by David Lynch
During the production of Dune, Lynch also had a young family to tend to. “I was kind of a single parent while David made Dune,” said Fisk, “and it was a hard place to take a newborn, because I was breastfeeding. I went down there a few times—I took Martha Bonner, who’s Austin’s godmother, on one trip—and Austin took his first steps in David’s hotel room with David watching. David and I talked on the phone a lot, but it was a long separation and I didn’t like it.”
In the fall of 1983, when Lynch was six months into the shoot, Fisk purchased a property in Virginia, sold the house in Granada Hills, and moved across the country with Austin. “My brother kind of talked me into moving,” said Fisk. “He and Sissy lived there, and I found a five-thousand-square-foot house that was a little rundown but was on a beautiful piece of land, and David said, ‘Go for it—I trust you.’ So I bought it without David even seeing it, then spent the next six months renovating it.”
Lynch took the move in stride, but it was unsettling for his daughter. “It was frightening as hell for me when he moved to Virginia,” Jennifer Lynch said. “Up until then my dad had always been around for me and we had a thing. I remember writing him in Virginia and saying, ‘I’m afraid I’m never going to see you again,’ and he said, ‘Are you kidding me? We talk all the time!’ And it’s true that he used to call me at all hours of the night just to talk. Still, it was horrible and really sad. I actually did see him more than Mary and Austin did, because he was in L.A. a lot.”
Principal photography on Dune wrapped on September 9th, 1983, then Lynch spent four more months in Mexico working with models and special effects. By that point the enormity of the project was beginning to take a toll. “I never got the sense that David was unhappy when we were shooting, but you have to remember that I was a self-absorbed twenty-four-year-old at the time, so my awareness of what was happening with people around me was different than it would be today,” said MacLachlan. “At the time everything seemed to be going well. Working with actors for him is always a joy—I could see that then, and that’s still there today. But I do remember him saying, ‘This is a very big undertaking,’ and I think he got tired. David was still there doing second- and third-unit stuff long after I completed my work.”
Lynch finally left Mexico early in February of 1984 and moved into a modest apartment in West Los Angeles, where he lived for the next six months while the film was edited. Brandstein was part of his life during that period and recalled, “David saw me as living the art life, which was something he craved—to be a creator and make art was everything to him. We talked a lot about art and spirituality, and he made me feel good about being an artist and helped me move forward in that regard. The relationship caused emotional conflict for both of us, though. David didn’t like it that he was hurting Mary, and he was constantly trying to balance things because he wants both sides. He wants a relationship that exists in an exciting sort of aroused state, but he also wants the comfort of home life, that Midwestern-farm-boy thing. He needs both, and that’s been the framework of his life and the motor of his creativity. I would’ve married David in a minute but he wasn’t available, and I felt a kind of emptiness in the relationship, so when I met someone else in 1985 I moved on.”
Something that’s been a constant throughout Lynch’s life is that he’s like catnip to women. “There’s no malice in Dad and he doesn’t do these things out of selfishness—that’s not it at all,” said Jennifer Lynch. “It’s just that he’s always been in love with secrets and mischief and sexuality, and he’s naughty and he genuinely loves love. And when he loves you, you are the most loved, and he’s happy and giddy and he has ideas and gets creative and the whole thing is insanely romantic.”
Fisk had always been aware of this aspect of Lynch, but she wasn’t ready to address the situation in Los Angeles. “David went back and forth from Virginia to L.A. while they were editing Dune, and during that period he told me he was very worried about our marriage,” Fisk recalled. “My brother said he thought he was having an affair, but I didn’t want to think about it. I went out there for the cast-and-crew party and girls were all over him, and I remember thinking, This is weird. But then I realized this was the way it was going to be.”
The first rough cut of Dune—which Lynch screened once in Mexico—was five hours long. Lynch’s intended cut, as reflected in the seventh draft of the script, was almost three hours. The final cut that was released was two hours and seventeen minutes. Needless to say, much of what he wanted in the film wound up on the cutting-room floor, and he was forced to make concessions during the editing process that he regretted making. The months in Los Angeles were hard on him. “A year and a half into Dune, I had a feeling of deep horror,” Lynch said. “But I learned a lot about making movies and the business of Hollywood with it.” In the 2001 BBC documentary The Last Movie Mogul, Dino De Laurentiis conceded that “we destroyed Dune in the editing room.” Given that De Laurentiis had final cut of the film, one assumes he means “I” when he says “we.”
