Scene by Scene, BBC Two Scotland, late 1999. Presenter, Interviewer & Director: Mark Cousins The American director David Lynch made the cult film of the seventies, Eraserhead; the nightmare of the eighties, Blue Velvet and the surreal TV event of the nineties, Twin Peaks. His idyllic childhood in Eisenhower era America has been the inspiration for most of his films. But his second feature, The Elephant Man, was a rare trip abroad to Victorian London. The film gained eight Oscar nominations including Best Director. It's producer Mel Brooks was one of the first to call Lynch "Jimmy Stewart from Mars," and no phrase has better captured Lynch's other worldly boy-scoutedness. The director's sci-fi picture Dune was an expensive flop. But the film after that, Blue Velvet, gained another Best Director nomination and reviews to die for. Wild At Heart in 1990 won the Palme D'or at Cannes, but for some was a retread of old ground. Brilliant but shallow. Then came Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me, which was booed by some critics, but which now looks like classic Lynch. And the extraordinary Lost Highway, another commercial disappointment, which has the strangest story in modern American cinema.
David Lynch's new film, The Straight Story, about an old man who drives three hundred miles on a lawn mower to meet his brother is, like The Elephant Man, a work of the tenderest humanism. The director's known for monstrous darkness, roars on soundtrack, the evil of BOB in Twin Peaks and Frank in Blue Velvet, but there's always an angelic sweetness to the way he sees things. And, it has to be said, a real eccentricity. The man I'm about to interview has collected moldy sandwiches, likes building mounds of earth on the kitchen table and planned a book about spark plugs. He says that interviews are like facing a firing squad but you don't die. So that's what we're up against. A man dreamt up by The Surrealist Manifesto. His one time girlfriend Isabella Rosellini says that Lynch getting ideas is like fishing; you never know what you'll catch. Here he is, surrounded by sharks, in his most detailed television interview ever.
Mark Cousins and David Lynch now share a couch in the shark viewing area of an Aquarium. There is a film screen to the right of Mr Lynch, which Mark Cousins project film clips on during the course of the interview.
Mark Cousins: David Lynch, you don't like doing interviews, do you? David Lynch: No I don't. (laughs) Mark Cousins: Why are you sitting on this sofa then? David Lynch: To do you a great favor (Both laugh) Mark Cousins: That's very nice of you. But you're prepared to talk about your new film Straight Story? David Lynch: You bet. Mark Cousins: Have you been interviewed a lot about it? David Lynch: I've done a few interviews concerning it, yes. Mark Cousins: Your mother was a linguist, is that right? David Lynch: (Hesitates) She has taught people English Mark Cousins: That's interesting that she's therefore a verbal person, but you are less verbal. David Lynch: Right. You know there's many different languages, and one of them is film. Or painting. And a lot of it is done without words. Mark Cousins: What harm does it do to talk about a film? David Lynch: A film is it's own thing. And in an ideal world I think film should be discovered knowing nothing. And nothing should be added to it or subtracted from it. Mark Cousins: Okay, let's break that rule immediately. I've got here the opening clip from Blue Velvet
Presenter shows a film clip from Blue Velvet. We see a row of flowers in front of a picket fence, bright blue skies & rows of well groomed lawns. A man slowly rides by on a red fire truck and smiles as he waves at the camera.
Mark Cousins: Why is he waving so slowly? Is that shot in slow motion? David Lynch: I believe it is, yes. Not that slow, probably 48 frames or something. Mark Cousins: Why slow things? David Lynch: It's a mood. You slow things down for a feeling, and these things are abstract reasons. Mark Cousins: It's not obviously a comic feeling you're after. It's dreamy or mysterious? David Lynch: It's a dreamy feeling and it could slide either way. The next things that follow say more and more what it is. Mark Cousins: Do you remember this book, 'Good Times on Our Street'?
Presenter holds up the 1950 children's book 'Good Times on Our Street'
David Lynch: (smiles) I sure do. I haven't seen that for about, you know, 100 years. Mark Cousins: Well, you've said several times in interviews that some of the images in this book influenced that film (Blue Velvet). And sure enough, if you open this book....
