1:01:10

it was a Japanese name. Okay.

1:01:12

Okay. So for many years. It's

1:01:14

just so for many years. It's

1:01:17

like, oh, he's my favorite Japanese

1:01:19

director. He's from Detroit. He's not

1:01:21

from Japan at all. Yeah. Never

1:01:23

knew that about you. That's really.

1:01:25

Yes. Yeah. Even in college. I

1:01:27

thought he was a Japanese director.

1:01:29

He plays Gordon Cole. He plays

1:01:32

Gordon at the guy. Yeah, he's

1:01:34

a little earpiece and he makes

1:01:36

some gestures. But I didn't know

1:01:38

which one of them was David

1:01:40

Lynch. Oh, I thought Chris Isaac

1:01:42

was David Lynch. It's like, oh,

1:01:44

that guy, like, he's, he's clearly

1:01:46

not an actor. He's got a

1:01:49

little bit laconic. Clearly, that guy's,

1:01:51

he's, he's clearly not an actor.

1:01:53

He's kind of a little bit

1:01:55

laconic. Clearly, he was. And we

1:01:57

black and white and was really

1:01:59

young I was like eight if

1:02:01

that and I was just like

1:02:03

wow Anthony Hopkins has been making

1:02:06

movies for like 40 years. This

1:02:08

movie's in black and white. It's

1:02:10

like that movie was made in

1:02:12

1980. I know it was really

1:02:14

fun because I was at a

1:02:16

point where I was very young.

1:02:18

Black and white movies are all

1:02:20

equal old. Yeah, yeah, there weren't

1:02:23

a lot of new ones. So

1:02:25

Anyway, uh, Twippey's Firewalk with me

1:02:27

didn't do great. David Lynch was

1:02:29

on the outs again. He finally

1:02:31

made a new movie and his

1:02:33

new movie was also critically revealed

1:02:35

when it. I adored last time

1:02:38

and this 97 was also a

1:02:40

pretty formative year I was in

1:02:42

college you were in high school

1:02:44

when that when 97 rolled around

1:02:46

and I remember seeing like being

1:02:48

introduced to filmmakers like Peter Greenaway

1:02:50

who did the pillow book that

1:02:52

year and I had seen David

1:02:55

Kernberg films before but that was

1:02:57

the year crash came out this

1:02:59

like weird NC-17 rated fetish film

1:03:01

about people in car crashes. And

1:03:03

then Lost Highway came out as

1:03:05

well, and this really shadowy nightmare

1:03:07

isharket. We're using dreams and nightmares

1:03:09

a lot, and I think David

1:03:12

Lynch would be flattered by that,

1:03:14

because he did try to capture

1:03:16

thoughts and dreams in sort of

1:03:18

a pure form in cinema. That

1:03:20

was one of his kind of

1:03:22

artistic drives. Real fast, sorry about

1:03:24

the sound effects. I was petting

1:03:26

my cat luke, but I'm a

1:03:29

little allergic to him, and what

1:03:31

with the air in Los Angeles

1:03:33

right now. I had to wash

1:03:35

my hands. a little foldie for

1:03:37

you here on the podcast. Yeah,

1:03:39

but Lost Highway, this is the

1:03:41

one that like, it makes sense,

1:03:44

but all the clues are taken

1:03:46

away. It's got a great opening,

1:03:48

where Bill Pullman is a jazz,

1:03:50

what was he, is ex-opposed? Tenor.

1:03:52

Tenor. Tenor. Everybody is like, training

1:03:54

to see. their dialogue in this

1:03:56

movie. Like every every moment is

1:03:58

a moment of tension. This movie's

1:04:01

gonna make you want to clog

1:04:03

your skin off. Yeah, it's just

1:04:05

he's in a he's in this

1:04:07

really strained loveless sexually unsatisfying marriage

1:04:09

with Patricia Arquette and then one

1:04:11

day he runs into who's like

1:04:13

She's almost like a flash of

1:04:15

poi. Like she's like almost not

1:04:18

human. Yeah. And one day he's

1:04:20

at a party and he runs

1:04:22

into Robert Blake who hadn't done

1:04:24

the bad stuff yet. Right? He

1:04:26

hadn't done that yet by then.

1:04:28

I know. Yeah, we didn't know

1:04:30

what he would actually do. But

1:04:32

he plays this weird guy with

1:04:35

an all white face and he

1:04:37

says, we've met before haven't we?

1:04:39

And go home and says, I

1:04:41

don't know. Yeah, no, at your

1:04:43

house. Don't you remember? I'm there

1:04:45

right now. And Bill Holman is

1:04:47

like, what? And he says, he

1:04:50

hands him a cell phone, call

1:04:52

me. And he calls his house

1:04:54

and Robert Blake is also at

1:04:56

his house right now. I told

1:04:58

you I was here. And the

1:05:00

weird shit's been going on. They've

1:05:02

been getting like videotapes of the

1:05:04

front of their house delivered to

1:05:07

them and they don't know why.

1:05:09

Anyway, something really horrifying happens. And

1:05:11

then all of a sudden... And

1:05:13

Bill Holman isn't... character is thrown

1:05:15

into prison. Yeah, he's accused of

1:05:17

a crime, he may or may

1:05:19

not have committed. And then one

1:05:21

day, something really weird happens, and

1:05:24

he's not in his prison cell

1:05:26

anymore. Instead, there's a young auto

1:05:28

mechanic played by Baltazar Getty, and

1:05:30

they're like, oh, you're not supposed

1:05:32

to be here, so they let

1:05:34

him go, and he starts working

1:05:36

for a mafioso, played by Robert

1:05:38

Loja. Robert Loja wanted the role

1:05:41

Dennis Hopper hat and blue velvet.

