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A Dark World guide to the david lynch film festival
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2017 Spring
between twoworl d s.co m
Š2017 by Between Two Worlds Film Festival Designed by Jing (Elise) Fang elisefang415@ gmail.com
A celebration of the films of David Lynch. There are five films featured in this festival—Mulholland Dr, Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, Lost Highway, Inland Empire. The characters in these films can’t deal with their failures or fears in real life, thus they try to escape from reality. The further they escape, the darker the world they find. Eventually, some of the unfulfilled characters have to face reality and some of them choose self-destruction.
CONTENTS
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THE DIRECTOR
THE FILMS
biography
mulholland drive
filmography
blue velvet
interview
wild at heart
awards
lost highway inland empire
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THE FESTIVAL
REFERENCES
about the festival
references
schedule venue david lynch: the art life attractions
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01. THE DIRECTOR biography filmography awards interview
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BIOGRAPHY
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“ All the movies are about strange worlds that you can’t go into unless you build them and film them. That’s what’s so important about film to me. I just like going into strange worlds.” — David Lynch, Film Director
If cinema is a drug, then in the special section of its pharmacological spectrum reserved for the hallucinogens, sit the movies of David Lynch. Born on January 20, 1946 in Missoula, Montana, USA. From the beginning of his career, David Lynch quickly established himself as the Renaissance man of modern American film-making, an acclaimed and widely recognized writer-director as well as television producer, photographer, cartoonist, composer, and graphic artist. Known for his surrealist films, he has developed his own unique cinematic style which characterized by its dream imagery and meticulous sound design, the phrase “Lynchian” was coined simply to describe it. More than any other art house filmmaker of his era, he enjoyed considerable mass acceptance and helped to redefine commercial tastes. Walking the tightrope between the mainstream and the avant-garde with remarkable balance and skill, Lynch brought to the screen a singularly dark and disturbing view of reality, a nightmare world punctuated by defining moments of extreme violence, bizarre comedy, and strange beauty. Lynch’s artworks include short and feature-length films, music videos, documentaries and television episodes; while his involvement in these ranges from direction, production, screenwriting, acting and sound design.
born january 20, 1946 missoula, montana, u.s. residence los angeles, california, u.s. occupation director screen-writer composer producer painter musician photographer
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FILMOGRAPHY
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FEATURES
SHORT FILMS
1977
Eraserhhead
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Six Men Getting Sick
1980
The Elephant Man
1967
Absurd Encounter with Fear
1984
Dune
1967
Fictitious Anakin Commercial
1986
Blue Velvet
1968
The Alphabet
1990
Wild at Heart
1970
The Grandmother
1992
Twin Peaks
1974
The Amputee
1997
Lost Highway
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The Cowboy and the Frenchman
1999
The Straight Story
1990
Industrial Symphony No. 1
2001
Mulholland Drive
1995
Premonition Following An Evil Deed
2006
Inland Empire
2002
Rabbits (4 films)
2007
Ballerina
2010
Lady Blue Shanghai
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Idem Paris
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AWARDS
Academy Awards, USA 2002
Nominated Oscar / Best Director / Mulholland Dr. (2001)
1987
Nominated Oscar / Best Director / Blue Velvet (1986)
1981
Nominated Oscar / Best Writing, Screenplay / The Elephant Man (1980) Shared with Christopher De Vore Eric Bergren
Golden Globes, USA 2002
Nominated / Best Director / Mulholland Dr. (2001) Nominated / Best Screenplay / Mulholland Dr. (2001)
1987
Nominated / Best Screenplay / Blue Velvet (1986)
1981
Nominated / Best Director / The Elephant Man (1980) Primetime Emmy Awards
1990
Nominated / Outstanding Main Title Theme Music / Twin Peaks (1990) Shared with Angelo Badalamenti (composer)
Nominated / Outstanding Music and Lyrics / Twin Peaks (1990) Shared with Angelo Badalamenti (composer)
Nominated / Outstanding Directing in a Drama Series / Twin Peaks (1990) Nominated / Outstanding Drama Series / Twin Peaks (1990) Shared with Mark Frost (executive producer), Gregg Fienberg (producer), David J. Latt (producer)
Nominated / Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series / Twin Peaks (1990) Shared with Mark Frost (writer)
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BAFTA Awards 1981
Nominated / Best Direction / The Elephant Man (1980) Nominated / Best Screenplay / Blue Velvet (1986) Shared with Christopher De Vore Eric Bergren
Academy Of Science Fiction & Horror Films, USA 2002
Nominated Saturn Award / Best Director / Mulholland Dr. (2001)
1993
Won Life Career Award Nominated Saturn Award / Best Writing / Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992) Shared with Robert Engels AFI Awards, USA
2002
Nominated / Director of the Year / Mulholland Dr. (2001) American Film Institute, USA
1991
Won Franklin J. Schaffner Award Avoriaz Fantastic Film Festival
1987
Won Grand Prize / Blue Velvet (1986)
1981