The presenter opens up the book 'Good Times on Our Street' and we see a children's book illustration of a young boy standing by a picket fence, waving.
Mark Cousins: ... here you are, you've got picket fences. David Lynch: There you go man Mark Cousins: So I guess what that means is these kinds of intense images in your film are things that were perhaps logged in your brain perhaps for a long time. David Lynch: You don't know where things come from. They can come from memories or they can be triggered & just come at you from the ether. And if they are in the memory, if they are stored away, one day for some reason they're released and it seems like a brand new idea. Or an idea comes in from the ether and as it pops it may be colored from something that you know. The picture that forms - sometimes reading a book the pictures that you put together from the past or your imagination kicks in, you can't really tell what forms those pictures - it's the words on the page and probably many internal things.
Presenter shows clip from The Straight Story. We see a bird's eye view of a rich, golden field that the camera glides over.
Mark Cousins: I've got here the opening of your new film Straight Story. It's a similar opening in some ways David Lynch: Uh huh Mark Cousins: And this is based on a true story? David Lynch: Yes it is. Mary Sweeney first read about Alvin Straight in the New York Times. And the trip he took. And she developed a fixation for four years until she got the rights to the story. And then she and her childhood friend John Roach wrote the script and handed it over to me. Mark Cousins: Surely it's constricting to tell the story of a real person? David Lynch: Not really. The word 'based on a true story' gives you more room to move. And when you make a film you're making a different kind of reality anyway.
The presenter continues showing a clip from the beginning of The Straight Story. We see an overhead shot of the main street in the town, and then a bird's eye view of the Straight house that the camera very slowly glides in on.
Mark Cousins: Why, for example, is the camera high here? David Lynch: It feels correct (laughs) Mark Cousins: In what way? David Lynch: Well you want to get the lay of the land, and you're observing, & now you're floating. Mark Cousins: Why float? Why not move faster in? David Lynch: You want to enter-in seeing things and float slowly into the story. Mark Cousins: What sort of community is this? David Lynch: It's a small neighbourhood in the town of Lorens, Iowa. It's a very small town. There's just this one main street and there's several smaller streets off of it, but it's very small. Mark Cousins: Is this the sort of place you feel comfortable in? David Lynch: I prefer a little bigger town. Or no town.
The presenter continues showing us opening scenes from The Straight Story. We're just in the vicinity of the Straight house now when we hear a dull thump on the soundtrack.
Mark Cousins: What was that thump? David Lynch: You have to wait to find it. Mark Cousins: I can say. David Lynch: Ok Mark Cousins: The main character of your film, Alvin Straight, has just collapsed. David Lynch: Yeah. He's slipped and fallen. Mark Cousins: And soon after in this scene there's a phone call that his brother has fallen ill. David Lynch: Yeah
The presenter continues showing clips from early on in The Straight Story. We see images of Alvin Straight shuffling around his home.
Mark Cousins: Is your father like Alvin Straight? David Lynch: There's only one Alvin Straight. But there's similar qualities to him, yeah. Mark Cousins: I read in an interview that you said your father was an innocent in some way. David Lynch: Uh huh Mark Cousins: And it's the thing that makes him similar to Alvin Straight? David Lynch: That's one of the things, yeah Mark Cousins: What else? David Lynch: Well it's a cowboy thing, the old west, and there's an inner strength coupled with an innocence and a tender side. That Alvin has. Alvin is a lot like a cowboy. Mark Cousins: Do you remember the way you portray the birth of the Elephant Man in The Elephant Man? David Lynch: Yeah
The presenter shows us the birth scene of the Elephant Man in The Elephant Man. We see black and white images of smoke and cries filling the screen.
Mark Cousins: How did that seem right to you to portray the bith of someone with a puff of smoke? David Lynch: Well smoke is not a solid thing. But on film it almost appears to be solid. And I think the smoke ties in with organic growth. And the Elephant Man's neurofibromatosis growths always reminded me of Mount St. Helen. A smoke frozen. The flesh became like a smoke, and it erupted from inside the bones and protruded out and became this smoke, frozen.
