by David Lynch
I was only sleeping four hours a night and the schedule wasn’t easy, but it was still fun. You wake up early and have coffees and meditate, and your mind is going on what you’re doing today. There’s this ravine and you’ve got to build a bridge to the other side, and the bridge is the scene you’re going to shoot. You get to the set or the location and people are coming in and you picture minutes going by, minutes turn into half hours, half hours pop into hours, and the thing is moving slow. If you’re in a new place, they’re moving in equipment and you’ve got to get people out of their trailers to rehearse and they’re not dressed and maybe they’ve got their makeup napkins on. You do a rehearsal, then the actors go to get dressed and Pete starts lighting. All of this time you’re building a bridge across this ravine, but the bridge is made of glass right now, because it could all go funny. So you keep adding pieces and it’s still glass, but then finally you add the last piece and the glass turns to steel and it’s there. You know you’ve got it and you’ve got a euphoria. Every day when you finish you get a high and you can’t go to sleep. You don’t want to sleep, so you drink red wine and stay up too late, then you have to get up the next day and build another bridge. And you can’t walk away from anything until it feels correct.
The shoot was really pretty grueling. Other people, they’re fuckin’ wimps and they fold like cheap tents, but I can’t stop even though I got sick as a dog several times. You get sick because you get tired. You find your groove but then it doesn’t end, because you finish shooting and you’ve got post. We had six or seven editors working at the same time, and I’m editing, too, and some special effects are being done by BUF. But some we have to do in-house; then there’s sound effects, music, mixing, and color correcting. How many times did I sit in a dark room at FotoKem color-correcting eighteen hours of shots? That’s a lot of shots. But there’s no way I could delegate anything. No way. You’re hands-on with every single thing, and that’s the only way. It’s kind of a dream job but it doesn’t let up.
This show is different from the Twin Peaks that’s gone before, but it’s still securely anchored in Twin Peaks. We shot it in the same town, and we lucked out in so many ways because pretty much all the locations we’d used were still there. They weren’t the same as when we left them, but the buildings were there, and the essence of the town was definitely the same. There’s so much influence of trees and mountains and a certain kind of crispness and smell in the air, and you recognize the feeling. Twin Peaks holds all different kinds of feelings, too. You’ve got Dougie and you’ve got Bad Cooper and there’s a big difference between the two of them. You’ve got the woodsmen and all these different textures and people you love, and it ends up being such a beautiful world, and it’s understandable, too, in an intuitive way.
And it’s got the woods. Because of where I grew up and what my father did, nature is a big part of Twin Peaks and the woods are really important. That’s a huge part of the thing. And you’ve got the Fireman and you’ve got the frog-moth, which came from Yugoslavia. When Jack and I were in Europe we caught the Orient Express in Athens to take us back to Paris, so we’re going up through Yugoslavia and it’s really, really dark. At a certain point the train came to a stop and there was no station, but we could see people getting off the train. They were going over to these canvas stalls with dim little lights, where they had these colored drinks—purple, green, yellow, blue, red—but it was just sugar water. When I got off the train I stepped into this soft dust that was like eight inches deep and it was blowing, and out of the earth these huge moths, like frogs, were leaping up, and they’d fly and flip and go back down again. So that was the frog-moth. Things just sort of show up in the world of Twin Peaks.
Fire Walk with Me is very important to this Twin Peaks, and I’m not surprised people made that connection. It’s very obvious. I remember thinking how lucky I was to have made that film. Everybody has theories about what the show is about, which is great, and it wouldn’t matter if I explained my theory. Things have harmonics, and if you’re true to an idea as much as you can be, then the harmonics will be there and they’ll be truthful even though they may be abstract. You could come back in ten years and see it in a completely different way, and you may see more in it—that potential is there if you’ve been true to that original idea. That’s one of the beautiful things cinema can do: You can go back into that world later and get more if you’ve been true to the basic notes.