Won Grand Prize / The Elephant Man (1980)
1978
Won Antennae II Award / Eraserhead (1977)
48 wins 59 nominations
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Awards Circuit Community Awards 2001
Nominated / Best Director / Mulholland Dr. (2001) Nominated / Best Original Screenplay / Mulholland Dr. (2001) Bodil Awards
2003
Won / Best American Film / Mulholland Dr. (2001)
2000
Won /Best American Film / The Straight Story (1999) Boston Society Of Film Critics Awards
2001
Won / Best Director / Mulholland Dr. (2001)
1987
Won / Best Director / Blue Velvet (1986) Tied with Oliver Stone for Platoon (1986)
Cableace Awards 1994
Nominated / Directing a Dramatic Series / Hotel Room (1993) For episode “Blackout�
Camerimage 2012
Won / Lifetime Achievement Award for Directing
2003
Won / Order-For the Contribution to Polish Culture
2000
Won Special Award / Film Direction with a Special Visual Sensitivity Won Special Award / Best Duo: Director - Cinematographer Shared with Frederick Elmes
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“ The meaning, it’s a very personal thing, and the meaning for me is different than the meaning for somebody else.” — David Lynch, Film Director
Cannes Film Festival 2001
Won / Best Director / Mulholland Dr. (2001) Nominated / Palme d’Or / Mulholland Dr. (2001)
1999
Nominated / Palme d’Or / The Straight Story (1999)
1992
Nominated / Palme d’Or / Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992)
1990
Won / Palme d’Or / Wild at Heart (1990) Chicago Film Critics Association Awards
2002
Won / Best Director / Mulholland Dr. (2001) Nominated / Best Original Score / Mulholland Dr. (2001) Shared with Angelo Badalamenti
2000
Nominated / Best Director / The Straight Story (1999) Chlotrudis Awards
2007
Nominated / Best Director / Inland Empire (2006)
2002
Won / Best Director / Mulholland Dr. (2001) Won / Best Original Score / Mulholland Dr. (2001) Critics Choice Television Awards
2013
Nominated / Best Guest Performer in a Comedy Series Louie (2010)
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CĂŠsar Awards, France 2002
Won / Best Foreign Film / Mulholland Dr. (2001)
1982
Won / Best Foreign Film / The Elephant Man (1980) Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Awards
2002
Nominated / Best Director / Mulholland Dr. (2001) Directors Guild Of America, USA
1981
Nominated / Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures / The Elephant Man (1980) Edgar Allan Poe Awards
2002
Nominated / Best Motion Picture / Mulholland Dr. (2001) European Film Awards
1999
Won / Screen International Award / The Straight Story (1999) Fangoria Chainsaw Awards
2013
Won / Fangoria Horror Hall of Fame Fantasporto
1991
Nominated / Best Film / Wild at Heart (1990)
1982
Nominated / Best Film / Eraserhead (1977)
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Film Independent Spirit Awards 2007
Won / Special Distinction Award Shared with: Laura Dern. For their collaborative work.
2000
Nominated / Best Director / The Straight Story (1999)
1987
Nominated / Best Director / Blue Velvet (1986) Nominated / Best Screenplay / Blue Velvet (1986) Fotogramas De Plata
2001
Won / Best Foreign Film / The Straight Story (1999)
1987
Won / Best Foreign Film / Blue Velvet (1986) French Syndicate Of Cinema Critics
1982
Won / Best Foreign Film / The Elephant Man (1980) Gold Derby Awards
2013
Nominated / Comedy Guest Actor Louie (2010)
2011
Nominated / Life Achievement (Other)
2010
Nominated / Director of the Decade / Mulholland Dr. (2001) Nominated / Original Screenplay / Mulholland Dr. (2001) Hugo Awards
1985
Nominated / Best Dramatic Presentation / Dune (1984) Shared with Frank Herbert (based on the novel by)
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Indiewire Critics’ Poll 2006
2nd Place / Best Director / Inland Empire (2006) Italian National Syndicate Of Film Journalists
2002
Nominated / Best Foreign Director / Mulholland Dr. (2001)
1991
Nominated / Best Foreign Director / Wild at Heart (1990) Las Vegas Film Critics Society Awards
2000
Nominated / Best Director / The Straight Story (1999) Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards
2001
Won / Best Director / Mulholland Dr. (2001)
1986
Won / Best Director / Blue Velvet (1986) 2nd Place / Best Screenplay / Blue Velvet (1986) National Society Of Film Critics Awards, USA
2002
2nd Place / Best Director / Mulholland Dr. (2001)
1987
Won / Best Director / Blue Velvet (1986) New York Film Critics Circle Awards
2001
2nd Place / Best Director / Mulholland Dr. (2001)
1999
2nd Place / Best Director / The Straight Story (1999)
1986
3rd Place / Best Director / Blue Velvet (1986) New York Film Critics, Online
2001
Won / Best Director / Mulholland Dr. (2001) Won / Best Screenplay, Original / Mulholland Dr. (2001) Online Film & Television Association
2014
Won / Creative
2002
Nominated / Best Director / Mulholland Dr. (2001) Online Film Critics Society Awards
2002
Won / Best Director / Mulholland Dr. (2001) Nominated / Best Original Screenplay / Mulholland Dr. (2001) Phoenix Film Critics Society Awards
2002
Nominated / Best Director / Mulholland Dr. (2001) Obert Festival
2000
Won / Best American Film / The Straight Story (1999)
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San Diego Film Critics Society Awards 1999
Won / Best Director / The Straight Story (1999) Sant Jordi Awards
2003
Won / Best Foreign Film / Mulholland Dr. (2001)
2001
Won / Best Foreign Film / The Straight Story (1999) Sesc Film Festival, Brazil
1998
Won / Best Foreign Film / Lost Highway (1997) Sitges-Catalonian International Film Festival
2001
Nominated / Best Film / Mulholland Dr. (2001)
1986
Won / Best Film / Blue Velvet (1986) Stockholm Film Festival
2003