The presenter now shows us further animated images from The Grandmother.
Mark Cousins: And do you remember the birth in The Grandmother where it's like little white things under the ground, like these little shoots that grew up? And it's a similar things. An abstract way of portraying growth, isn't it? David Lynch: Uh huh.
We continue to see clips from The Grandmother and the birth scene that Mark Cousin refers to as white circles of color spring through tunnels and come to light in the form of fully grown adults.
Mark Cousins: When you were about seventeen, you planned this trip to Europe that I've read about, and you planned to go there for... David Lynch: three years. Mark Cousins: And you stayed... David Lynch: 15 days. Mark Cousins: Now that's a rather eccentric thing to do. Why? David Lynch: It wasn't for me. I was going to go to school in Salzburg, Austria and study with a painter called Kokoshka. And he wasn't there when I arrived and I very quickly realized that Salzburg was too clean Mark Cousins: But you have clean Blue Velvet, it's very clean! David Lynch: (laughs) But I was studying painting and I felt it was too clean to paint so I went searching still in Europe, and each place didn't feel correct. And back I went.
The presenter shows us images of David Lynch's paintings 'Bill was Halfway Between his House and the Sickening Garden of Letters' & 'Four Pennies'. We then slip back into seeing clips from The Straight Story of Alvin Straight riding his lawnmower.
Mark Cousins: Alvin Straight went to Europe. He fought in World War II & was quite a wise man. If he hadn't had that experience, do you think he would have been a wise man also? David Lynch: Sure. Life is made up of many experiences and if you allow them to they'll teach you things. Mark Cousins: But if he hadn't left this town, how would he learn about things like other cultures for example? David Lynch: Well there's unity among people. And there's something about 'It's A Wonderful Life". You know he stayed in town, he wanted to go but he stayed in town.
We now see images from 'It's A Wonderful Life' on screen.
David Lynch: He still had a full life. The human experience is true one place to another place. You don't have to travel to get a lot of experience. There's something about the way the world is, you can almost kind of tap into feelings outside your environment.
The presenter now shows another clip from The Straight Story
Mark Cousins: Here's a scene in The Straight Story where Alvin Straight and his daughter Rose are sitting at night and - it's almost like this thing we're talking about - trying to discern the nature of the universe.
On screen we see Alvin and Rose sitting together. Alvin says "Rosie, I've got to go see Lyle and I've got to make this trip on my own. I know you understand." Rose replies "I guess so." "Look up at the sky, Rosie" Alvin says. "The sky sure is full of stars tonight." As they both gaze upwards, the camera creeps up into the stars.
Mark Cousins: Without giving too much away, there's another part of this film that end up with the camera going into the sky; and The Elephant Man ends up with the camera going into the sky. Why does that feel right to you? Is it just the pleasure of looking into the stars? David Lynch: No, it's the small and the infinite sort of hand in hand. And the stars are there for everybody and they make you dream. And Alvin Straight shared the stars with somebody and it's a beautiful memory for him. Mark Cousins: And it' a time not to talk again David Lynch: Yes
We now see a clip from The Elephant Man where Anthony Hopkins comes across the Elephant Man in an alley. The camera slowly comes in on his face and as it halts, we see a single tear fall from his eye.
David Lynch: I'm going to tell you a story about that. Mark Cousins: What? David Lynch: It was just one of those things after which Freddie starting calling me "Lucky Lynch." Mark Cousins: Freddie Francis? David Lynch: Freddie Francis. Right. The camera was just drifting in very slowly on Tony Hopkins face and exactly as it stops a tear comes out of Tony Hopkins eye. And he told me later he'd been saying The Lord's Prayer during that scene and it moved him and out came the tear. And it took one take and we were done.
The presenter now shows us images of Anthony Hopkins walking the streets in The Elephant Man.