1:05:43

That's me. So he was very

1:05:45

excited to get this role. It's

1:05:47

also the last movie Richard Pryor

1:05:49

was ever ran. He plays songs.

1:05:51

He's very, he only has like

1:05:53

two or three lines. Yeah, that's

1:05:56

Richard Pryor. Yeah. Well, also Jack

1:05:58

Nance is in there. A lot

1:06:00

of the David Lynch regulars. Richard

1:06:02

Pryor is more of like the

1:06:04

trivia, I suppose. Yeah. Yeah, so,

1:06:06

but here's the thing. Robert Lozia

1:06:08

has a gangster's mall, you know,

1:06:10

they always have a mall. And,

1:06:13

but it's also Patricia Arquette, except

1:06:15

now she's blonde. But it's a

1:06:17

different Patricia Arquette. Wait, no, she's

1:06:19

brunette now, or she's blonde? No,

1:06:21

she was Burnett at first, and

1:06:23

now she's blonde. Yeah, yeah. So,

1:06:25

balls are getting might be Bill

1:06:27

Pullman? Patricia Arqu- might be Patricia

1:06:30

Arquette. One character is dreaming of

1:06:32

another, and you don't know which

1:06:34

is which. Yeah, assuming that's even

1:06:36

what it is. I, uh, and

1:06:38

horrible weird things happen. I was

1:06:40

absolutely flabbergasted by Lost Highway on

1:06:42

his side, and what amazed me

1:06:44

about it, was that it is

1:06:47

impenetrable, but... Yeah, all

1:06:49

the clues are there. There are things that

1:06:51

connect. Like when you're when you're when you're

1:06:53

when you're piecing together a movie whether

1:06:55

you're piecing together the plot or the themes

1:06:58

You're saying okay, these things are the same

1:07:00

these things overlap There's a lot of imagery

1:07:02

with this particular Whatever animal moon, whatever you

1:07:04

can connect the symbols together even if you

1:07:07

can't decide for them. Exactly, and that's the

1:07:09

thing Lost highway. Everything connects to everything else

1:07:11

to everything else and nothing makes sense. There

1:07:14

are a lot of perfectly valid interpretations of

1:07:16

Lost Highway, and I think all of

1:07:18

them are true. Or all of them are

1:07:20

false. So however you like, you're equally true.

1:07:22

How's that? All of them are equally true.

1:07:25

I... And this is why I keep coming

1:07:27

back to David Lynch. He is so enticing.

1:07:29

He gives me all of these wonderful symbols,

1:07:32

all of these wonderful dream images, and I

1:07:34

start to try to unlock them. Of course,

1:07:36

I'm trying to dissect them. One of the

1:07:38

first things I ever did when I

1:07:40

first was exposed to the internet in 1996

1:07:43

was find an essay explaining the symbology of

1:07:45

Eraserhead. Yeah. Not something David Lynch put in

1:07:47

there, just somebody's interpretation. Yeah, which looks invalid.

1:07:50

We're looking at like a Rurshak test, basically.

1:07:52

Like he likes to use flickering electric lights

1:07:54

in a lot of his movies. David

1:07:56

Lynch. this essay reads oh that that means

1:07:58

that that's virtue flickering lights means virtue it's

1:08:01

like that's bullshit somebody just came up with

1:08:03

that but it's pretty thin to me yeah

1:08:05

or you know that's just the way somebody

1:08:08

interpreted it I had some like pretty solid

1:08:10

I'm just trying to piece together how that

1:08:12

makes sense on his own of that track

1:08:14

after seeing lost highway about a dozen times

1:08:17

because I want you to come over

1:08:19

and over I love that movie I did

1:08:21

have sort of ideas as what the symbols

1:08:23

meant. Same with Firewalk with me, I watched

1:08:26

that one a dozen times. Like I understand

1:08:28

what this means and this is what this

1:08:30

symbol and this is what the character is

1:08:32

a symbol of this other character. And after

1:08:35

a while I realized what was really going

1:08:37

on wasn't... He

1:08:39

wasn't giving me symbols. He wasn't

1:08:41

giving me things to interpret. That's

1:08:43

why he's always resisted the idea

1:08:45

of being called a surrealist. The

1:08:47

surrealists are very political artists. They

1:08:49

often do put in these surrealist

1:08:52

things that do very deliberately represent

1:08:54

something else. They challenge the norms

1:08:56

of artistic formality, but they are

1:08:58

usually guiding you somewhere else on

1:09:00

purpose. Yeah. You read the manifesto

1:09:02

of surrealism by Andre Breton, which

1:09:04

I did in college, because I

1:09:06

was that kind of asshole. And

1:09:08

you do see that it is

1:09:10

about sort of pure consciousness, but

1:09:12

at the same time it's a

1:09:14

very political, deliberate political movement. David

1:09:16

Lynch didn't have that kind of

1:09:18

drive. He wanted to not give

1:09:20

you symbols, but give you experiences.

1:09:23

So at the end of the

1:09:25

day, I'm watching Lost Highway and

1:09:27

realizing, I already got it. I

1:09:29

already had the whole experience. Yeah.

