David Lynch had a mind both beautiful and crazy
Remembering a director who turned nightmares into art.
Laura Elena Harring makes fun of lipstick on cheek of director David Lynch during photo call for their movie "Mulholland Drive" at Cannes. (Reuters)
RIP 𝗗𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗱 𝗟𝘆𝗻𝗰𝗵, 78, a director for whom the term “visionary” barely cracked the surface of his fertile mind. He made nightmares manifest and artful, on screens big (“Eraserhead,” “Blue Velvet,” “Mulholland Drive”) and small (“Twin Peaks”). I spoke to him several times over the years. Here’s one of my favourite encounters, from the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, following the premiere of “Mulholland Drive,” for which he won the fest’s Best Director prize.
Peter Howell
Movie Critic
CANNES, France — Laughter In The Morning, Tears In The Afternoon.
It could be the title of a movie at the Cannes Film Festival, or a description of an average day here of being slammed into a wall by anxious Euro scribes stampeding into the latest Godard or Coen Bros. movie.
But it's none of the above. This poetic thought yesterday came courtesy of U.S. auteur David Lynch, a man who looks like a barber's nightmare and who talks like the head munchkin in “The Wizard Of Oz.” He was explaining the thought processes behind the creation of “Mulholland Drive,” his head-spinning new film that's screening in the Palme d'Or competition.
"The ideas come with many threads," Lynch said at a press conference, where he was flanked by the little-known stars of his movie. "So, just like in life, sometimes there's laughter in the morning and some crying in the afternoon. You don't know what's going to happen, and it's beautiful to move through different moods and different feelings, based on the ideas that come along. And the ideas string themselves into a whole."
“Mulholland Drive” could be described as “Twin Peaks Goes To Hollywood,” if you recall Lynch's groundbreaking 1989-91 TV series about dancing dwarves, polythene-wrapped prom queens and damn fine cups of joe. Lynch still hasn't figured out how to rescue Special Agent Cooper from behind the red curtain, where Cooper was banished upon the untimely end of “Twin Peaks,” so he's instead created an all-new cast of freaks to carry his obsessions into the dark hills and valleys of Los Angeles.
The real Mulholland Drive is a twisting road, just like this movie, and Lynch said he got the idea to use the name after seeing the street sign suddenly appear through his car headlights one dark and stormy night. The movie begins with a car crash on the very same road, which leads to a shadowy woman named Rita (Laura Elena Harring) suddenly stumbling into the life of a blonde Canadian innocent named Betty (Naomi Watts), who hails from a town called Deep River, Ont. Along the way, they encounter cowboys, gunmen, magicians and a painted chanteuse who sings Roy Orbison's lament "Crying" in Spanish.
It sounds more mysterious than it is, even with that Canadian reference in there, because “Mulholland Drive” the hot movie is actually “Mulholland Drive” the failed TV series. The film is a re-edited version of the pilot that executives at ABC rejected in the spring of 1999, on the grounds that it was too weird, even by Lynch's standards.
Go figure. But calling something too strange and difficult for America is to practically write your own ticket to Cannes, where Lynch, who won the Palme d'Or in 1990 for “Wild At Heart,” is competing for his second film in succession. His considerably more mainstream “The Straight Story” brought him here in 1999.
There was the hint of a smile on Lynch's permanently frozen countenance as he talked about how he doesn't let little things like scorn and abuse from TV suits stop him from pursuing his muse. He admitted, though, that the hostile and defensive director played by Justin Theroux in the film does represent some of his feelings toward those who would meddle in his work.
"I always worry about someone forcing me to do something because we identify so much with our work. Something that goes against what we believe is a horror, so being somewhat paranoiac, I worry about these things. I think it's natural and it does sometimes happen. If you don't have final cut, you can lose your way very quickly and die the death."
More than a few critics here, and I count myself among them, are happy to see Lynch letting his mind run free again, after taking that sharp turn toward mainstream respectability with “The Straight Story.”
Lynch employed an array of metaphors — everything from balls of string to swimming fish — to describe how his ideas are found and shaped.
"The mind is a beautiful place and how big is the mind, we don't know. But ideas sometimes come into the mind, and this makes me crazy," he enthused.
"I don't know where they come from, I don't know where they are. I've recently been talking about ideas as fish. And they are swimming and once in a while we catch one, and they pop into the conscious mind and explain everything to us. It's a magical thing and we'd be nowhere without these beautiful ideas."
Some of those ideas include fairly steamy scenes. “Mulholland Drive” has a bare-breasted love scene involving Rita and Betty. The actresses both say they were fine with it ("There was a lot of respect on the set, it was lovely," Harring said) but it could spell trouble for the film once North America's breast-fearing censors get a look.
Lynch said he's not worried about the censors; he's already been assured that “Mulholland Drive” will receive an "R" rating in the U.S., which likely means an AA (Adult Accompaniment) tag in Ontario. What's more, he's prepared to defend the film. He may look like a former boy scout from Montana (and he is, in fact) but deep down he's a cultural anarchist and censorship foe.
"I think everything should be allowed to be shown. That's what the ratings systems are for. Films need to show all aspects of life." This includes the movies of Steven Spielberg, whom another auteur, French legend Jean-Luc Godard, was slagging in the very same room the previous day. If Spielberg wants to give the world “Jurassic Park,” that's okay with Dave.
"I think there's room in the world for all kinds of cinema and they should all be seen on the big screen."
Whether or not the films make any sense — and “Mulholland Drive” is a reality-bending case in point — is a whole other consideration. But Lynch is happy just to launch everybody on the trip.
"I'm hoping people enjoy the ride on ‘Mulholland Drive.’”
(Originally published in the Toronto Star.)