Won / Lifetime Achievement Award
1990
Nominated / Wild at Heart (1990) Telluride Film Festival, USA
1999
Won / Silver Medallion Award The Stinkers Bad Movie Awards
2006
Nominated / Worst Sense of Direction / Inland Empire (2006) Toronto Film Critics Association Awards
2001
Won / Best Director / Mulholland Dr. (2001) Venice Film Festival
2006
Won / Career Golden Lion Won / Future Film Festival Digital Award / Inland Empire (2006) Village Voice Film Poll
2001
Won / Best Director / Mulholland Dr. (2001) Won / Best Original Screenplay / Mulholland Dr. (2001) Writers Guild Of America, USA
1987
Nominated / Best Screenplay / Blue Velvet (1986)
1981
Nominated / Best Drama Adapted from Another Medium / The Elephant Man (1980) Yoga Awards
1992
Won / Worst Foreign Director / Wild at Heart (1990)
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INTERVIEW
David Lynch is a unique filmmaker, and one of the most elusive artists in any field. He created his own strange, at times unutterable, language of film in a directorial career that started with 1977’s Eraserhead and expanded to include The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet, Wild At Heart, The Straight Story, Lost Highway, and Mulholland Dr. He redefined what network TV might be capable of weathering with his series Twin Peaks. He put together a personal website full of art and video of him reading weather reports from outside his California house. The A.V. Club (AVC) drank cappuccino and talked in rounds with Lynch when he was in New York for Inland Empire’s première. AVC: How did the idea first strike you to run a Polish folk tale parallel to a Hollywood story in Inland Empire? David Lynch: Cinema is a medium that can translate ideas. But wood can translate ideas, too. You have wood and then you get a chair. Some ideas are for different things. AVC: Does that translation draw out parallels between different ideas that you weren’t aware of when you started? David Lynch: For sure. I wasn’t aware of anything. Then, suddenly, you’re aware. It’s like somebody giving you a puzzle piece without any kind of frame—you get a puzzle piece and then a few more. It doesn’t help you much, but you love the little pieces. You don’t know if they relate. In this process, hopefully, a feature film script will emerge. And then, one day, you’re surprised by how it all comes together. That’s how something like Poland could relate to Hollywood. Everything relates—that’s the cool thing about it.
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AVC: You’ve been making films for a long time. Is that feeling really still the same? David Lynch: Some things get easier, some things get harder. When you make your first film, it’s really hard in some ways. You’re just nowhere. But then you have something. If you have a success, then you might be looking to take a fall. If you had a fall, you get a certain kind of euphoria because you’re not dead, so you can still do it again. It’s about how you go through the processes. Do you enjoy that “doing”? Is it getting less fun or more fun? AVC: What were the pros and cons you found in using digital video for Inland Empire? David Lynch: There were no cons. Only pros. The con would be that the quality is, in some ways, less than film. It’s for sure less than film-quality, but it has its own qualities. But all the pros added to that are phenomenal. It’s a whole new way to go through shooting where you don’t get bogged down in massive amounts of weight and huge loss of time, huge loss of energy, where you’re killing scenes because of the slowness and heaviness and oppression. AVC: What about how it looks? David Lynch: I like the way it looks. It’s more like 1930s 35mm, in that there’s not so much information. There’s something about not seeing everything perfectly. There’s more room to dream. It comes gently into a kind of impression, which can be very beautiful.
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andy battaglia jan 23, 2007 11:37 pm
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“Because you make a world that didn’t exist before, and you can go into that world deeper and deeper.” — David Lynch, Film Director
AVC: You’ve said that you decided to pull together Mulholland Dr. after a spell of transcendental meditation. How much does meditation influence the kind of stories you’re trying to tell at this point? David Lynch: It’s nothing and everything, sort of. I don’t make films to talk about anything, really. Why I meditate is… When I was working on Eraserhead, I heard this phrase that stuck in my head: True happiness is not out there, true happiness lies within. This had a ring of truth. But I didn’t know where the “within” was, nor how to get there. I didn’t even know if there really was a within. I didn’t know what “within” could possibly mean. Is it somewhere in the body that you go? Then I heard about meditation. I got a call from my sister, who said she started transcendental meditation as taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. I heard a change in her voice, and I just said, “That’s for me.” AVC: How has it manifested itself in your work? Was there a change you observed in what you wanted to do? David Lynch: It doesn’t make you make different films or do anything like that. Transcendental meditation is like a car, a vehicle that allows you to go within. It’s a mental technique. You’re given a mantra—the mantra that Maharishi gives is very specific, and you start to dive into subtler levels of mind, subtler levels of intellect. You transcend the whole show, into pure bliss consciousness. From your first meditation, you say, “Whoa!” It’s a unique experience, but a familiar experience.