1:09:31

And the experience was to be

1:09:33

lost in a pit of sex

1:09:35

and death. Lost on a highway.

1:09:37

Lost on a highway of sex

1:09:39

and death. There you go. The

1:09:41

other, the other, you're right about

1:09:43

all of that, as far as

1:09:45

I'm concerned. The other aspect of

1:09:47

the lost highway that cannot be

1:09:49

ignored, because here's the thing, lost

1:09:51

highway, not a hit, not a

1:09:54

clamped, Roger Ebert and Cisco, Roger

1:09:56

Ebert, Gene Cisco. Yeah, sorry, I

1:09:58

usually people say on the other

1:10:00

way around, Cisco and Cisco and

1:10:02

Ebert. They give it two thumbs

1:10:04

down. And rather cleverly, they put

1:10:06

that on the, they put that

1:10:08

on the poster, they put that

1:10:10

on the poster, two thumbs down.

1:10:12

Two more reasons. Yeah. Lost out

1:10:14

of it, which was clever. Didn't

1:10:16

work, but it was clever. I

1:10:18

took my friends to see this

1:10:20

in theaters. They all hated me

1:10:22

for it. Yeah, it was, it

1:10:25

was very unpopular. But it was

1:10:27

huge because the soundtrack was huge.

1:10:29

It made, and this was the

1:10:31

90s when movies could make back

1:10:33

their budget on soundtrack sales. Yeah,

1:10:35

alone. There were two notable soundtracks

1:10:37

that Trent Reznor produced in the

1:10:39

1990s. The first one was Natural

1:10:41

Born Killers, the album Stone film.

1:10:43

And both, and then he also

1:10:45

did Lost Highway. They're different vibes,

1:10:47

but they also like mixed in

1:10:49

bits of dialogue and tried to

1:10:51

make the soundtrack kind of like

1:10:53

an ancillary cinema experience You have

1:10:55

to listen to it from beginning

1:10:58

and it's not just a collection

1:11:00

of songs It's actually very cleverly

1:11:02

mixed and chosen in a very

1:11:04

particular way. Yeah, it's got it's

1:11:06

got like rockabilly. It's got depressing

1:11:08

smashing pumpkins. It's got the like

1:11:10

nine inch nails going really fucking

1:11:12

hard with perfect drug and it

1:11:14

really helped interest And I guess

1:11:16

they're not that famous anymore, but

1:11:18

for a while they were ubiquitous.

1:11:20

They really helped introduce a lot

1:11:22

of Americans to Romstein. Romstein and

1:11:24

Marilyn Manson as well. That kind

1:11:26

of like... Well, Marilyn Manson was

1:11:29

already American, like Romstein was a

1:11:31

European band, but like Romstein is

1:11:33

a German metal band. Fuck Romstein

1:11:35

is cool. So there's two Romstein

1:11:37

tracks on Lost Highway and... Oh,

1:11:39

they go so fucking hard. Yeah,

1:11:41

you bought you bought the album

1:11:43

for that alone. Yeah, it was

1:11:45

it was Duastamish. Yeah. I'll say

1:11:47

this as a point against Lost

1:11:49

Highway. Oh, there's a lot of

1:11:51

plot conceits about underground pornography. Yeah,

1:11:53

that's the idea that these characters

1:11:55

are involved in making these like

1:11:57

black market distributed VHS tapes. This

1:12:00

is 97. You could go to

1:12:02

like video stores and just get

1:12:04

porno videos. I think David Lynch

1:12:06

thought that was going to be

1:12:08

a little bit more shocking than

1:12:10

it actually was. Yeah, she's trying to

1:12:13

make that seem like the bottom

1:12:15

of all this filth. It's like, no,

1:12:17

it doesn't even read that way, really.

1:12:19

It just feels like part of

1:12:21

a tapestry. Yeah, it's like you're just

1:12:24

making porn. As a tapestry, I

1:12:26

think it's fine. I think it's fine.

