DAVID LYNCH: THE ART LIFE

US, 2016, 88 minutes, Colour.

Directed by Rick Barnes, Olivia Neergaard-Holm, Jon Nguyen.

David Lynch, celebrated film director, was born in 1946, grew up in the North Western states of Montana and Idaho, moving to Washington state, then various places including Virginia, moves to Philadelphia, then to Hollywood.

While this is a film for those who follow his films, it is a film for those interested in American art.

The only voice heard throughout the film is that of Lynch himself, the continued interviews spaced between the visuals. If it were transcribed, it would provide a text for an outline of Lynch’s early years, his growing up, relationship with his family, his appreciation of his parents and their challenges, his dislike of study, falling in with the wrong students, saved by art, celebrated artist giving him studio space, his developing his imagination and techniques, bizarre, expressionistic, full of colour. There are scenes of him throughout the film painting canvases, painting small pictures…

And, throughout the film, he is continually lighting up and smoking.

There is the family background, tribute to his mother encouraging his art, his praise of his father but his father visiting him, not liking his art, suggesting that he not have children… And, there is his relationship with his first wife, Peggy. And, throughout this film, there are sequences with his baby daughter, Luna.

Art students would be able to make comparisons with artists working, especially in the 1960s and 1970s. And, with his lessening interest in making films, focusing on short films in recent decades, there is his more contemporary art.

For those who follow his films, there would be disappointment in so far as the narrative goes only to 1976, his initial experimental film, and his making Eraserhead, its success, its effect on him, and his dedication to his own style of filmmaking. There is some background of his experimenting with film, juxtaposing colour and black-and-white, editing, being creative with lighting, staging, and with his actors.

The film was released in 2016. Since 2016, David Lynch has made no feature films.