Mark Cousins: Now the street scenes in The Elephant Man were inspired by the fact that at the age of 19 you went and lived in Philadelphia, which is one of the most important influences on your life, and which you described as "an ocean of fear." David Lynch: Well Philadelphia was a city filled with fear, filled with twisted behavior. It's called "The City of Brotherly Love"; the absence of that love was alive and well. There was a sort of sickness in the air; a twisted, infectious sickness and a decaying city. But it was very powerful and a lot of Philadelphia seeped into me and it's a time in life when the window is wide open and things hit you particularly hard. And it was a beautiful experience for me. Mark Cousins: That seems paradoxical; to say that this terrifying place was a beautiful experience. David Lynch: Well it fed many things that came along later.
We see an image of an Eraserhead theatrical poster flash up on screen.
Mark Cousins: There seems to be more fear in your films than in many others in your generation. There's certainly more monsters. David Lynch: Well I think there's a mixture of things always in life and in order to have one you have to have the other. In order to appreciate ups you have to have the downs.
As David Lynch speaks, we are shown an image from early in Fire Walk With Me where Laura enters her bedroom & finds BOB hiding behind her chest of drawers.
David Lynch: And so films are made up of contrasts that are felt more than seen. So there's feelings of things in the air, and sometimes they can take on a persona. Mark Cousins: Is it true that during the making of the Twin Peaks series BOB wasn't in the original idea? David Lynch: Right. I was on set in Laura Palmer's house. We were going to shoot a panning shot in Laura's room to start with. And Frank Silva was a set decorator, and he was in arranging some furniture. And at a certain point he moved a chest of drawers in front of the door and someone said "Don't block yourself in there, Frank." And my mind pictured Frank blocked in the room. And then I rushed into him and said "Frank, are you an actor?" And he said "Why, I happen to be an actor." So I said "You're going to be in this."
We now see some rough cuts of pans of Laura's bedroom as David Lynch goes on to explain what they are
David Lynch: And so we did a couple of pans without Frank and then I had him kneel down behind the bed and freeze. And it panned around and there he was; kind of hard to see right away, but if you held for a while suddenly you sort of see him. And I didn't have a clue what I was going to do with that.
We now see another scene from Twin Peaks with Mrs Palmer in it replayed as David Lynch describes it. We also to the left of Mrs Palmer a mirror and the reflection in it that David Lynch describes.
David Lynch: And then later we were shooting the last set up in the house and it was pretty late at night and it was Mrs Palmer at the end of that day where she lost her daughter, smoking a cigarette, distraught on the couch and playing some scenes in her mind. And she sees something mentally and lurches up and the operator has to crank very fast to catch it. Nailed it. Perfect. She screams at the top of this thing in this big close up. And I said "Beautiful" and I congratulated Grace on her job, & Sean said "No, it's not good, not good, not good." And I said "What's wrong?" and he said "Someone was reflected in the mirror." And I said "Who was reflected in the mirror?" And he said "Frank was." And then I knew I was onto something. Mark Cousins: That was a sign? David Lynch: A very big sign. And it led to many things that those two events kept unraveling. Mark Cousins: That’s a lesson on, a real reason for keeping your mind as open as possible, isn't it? David Lynch: Absolutely. A lot of things that happen are maybe food for thought, but it ends up being useless. But some of those things are such great gifts... you can't imagine.
Mark Cousins: When you turned 40, by this stage you had two children and you'd had two divorces. You made a film, Blue Velvet, and the lead character was very much like you, Jeffrey Beaumont...
We now see an image of Kyle McLachlan and David Lynch on the Blue Velvet set together
David Lynch: Uh huh
Mark Cousins: ....he dressed like you, as you're dressed now with your shirt done up, and apparently he wore the same wristwatch or something like that?
David Lynch: Well I don't like wind on my collarbone and that's how that all started.
Mark Cousins: Oh yeah?
David Lynch: Yeah.
Mark Cousins: And why did you used to wear three ties?
David Lynch: And that's a sign of a person who's very insecure and needs protection. I would have worn several coats if I wasn't so warm where I was, I just felt vulnerable.