1:12:28

I think it. on the Patricia

1:12:30

Arquette, someone she's not. They see her

1:12:32

as someone to be saved, someone who

1:12:35

is like a virgin who is

1:12:37

you know meant to be protected from

1:12:39

these evil men, and she's

1:12:41

not that, she's more complicated

1:12:43

than that, and she's not

1:12:45

necessarily a... Going to reward them. Yeah,

1:12:47

for that and so like discovery and

1:12:49

this is this I agree This is

1:12:51

kind of retrograde The idea like oh

1:12:53

and she's doing pornography. Like oh, I'm

1:12:55

so shocked. Yeah. Oh, no the woman

1:12:57

I love is being degraded and and

1:12:59

I think Dave Lynch is commenting on

1:13:01

that But it is it is just

1:13:03

it's a little it's one of the

1:13:05

rare times when David Lynch like felt

1:13:07

like it was being a little heavy

1:13:09

hand. Yeah Was was Mallon drive next

1:13:11

or straight story? It was 99 that

1:13:14

was next. Yeah after after after A lost

1:13:16

highway kind of tanked and was

1:13:18

not well received. Even a lot

1:13:20

of David Lynch fans felt like

1:13:22

I just didn't spang his wheels

1:13:24

again. Yeah, a lot of people

1:13:26

said it was very familiar. I

1:13:28

think it's got other elements of

1:13:30

my previous movies. The sort of

1:13:32

flashpoint of David Lynch's popularity in

1:13:34

like the late 80s and early

1:13:36

90s had kind of passed by

1:13:38

97. He tried to make a

1:13:40

couple other TV shows. They didn't

1:13:42

last. We'd cover them on cancel

1:13:44

too soon. idea didn't have time

1:13:46

to really blossom. Yeah, I but

1:13:48

yeah, then he went mainstream in

1:13:50

the weirdest possible way in 99

1:13:53

because he came out with the

1:13:55

straight story. I was a filming

1:13:57

made for Disney. Yeah. And it's

1:13:59

a G-rated. It's a very old

1:14:01

man. And he finds out

1:14:03

that his very estranged brother

1:14:05

had a man named Alvin Strait

1:14:07

who had poor vision and I

1:14:10

think he had suffered a stroke

1:14:12

and couldn't walk very well. He's

1:14:14

walked around in a walk. He

1:14:16

couldn't walk and he couldn't get

1:14:19

a license. And then he finds

1:14:21

out that he had a heart

1:14:23

attack or something and he's like,

1:14:25

I have to go see him.

1:14:27

Yeah, they're, they're, old men, they're in

1:14:30

their 70s. He lives in Iowa

1:14:32

and his brother is in Wisconsin.

1:14:34

So it's, it's a long, long

1:14:36

drive. Especially, and it would be

1:14:38

a long drive in a car,

1:14:40

but he can't get a car.

1:14:42

The only thing he has, and

1:14:44

he's not rich, you can't like,

1:14:46

you know, get a flight. He

1:14:48

has a riding mower. You don't need

1:14:50

a license to ride a riding mower.

1:14:52

cross state lines. And this was a

1:14:55

true story. It took up six weeks

1:14:57

to make this drive. And he runs

1:14:59

into various people in various small towns

1:15:01

and has some of the most beautiful

1:15:03

fucking moments. There's this great bit where

1:15:06

he just isn't a bar and he

1:15:08

runs into another guy who was a

1:15:10

World War II veteran and they just

1:15:13

share just truly honest open, you know.

1:15:15

openly about their experiences. There's this great, but

1:15:17

we have to do a lot of writing

1:15:19

more is like broken down and he has

1:15:21

to take it to mechanics and there's like

1:15:23

two twins there and they're arguing and he's

1:15:25

like Talks that reminds them how important it is

1:15:28

that even if you have disagreements,

1:15:30

that's still your brother man. Care

1:15:32

for your brother. Oh, it's Richard

1:15:34

Farnsworth Oscar nominated? fucking, one of

1:15:36

the most tender performances I've ever

1:15:38

seen. Yeah, and he has some

1:15:40

pretty good lines of dialogue, like,

1:15:42

you know, the worst thing about

1:15:44

being old is remembering when you

1:15:46

were young. And he lives with

1:15:48

his adult daughters, played by Sissy

1:15:50

Spacek. Yeah. Back in the orbit

1:15:52

still, and she's having sort of

1:15:54

familiar drama of her own, you

1:15:56

know, involving like her son and

1:15:58

Richard Farnsworth grandson. The

1:16:00

straight story is this, you wouldn't think

1:16:03

that these two matrices would ever

1:16:05

overlap, but Disney and Lynch. Because

1:16:07

it's Disney in an old-fashioned kind of

1:16:09

a way. If you think back

1:16:11

to some of the live action films

1:16:13

that Walt Disney Pictures put out

1:16:15

in like the 50s and 60s,

1:16:17

that always sold this kind of...

1:16:20

placid, almost pastoral version of

1:16:22

middle America as being kind

1:16:24

of pure and ideal. Yeah,

1:16:27

where your nostalgia is real.

1:16:29

Yeah, exactly. The nostalgia is

1:16:31

manifest in these movies and

1:16:34

it's about how farmers and

1:16:36

workers and certain kinds of

1:16:38

middle American cultures like agriculture

1:16:41

culture is the backbone of

1:16:43

not just America but of

1:16:45

everything. It's where all of

1:16:47

the morals and stories come

1:16:50

from. This is the American

1:16:52

soul. David Lynch came

1:16:54

from that. He's from

1:16:57

Missoula, Montana. He understood

1:16:59

that, but he also

1:17:01

understood a certain kind of

1:17:03

honest, almost bleak tenderness,

1:17:05

which I know there's a

1:17:08

weird words to put together,

1:17:10

to sort of propel that

1:17:12

forward and... change Disney's sensibility into

1:17:15

something that finally for the first

1:17:17

god damn time felt authentic. Yeah,

1:17:19

see here's the thing about David

1:17:21

Lynch and we focus so much

1:17:23

and we talked about it a

1:17:25

lot about him looking at like

1:17:27

the dark underbelly of Americana.

1:17:30

He believes in Americana. He just

1:17:32

knows that there's darkness underneath it,

1:17:34

but the surface is real too.

1:17:37

Yeah. People are nice. People are...

1:17:39

Sweet, but sometimes they're not and

1:17:41

sometimes their neighbors aren't and sometimes

1:17:43

they make bad decisions But the

1:17:46

niceness is there people are beautiful

1:17:48

And he and the straight story

1:17:50

is just a fascinating one because

1:17:52

it's the only one Where he doesn't

1:17:54

rip it down at all. He's

1:17:56

just I mean, there's there's seriousness.

