David
Lynch
Information
from the Internet Movie
Database
Date of Birth (location)
20 January 1946, Missoula, Montana, USA.
Born in precisely the kind of small-town American setting so familiar from his films, David Lynch spent his childhood being shunted from one state to another as his research scientist father kept getting relocated. He attended various art schools, married, and fathered future director Jennifer Chambers Lynch shortly after he turned 21. That experience, plus attending art school in a particularly violent and run-down area of Philadelphia, inspired Eraserhead (1976), a film that he began in the early 1970s (after a couple of shorts) and which he would work on obsessively for five years. The final film was initially judged to be almost unreleasably weird, but thanks to the efforts of distributor Ben Barenholtz, it secured a cult following and enabled Lynch to make his first mainstream film (in an unlikely alliance with Mel Brooks), though Elephant Man, The (1980) was shot through with his unique sensibility. Its enormous critical and commercial success led to Dune (1984), a hugely expensive commercial disaster, but Lynch redeemed himself with Blue Velvet (1986), his most personal and original work since his debut. He subsequently won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival with the dark, violent road movie Wild at Heart (1990), and achieved a huge cult following with his surreal TV series "Twin Peaks" (1990), which he adapted for the big screen, though his comedy series "On the Air" (1992) was less successful. He also draws comic strips and has devised multimedia stage events with regular composer Angelo Badalamenti. He had a much-publicised affair with Isabella Rossellini in the late 1980s. Biography Writer
Michael Brooke - michael@everyman.demon.co.uk Spouse
Peggy Lynch (? - ?) 'Mary Sweeny' (current) Trade mark
Frequently casts: Kyle MacLachlan, Laura Dern, Jack Nance, Everett McGill, Isabella Rossellini. Finds small-town USA fascinating. Has a taste for low/middle frequency noise, dark and rotting environments, distorted characters, a polarized world (angels vs demons, Madonnas vs whores), and debilitating damage to the skull or brain. Use of slow-motion during key scenes of violence. Trivia
David Lynch (I) had eaten lunch at Bob's Big Boy in Los Angeles nearly every day for almost eight years in a row. His son, Austin Jack Lynch, appeared in an episode of "Twin Peaks" as Pierre Tremond, or "The Creamed Corn Kid". His nephew, Jonathan L. Lepell, played Pierre Tremond/Chalfont in the movie "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me". Julee Cruise, who appears in "Twin Peaks", is his musical protegee. Lynch writes the lyrics and occasionaly plays an instrument on her songs. Other works
IMAGES. (1994). New York: Hyperion. 191 pp. ISBN: 0-7868-6060-X He has a weekly cartoon "The Angriest Dog in the World" which is printed in small local papers. In high school, he ran for class treasurer. His slogan was "Save with Dave". He lost. He and his high school sweetheart were voted "cutest couple" and were pictured in his yearbook on a bicycle built for two. Biography (print)
Alexander, Hohn. THE FILMS OF DAVID LYNCH. 1993. London: Charles Letts & Co. 206pp. ISBN 1-85238-360-7 Kaleta, Kenneth. DAVID LYNCH. 1993. New York: MacMillan. 207 pp. ISBN 0-8057-9323-2
"It's better not to know so much about what things mean or how they might be interpreted or you'll be too afraid to let things keep happening. Psychology destroys the mystery, this kind of magic quality. It can be reduced to certain neuroses or certain things, and since it is now named and defined, it's lost its mystery and the potential for a vast, infinite experience."
"I sort of go by a duck when I work on a film because if you study a duck,
you'll see certain things. You'll see a bill, and the bill is a certain
texture and a certain length. Then you'll see a head, and the features on
the head are a certain texture and it's a certain shape and it goes into
the neck. The texture of the bill for instance is very smooth and it has
quite precise detail in it and it reminds you somewhat of the legs. The
legs are a little bit bigger and a little more rubbery but it's enough so
that your eye goes back and forth. Now, the body being so big, it can be
softer and the texture is not so detailed, it's just kind of a cloud. And
the key to the whole duck is the eye and where the eye is placed. And it
has to be placed in the head and it's the most detailed, and it's like a
little jewel. And if it was fixed, sitting on the bill, it would be two
things that were too busy, battling, they would not do so well. And if it
was sitting in the middle of the body, it would get lost. But it's so perfectly
placed to show off a jewel right in the middle of the head like that, next
to this S-curve with the bill sitting out in front, but with enough distance
so that the eye is very very very well secluded and set out. So when you're
working on a film, a lot of times you can get the bill and the legs and
the body and everything, but this eye of the duck is a certain scene, this
jewel, that if it's there, it's absolutely beautiful. It's just fantastic."
