When the film ”Blue Velvet” hit theaters four years ago, it was clear that director David Lynch was a cinematic visionary. The story of a young man in small-town America who discovers forbidden sexual self-knowledge was hailed as a masterpiece and garnered a best director Oscar nomination for Lynch.
Lynch was courted by all the usual Hollywood suspects-he has come close to making more than half a dozen films since ”Blue Velvet” elevated him to the ”A” directors. But, basically, he has spent the last four years struggling to get a film off the ground.
”The major studios don`t want to make movies with me,” he declares.
”They respect me, but they don`t want to take a chance. Hollywood is a fragile place and heads roll easily here.”
While frustrated by three years of misfired deals, Lynch hasn`t let Hollywood`s slowly creaking machinery hamper his creative output. His overstuffed agenda:
– He co-wrote and directed the pilot for ”Twin Peaks,” a nighttime soap opera that will debut next Sunday at 8 p.m. on ABC-Ch. 7 and then move to its regular time slot the following Thursday at 8 p.m.
– Trained as a painter, Lynch is represented in New York by the prestigious Leo Castelli Gallery.
– Lynch produced and wrote lyrics for the Warner Bros. LP ”Floating into the Night,” released last fall, and done in collaboration with singer Julee Cruise and composer Angelo Badalamenti.
– He had the male lead in last year`s film release ”Zelly and Me,” and continues to pursue acting roles.
– A coffee-table book of Lynch`s writings, drawings and photographs will be published by Harper & Row.
– He draws a weekly cartoon strip, ”The Angriest Dog in the World,”
that appears in the free entertainment newspaper the L.A. Reader.
– And, at long last, Lynch has shot his fifth film, ”Wild at Heart,”
scheduled for release this year. Based on a script by Lynch that he adapted from a novel by Barry Gifford, the film stars Laura Dern and Nicholas Cage and will be distributed by Samuel Goldwyn Co.
Lynch`s creative output is impressive, but it`s even more remarkable that he manages to win the devotion of nearly everyone who comes in contact with him.
”David is an unusually balanced individual, very pure, focused and committed,” says actor Kyle MacLachlan, who has starred in three Lynch projects (”Twin Peaks,” ”Dune,” and ”Blue Velvet”). ”He`s very good at taking the dilemmas in his own life and throwing them on the screen, and it`s amazing how emotionally candid he is in his work.”
Candid and unequivocating though he may be in making a film, Lynch is a fascinating bundle of contradictions off the set. Frequently compared to Jimmy Stewart, Lynch does have a wholesome, boyish charm and a Midwestern drawl. But he has eccentricities decidedly at odds with Stewart`s all-American archetype. Lynch has never bothered furnishing his house, for example, because he`s never seen any furniture he likes. ”I like a real spare feel,” he explains. ”The way the Japanese live is thrilling to me.”
He loves to build things-he`s particularly fond of sheds-and speaks of the glories of lumber in rapturous tones. (”This Old House,” a PBS how-to-show on home improvement, is one of the few TV programs that he watches.) A creature of habit who frequents the same four restaurants, where he always orders the same thing, he behaves modestly in all respects other than his work, where he`s an extravagant perfectionist. Though he maintains long and solid friendships with a few people, he rarely socializes.
”I usually do have a pretty good time when I`m working,” says Lynch,
”but sometimes it`s pure terror. There are mornings when I`m going to the set and (I think) How can I face this? It can all go wrong and you can die the death. But, basically, I`m having a great time doing all the stuff I do.”
Born 43 years ago in Missoula, Mont., Lynch describes his parents as
”regular people” and recalls his childhood as a bucolic montage of
”picket fences, dreamy afternoons and camping trips.” He went on to study painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, married and had a daughter, Jennifer, now 20. (He subsequently divorced his first wife and married Mary Fisk, with whom he has a son, now 6. Lynch and Fisk divorced three years ago, and Lynch, who has kept steady company with actress Isabella Rossellini for the past three years, now lives alone in a house in the Hollywood Hills.)