1:17:58

It's not like But yeah, he's

1:18:01

not trying to show you anything

1:18:03

unpleasant underneath. It's

1:18:05

just incredibly sweet.

1:18:08

Alvin Straight is a pretty

1:18:10

straightforward guy. The funniest scene

1:18:12

in the movie is, I

1:18:15

mean, that's why it's called

1:18:17

The Street Story. I know. There's

1:18:19

a, he, um... Alvin Straight, like he's walking with two

1:18:21

canes. Richard Farnsworth needed to walk with a cane. He

1:18:23

was reluctant to come back. He retired from acting. And

1:18:26

David Lynch talked him into it. Richard Barnes said he

1:18:28

was very proud that his entire career he never had

1:18:30

to say a swear word. There's a whole career, decades

1:18:32

and decades, never had to say a swear word. There's

1:18:34

a bit in the straight story where he needs, he

1:18:36

can't bend over, he needs one of those grabbers. Yeah.

1:18:39

You pull a trigger on an editor stick and it's

1:18:41

interesting. Yeah, I have one of those have a bad

1:18:43

knee. Yeah. They can't get on many, many people

1:18:45

have them. Yeah. And he needs one, he needs

1:18:47

one to pick stuff stuff stuff to pick stuff,

1:18:49

stuff to pick stuff, stuff, stuff, stuff, stuff, stuff,

1:18:51

stuff, stuff, stuff, stuff, to pick stuff, stuff, stuff,

1:18:53

stuff, stuff, stuffs, stuffs, stuffs, stuffs, stuffs, stuffs, stuffs,

1:18:55

stuffs, stuffs, stuffs, stuffs, stuffs, stuffs, stuffs, stuffs, stuffs,

1:18:57

stuffs, and he needs one to pick stuffs, and

1:18:59

he needs one to a little bit of a

1:19:01

dandy, and he has two grabbers, including a really

1:19:04

nice one. And Alvin Strait says, I want to

1:19:06

buy a grabber. And he kind

1:19:08

of looks at it and he

1:19:10

goes, oh, I don't know. That's a

1:19:12

really nice grabber. Yeah, I want

1:19:15

to buy a grabber. I don't

1:19:17

know. That's a really nice grab.

1:19:19

Like it goes back and forth,

1:19:21

like five or six times. It's

1:19:24

like, like, Okay fine I'll sell

1:19:26

you like reluctantly I'll sell you

1:19:28

this grabber and he's like well thank

1:19:30

you he wins that's a triumph everybody's

1:19:32

really happy and there's like by the

1:19:34

time of this happens there's like three

1:19:36

other old guys like I've gathered around

1:19:38

trying to see like the how is

1:19:41

this gonna come out the yes people

1:19:43

are butting head who will come out

1:19:45

on top Alvin straight comes out on

1:19:47

top he guards the grabber and one

1:19:49

of these guys like what are you gonna

1:19:51

do with that grabber Alvin grabbing

1:19:53

Cut! It's

1:19:55

the simplest

1:19:57

fucking thing.

1:20:00

And yet, David Lynch, his sense of

1:20:02

timing, his pace, his sense of character,

1:20:05

his wholesomeness is all there in the

1:20:07

straight story. It's unlike anything he's done

1:20:09

before, but it is of a piece.

1:20:11

No, it is. And that's what's so

1:20:13

odd about it. You know, the movie

1:20:15

was acclaimed, as it should have been, and

1:20:17

David Lynch was, you know, doing, you know,

1:20:20

back in some good graces. And I think

1:20:22

was A B. A thing was A B. B. A B. B. B. B. B. A. A. A.

1:20:24

A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A.

1:20:26

A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A.

1:20:28

A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. A. Remember when

1:20:30

you did Twin Peak? Let's do TV again.

1:20:33

Let's do a Twin Peaks kind of thing.