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AVC: Have the practice or the results of it informed the idea of identity drift central to your recent work? David Lynch: No. The danger of even saying I meditate is, then people say, “Oh, this is somehow connected to that. Right?” It’s better that people don’t know anything about the filmmaker, so the film can exist on its own. That’s the pure way. It comes from ideas, and I translate those ideas. And what meditation does is make the joy of doing it increase like crazy. AVC: Is it like dreaming? David Lynch: No. What they say is, there’s waking, sleeping, and dreaming. But they have shown that there’s a fourth state of consciousness. The nervous system functions in a fourth, unique way, as different as dreaming is from sleeping as sleeping is from waking. When you transcend, it’s the only experience that lights the full brain on an EEG machine. It’s the only experience that utilizes the full brain. So if you have this experience every day, you get more full-brain coherence. It’s money in the bank for a filmmaker, an artist, a businessperson, whatever. Ideas start flowing easier, intuition grows more and more. You’re banging on more cylinders. AVC: You create art in so many different media. What is it about making movies that still draws you in? David Lynch: Because you make a world that didn’t exist before, and you can go into that world deeper and deeper. It’s unbounded out there. One film takes you into one area, another film takes you into another area. There could be trillions, zillions of worlds that exist in the big space.
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02. THE FILMS mulholland drive blue velvet wild at heart lost highway inland empire
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MULHOLLAND DRIVE Plot A dark-haired woman (Laura Elena Harring) is left amnesiac after a car crash. She wanders the streets of Los Angeles in a daze before taking refuge in an apartment. There she is discovered by Betty (Naomi Watts), a wholesome Midwestern blonde who has come to the City of Angels seeking fame as an actress. Together, the two attempt to solve the mystery of Rita’s true identity. The story is set in a dream-like Los Angeles, spoilt neither by traffic jams nor smog. Review by Roger Ebert It seems to be the dream of Betty (Naomi Watts), seen in the first shots sprawled on a bed. It continues with the story of how Betty came to Hollywood and how she ended up staying in the apartment of her aunt, but if we are within a dream there is no reason to believe that on a literal level. It’s as likely she only dreams of getting off a flight from Ontario to Los Angeles, being wished good luck by the cackling old couple who met her on the plane, and arriving by taxi at the apartment. Dreams cobble their contents from the materials at hand, and although the old folks turn up again at the end of the film their actual existence may be problematic. The movie seems seductively realistic in several opening scenes however, as an ominous film noir sequence shows a beautiful woman in the back seat of a limousine on Mulholland Drive—that serpentine road that coils along the spine of the hills separating the city from the San Fernando Valley. The limo pulls over, the driver pulls a gun and orders his passenger out of the car, and just then two drag-racing hot rods hurtle into view and one of them strikes the limo, killing the driver and his partner. The stunned woman (Laura Elena Herring) staggers into some shrubbery and starts to climb down the
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hill—first crossing Franklin Dr., finally arriving at Sunset. Still hiding in shrubbery, she sees a woman leaving an apartment to get into a taxi, and she sneaks into the apartment and hides under a table. Who is she? The very first moments of the film seemed like a bizarre montage from a jitterbug contest on a1950s TV show, and the hotrods and their passengers visually link with that. But people don’t dress like jitterbuggers and drag race on Mulholland at the time of the film (the 1990s), not in now-priceless antique hot rods, and the crash seems to have elements imported from an audition, perhaps, that will later be made much of. Dreams need not make sense, I am not Freud, and at this point in the film it’s working perfectly well as a film noir. They need not make sense, either. Conventional movie cops turn up, investigate, and disappear for the rest of the film. Betty discovers the woman from Mulholland taking a shower in her aunt’s apartment and demands to know who she is. The woman sees a poster of Rita Hayworth in “Gilda” on the wall and replies, “Rita.” She claims to have amnesia. Betty now responds with almost startling generosity, deciding to help “Rita” discover her identity, and in a smooth segue the two women bond. Indeed, before long they’re helping each other sneak into apartment #17. Lynch has shifted gears from a film noir to a much more innocent kind of crime story, a Nancy Drew mystery. When they find the decomposing corpse in #17, however, that’s a little more detailed than Nancy Drew’s typical discoveries.
