Lynch Party

I just read Greg Olson's David Lynch: Beautiful Dark.  Olson is the film curator at the Seattle Art Museum and his book, published in 2008, is the most comprehensive look at Lynch's life and work that I'm aware of.  He goes into every feature Lynch made at length, as well as discussing his TV work and numerous side-projects.

Lynch has had quite a life. When you think about it, it's stunning that such an original but not especially commercial filmmaker has made so many major works.  He started as a painter in the 60s, and wanted to see his paintings move, so got into short films.  They got longer and longer and he won a fellowship with the AFI, out of which came his first feature, Eraserhead (1977).  It took years of painstaking work, and could have easily been forgotten, but turned into a major midnight film success.  This got the attention of big names, including Mel Brooks, who got Lynch his job directing Elephant Man (1980), for which he got an Oscar nomination, and showed he could work in the big leagues.

That led to what he'd come to think was his biggest mistake, since he lost artistic control--the megabudget (for the time) Dune (1984).  He quickly rebounded with Blue Velvet (1986)--funded by the same people who paid for Dune--which is on the short list for best films of the 80s.  Then came Wild At Heart (1990), which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes, as well as Twin Peaks, the TV phenomenon.  Lost Highway got a lot of attention in 1997, and then Lynch took a failed TV pilot and turned it into a great film, Mulholland Drive (2001), which won him Best Director at Cannes.

He came out with the bewildering (even for him) Inland Empire, shot on video, in 2006.  He hasn't done a feature since, though he regularly works on art of all sorts--painting, photos, music, shorts, documentaries, etc.

The biggest problem with the book is its repetitiveness. Olson will note of film A it's just like films B, C, and D in a certain aspect, and when he gets to film B, he'll note it's just like films A, C and D, and so on. He also uses certain quotes and concepts over and over, often within the same chapter. And much of his discussion of the films are lengthy recountings of the plots. The book is over 700 pages, but with judicious editing I bet it could be under 500.

Nevertheless, I'd recommend the book.   Lynch is one of my favorite filmmakers, and if you're going to read just one book on him, this is it. Whatever problems it has, Olson overcomes them with his enthusiasm, his personal knowledge of the subject, and, even if it goes on a bit long, his willingness to go deeply into Lynch's whole messy ouevre.