Mark Cousins: Could I just point out that ties aren't the best form of protection? (Both laugh)
David Lynch: Well they feel good.
Mark Cousins: And why were you vulnerable?
David Lynch: I was . . . I don't know why I was. I had things that I wanted to do but I didn't like being in the world so much, out in the world, I liked being inside.
Mark Cousins: Is that agoraphobia?
We see an image of David Lynch's painting 'Shadow of a Twisted Hand Across My House'
David Lynch: I have a hair of that.
Mark Cousins: How did that come about?
David Lynch: It comes about, I'm not sure how it comes about, but there's many things to deal with outside the house. Bad things can happen and why bother with that? Why not stay inside and do your work?
Mark Cousins: Yes indeed. And Jeffrey Beaumont, he was quite a naïve man, he hadn't experienced very much. Is it odd that somebody who had by that stage experienced quite a lot in his life, would project so much of himself onto this, almost a teenager? He behaves almost like a teenager.
David Lynch: I don't see him as me, I see him as Jeffrey Beaumont. And there's some similarities, but it's the idea of just a bit of innocence.
Blue Velvet: Jeffrey Beaumont in Dorothy Vallens' apartment.
We see an image of Jeffrey Beaumont peering out through the slats of Dorothy Valens' cupboard
Mark Cousins: I've heard that you, as a young guy, had this fantasy of hiding in a girl's room and watching her.
David Lynch: Yeah. That's a fantasy. That goes together with many other things and a story comes out. And it's the opening of another world for Jeffrey.
We see Jeffrey in Blue Velvet as he is discovered by Dorothy in her apartment
Mark Cousins: Is it true that you used a new type of lens that would show as much of the apartment as possible?
David Lynch: No. (Both laugh)
Mark Cousins: Your cinematographer said you did.
David Lynch: No. There might have been...
Mark Cousins: He must have been telling lies?
David Lynch: There might have been. That didn't even look too wide a lens really.
We see a scene between Frank and Jeffrey in Blue Velvet
Mark Cousins: How at the end of the film is Jeffrey different? He's shot Frank and he'll go back to college?
David Lynch: Well we don't know. That's the thing about the film. It starts and then it ends, and nothing should be added and nothing should be taken away. So it's wrong for me to say, but it's beautiful for, you know . . . anyone has the right to, you know, go where they want to go.
Mark Cousins: Say in private when you're not talking to an interviewer like me or when you're not on TV, do you explain? Do you talk more about your films?
David Lynch: No.
Mark Cousins: To your family here? (Both David Lynch and Mark Cousins look offscreen to David Lynch's family.)
David Lynch: No. They'll back me up.
Mark Cousins: (now speaking offscreen to David Lynch's family) Is that true? Yes. Nods, yes. And do you find it frustrating that he doesn't, or are you happy with that situation? Yeah, as long as he keeps making movies.
We now see Alvin Straight on his lawn mower again in The Straight Story
Mark Cousins: What's the best scene in The Straight Story?
David Lynch: There is no best scene.
Mark Cousins: There must be.
David Lynch: No. It's like music. Every note is important to the whole, every element that you do is important, and so then the thing can hang together. If you take anything out and just look at it without the rest it's not the same. Film is a sequence of events, and the way they're ordered is critical.
Mark Cousins: I understand that point about structure, but there's such a thing as 'a bum note', isn't there? A a scene where . . . surely if we sat and watched the film now you would have times when you think, 'If I had to do that again I would have done it differently'?
David Lynch: No.
Mark Cousins: No?
David Lynch: While you're working you don't leave until it feels correct to you because you're the spectator and the one that's trying to stay true to the story. So if it feels correct, then you move on.
Mark Cousins: Okay well I'll say what I think is the best scene. It's near the end of the film. Alvin goes to a bar and he has a beer for the first time and he's very, very near his brother's house. He's gone on a long journey and it was something to do with the pace of that scene.
We see the scene near the end of The Straight Story that begins with Alvin Straight entering a bar and telling the bartender "I haven't had a drink in a long time..."