1:20:35

Let's do like another like interesting kind of

1:20:37

you know, TV soap opera, you know, mystery

1:20:39

kind of thing. And David Lynch was

1:20:41

like, okay, I'm gonna make it so

1:20:43

fucking weird. You won't know what to

1:20:46

do with it. And he did. He

1:20:48

pitched it to ABC and he like

1:20:50

gave them the script. And I've read

1:20:52

all about Mulholland Drive. Because we're getting

1:20:55

to Mulholland Drive here right here. He

1:20:57

said, like, here's this, here's what this

1:20:59

is, and here's where all the characters,

1:21:01

and this is the pilot, and people

1:21:03

would ask, where's it gonna go? He's

1:21:06

like, some place mysterious. What happens to

1:21:08

this character? That's an excellent question, isn't

1:21:10

it? Like he wouldn't answer any questions

1:21:12

because he didn't know. They wanted assurances

1:21:14

that there was a plan and he

1:21:17

said, no, and David Lynch has said

1:21:19

in interviews, that what he said before,

1:21:21

he likes this idea of just sort

1:21:23

of exploring the mystery as it goes

1:21:25

along. So he's going to make a

1:21:27

pilot without a solution. And again, these

1:21:29

these people who, you know, Trimmix was

1:21:32

a hit, but it's lack of a specific

1:21:34

plan, was something that the networks

1:21:36

were something that the networks got

1:21:38

terrified by and they ended up

1:21:40

helping. number one forever. They were only

1:21:42

in the toilet because you messed with

1:21:44

the formula. Because you forced David Lynch's

1:21:46

hand. Like, yeah, it was going to

1:21:48

go down a bit in popularity, but

1:21:50

it would have had a fan base. So

1:21:53

I made Mulholland Drive. Mulholland Drive

1:21:55

starred a relatively young, you know,

1:21:57

relatively unknown Anjanu Naomi Watts. She

1:22:00

was a tank girl before this. Yeah,

1:22:02

which is, she's great in. I mean

1:22:04

that actually, I like that movie a

1:22:07

lot. But yeah, she's, she's a girl

1:22:09

from a small town. She comes into

1:22:11

Hollywood and she's very wide-eyed and like,

1:22:13

oh, everything's gonna be great here. She's

1:22:15

like, you know, in an Andy Rooney

1:22:18

movie. And she's in a golly gee

1:22:20

whiz kind of world. I conflated Nikki

1:22:22

Rooney and Andy Hardy. Okay, that's on

1:22:24

me. But like she's in a golly

1:22:27

gee whiz kind of world. Meanwhile, Laura

1:22:29

Ellen Harring is like in a limousine

1:22:31

and so something dark and mysterious happening.

1:22:33

She's on Mulholland Drive. There's a car

1:22:35

crash. She, like the driver dies and

1:22:38

she hits her head and just starts

1:22:40

walking off into the hills. And when

1:22:42

she encounters Naomi Waz, there's a bit

1:22:44

of a misunderstanding, but eventually they decide

1:22:47

that they're going to become roommates, Lauren

1:22:49

hauling has amnesia, and Amy Waz is

1:22:51

going to help her figure out the

1:22:53

mystery of her identity. But also, I

1:22:56

have auditions to go to, turns out

1:22:58

she's actually very talented. And a whole

1:23:00

bunch of weird chits happening and like

1:23:02

behind the scenes in Hollywood and the

1:23:04

mafia is involved Just him through places

1:23:07

director who's being pushed around by the

1:23:09

mafia forced to cast who they want

1:23:11

him to cast and he doesn't want

1:23:13

to do it because of his principles

1:23:16

The mafia Don is played by Angela

1:23:18

Bedella Mente who does the music for

1:23:20

most of David Lynch's movies and they

1:23:22

answer to this shadowy figure who's played

1:23:25

by Michael Anderson Yeah, he spoke backwards

1:23:27

and he was really good at that.

1:23:29

Yeah. And, uh, but they like put

1:23:31

him inside this like, person's suit like,

1:23:33

like, like, like, it's his head, but

1:23:36

they put this, like, big suit around

1:23:38

him. So it, like, just looks a

1:23:40

little strange. Yeah. The, uh, and he

1:23:42

has, I think he has one word

1:23:45

of dialogue and it's then. So, so

1:23:47

he made this, but yeah, there's a

1:23:49

lot of like. vignettes, especially in the

1:23:51

first half of the movie. Well, because

1:23:54

he was setting stage. He was introducing

1:23:56

a world. He was introducing people within

1:23:58

that world. And he could. Yeah. And

1:24:00

he can play a bigger part. And

1:24:02

then he can play with it. And

1:24:05

it ended with, you know, Naomi Watson,

1:24:07

Laura, Laura Harring, kind of looking out

1:24:09

over Hollywood and like, ah, we're about

1:24:11

to have our adventures. And ABC was

1:24:14

like, nope. And so they didn't they

1:24:16

didn't continue the show they canceled they

1:24:18

never even aired the pilot and David

1:24:20

Lynch was like well, what do I

1:24:23

do with that? Well, because normally you

1:24:25

make a pilot the network doesn't want

1:24:27

it and then the network just owns

1:24:29

it and then that's that and David

1:24:31

Lynch was like, can I? Release it

1:24:34

as a movie? An ABC eventually was

1:24:36

like, okay. Well, what happened was, um,

1:24:38

Canal Plus, the French production company, yeah,

1:24:40

said they loved it. Somebody over there

1:24:43

got a hold of it. And it's

1:24:45

like, oh, David Lynch is working on

1:24:47

something new. That's noteworthy. And they said,

1:24:49

we'll give you money to finish this.

1:24:51

Yeah, this was going to be a

1:24:54

long-running series. Here's some money. Shoot a

1:24:56

third act. and it which which they

1:24:58

had kind of done actually with Twin

1:25:00

Peace the original pilot episode of Twin

1:25:03

Peaks was a two-parter and they released

1:25:05

it overseas as a movie and David

1:25:07

Lynch shot some extra material that kind

1:25:09

of sort of wrapped up the mystery

1:25:12

it does I've seen that guy I've

1:25:14

seen it too like but in a

1:25:16

very dream-like way and then he later

1:25:18

incorporated that footage into the show proper

1:25:20

when we started hearing about killer Bob

1:25:23

and Mike So that was basically the

1:25:25

idea we're gonna just turn this thing

1:25:27

into a movie, but it kind of

1:25:29

is kind of formless So can we

1:25:32

have an ending? David Lynch comes up

1:25:34

with an ending and Here's the thing

1:25:36

about mohon drive. This is why I

1:25:38

don't love this movie as much as

1:25:41

everyone else does. It's great But it's

1:25:43

far from my favorite David Lynch movie

1:25:45

and the reason why is because the

1:25:47

ending that he came up with from

1:25:49

moholin drive Actually kind of explains everything

1:25:52

It explains everything. It's pretty tidy actually.

