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| It is a notorious fact that whenever David Lynch is asked to state personal information, he simply indicates: 'Born January 20th, 1946. Place: Missoula, Montana. Achievements: Eagle Scout.' Undoubtedly, this bears a striking similarity to the protagonist in his TV series Twin Peaks, Special Agent Dale Cooper, whose own personal childhood experiences is that of Eagle Scout Honour. By extension, Cooper's archetypal, all-American family environment mirrors that of Lynch, who, when often asked whether or not a traumatic childhood has been a major influence on the dark elements permeating his works, simply answers: "I had a very happy childhood. I look back on it with very pleasant memories. There's some line I read about the longing for the euphoria of forgotten childhood dreams." |
| The eldest of three children, David Lynch spent most of his childhood relocating with his entire family; his father Donald was a research scientist for the Department of Agriculture, a job which required frequent, lengthy travels. Consequently, by the time Lynch was two months old, his family moved to Sandpoint, Idaho, followed by a move two years later to Spokane, Washington, during which time his brother John was born. Shortly thereafter, his youngest sibling, his sister Martha, was born. By the time he was fourteen, Lynch was living in Alexandria, Virginia, having lived in Durham, North Carolina, and Boise, Idaho. Whilst many would suggest such a transient history could only have been detrimental to Lynch's social development, he concedes "It's a shock to the system, but shocks to the system are sometimes really good. You get a little bit more aware, suddenly. Not like a hard hit on the head, but enough to jar some wiring. And some little channels opens up and you become, you know, a little bit more aware." |
| Always popular in high school, yet "lousy" academically, as his first wife Peggy Reavey comments, Lynch spent a short time studying painting at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington D.C; the seeds of Lynch's artistic talents and expression were beginning to find fertile ground. Following this artistic foundation, Lynch moved to Boston in 1964, where he began a full-time art program at the Boston Museum School; after a year, however, Lynch relinquished his course in favour of an art trip to Europe with Jack Fisk, whom he had shared a studio with in his high school days and who would later star in Lynch's film Eraserhead. Funded through a deal he struck with the parents of a group of young girls to escort them on their flight to Europe, Lynch and Fisk traveled to Salzburg, stopping by London on the way where Lynch would return to film Eraserhead, in hopes of finding artistic inspiration; unfortunately, Lynch never did. "Well, I was nineteen and my thoughts weren't my own: they were other people's. Jack and I made our way over to Salzburg...And in reality it was, like, really weird. It was so unpainterly, and so clean...It smelt good - there were pines there and I like the smell of pine - and this castle was there, but Kokoschka [whom they were meant to meet] wasn't. So almost the second we got there a plug was pulled on the whole trip, and the rest was just a winding down." |
| Upon his return to the United States after only fifteen days in Europe, Lynch moved in with Toby Keeler, who would become a close friend and write a book on Lynch's work entitled 'Pretty As A Picture: The Art of David Lynch'; Lynch accepted a job with Keeler's uncle Bushnell, doing blueprints for an architectural firm; contrary to Special Agent Dale Cooper, Lynch was unable to sustain the early work schedules. Following several failed attempts at jobs, including one at a frame shop, where he had been fired, then rehired as a janitor, Lynch heeded the advice of Toby Keeler, entering the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia in 1965. It was at the Academy that David Lynch began his first experiments in films, and met Peggy Reavey, a fellow student whom he married two years later; their daughter Jennifer, was born in April 1968. |
| In his new role as a father and husband, Lynch's artistic perspective and balance began to change. As Reavey recalls, Lynch had always been a reluctant verbalist, always reverting to physical or audial expression: "He didn't talk the way a lot of artists do. He would make noises, open his arms wide and make a sound like the wind.The Alphabet was a way of expressing his frustration with the need to be verbal. This film talks about the hell of a person with a non-verbal nature." The Alphabet was Lynch's first short film created at the Academy, and as he comments, his chance to 'learn to talk'. Lynch's subsequent interest in human expression using sight and sound found solid ground, becoming a reoccurring theme permeating several of his works, such as Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, Wild At Heart, and especially Twin Peaks, both in the TV series and the film, Fire Walk With Me. Even to this day, David Lynch has maintained an infamous reputation within the media for hesitating to comment upon his own works, or providing answers to questions, often