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cast naomi watts laura harring justin theroux angelo badalamenti runtime 2h 27m rating r genres drama, mystery, thriller release date october 8, 2001 (usa)
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BLUE VELVET Plot College student Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) returns home after his father has a stroke. When he discovers a severed ear in an abandoned field, Beaumont teams up with detective’s daughter Sandy Williams (Laura Dern) to solve the mystery. They believe beautiful lounge singer Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini) may be connected with the case, and Beaumont finds himself becoming drawn into her dark, twisted world, where he encounters sexually depraved psychopath Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper). Review by Roger Ebert The movie has two levels of reality. On one level, we’re in Lumberton, a simple-minded small town where people talk in television cliches and seem to be clones of 1950s sitcom characters. On another level, we’re told a story of sexual bondage, of how Isabella Rossellini’s husband and son have been kidnapped by Dennis Hopper, who makes her his sexual slave. The twist is that the kidnapping taps into the woman’s deepest feelings: She finds that she is a masochist who responds with great sexual passion to this situation. Everyday town life is depicted with a deadpan irony; characters use lines with corny double meanings and solemnly recite platitudes. Meanwhile, the darker story of sexual bondage is told absolutely on the level in cold-blooded realism. The movie begins with a much praised sequence in which picket fences and flower beds establish a small-town idyll. Then a man collapses while watering the lawn, and a dog comes to drink from the hose that is still held in his unconscious grip. The great imagery continues as the camera burrows into the green lawn and finds hungry insects beneath - a metaphor for the surface and buried lives of the town.
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The man’s son, a college student (Kyle MacLachlan), comes home to visit his dad’s bedside and resumes a romance with the daughter (Laura Dern) of the local police detective. MacLachlan finds a severed human ear in a field, and he and Dern get involved in trying to solve the mystery of the ear. The trail leads to a nightclub singer (Rossellini) who lives alone in a starkly furnished flat. In a sequence that Hitchcock would have been proud of, MacLachlan hides himself in Rossellini’s closet and watches, shocked, as she has a sadomashochistic sexual encounter with Hopper, a drug-sniffing pervert. Hopper leaves. Rossellini discovers MacLachlan in the closet and, to his astonishment, pulls a knife on him and forces him to submit to her seduction. He is appalled but fascinated; she wants him to be a “bad boy” and hit her. These sequences have great power. If “Blue Velvet” had continued to develop its story in a straight line, if it had followed more deeply into the implications of the first shocking encounter between Rossellini and MacLachlan, it might have made some real emotional discoveries. Instead, director David Lynch chose to interrupt the almost hypnotic pull of that relationship in order to pull back to his jokey, small-town satire. I was absorbed and convinced by the relationship between Rossellini and MacLachlan, and annoyed because the director kept placing himself between me and the material. After five or 10 minutes in which the screen reality was overwhelming, I didn’t need the director prancing on with a top hat and cane, whistling that it was all in fun.
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cast isabella rossellini dennis hopper kyle maclachlan laura dern runtime 2h 1m rating r genres crime, drama release date september 19, 1986 (usa)
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WILD AT HEART Plot After serving prison time for a self-defense killing, Sailor Ripley (Nicolas Cage) reunites with girlfriend Lula Fortune (Laura Dern). Lula’s mother, Marietta (Diane Ladd), desperate to keep them apart, hires a hit man to kill Sailor. But he finds a whole new set of troubles when he and Bobby Peru (Willem Dafoe), an old buddy who’s also out to get Sailor, try to rob a store. When Sailor lands in jail yet again, the young lovers appear further than ever from the shared life they covet. Review by Roger Ebert The movie is lurid melodrama, soap opera, exploitation, put-on and self-satire. It deals in several scenes of particularly offensive violence, and tries to excuse them by juvenile humor: It’s all a joke, you see, and so if the violence offends you, you didn’t get the joke. Some people laugh when they see the opening scene. They like the way the look is overplayed: Cage looks like a villain in a silent movie. I didn’t laugh. I saw the payoff as Lynch’s attempt to defuse the violence - to excuse a racially charged scene of unapologetic malevolence. There are other such scenes in the movie. The scene, for example, when the clerk gets his hand blown off with a shotgun, and crawls around on the floor looking for it, talking about how they can sew hands back on these days. Lynch cuts to a dog running from the building with the bloody hand in its mouth. This shot is lifted from Kurosawa’s “Yojimbo,” but not many people in the audience will read it as a homage. Laura Dern is Ladd’s real-life daughter, and in the movie she, too, is subjected to the usual humiliations. Ever since I witnessed the humiliation of Isabella Rossellini in “Blue Velvet,” I’ve wondered if there is an element in Lynch’s art
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that goes beyond film-making; a personal factor in which he uses his power as a director to portray women in a particularly hurtful and offensive light. All of these wounds and maimings are told within the framework of a parody, in which Dern and Cage play young lovers on the run from unspeakable secrets in the past, and the vengeance of the Dern character’s mother and her hired goons. It’s a road picture, with a 1950s T-Bird convertible as the chariot, and lots of throwaway gags about Ripley’s snakeskin jacket, his “personal symbol of individuality.” Cage does a conscious imitation of Presley in all of his dialogue, and even bursts into song a couple of times, delivering “Love Me Tender” from the hood of the car in the big climax. I’ve seen the movie twice now. I liked it less the second time. Take away the surprises and you can see the method more clearly. Like “Blue Velvet,” this is a film without the courage to declare its own darkest fantasies. Lynch wraps his violence in humor, not as a style, but as a strategy. Luis Bunuel, the late and gifted Spanish surrealist, made films as cheerfully perverted and decadent as anything Lynch has ever dreamed of, but he had the courage to declare himself. Lynch seems to be doing a Bunuel script with a Jerry Lewis rewrite. He is a good director, yes. If he ever goes ahead and makes a film about what’s really on his mind, instead of hiding behind sophomoric humor and the cop-out of “parody,” he may realize the early promise of his “Eraserhead.” But he likes the box office prizes that go along with his pop satires, so he makes dishonest movies like this one. Understand that it’s not the violence I mind. It’s the sneaky excuses.