"Film exists because we can go and have experiences that would be pretty
dangerous or strange for us in real life. We can go into a room and walk
into a dream. If we didn't want to upset anyone, we would make films about
sewing, but even that could be dangerous. But I think finally, in a film,
it is how the balance is and the feelings are. But I think there has to
be those contrasts and strong things withing a film for the total experience."
"I'm not a real film
buff. Unfortunately, I don't have time. I just don't go. And I become very
nervous when I go to a film because I worry so much about the director and
it is hard for me to digest my popcorn."
"It makes me uncomfortable
to talk about meanings and things. It's better not to know so much about
what things mean. Because the meaning, it's a very personal thing and the
meaning for me is different than the meaning for somebody else."
"To give a sense of place,
to me, is a thrilling thing. And a sense of place is made up of details.
And so the details are incredibly important. If they're wrong, then it throws
you out of the mood. And so the sound and music and color and shape and
texture, if all those things are correct and a woman looks a certain way
with a certain kind of light and says the right word, you're gone, you're
in heaven. But it's all the little details."
"In Hollywood, more often
than not, they're making more kind of traditional films, stories that are
understood by people. And the entire story is understood. And they become
worried if even for one small moment something happens that is not understood
by everyone. But what's so fantastic is to get down into areas where things
are abstract and where things are felt, or understood in an intuitive way
that, you can't, you know, put a microphone to somebody at the theatre and
say 'Did you understand that?' but they come out with a strange, fantastic
feeling and they can carry that, and it opens some little door or something
that's magical and that's the power that film has."
"I think that ideas exist
outside of ourselves. I think somewhere, we're all connected off in some
very abstract land. But somewhere between there and here ideas exist. And
I think the mind isn't conscious enough to go all the way to where we're
connected, but it's conscious of a certain amount of that territory. And
when these ideas fly into the conscious part, then you can capture them.
But if they're outside of the conscious part, you don't even know about
them. So you just hope that you can make the conscious part of your mind
bigger or that these ideas will fly into your airspace, so you can shoot
them down and grab them and take them home. So that's all you try to do.
Sometimes an idea will strike you when you're sitting in a quiet chair.
But sometimes an idea will strike you when you're standing. Sometimes music
will also help you. If I thought I could just sit still in a quiet place
and get ideas, I would do that all the time, but sometimes nothing happens.
There's no rhyme or reason to it. But you've got to write them down right
away. I forget so many things. Then if I forget it and try to remember it,
my whole day is ruined because I can't remember and I feel horrible. And
I imagine that it was one of the all time great ideas. And it probably isn't."
"I've said many, many,
many unkind things about Philadelphia, and I meant every one."
"(his films) mean different
things to different people. Some mean more or less the same things to a
large number of people. It's okay. Just as long as there's not one message,
spoon-fed. That's what films by committee end up being, and it's a real
bummer to me...Life is very, very complicated, and so films should be allowed
to be, too."
"I don't think that people
accept the fact that life doesn't make sense. I think it makes people terribly
uncomfortable. It seems like religion and myth were invented against that,
trying to make sense out of it."
Article
"Diario de Noticias, Programas" (Portugal), 18 April 1997, pg. 17 Agent
Josh Donen,
John Burnham,
Mike Simpson,
William Morris agency
Fire Walk With Me is copyright of Lynch/Frost Productions
and New Line Cinema. The Elephant Man is a copyright Paramount Pictures
and Brooksfilms. Blue Velvet is copyright De Laurentiis Productions and
Time-Warner. Dune is copyright De Laurentiis Productions and Universal
Pictures. Wild At Heart is copyright Propaganda Films and PolyGram Pictures.
Eraserhead is copyright AFI. Lost Highway is copyright Asymmetrical Productions
and CIBY 2000.
These pages contain information copyrighted by other individuals and entities.
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