David Lynch: Well that scene seems a little irrelevant and yet I don't know why, but always I felt that scene was critical. It has its own pace and it has a lot to do with the idea of drinking and why we drink; and it has to do with being near an end and wanting to prolong something.
David Lynch: (commenting as the scene plays on screen) This guy is great. This bartender.
Mark Cousins: Why is he great?
David Lynch: Just his face and the way he moves.
Mark Cousins: It's real calm. It's like Zen or something this scene, isn't it?
David Lynch: Yeah. A Zen bartender. (Both laugh)
Mark Cousins: It's from here that this scene becomes extraordinary, I think.
Just after Lyle asks to be pointed towards Lyle's place, we see the bartender cleans the bar and moves with the great sense of slowness and calm to which Mark Cousins refers
David Lynch: That is nice.
Mark Cousins: I don't know if you know the films of Ozu, the Japanese . . .
David Lynch: No I don't.
Mark Cousins: . . . but this is the Ozu scene in this film, I can assure you.
In some interviews I've read you've used this phrase, 'the eye of the duck scene'. What does that mean?
David Lynch: Well, you know nature can teach us a lot of things, and there's something about . . . in painting, you're working within a certain shape canvas and there's many things that you, you know, one does intuitively to move the eye; there's repetition of shape, repetition of color. But when you look at a duck you see your eye is moving in a certain way. You see textures and colors and shapes and you start wondering about a duck. What it can teach us about any kind of abstract, you know, painting or proportions, or even sequences, scenes, and it always is interesting that the eye is in the perfect place. If you move it to the body it would get lost. If you move it to the leg or the beak, it's two kind of fast areas competing, even though the eye is the fastest, it's the little jewel.
Mark Cousins: Fast meaning what?
David Lynch: Well there's slow and fast. An empty room is a certain speed and a person standing there is another speed and that proportion is, you know, you know, it can be beautiful if the room is a 2 and the person is a 7. Fire and electricity can go up to a 9 for instance, or a really intricately designed, decorated room is pretty disturbing sometimes. It's too fast. But then if you put something slow in it it would work beautifully. A busy room and a person, they fight each other . . .
Mark Cousins: Is this to do with how fast our eye moves to scan it, to see what's happening?
David Lynch: It's a relationship thing I think. Fast and slow areas.
Mark Cousins: OK. What's the eye of the duck scene in The Straight Story?
David Lynch: I haven't thought about it. I have to think about it. I can't just jump in and think, but I believe every film has the eye of the duck scene, but it can fool you, you know, which one it is, it could be the scene we were talking about. I don't know.
Mark Cousins: What's the eye of the duck scene in Blue Velvet?
David Lynch: I used to know.
Mark Cousins: Is it the 'In Dreams' song?
David Lynch: It's the eye of the duck scene, that's the eye of the duck, yes. Yes.
We see the In Dreams scene from Blue Velvet
Mark Cousins: And what's the eye of the duck scene in Elephant Man?
David Lynch: I used to know (laughs)
Mark Cousins: Is it the scene when he goes to the theater near the end?
David Lynch: No, I think strangely the eye of the duck scene is the ending.
Mark Cousins: OKay. Today lots and lots of film makers are using computer generated imagery and everything that you haven't used that so much. There's still a magic lantern quality about your films. Even in Lost Highway in that transformation from one guy to the other guy, you didn't use a computer to do that. It was all in-camera stuff and it reminds you of the sort of things Jean Cocteau was doing, you know the reverse motion and all that kind of thing. Why does that appeal to you?
David Lynch: It's organic and I'm not against computer, you know, the computer or digital and I love manipulating images. But film still has the beautiful organic quality. And a lot of times with light and the emulsion and the way it's developed and some happy accidents, you get something that's thrilling to the soul. I think right now digital’s, you know, coming up every year but it hasn't matched, you know, the beauty of film.