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cast nicolas cage laura dern willem dafoe runtime 2h 5m rating r genres crime, drama release date august 17, 1990 (usa)
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LOST HIGHWAY Plot From this inventory of imagery, Lynch fashions two separate but intersecting stories, one about a jazz musician (Bill Pullman), tortured by the notion that his wife is having an affair, who suddenly finds himself accused of her murder. The other is a young mechanic (Balthazar Getty) drawn into a web of deceit by a temptress who is cheating on her gangster boyfriend. These two tales are linked by the fact that the women in both are played by the same actress (Patricia Arquette). Review by Roger Ebert David Lynch’s “Lost Highway’’ is like kissing a mirror: You like what you see, but it’s not much fun, and kind of cold. It’s a shaggy ghost story, an exercise in style, a film made with a certain breezy contempt for audiences. I’ve seen it twice, hoping to make sense of it. There is no sense to be made of it. To try is to miss the point. What you see is all you get. It opens with two nervous people living in a cold, threatening house. They hate or fear each other, we sense. “You don’t mind if I don’t go to the club tonight?’’ says the wife (Patricia Arquette). She wants to stay home and read. “Read? Read?’’ he chuckles bitterly. We cut to a scene that feels inspired by a 1940s ‘noir’ (“Detour” maybe), showing the husband (Bill Pullman) as a crazy hep-cat sax player. Cut back home. Next morning. An envelope is found on their steps. Inside, a videotape of their house (which, architecturally, resembles an old IBM punch card). More tapes arrive, including one showing the wife’s murdered body in bed. They go to a party and meet a disturbing little man with a white clown face (Robert Blake), who ingratiatingly tells Pullman, “We met at your house. As a
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matter of fact, I’m there right now. Call me.’’ He does seem to be at both ends of the line. That mirrors another nice touch in the film, which is that Pullman seems able to talk to himself over a doorbell speaker phone. A gangster (Robert Loggia) comes in with his mistress, who is played by Patricia Arquette. The story now focuses on the relationship between Getty and Loggia, a ruthless but ingratiating man who, in a scene of chilling comic violence, pursues a tailgater and beats him senseless. Arquette comes to the garage to pick up the kid and tells him a story of sexual brutality involving Loggia, who is connected to a man who makes porno films. Is the joke on us? Is it our error to try to make sense of the film, to try to figure out why protagonists change in midstream? Let’s say it is. Let’s say the movie should be taken exactly as is, with no questions asked. Then what do we have? We still have just the notes for isolated scenes. There’s no emotional or artistic thread running through the material to make it seem necessary that it’s all in the same film together. Lynch is such a talented director. Why does he pull the rug out from under his own films? I have nothing against movies of mystery, deception and puzzlement. It’s just that I’d like to think the director has an idea, a purpose, an overview, beyond the arbitrary manipulation of plot elements. He knows how to put effective images on the screen, and how to use a soundtrack to create mood, but at the end of the film, our hand closes on empty air.
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cast bill pullman patricia arquette balthazar getty robert blake gary busey robert loggia runtime 2h 15m rating r genres mystery, drama release date february 21, 1997 (usa)
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INLAND EMPIRE Plot Nikki (Laura Dern), an actress, takes on a role in a new film, and because her husband (Peter J. Lucas) is very jealous, her co-star Devon (Justin Theroux) gets a warning not to make any romantic overtures—especially since the characters they play are having an affair. Both actors learn that the project is a remake of an unfinished film in which the stars were murdered. Review by Roger Ebert It has a story—multiple stories, all intertwined and interconnected at various nodes -- but it’s structured more like a web than a yarn. Synopsis is futile, but the tag line states its elemental appeal as succinctly as possible: “A Woman in Trouble.” Let it suffice to say that the actress Laura Dern plays a Hollywood actress named Nikki Grace who is hired to play the character of Sue Blue in a movie called “On High in Blue Tomorrows,” directed by Kingsley (Jeremy Irons) and co-starring Devon (Justin Theroux) as Billy Side. Turns out their movie may be some kind of shadow remake of a film that was never finished because of something that went wrong—“something inside the story,” as Kinglsey describes it. There you have it. Something inside the story goes awry, the watch spring snaps and the works go flying in all directions, from the intersection of Hollywood and Vine to Poland to Pomona. Gypsies and gangsters and whores and animals appear. Blood and circuses! “Inland Empire” works—and works spectacularly—as a kind of fractal telenovela. Take any moment—any shot or sequence or motif—and you’ll find it repeated throughout the film at greater and lesser degrees of magnification. Like a fractal image, any single fragment contains within it a representation of the whole picture.