Lynch attended the American Film Institute, where he worked on his debut film, ”Eraserhead.” Described by Lynch as ”a dream of dark and troubling things,” the film`s story of a befuddled young man and his mutant baby articulates deeply rooted fears with such dreadful accuracy that it has been labeled a horror film. Released in 1977, it became a permanent fixture on the revival-theater circuit. ”Eraserhead” caught the eye of comedian/producer Mel Brooks, who hired Lynch to direct ”The Elephant Man,” a critical and commercial success that garnered Lynch an Academy Award nomination in 1980. From there, Lynch signed a multi-picture deal with Italian entrepreneur Dino De Laurentiis, who hired him to direct the film of Frank Herbert`s science-fiction novel ”Dune.”
Budgeted at $40 million and three years in the making, ”Dune” was one of the major commercial flops of 1984.
”I don`t know exactly what happened with `Dune,` ” says Lynch.
”Sometimes I guess you`re supposed to have a bad experience and I really had one-`Dune` was my failure and I blame myself for it.”
Having learned some painful lessons, Lynch returned to the top of his game two years later with ”Blue Velvet,” but his relationship with De Laurentiis` company, DEG, had begun to sour. When DEG went bankrupt in 1988, three of Lynch`s projects ended up in limbo.
Eager to work and tired of waiting for the dust to settle around DEG, Lynch decided to try his hand at television, first with a program called ”The Cowboy and the Frenchman,” which aired last year on French television, and now with ”Twin Peaks.”
Co-written by Lynch and Mark Frost, a writer Lynch has collaborated with on several projects during the past four years, ”Twin Peaks” is a murder-mystery soap opera set in a ”mythical” logging town in the Pacific Northwest. Featuring a large ensemble cast, the two-hour pilot was filmed for $3.8 million.
”The story revolves around what happens when the most popular girl in high school is mysteriously murdered,” Lynch says. ”She`s found floating face down at the Packard Saw Mill. We then get to know the secret lives of all the people in the town as an FBI agent attempts to unravel the crime.”
Lynch directs only the pilot-he`d rather make movies-and subsequent
”Twin Peaks” episodes are directed by others.
Though Lynch is very high on ”Twin Peaks,” he`s not a television fan.
”I didn`t watch much TV as a kid and don`t watch it now. I don`t find anything beautiful or unique to the medium. The only thing you can do on TV that you can`t do in film is make a continuing story-which is so cool!
”On the downside . . . you can`t even think in certain directions. Heavy sex or violence is out-although I think the kind of violence that`s allowed on TV is the very worst kind. There`s no feeling behind it, and that makes it completely diabolical.”
Lynch wrote some of the score for ”Twin Peaks.”
”I`m not a trained musician,” Lynch says. ”But when you get into it, you discover you really do have an understanding of the form and have incredibly strong feelings about how music should be made.”
While Lynch`s music celebrates romantic love, a darker side of his nature dominates his visual art. Built around a murky palette and crudely drawn forms, Lynch`s figurative abstractions are menacing and violent.
”Generally, the art world`s been willing to take my work seriously, but I have encountered some resistance as far as my crossing over into their turf,” says Lynch, who has worked steadily as a painter for the last 20 years. A 1987 gallery show in Los Angeles was well-received, while his opening last year at New York`s trend-setting Leo Castelli Gallery was blasted by The New York Times.
Lynch managed to miss that show, busy behind the cameras for ”Wild at Heart.”
Sex is a favorite topic of exploration in Lynch`s work. In ”Blue Velvet,” for instance, he depicted violent sex with a great deal of empathy-a tack some found offensive. How conscious is he of the underlying messages in his work?
”I get ideas and I want to put them on film because they thrill me,” he says. He is amused that people look for meaning in movies. ”I don`t know why people expect art to make sense when they accept the fact that life doesn`t make sense.”