“If David had had final cut, it wouldn’t have been a better picture—he did a cut and I saw it,” said Raffaella De Laurentiis. “It was five hours long and it was impenetrable, if you were able to stay awake.
“The biggest mistake we made was trying to be too faithful to the book,” she added. “We felt like, my God, it’s Dune—how can we fuck around with it? But a movie is different from a book, and you have to understand that from the start.”
Distributed by Universal, Dune premiered at the Kennedy Center on December 3rd, 1984. “It was a very big deal,” Fisk recalled. “Dino got us invitations to the White House, and we went to a state dinner and met Ronald and Nancy Reagan [a president Lynch admired], and Andy Williams was there singing. That was the fun part of Dune. Then the critics got to Dune and they decimated it and decimated David along with it.” The reviews were almost uniformly negative. Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel named it “the worst film of the year,” and Richard Corliss, of Time magazine, said it was “as difficult as a final exam.” Lynch was halfway through the script for Dune II when Dune was released, but the plug was pulled on the franchise following its failure.
The film did have some significant supporters. Science-fiction writer Harlan Ellison loved it, and in the introduction to his short-story collection of 1985, Eye, Frank Herbert said, “What reached the screen is a visual feast that begins as Dune begins, and you hear my dialogue all through it.” Levacy recalled, “David had a great rapport with Frank Herbert. He was pleased with how David interpreted the book and gave the film his stamp of approval, and that was huge for David.”
MacLachlan—who appears in almost every frame of the film—has mixed feelings about his first appearance onscreen. “I look at my performance and cringe because I was so new to acting in front of a camera,” he said. “In some ways it worked, though, because I was playing a character that moves through a youthful, boyish period, then is tested and must grow into a leader. I guess they got me at the right time, because I was really green on that movie.
“I think David did a great job, though,” MacLachlan added. “Ultimately there was no way to flesh out the intricacy of the world Frank Herbert created, because there are just too many things going on in the book. But I can watch Dune and enjoy it for the sheer impact of the visuals and the fact that David was able to imprint that material with his vision. The Harkonnens, the train car coming into the palace—my God, it’s genius. I call it a flawed masterpiece.”
Reflecting on the film, Sting said, “To cram the entire book into a single feature might’ve been a mistake, and on the big screen I found it a bit overwhelming, but oddly enough, it holds up on a smaller screen for me. And ultimately I always find David’s work absorbing. Like Goya and Francis Bacon, he has a vision that isn’t particularly comfortable, and everything he does is infused with a sense of the Other. He has a vision and it’s serious and not frivolous. I’m always happy to see him in
the world doing what he does and I’m grateful to be part of his canon.”
After the release of Dune, Lynch returned to the home in Albemarle County, outside of Charlottesville, Virginia, that Fisk had purchased, and he focused on what he was determined would be his next film. “He said, ‘I don’t want to talk about Dune,’ so we didn’t, and he moved on and did the final rewrite of Blue Velvet,” said Fisk of Lynch, who wrote the script while listening to Shostakovich’s No. 15 in A Major. “David is an extremely disciplined person, and that’s part of why he accomplishes so much. He’ll sit down and write for two hours, and although there are days when he may not produce much, he’ll sit there for two hours anyway. Then he’ll paint for two hours. He goes from one project to the next, and that probably comes from his parents and his Eagle Scout days. David has quite a talent for manifesting things.”
Lynch was eager to put Dune behind him, but his relationship with the De Laurentiis family remained strong. “David is obsessed with body parts, and I had to have a hysterectomy after Dune,” recalled Raffaella De Laurentiis. “David said, ‘You’re having a hysterectomy? Can I have your uterus?’ I said sure, why not, and asked the hospital to give it to me, but they looked at me as if I was out of my mind and refused. So I had my stepson go to the butcher and get the uterus of a pig, and we put it in a jar with formaldehyde and taped my hospital ID bracelet to it and gave it to David. Someone told me he kept it in his refrigerator for years, and he once had to go through customs with this jar. One of his wives probably threw it out.”