We see the scene from Twin Peaks when Agent Cooper enters the lodge through a circle of sycamore trees
Mark Cousins: Even when you're making a much more complex story, for example in the end of Fire Walk With Me after Laura is killed and we go into the Red Room, there's a lot of kind of complicated things going on and still you're using very simple techniques like the Surrealists would use, the reverse.
David Lynch: It's the same thing. Plus there might have been some way to, you know, work by pouring over to digital and then coming back to film but it would have been way too expensive for us.
We see the scene from Fire Walk With Me where Philip Gerard/Mike and The Little Man From Another Place are in the lodge with BOB and ask him in unison for all their garmonbozia
Mark Cousins: Except for the screen, ratio that kind of film making could have been done in the 1920s.
David Lynch: (smiles and agrees)
Mark Cousins: And why do you smile when I say that?
We see a clip from Jean Cocteau's 1931 film 'La Sang d'un Poete'
David Lynch: Because it's so beautiful to discover ways of doing things. It's a beautiful medium bcause it allows so many things to happen.
We see Laura Palmer's first scene in Fire Walk With Me where she walks down her street before school
Mark Cousins: I remember when I first saw Fire Walk With Me at the Cannes Film Festival there were loud boos. How does the apparent failure of a film like this affect you?
David Lynch: Dune was a failure to me because I didn't feel I did, you know, the Dune I should have done, and this was not a failure to me because I felt it was a film, you know, that I did the way I should have done it.
As David Lynch speaks we see images from Dune
David Lynch: So we learn that we can't control anything that happens after a film is finished and sometimes things go well in the world and sometimes they don't; but if you believe in the film and you've done your best they can't take that away from you. There's the thing, there's the doughnut and there's the hole, and we should keep our eye on the doughnut and not on the hole. Everything that happens after a film is finished is maybe interesting and it can be, you know, very hurtful or exhilarating in certain ways but it has not much to do with the work. I would like to go back to work as quickly as I can, or do, you know, painting or work on music and be separate from those things which, you know, I can't control.
Mark Cousins: What about criticism about some of the themes of your films? Like I read a piece recently that Angela Carter wrote about the way you portray women in your films. She said, you know, that your films have got a sort of misogynistic view of women, that the characters are not understood, they have no inner life. How do you react to that? Does that just bounce off you also?
We see images from Blue Velvet of Frank acting towards Dorothy in an abusive away
David Lynch: Well the problem is that somebody sees a woman in a film and then mistakenly assumes that that's the way the person sees all women. In actuality, it's just that particular woman within this particular story. It means nothing more than that, although it could have repercussions. A small story can open up a bigger feeling, but it doesn't mean Alvin Straight represents all 73 year-olds any more than Dorothy Vallens represents all women, or whatever she was talking about.
We see the scene from Fire Walk With Me where Donna and Laura muse over the state of the universe and the speed of objects in space on Donna's couch. When Laura's asked whether she thinks objects in space slow down or just continue gaining speed, she says they move "Faster and faster. For a long time you wouldn't feel anything, and then you'd burst into fire. Forever. And the angels wouldn't help you, because they've all gone away."
Mark Cousins: She's very anguished there cause she's saying that the angels have all gone away, and yet at the end of this film the angel comes. So is she wrong?
David Lynch: No. Things can go away and they can come back again too (laughs)
Mark Cousins: And there are angels in lots of your films.
David Lynch: There are? I don't remember them all.
Mark Cousins: Well, in The Elephant Man, in several others -, there are angels. You don't literally believe in angels?
David Lynch: Oh yeah.
Mark Cousins: No you don't. Do you?
David Lynch: Yeah (both smile)
Mark Cousins: Is that because you were, um, taught to believe in angels as a kid?
David Lynch: Have I seen them? No.
Mark Cousins: You don't literally mean top of the Christmas tree type thing? I really don't believe you do (both laugh)
David Lynch: There are many things I think that are out there that we don't know about but sometimes, you know, you get certain feelings.
Mark Cousins: Do you feel much in common with other American film makers roughly your same age, or anything like that?
David Lynch: No.