1:25:54

And I think this is why it

1:25:56

became a big hit and why a

1:25:58

lot of people is because there's a

1:26:01

little bit weird, but then ultimately accessible.

1:26:03

There's, yeah, there's more things to sort

1:26:05

of get your hooks into with Mulholland

1:26:07

Drive. I think, I think there's also,

1:26:10

that's the thing with Twin Peaks. There's

1:26:12

a little bit more windy. There's some

1:26:14

humor in Mulholland Drive. There's a really

1:26:16

hilarious sequence where like a gangster shoots

1:26:18

a guy. things just go worse from

1:26:21

there. Like he keeps making mistake after

1:26:23

mistake. Things get out sent on fire.

1:26:25

He ends up shooting someone in another

1:26:27

room, I think. Like yeah, it's really

1:26:30

hilarious. It's dark, but it's hilarious. There's

1:26:32

a scene with Billy Ray Cyrus and

1:26:34

a can of pink paint. There's a

1:26:36

magical cowboy on a ranch and a

1:26:38

desert. So there's like an element of

1:26:41

like odd humor to Mulhell drive that

1:26:43

I think a lot of people connected

1:26:45

to. And yeah, it does wrap things

1:26:47

things up. And a lot of people

1:26:50

pointing out that it out that it.

1:26:52

Essentially the feminine side of Lost Highway.

1:26:54

Oh, yeah, very much. If if Lost

1:26:56

Highway is the male story, then a

1:26:59

mahalo drive is the female star. And

1:27:01

it's and although he totally with it,

1:27:03

it's his most overtly queer film. Yeah,

1:27:05

there's because it's a love story between

1:27:07

Naomi Watts and Laura Harring. Yeah, like

1:27:10

especially in the movie. Yeah, like especially

1:27:12

in the movie. Yeah. Especially in the

1:27:14

movie. There's a lot of nudity in

1:27:16

this thing. It wasn't before. Yeah. It

1:27:19

was going to be on ABC for

1:27:21

God's for God's. Yeah. I really love

1:27:23

Mulholland Drive. Yeah. Specifically, there's a scene

1:27:25

in the middle, one of the newer

1:27:28

scenes that he shot to complete it.

1:27:30

Is it the Winkies? No, it's not

1:27:32

Winkies. I do love the Winkies. That's

1:27:34

an amazing thing. It's one scary thing.

1:27:36

It's Club Soluncio. Oh, yeah. Where the

1:27:39

two characters. The Laura Herring character starts

1:27:41

having a nightmare and says, I need

1:27:43

to show you something. They sneak out

1:27:45

into Los Angeles in the middle of

1:27:48

the night. And they go down this

1:27:50

alleyway and they find this theater where

1:27:52

there's some people in the audience and

1:27:54

they're playing music and they say right

1:27:57

out loud, everything's being tape record. This

1:27:59

is a tape recording. Somebody comes out

1:28:01

and they're playing music. playing a trumpet

1:28:03

solo, it's really soulful and meaningful, and

1:28:05

then he drops the trumpet and the

1:28:08

music keeps going. Yeah, it's all a

1:28:10

facade, yeah. And you know this is

1:28:12

a fantasy because nothing happens in LA

1:28:14

at night. That sounds like a joke.

1:28:17

No, it's true. LA shuts down at

1:28:19

like 10. It does. It really does.

1:28:21

There's some of some of a night's

1:28:23

late night scene. There's not as much

1:28:26

as there's some clubs and you can

1:28:28

see a movie and like Denny's is

1:28:30

open. But LA is not a night

1:28:32

town. I've never understood it. It's always

1:28:34

been weird to me. But yeah, so

1:28:37

this they've got this weird show. But

1:28:39

yeah, then woman comes out and starts

1:28:41

singing a Spanish language version of the

1:28:43

song crying. Heartbreaking. She is dying on

1:28:46

the inside. Yeah, by the Roy Orbison

1:28:48

song, not the Arrow Smith song. No,

1:28:50

nothing. Yes, the Roy Orbison song. Correct.