As for Dino De Laurentiis, he never lost faith in Lynch despite the problems with Dune, and after the dust settled following the opening of the film, he asked him what he wanted to do next. Lynch replied that he wanted to do Blue Velvet. At that point a turnaround clause on an early draft of Blue Velvet that had been pitched to Warner Bros. had lapsed and ownership of the script had reverted to the studio; De Laurentiis called the president of the studio and bought back the rights. Lynch made it clear that he’d insist on having final cut of the picture if they made it together, and De Laurentiis stipulated that if he cut his salary and the budget of the film in half, he could have it. “David loved Dino,” said Fisk, “because Dino gave him the chance to make Blue Velvet.”
I SIGNED WITH RICK NICITA because I liked him personally. He’s not really an agent type and he was Sissy’s agent, so I trusted him because of that. I think his secretary typed up Ronnie Rocket for me after I finished writing it in longhand, so I sort of knew him long before he became my agent. Rick never tried to push me in any specific direction.
After The Elephant Man I maybe could’ve done Ronnie Rocket because Mel got me some money to do it, but not enough, way not enough. I don’t remember why I didn’t do Frances, that film about Frances Farmer. Right around that time George Lucas was gearing up to do his third Star Wars, and some people called and asked if I’d come up for a meeting with George. There was a place called the Egg Company near the Warner Bros. lot, and they told me to go there and I’d get an envelope containing a credit card, a key, an airline ticket, and some different things. So I flew into San Francisco airport and got a rental car and drove to this place called Sprocket, which I think was one of Lucas’s companies. I went in and met George and he started talking to me about Star Wars. I was flattered in a way, but I also don’t know why I went, because Star Wars is not my cup of tea. Anyway, he’s talking to me and I started getting a headache that got steadily worse. We talked some more, then we went in George’s Ferrari to lunch at this salad place and had salads. By then my head was pounding and I couldn’t wait to get out of there. I called Rick from the airport—I felt crazed and had to tell him before I got in the airplane. I said, “Rick, I can’t do it! I felt all this pressure to say yes to George, but I can’t do it!” He said, “David, it’s okay, you don’t have to do it.” Then I called George and thanked him and told him I wished he’d direct this picture because it’s his thing. George is one of the all-time great creators around. He’s got this touch and he’s a special human being, but Star Wars wasn’t my kind of thing.
A producer named Richard Roth approached me about doing an adaptation of the book Red Dragon, and when I told him no he said, “What else you got?” I said, “I’ve got this film called Ronnie Rocket,” but he wasn’t into that, and he said, “What else you got?” I said, “I don’t really have it yet, but I have this idea,” and I started talking about Blue Velvet, and he said, “Oh, that sounds really interesting.” He took me to Warner Bros. and made me pitch it to this guy—I don’t remember who it was—and I guess this guy must’ve given me some money to write a script, because Warner Bros. ended up owning it. I wrote two drafts for them and they hated both of them, and I don’t blame them—it wasn’t finished.
Then I heard that Dino De Laurentiis wanted to meet me about this thing called Dune. I thought he said “June,” because I didn’t know anything about Dune, but all my friends were saying, “Oh my God, that’s the number one science-fiction book ever.” So I thought, Okay, I’ll go meet Dino and I’ll really get a headache, based on what I’d heard about him. So I go to this office in Beverly Hills and the receptionist was really beautiful and very nice to me. Then I go in and I meet Dino. Dino says, “Hello,” and as I sit down I see this guy sitting in the shadows out of the corner of my eye and that’s Dino Conti, who’s one of Dino’s friends. I didn’t know why he was there, but I got the warmest feeling from both of them and they fixed me a cappuccino that was out of this world. This guy named Enzo was Dino’s barber, and Enzo’s wife, Conchetta, did all the hors d’oeuvres for us that day. Enzo used to cut Dino’s hair and when Dino had an office on Wilshire Boulevard there was a barber shop in there, and I could go and get my hair cut from Enzo. He was the best barber, just unreal. He studied haircutting in Italy. It was like a “thing.”