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As they pass before you, you recognize the familiar stock images, characters and dramatic templates—often employed to build suspense, deliver a shock, jerk tears—from a million other movies, especially the climactic moments in noir thrillers (like the one on TV at the start of “Blue Velvet”), melodramatic serials and soapy romances. There’s the dark hallway, the shadowy stairway, the gun in the drawer, the seduction scene, the bedroom/sex scene, the ominous foreshadowing...But here they’re deliberately disjointed because the usual connective tissue has been moved, removed or replaced. Lynch knows all stories are all in our heads; we make them up and then inhabit them. “Inland Empire” plays with our movie-fed storytelling expectations line by line, shot by shot, scene by scene, even reel by reel (pay attention to those changeover marks in the upper right). He toys with the building blocks—establishing shots, reaction shots, POV, and especially closeups—to get us to look at them in unfamiliar ways. It’s poetry: We recognize the individual units of meaning, but the grammar and syntax have been altered. “Inland Empire” opens and contracts in your imagination while you watch it— and you’re still watching it well after it’s left the screen. It’s a long but thoroughly absorbing three hours (perhaps necessary for a movie that continually readjusts perceptions of time), but I feel like it’s not over yet. It’s still playing in my head, like a downloaded compressed file that’s expanding and installing itself in my brain. This David Lynch, he put his digital virus in me.
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cast laura dern justin theroux jeremy irons naomi watts runtime 3h 17m genres mystery, drama release date december 6, 2006 (usa)
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03. THE FESTIVAL about the festival schedule venue david lynch: the art life attractions
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ABOUT THE FESTIVAL
date october 23-25, 2021 location ace hotel theater downtown los angeles featuring mulholland drive blue velvet wild at heart lost highway inland empire
The festival will feature five films directed by David Lynch, with a focus on the theme—shifting between reality and delusion leads to darkness and self-destruction in the films of David Lynch. The characters are unable to deal with their fears or failures in the real world. Those unfulfilled characters were trapped in their nightmares, and lost their way. In the end, some of them have to face the reality, some of them cannot bear the reality and chose self-destruction. Besides five featured films, the documentary David Lynch: The Art Life will also be presented at the film festival. The date for this film festival will be October 23-25, 2021, to celebrate 20-year-anniversary of the first release of Mulholland Drive in 2001.
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“ I’ll be just like in the movies. Pretending to be somebody else...” — Betty, Mulholland Drive (2001)
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Valet Parking Available at Ace Hotel 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for $30. Self-Parking There are more than 1,200 parking spaces—all within a few blocks of the theater. Parking lots around the venue are not associated with The Theatre at Ace Hotel. Lots are cash only, with rates ranging from $10 to $30 depending on the event—no validation accepted for event parking. 841 S. Spring St. / 817 S. Spring St. / 916 S. Hill St. 919 S. Broadway / 1002 S. Hill St. / 839 S. Spring St. 953 S. Broadway / 230 W. 9th St. / 854 S. Main St. / 1031 S. Broadway Public Transportation Take public transportation if you can. Nearest Metro Station: 7th St./Metro Center. 660 S. Figueroa St. Regular Metro Bus Line: 740.745.940 Check your public transportation route and times at metro.net. Photography Photography during performances in the theatre is not permitted, but we encourage you to photograph and share the rest of your festival experience.
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for important updates throughout the weekend please follow email info@betweentwoworlds.com more info betweentwoworlds.com
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THE VENUE
THE FESTI VAL
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Welcome Ace Hotel Downtown Los Angeles opened early 2014 in the historic United Artists building in Downtown LA. Built in 1927 for the maverick film studio, this ornate, storied and vibrant Los Angeles gem stands as a monument to a group of seminal American artists pushing out on their own, and anchors the Broadway Theater District’s modern renaissance. Theater Mary Pickford’s love for the ornate detail and stone spires of Spanish castles and cathedrals is manifest at the theater—a true temple of the arts. The mixture of reverent awe and irreverent independence is right up our alley. The Theatre at Ace Hotel is our loving reanimation of one of the city’s most remarkable gems. It’s a delicately restored, 1,600-seat cathedral to the arts, with a three-story, 2,300 square foot grand lobby, an ornate open balcony and a vaulted ceiling dotted with thousands of mirrors that glimmer like tiny stars. Retrofitted with a state-of-the-art digital projection system and cinema sound, an independent, ultramodern live sound system, plus an elaborate contemporary stage lighting system, The Theatre at Ace Hotel is a radically inclusive stage fit for our heart’s royalty—artists, musicians and visionaries. Rooftop Pool & Bar Inspired by Hollywood’s famous Les Deux Cafe, Upstairs is the sky-high urban oasis at Ace Hotel. With a concrete pool and city lights stretched out in all directions, Upstairs’ bunker-like rooftop bar hosts a smattering of events every night of the week—DJs, live bands, book release parties, pop-up shops and creative collaborations—with bright, world-traveled twists on California desert fare and traditional cocktails with a menu lovingly curated by the Upstairs beverage wizards.