1:28:52

Not crying. I was crying when I

1:28:54

made you. No, that Michael Bay can

1:28:57

do that. David Lynch would not hire

1:28:59

arrows. He would hire Stephen Tyler to

1:29:01

be like a shop clerk. Yeah, yeah,

1:29:03

that's what he did, yeah. And

1:29:06

as she's singing, she collapses and the

1:29:08

music keeps on going. It's, and I

1:29:10

feel like, and I feel like this

1:29:12

was when David Lynch was kind of

1:29:14

acknowledging for the first time that he's

1:29:17

an LA guy. Yeah. He's, he always

1:29:19

tried to sell himself as sort of

1:29:21

this hay seed is from Montana. It's

1:29:23

kind of this pure downhummy kind of

1:29:25

guy. But. He shot parts of Lost

1:29:27

Highway outside his house. He's clearly like

1:29:29

living in the hills. He likes the

1:29:32

Hollywood scene. I think he admired Los

1:29:34

Angeles. And the message there is everything

1:29:36

in Los Angeles is beautiful art. It's

1:29:38

heartbreaking art. We see the most wonderful

1:29:40

things come out of Hollywood. And it's

1:29:42

all fake. Yeah. Every single bit of

1:29:44

it is manufactured. And I think David

1:29:47

Lynch really. encapsulated a lot of what

1:29:49

his career was. He felt it was

1:29:51

all fakery. He never really, I feel,

1:29:53

got a chance. to make a film

1:29:55

the way he wanted. He was in

1:29:57

a documentary a couple of years after

1:29:59

the fact in like the late 2000s

1:30:02

called Side By Side and it was

1:30:04

hosted by Keanu Reeves and it was

1:30:06

about the movement from physical film to

1:30:08

digital film. Yeah. And they got a

1:30:10

lot of filmmakers viewpoints on it, how

1:30:12

some filmmakers were embracing digital filmmaking techniques,

1:30:14

others wanted to stick to film. David

1:30:16

Lynch hated film, hated film, hated film,

1:30:19

hated film, hated film, hated film, hated

1:30:21

hated hated Yeah. He loved the way

1:30:23

it looked. Lost Highway is one of

1:30:25

the most visually beautiful films you'll see,

1:30:27

one of the best photograph movies you'll

1:30:29

ever see, just in terms of its,

1:30:31

the way it uses darkness and light,

1:30:34

and that could only have been done

1:30:36

on 35 miles. Especially at the time.

1:30:38

But he said it was a dinosaur.

1:30:40

It took too long. You had to

1:30:42

set things up, you had to light

1:30:44

things, you had to shoot things, you

1:30:46

had to shoot things, you had to

1:30:49

plan things ahead of time. A lot

1:30:51

of filmmakers, like, and people would think,

1:30:53

like, oh, these guys are all going

1:30:55

to be purest. A lot of them

1:30:57

were like, no, we get to go

1:30:59

faster? Yeah, that's what that was wrong.

1:31:01

People loved going to digital. Like, that

1:31:03

was very exciting. There was an irony

1:31:06

brought up that the younger filmmakers wanted

1:31:08

to use the older tools and the

1:31:10

older tools and the... That older filmmakers

1:31:12

using these these very slow technologies were

1:31:14

like not we can shoot like you

1:31:16

can do 20 setups a day? Fuck

1:31:18

it. Yeah. Cronenberg famously is like really

1:31:21

embraced a lot of the newer filmmaking

1:31:23

tech. Yeah. But yeah. So

1:31:25

I feel like he started to feel

1:31:27

a little bit more comfortable with being

1:31:29

an LA filmmaker Hollywood guy with Mulholl

1:31:32

and Drive and and he finally learns

1:31:34

to make a film he wanted to

1:31:36

which brings us to his final feature

1:31:39

Well in a second though because you

1:31:41

bring up interesting point you know he

1:31:43

first of this movie was very successful

1:31:45

It was a claim to make money

1:31:48

it was like he was not only

1:31:50

for best director and that's it Naomi

1:31:52

Watts got snubbed. If anyone got snubbed,

1:31:55

Naomi Watts got snubbed. Definitely should have

1:31:57

been. Yeah, but like the only Watts,

1:31:59

I feel like everyone was like, no,

1:32:01

that's ridiculous. that she didn't get nominated.

1:32:04

But yes, a great Laura Herring as

1:32:06

well. He, he, if you look at

1:32:08

like his, his screwman, he'd been making

1:32:11

like shorts and other things throughout the

1:32:13

years. His, like, digital filmmaking career exploded

1:32:15

in the 2000s, but it was all

1:32:18

shorts. It was all like online shit.

1:32:20

Well that that was the next step

1:32:22

for him. Yeah, after Mulholland Drive, he

1:32:24

decided to become a digital filmmaker. Yeah,

1:32:27

he got very prolific and but not

1:32:29

making features. So yeah, David Lynch.com became

1:32:31

his new thing and that was the

1:32:34

first website I had come upon where

1:32:36

I actually paid for a subscription for.

1:32:38

Yeah, which was still kind of novel

1:32:40

in the early 2000, because this idea

1:32:43

of paying for online content. So he

1:32:45

started. doing some animated shorts, he did

1:32:47

Dumb Land, which is a very strange

1:32:50

cartoon. You did the rabbits. The rabbits,

1:32:52

which showed up in his next movie.

1:32:54

A lot of these shorts, he kind

1:32:56

of like compiled and put them in

1:32:59

his next film. Yeah, but eventually, and

1:33:01

you'd think after Mohon Drive, he once

1:33:03

again would have been in place to

1:33:06

like write his own ticket. You can

1:33:08

do anything you want again, which is

1:33:10

kind of the service career. Do something

1:33:13

huge. It's unexpectedly successful. It's unexpectedly successful.

1:33:15

back to drawing board. But yeah, he

1:33:17

went, he just did a bunch of

1:33:19

digital stuff just for himself. And then

1:33:22

eventually he made a digital movie just

1:33:24

for himself and he made it piecemeal.

1:33:26

Whenever he came up with an idea

1:33:29

for a scene, he would call Laura

1:33:31

Dern and said, hey, we're doing this.

1:33:33

And she's like, great. Well, she did

1:33:35

my apartment. Yeah. It's also worth noting

1:33:38

at this point that David Lynch started

1:33:40

to sort of connect with a spiritual

1:33:42

side a little bit more. In his

1:33:45

personal life, he started to practice transcendental

1:33:47

meditation. He was very interested in this

1:33:49

sort of platonic idea of this realm

1:33:51

of ideas. There's ideas out there in

1:33:54

the universe, and you just have to

1:33:56

sort of reach your mind out and

1:33:58

grab them. And he felt like a