Then I started getting to know Dino. Dino wasn’t born rich and he started out wanting to be an actor. One day he had an audition and he was told to come in a suit, looking really sharp. He had a suit but he didn’t have any good shoes, and while he was walking to the train to go to the audition he passed a shoe store. He went in and told the man, “I’m going to an audition and I don’t have any money but I need a pair of shoes,” and this guy said, “Okay, you can have a pair.” Dino sent that man money for the rest of his life.
In the fifties and sixties, Dino would be working in Rome, and on the weekends—now picture this—he gets on a train and he’d travel up through Italy to where you turn left into France, and he’d get out at a station and go to this beautiful little place on the Mediterranean. There were Roman pines and he’d walk down this long, curving driveway to a mansion with a cove on the sea. Le Corbusier died in that cove. It’s insane. I went to Le Corbusier’s grave, which is in that area. He designed it himself on a hill overlooking the Mediterranean, and it was beautiful. Anyhow, you’re in the movie business in Rome and you have this place in Monte Carlo, or wherever it was. Imagine that kind of lifestyle. It was so beautiful.
When I look back on the time when I was getting to know Dino it’s as if I was mesmerized. Dino is like an Italian Mack truck and he just goes forward. He had tremendous energy, and he’s a real charmer, and he lives the good life, surrounded by great food and great places and great ways to travel and great enthusiasm for projects. So, part of the Dino seduction was being in his world. But don’t get me wrong—I loved Dino and Raffaella, and Silvana Mangano, and their daughters Veronica and Francesca, and for a while I was like part of the family. The only place Dino and I didn’t get along was with movies. Dino loves film, but not my kind of film, so he had a dilemma with me. He said, “This guy Lynch made Eraserhead, which I hate, and The Elephant Man, which I love.” He wanted The Elephant Man director.
So Dino’s over at his place in Abano Terme, Italy, with Silvana, and she’s taking the mud-bath cure. These mud baths, I’m tellin’ you: You’d go into these bathrooms, the tub is huge and it’s got
all these fantastic, beautiful faucets with hoses, and there’s nurses in white uniforms walking around. It was just like in 8½—well, not exactly, because Claudia Cardinale wasn’t there. Anyhow, Dino called and told me to come over there, and when I get there he says, “David, I take you into Venice.” So we get in this car and it’s Raffaella, me in the middle, Dino, and Raffaella’s ex-husband. The driver is this stocky guy who has no neck—it’s like shoulders with a hat on—and his hands are gripping the wheel, and the left-turn signal is on all the way into town. His foot is made of solid lead, I mean, floorboarding. He’d come up behind cars and race past them at a hundred twenty miles an hour, and we’re just flying into Venice, and the wind is blowing in the car because Raffaella gets carsick and her head is out the window. We drive into St. Mark’s Square the back way, which Dino knew about, and then that plaza just opens up. Then we went on this boat up to where Hemingway stayed, this magical place, and ate at a restaurant with a statue of Hemingway, and on the way back the water was pitch-black, and these Italian mansions would just kind of rise up out of the water. That’s where I got a lot of ideas for the sets for Dune. I talked to Tony Masters about what I saw there, because it was incredible.
Dune is a story of a quest for enlightenment and that’s part of why I did it, but I also knew I was going into something that was meant to be for some reason. I didn’t know what the reason was, but I was in it. I brought in Chris De Vore and Eric Bergren to work on the script with me because we’d worked together and I really liked them, and they were big fans of the book. Chris, Eric, Dino’s son Federico, and I went up to Port Townsend and spent a day with Frank Herbert. Frank and his wife, Beverly, were really nice, and we just talked. I don’t even know if we talked about the book. The more I got into the book, the more complicated it seemed, and with Dino not wanting to do this or that, I knew it would be hard to make sense of it. There’s the shield wall, then there’s the shields, then there’s this from this culture and that from that culture, and at the same time it’s about this jihad and a bunch of other stuff. Very complicated. The day with Frank Herbert was nice, though. I was taking a plane back to L.A. at the end of that day and Federico was flying to Seattle to get a plane to Alaska. My plane left first so he walked me all the way to my gate, which was so kind of him. Federico, they say, was so handsome that women would almost die when they saw him. On that trip to Alaska, Federico met the pilot that he would be killed with in a plane crash that July.