We see various images of David Lynch taken on set during his film career
Mark Cousins: Do you feel part of a generation of painters or artists who came from an art school background like you?
David Lynch: No. I feel strangely, and I think possibly other directors feel somewhat alone. And you make friends but so much of the thing is internal.
Mark Cousins: When you look at a lot of American actors and directors today they're quite involved with politics, and in the past, famous Hollywood supported JFK and things like that. Do you feel . . you're smiling at that. Why are you smiling at that?
David Lynch: Well I'm not a political person.
Mark Cousins: Oh yeah.
David Lynch: No.
Mark Cousins: So when you look at the way that Hollywood, and of course it's not all sorts of politics. It's mostly the Democrat side, not always, when you look at those relationships are you cynical about that or are you just . . .
David Lynch: No, no, no, I'm not cynical at all. I'm just saying that I don't understand politics, I don't understand the concept of two sides and I think that probably there's good on both sides, bad on both sides, and there's a middle ground, but it never seems to come to the middle ground and it's very frustrating watching it and seemingly we're not moving forward. Some change, simple, simple really, relatively speaking, and we're going forwards somewhere, you know? It could be a beautiful place. There's many little obstacles and there's many. many people that are just opposed and we're not going forward.
Mark Cousins: When you were talking before there about Straight Story and about the possibility of understanding the whole world from your own small place, it was almost the sort of thing that Ronald Reagan would say. Is that true do you think?
David Lynch: I have no idea what Ronald Reagan would say.
Mark Cousins: Wel, I know you had dinner at Reagan's White House, but what I had in mind was that provincial idea, where you root your whole view of life just in the small everyday understanding you have of the earth.
David Lynch: I think that there's a time to go out and gather things together and they say when you're little the window is open and then the window closes, not all the way, but closes for safety reasons so stuff stops coming in and you can work with, the things that are there and new things can pop in and join with them but now it's a time to start, you know, doing some things with those things you've gathered.
Mark Cousins: You're, I think, around 53 now. What age do you feel?
David Lynch: Inside we're ageless, and when we talk to ourselves it's the same person we were talking to, the same age, when we were little. It's the body that is changing around that ageless centre.
Mark Cousins: See, surely that's not true. I used to be scared of things as a kid and I'm not scared of them now.
David Lynch: That's not the self that you're talking to, that's the amount of information you have, and information and experience, knowledge and experience is part of the . . . is the process. So the more knowledge you have coupled with experience, you know, the more you go, but the self you talk to, I was talking about, that's the one that's sort of ageless. Doesn't mean ignorant, it just means it just doesn't have an age.
Mark Cousins: OKay; the ending of the Elephant Man: he decides to sleep like a normal person, and in doing so he kills himself and then your camera goes up into the stars again as we have seen it doing here in The Straight Story. Now, what is that saying? Does that mean that even 'though someone dies, that something remains afterwards?
David Lynch: Yes.
Mark Cousins: What remains?
David Lynch: Well, they say many things remain. It's just the body that's dropped.
We see the last scene from The Elephant Man
David Lynch: (nods) A good place to end.
Mark Cousins: I think so. A critic once said of your work, "David Lynch is very interested in getting inside our heads, but he has nothing to do once he gets in there." Do you understand that?
David Lynch: Um, not one bit. (laughs)
Mark Cousins: It's been a pleasure talking to you.
David Lynch: Good to talk to you.
Mark Cousins: Thank you very much.
The program credits roll and we see various images on screen from David Lynch's film career. As the credits run, Mark Cousins and David Lynch continue talking until their end.
Mark Cousins: Great everybody.
David Lynch: What critic said that?
Mark Cousins: I think it might have been Serge Donni. Do you know that guy?
David Lynch: No.
Mark Cousins: I think he meant that your films make people dream, but there's no surface message there.
David Lynch: Oh, that's okay then.
Mark Cousins: Yeah.
David Lynch starts rifling through the children's book 'Good Times On Our Street'
David Lynch:
I want to see this book... This book even smells . . . yeah . . .
it's a beautiful smell.
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