“The Straight Story” (1999)
Famous for being the only Lynch film distributed by Walt Disney with a G-rating, and not written or co-written by him, the pilgrim story of Alvin Straight (soulfully portrayed by Richard Farnsworth) and his journey from Laurens, Iowa to Mount Zion, Wisconsin on a 1966 John Deere lawnmower is propelled by a deep-seeded emotional core. Anchored by the central, Oscar-nominated, performance from Farnsworth (who was suffering from a painful cancer during the shoot), the immersive nature of “The Straight Story” is felt in the way it’s gradually peeled back, revealing, in small doses, the traces of a man strung together by a lifetime’s worth of pain, regret, and bottomless guilt. Alvin’s disabled daughter Rose (Sissy Spacek) sees him off after he finds out his estranged brother Lyle (Harry Dean Stanton) had a stroke, and throughout the 240-mile journey the people he meets — a young teenager running away from home, a frazzled woman sick of hitting deer on the road, a fellow WWII vet, etc. — are like fragments that reflect a piece of the person he used to be. There’s a distinct sense of an order at work in his encounters, and on more than one occasion (when he loses control of his mower, for example, and the fear on his face is juxtaposed with a burning building), the unmistakable sense of ingrained symbolism is overwhelming. Edited with dream-like fades by Lynch’s then-girlfriend and collaborator Mary Sweeney (who co-wrote the script with John Roach), under the sun-licked fields of Middle America shot by Freddie Francis, everything about “The Straight Story” feels meticulously straightforward — right down to the shoot, which happened on location and in chronological order prompting Lynch to call it his “most experimental film” at the time. But, there’s a tremendous, ambiguous, power at work underneath its plain, peaceful, and poignant surface, making it straightforward in a deliciously Lynchian kind of way.
“Mulholland Drive” (2001)
Wake up and smell David Lynch’s signature coffee blend because we’ve arrived at “Mulholland Drive,” a picture submerged in some hidden crevasse of Hollywood’s seedy underbelly, highlighting the man’s greatest strengths as director, writer, and abstract dreamer. “I just came from Deep River, Ontario, and now I’m in this… dream place!” exclaims ingenue Betty (Naomi Watts‘ virtuoso breakthrough role), and the deeper the film burrows into its central mystery, the more hypnotized the viewer becomes, our gaze succumbing to what quickly turns into the quintessential Lynchian reverie. Narrative threads converge around aspiring star Betty and an amnesic brunette (Laura Harring, enchanting) who is a person of great interest for many shady characters, while director Adam (Justin Theroux) is forced for reasons altogether ambiguous and strange to cast a very specific girl as the lead for his next film. “This is the girl” is an oft-repeated line, and when it comes Lynch’s regular collaborators Angelo Badalamenti (making an unforgettable cameo as a disturbingly awkward casting agent), Mary Sweeney, and Jack Fisk, this is the film. This is the film where composition, editing, and production design converge like a symphony from an artistic subconscious, to reveal David Lynch as one of the greatest masters of illusion, a grand ventriloquist of the senses, and a supreme maestro of disturbing, deep emotion. “No hay banda,” right? Whether it’s through blue keys, frightening figures behind Winky’s restaurants, albino cowboys, little black books, or Lynch’s favorite little person (Michael J. Anderson), “Mulholland Drive” is a dream place where all sense of self dissipates in an atmosphere sprinkled by the soul-corrupting dark glitter of Tinseltown. One pines for what could’ve been with “Mulholland Drive” the TV show, as it was original conceived, but we should all do the jitterbug for having the finished film as it is, a beautiful neo-noir mystery wrapped in psychosexual garments of horror and romance.
“Inland Empire” (2006)
No one thought Lynch could go deeper into the ether of his own unhinged consciousness after “Mulholland Drive.” That film had eschewed formal narrative entirely in favor of something that felt like a living, malleable nightmare. How much further down the rabbit hole could he possibly go? Turns out he hadn’t even scratched the surface yet. Instead of a return to semi-recognizable movie narratives spiked with his own bizarre fetishes and motifs, “Inland Empire” is the director’s boldest, most provocative and puzzling film to date. Opening with a series of dreamy non-sequiturs – a snippet from “Axxon N”, a family of rabbits enacting sitcom scenarios – “Inland Empire” becomes the story of Nikki, (Laura Dern) an actress starring in a movie called “On High in Blue Tomorrows” who practically loses herself in her character, all while slowly, awfully, inextricably losing her grip on her sanity. If that sounds like a bare-bones description, there really isn’t any way to sensibly describe it through text – it plays like music, not linear but atmospheric and dense. As Nikki, Dern proves again that she’s the perfect muse for this director, while Jeremy Irons gives a bracing turn as Nikki’s meretricious director and Justin Theroux certainly makes an impression as her co-star. No one gives an “actor-y” performance per se: they are all dabs of paint on the filmmaker’s canvas, working in service of his vision. In fact, “Inland Empire” might be evidence enough of why Lynch hasn’t directed a theatrically released feature in almost ten years: if all his potential pitches were as unapologetically weird as this one, who exactly would fund another risky roll of the dice on his ever-more-arcane vision? But even though lacking in coherence, “Inland Empire” is filled with dreamlike passages that burn their way into your mind and your dreams: it is a true, uncompromising Los Angeles nightmare, and a terrifying glimpse of what can happen when the everyday mind loses its grip on the subconscious one.
That’s it as far as features go for Lynch, but if you’ve already worked your way through his back catalog a couple of times, there’s more out there. Many of Lynch’s short films, which he’s made fairly prolifically, are available on DVD and Blu-Ray, either paired with a feature (“Eraserhead” and “Lost Highway” Blu-ray sets are well-stocked), or in a collection like “The Short Films Of David Lynch,” “The Lime Green Set” or “Dynamic 1.” Some are online too, like “Idem Paris,” his love-letter to a Paris printshop. .
Beyond that, there’s his TV work. With Mark Frost, he created a short-lived documentary show called “American Chronicles,” fronted by Richard Dreyfuss and airing for a few months on Fox in late 1990, just a few months after “Twin Peaks” had started. Lynch directed six episodes of the latter, cult show, and one episodes of “On The Air,” a 1992 sitcom he created with Frost about the crew of a 1950s TV station, that was cancelled after just three outings. There was also “Hotel Room,” a 1993 three-episode anthology series for HBO that he created and produced with “Wild At Heart” author Barry Gifford. He directed two of the episodes — “Tricks,” starring Harry Dean Stanton, and “Blackout” with Crispin Glover and Alicia Witt. He was also, oddly, a regular voice actor on Seth MacFarlane’s “The Cleveland Show,” and appeared in a memorable three-episode run of “Louie” too.
There were also a few music videos including ones for Sparks, Moby, Interpol and Nine Inch Nails, and a Playstation 2 commercial. And, of course, his painting (he’s had retrospectives in Paris and Pennsylvania), photography, recent music career, with two studio albums, design work, and recently-announced memoir. Even if he hasn’t made a movie in nearly a decade, Lynch has been a busy man…
– Jessica Kiang, Nicholas Laskin, Oliver Lyttelton, Nikola Grozdanovic
