"David Lynch: The Art Life" is a co-production between the United States of America and Denmark from 2016, so this one is seven years old now or maybe already around its tenth anniversary somewhere if you get here a little later to check this one out. There is a David Lynch retrospective running right now here in my city that will also have me check out some of his movies in the coming days for sure and this one we have here is the only work not directed by Lynch himself and also the only documentary as it of course takes us into the world and creative process of filmmaker David Lynch. It is not a long film at slightly under 1.5 hours and this already includes the closing credits. The film is completely in the English language despite the Danish background that maybe stems from Olivia Neergaard-Holm who is one of the three directors credited here. Luckily, this is not a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth, but the outcome is good, enough, even if not totally great. Another director is Rick Barnes and this is his only credit. Good for him he managed to debut with a pretty big project like this one here as it is not just a documentary about Lynch, but starring Lynch. I wonder if he (Barnes) is ever gonna shoot another film. For the aforementioned Neergaard-Holm, this is also still her only directing credit, but she was very prolific over the years in the editorial department, also worked pretty recently on the successful "Holy Spider" there, another film that has a Scandinavian background that you would not expect right away. But she also worked on German film like "Victoria" that won very big at the German Film Awards for example. And the third from the bunch is Jon Nguyen who has worked on at least two other films about Lynch in the past, so the man seems to be his favorite area of expertise. He produced more than he directed though and he is also not very prolific by now. So with Nguyen's most likely Vietnamese background, you have a pretty colorful mix of nationalities or at least backgrounds here. This probably also includes Isabel Andrés, the one and only writer here. She is a Hispanic and worked on several Hispanic movies as a screenwriter, all documentaries the way I see it and also several dealing with the politician Franco. Pretty recently, she also worked on a tennis documentary. This I find interesting.
Anyway, let's get back to this one here: The title makes it pretty obvious who/what this is all about: Mr. David Lynch. Also, movie theaters need to pay attention what the film is called. The one where I went to also got it wrong and put in an "of", but this is not title "art of life". Instead, it elaborates on Lynch's young years mostly, before he broke through really as a filmmaker, but he was a painter there, an artist in a completely different area. He still said that he was not particularly good, but towards the end the film shifted towards movies a bit more than and we find out about a crucial moment from Lynch's professional life, namely when he receives a positive information that changed everything for him. And here is now so many decades later having a cameo at the end of the newest Spielberg movie. We talked about that one already though. You will some information about the people closest to him. Early on in the movie Lynch elaborates for example on his mother and how she picked a very different way to make sure that her son's creativity is not halted in any way. Something she did not do with the other children. We also find out a bit more about who this woman was. Speaking of women, Peggy Lynch, who was the man's first wife is also talked about here and I found her fairly stunning. The other wives we do not find out about, only see him with his grandchild, granddaughter I thought and elaborate on how his perception on family changed, how he initially also thought that romance etc. Could get in the way of creativity for him, but by now he changed his mind, something I heard in almost the exact manner during a recent David Bowie documentary, even if Bowie's statement there was from a long time ago, but it's not the first time I feel that Bowie and Lynch are maybe not too different, not just because of their first names, and I am sure both would take this as a compliment.
Anyway, I was talking about Peggy, but most of the photos and old videos we see in here depicted the relatively young David Lynch. On some photos, he looked fairly handsome, on others a bit more on the nerdy side. Difficult to find a consensus. Another aspect he elaborated on were the regions where he lived. Philadelphia played a crucial role here. Keep in mind again, that this film does not deal with Lynch commenting on every single film he made as it is from his earlier days (Mulholland Drive is for example not a factor at all, the film that most consider his finest achievement), yet here and there you will find out about his cinematic achievements, such as the early short film "The Alphabet" and also "Eraserhead", an early full feature from Lynch's career and he seemed to be quite in awe of this one in the most positive way one could imagine. He called it perfection pretty much. The weirdness was definitely there already too as it is with almost all his films, especially the uncountable short films too. Said weirdness was not appreciated by everybody. Just look at or listen what his father told him that he should not have any children because what he saw down there were the creations of his son, but he rather perceived them as a cabinet of horrors. Must have been quite a blow for the young David Lynch that his father totally did not understand what his efforts were all about. But then again, most probably would not have understood the way he describes all of this. I mean you can understand his enthusiasm and feel it almost, but that does not really make it any easier to find a connection with what he considered his art in the early years. It doesn't really matter though as long as he loves/loved what he is/was doing and this is/was definitely the case.
Insects are something you will find on quite a few occasions in Lynch's works, again the short films too, and this is an area that really is not helping things in my particular case because I love the vast majority of animals, but with insects I have always had a hard time. But also when we see humans or other content, it always more on the dark and haunting side that will make you a bit uncomfortable with what we have here. I am pretty sure you know that and it is not the first time you came in touch with Lynch if you consider(ed) seeing this documentary. In some of his movies, the darkness is just included the abysses of the characters' souls while others are more visually explicit too. Again, this would refer to short films I suppose. He also tells us some anecdotes from his youth and these may explain a bit why he sees the world the way he sees it. Be it the crazy woman with her breasts out or be it the harmless woman sitting on the bench with her child and who then turns out even crazier or some kind of derogatory psychopath. Of course, you can never be 100% sure if all this is true because let's be honest that here we have a man who writes stories for a living, but I want to believe all he said and I guess I do. Listening to Lynch was also interesting enough. Light and dark/shadows, black-and-white etc. Have always been more crucial to Lynch's releases than to the ones of most other directors, especially the very famous ones. As this is no lifetime achievement documentary by any means, but takes a completely different route, don't expect a complete summary of what Lynch has done until now (or until 2016), but it is maybe those little anecdotes that made it worth watching. You will find out a bit too about what he thought about Bob Dylan back then and what music he liked listening to the most.
I also liked his statement especially that school meant absolutely nothing to him and that instead all his creativity and what he enjoyed the most in life as a teenager took place after school and on the weekends. We surely got that in common. But yeah, as studies have shown, school is not exactly in favor of students altogether. The opposite is the case as, the longer you stay and the more you perhaps learn, the more creativity you are losing to, but this is again another story. We also see that the painting that this one is perhaps all about at its core is something that had stayed with Lynch until the now and will probably stay with him for the rest of his life and this is why it surely helped that the filmmakers were taking this perspective and just had him unleash on the canvas here and there in front of the camera and he was also not alone there, but had his aforementioned granddaughter nearby. But we also do not only see painting here, just look at the moment when you hear whirring sounds from a specific tool. All inside him must get out I suppose. I know the feeling. I do not regret seeing this documentary and I think it is without a doubt good enough for a positive recommendation, but I think it does not need to be seen on the big screen and seeing it once is enough too. I am not sure though if this will be on television many times in the future. Maybe it is a bit on the forgotten side now already. I still felt it was a solid way to get the Lynch retrospective started for me. That's why I give "The Art Life" a thumbs-up and I am curious to watch Lynch's films during the rest of April and also curious what he will come up with in the future. He is one of the filmmakers where I just cannot see a definite retirement happen. Like ever.
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