suggesting the viewer to interpret his works within themselves; by extension, introspection and the interior is featured heavily in his works, not only metaphorically, but symbolically. As with Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks, Lynch forces the viewer to glance at the interior, sub-surfaces of the innocent, all-American towns which provide the focus of the films. The reoccurent theme in Twin Peaks of audial perception, as well as visual perception (Gordon Cole, The Log Lady, the deaf senile waiter vs. the sensoral presence of the Giant, Diane the tape recorder, Laura's tapes, the method of speech in the Black Lodge, the MFAP's indian chant, the theme of music prevalent throughout the film, 'there's always music in the air', the singer in the Black Lodge vs. Julee Cruise in the Roadhouse, James, Donna & Maddy's recording session, Bob's face seen only in mirrors or by select few, the countless occurences of disguises by Catherine Martell, Denise/Denis Bryson, the One-Eyed Jacks police stakeout, Maddy as Laura, etc) presents a perfect picture of Lynch's toying with the idea of sensory perception. |
| His first films at the Academy were financed by various sources; The Alphabet, a four-minute long film combining animation and live action, was funded by H. Barton Wasserman, a wealthy patron Lynch had met who was also the producer. Shortly thereafter, Lynch began working on his next project, a thirty-four minute long film which bore a similar combination of techniques as The Alphabet, funded by the American Film Institute; it was called The Grandmother, and Lynch recalls: "George Stevens Junior and Tony Velani - the head honchos at the American Film Institute - had me on the phone. They said they wanted to give me this grant. And they said: 'You have a budget of $7, 200...' - no, $7,119 dollars, I think it was - and 'can you do it for $5,000?' Like I'm gonna say no! I said 'Yes!' And I'm floating, you know, and, like, so pressed to the ceiling with happiness! Everyone should have that feeling! And the only way you really appreciate it is to be so desperately down." On technical terms, The Grandmother was much richer than The Alphabet, despite the fact that Lynch had no formal film school training; his focus on sound was vast, casting himself, as he would do in all of his films, as the sound designer. Both films, although shot in colour, are drenched in black, the dark element flourishing in full; they were shot in Lynch's house, the interior of which he painted entirely black to enable the filming. On a social level, The Grandmother conjured up several questions, particularly in the media with a focus on Lynch himself; in particular, many wondered whether or not Lynch's parent's had somehow traumatised him, given the unpleasant role the parents play in The Grandmother. Lynch again dismisses the possibility, commenting: "Because it's [the behaviour of the parents in the film] very foreign to my actual upbringing. But the whole thing is that we get an awful lotta stuff outside the home. Ideas are the strangest things, because they suddenly enter into your conscious mind and you don't know really where they come from - where they existed before they were introduced to you." |
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The method by which David Lynch chose the cast for his first short films would set a precedent for the future; instead of casting the coveted actors of the moment, Lynch would often choose close friends and members of his family, or individuals he encountered from everyday walks of life. Regardless of their origin, it would become a tradition that Lynch's films featured actors who had been present in most of his works; this small, close-knit collection of actors affectionately became labelled 'The Lynch Mob', and include Kyle McLachlan, Jack Nance, Isabella Rossellini, Laura Dern, Dean Stockwell, Harry Dean Stanton, Everett McGill, Frances Bay, Grace Zabriskie, Sheryl Lee, Chris Isaak (Lynch directed Isaak's video 'Wicked Game' in 1990); the Lynch Mob also spanned the technical side of Lynch's films, including Alan Splet, Duwayne Dunham, Angelo Badalamenti, Fredrick Elmes, Mark Frost, Robert Engels, and Mary Sweeney. Originally, the presence of BOB in Twin Peaks wasn't even contemplated, until Lynch spotted Frank Silva working as the set dresser, coincidentally moving the set of drawers in Laura Palmer's bedroom, and immediately cast him as BOB, despite not knowing what kind of character he should be. Lynch remembers: "And, BINGO! This thing comes in my head and I said, 'Frank, are you an actor?' and he said, 'Yes,' and I said, 'Do you want to be in this movie?' He said, 'Yes!' And I said, 'You're in this movie!' Then he says, 'What am I going to do?' And I says, 'I don't know, but you're in this movie." Similarly, Harry Goaz, who plays Deputy Andy Brennan, was working as a driver in the car Lynch hired to go to a Roy Orbison Tribute in Los Angeles. It was his vibrant and caring personality which struck Lynch, who immediately asked Johanna Ray to cast him for the series, joking: "It's so cool when suddenly there the person is [for the part]." |
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