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location 929 s broadway los angeles, ca 90015
contact 213.623.3233 acehotel.com/losangeles
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director jon nguyen rick barne olivia neergaard-holm runtime 90 min
DAVID LYNCH: THE ART LIFE
genres documentary release date 13 november 2016, usa
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“ I think every time you do something, like a painting or whatever, you go with ideas and sometimes the past can conjure those ideas and color them, even if they’re new ideas, the past colors them.” — David Lynch, Film Director
Artist and filmmaker David Lynch discusses his early life and the events that shaped his outlook on art and the creative process. David Lynch takes us on an intimate journey through the formative years of his life. From his idyllic upbringing in small town America to the dark streets of Philadelphia, we follow Lynch as he traces the events that have helped to shape one of cinema’s most enigmatic directors. David Lynch the Art Life infuses Lynch’s own art, music and early films, shining a light into the dark corners of his unique world, giving audiences a better understanding of the man and the artist.
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THE SCHEDULE 10.23 Saturday 9:00
am
welcome
9:30
am
complementary breakfast
10:00 am
mulholland drive
13:00 pm
coffee break
14:00 pm
blue velvet
18:30 pm
dinner
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10. 24 Sunday
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10.25 Monday
9:00
am
door opens
9:00
am
door opens
9:30
am
complementary breakfast
9:30
am
complementary breakfast
10:00 am
wild at heart
10:00 am
inland empire
13:00 pm
coffee break
14:00 pm
finale
14:00 pm
lost highway
16 : 3 0 p m
david lynch art life
19:30 pm
special guests
rooftop party: upstairs
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ATTRACTIONS
Restaurant
Restaurant
Perch / French
71 Above / New American
Glamorous rooftop setting with French
Luxe eatery, bar & lounge on the 71st
small plates, handcrafted cocktails &
floor for high-end modern American
grand views of the city.
cuisine & panoramic views.
448 Hill St. Los Angeles, CA 90013
633 W. 5th Street. 71st Floor, Los
213.802.1770
Angeles, CA 90071 213.712.2683
Restaurant
Restaurant
Bottega Louie / Italian
Litter Sister Downtown / Asian Fusion
Pizzas, pastas & small plates in a
Funky bistro with Singaporean shop-
bright, bustling space, plus weekend
house feel, serving Euro-accented
brunch & macarons to-go.
Asian eats, craft beers & wines.
700 S Grand Ave. Los Angeles,
523 W 7th St. Los Angeles, CA 90017
CA 90017 213.802.1470
213.628.3146
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Entertainment
Entertainment
Walt Disney Concert Hall
The Board
The Walt Disney Concert Hall is the
The Broad is a contemporary art
fourth hall of the Los Angeles Music
museum. The museum is named for
Center and was designed by Frank
philanthropist Eli Broad, who financed
Gehry. It opened on October 24, 2003.
the $140 million building which houses
111 S Grand Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90012
the Broad art collections. 221 S Grand Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90012
Entertainment
Entertainment
L.A. Live / Event Venue
Grand Central Market
Massive entertainment complex featur-
Emporium hosting food vendors & flo-
ing a theater & The Grammy Museum,
rists, plus game nights, movies & other
plus hotels & restaurants.
events, since 1917.
800 W Olympic Blvd, Los Angeles,
317 S Broadway, Los Angeles,
CA 90015
CA 90013
866.548.3452
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04. REFERENCES references
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REFERENCES
festivalofdisruption.com/ http://bbook.com/film/david-lynch-quotes/ https://blog.cinemaautopsy.com/2015/04/26/living-inside-a-dream-theart-and-films-of-david-lynch/ https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/muted-golden-sunshine-david-lynchs-los-angeles/ http://nofilmschool.com/2016/09/no-homes-no-escape-david-lynchs-peculiar-style-filmmaking-unexplained http://the-talks.com/interview/david-lynch/ www.avclub.com/article/david-lynch-14054 www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Lynch www.davidlynchfoundation.org/ www.gq.com/story/david-lynch-twin-peaks-profile www.imdb.com/title/tt1691152/?ref_=ttrel_ql www.imdb.com/name/nm0000186/ www.interviewmagazine.com/film/david-lynch/ www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/david-lynchs-elusive-language www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/david-lynch-transcendental-meditation.html www.rogerebert.com/reviews/blue-velvet-1986 www.rogerebert.com/reviews/inland-empire-2007 www.rogerebert.com/reviews/lost-highway-1997 www.rogerebert.com/reviews/mulholland-drive-2001 www.rogerebert.com/reviews/wild-at-heart-1990 www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/david_lynch/ www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/01/david-lynch-influence/425094/ www.theguardian.com/film/davidlynch www.theguardian.com/film/2009/feb/28/david-lynch-twin-peaks-mulholland-drive www.theguardian.com/film/2011/jun/14/david-lynch-club-silencio-paris www.venuereport.com/venue/perch-la-2/
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Type BentonSans Klint Pro Orator Std Vitesse
Co u rse GR .6 12 I nte gra te d Co m m u n i ca ti o n M FA Grap h i c Des i gn Acad e my of A r t U n i ve rs i ty
I n st ru c to r Hunte r Wi m m e r
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www. betwe e ntwowo rld s.co m