Things went pretty good with Twin Peaks: The Return, and who really knows why? It could’ve gone different. There’s a tradition at Cannes that when a picture goes over well, everybody stands up and applauds. I’d forgotten about that, so when the screening of the first two hours of Twin Peaks ended at Cannes, I stood up and I was looking to get out and go have a smoke, but there was Thierry [Frémaux] telling me, “No, no, you can’t go.” The applause went on and on. It was a beautiful thing. I’ve been to Cannes when things didn’t go that way.
My childhood was very happy, and I think that set me up in life. I really did have a great family that gave me a good foundation, and that’s super important. I may not’ve been the best father to my kids, because I wasn’t around much, but my father was never around much, either. And yet he was around, you know? In those days there seemed to be a kids’ world and an adult world and they didn’t really mix much. Maybe it’s not the presence of the father but the love that you feel coming through that’s important. Still, I think my father was a better father than I am.
I didn’t know I was going to be famous, but mostly I had a feeling everything was going to be okay. There was never a moment when I thought, Wow, look at this big life I’m living. It was sort of like the way I gain weight—kind of slowly and evenly all over the place—it creeps up on you. But there have been major turning points in my life. The first one was meeting Toby Keeler in Linda Styles’s front yard in the ninth grade. From that moment on I wanted to be a painter. Then I met my best friend, Jack Fisk. Jack and I were the only kids in our huge high school who were serious about painting. We inspired and supported each other, and this was extremely important for the future. Making the moving painting Six Men Getting Sick, and getting a grant from the AFI, and finishing The Grandmother, and being accepted to the AFI were all turning points. Starting to meditate in 1973 was maybe the biggest change of all—that was huge. The crew of Eraserhead probably didn’t notice my lack of self-assuredness, but it was there. I knew what I wanted, but I was not confident, and a lot of studio guys could’ve killed me real easy, so meditation really helped with that. Finishing Eraserhead and having Mel Brooks trust me enough to hire me to make The Elephant Man, and having that get eight Academy nominations, was a big jump up. And the failure with Dune was a revelation—that was a good thing to have a humiliating major failure. Then the freedom of working on Blue Velvet and getting on the right track, and meeting the art dealer Jim Corcoran, who believed in me—those things were important. Each one of my love affairs was life-changing, and although there were similarities, they were all different and great.
It’s next door to impossible to jump up without the help of others, and I realize how lucky I’ve been. As I’ve said before, my mother and father played pivotal roles in my life, and so did Toby and Bushnell Keeler. When I first got to Philadelphia I was in a strange place, trying to make my way and Peggy Reavey believed in me and supported me, so she was really important. Toni Vellani, George Stevens, Jr., Dino De Laurentiis, and Mr. Bouygues were also important. Anybody who believes in you and has the wherewithal to make things happen—we all really need those people. David Nevins is one of those people, because he made Twin Peaks: The Return happen, and maybe somebody else wouldn’t have done that. And the great Angelo Badalamenti—what a gift, finding Angelo and his music. Charlie and Helen Lutes, who ran the center where I learned TM, gave me a powerful and great start down the meditation road, and Bobby Roth has been my brother on the path. Bobby was always with me in the world of Mah
arishi—the tours and talks on meditation, and the forming of the David Lynch Foundation. Bobby is the brains and powerhouse behind the DLF. Maharishi played the biggest role of all, though. He changed things cosmically and profoundly, and everything else pales in comparison.
There was a day during the time when I had my bungalow on Rosewood that I’ve never forgotten. It was a beautiful morning, and at around eleven-thirty I went down to San Vicente and Santa Monica Boulevard to fill up my car with gas, and the sun was warming the back of my neck, and I filled my gas tank from empty to full, put the cap back on, and looked at the gas pump and it read three dollars. I made fifty dollars a week delivering The Wall Street Journal. I drove ten minutes to get the newspapers; I got my route down to one hour, then ten minutes to get back home. I worked six hours and forty minutes a week and I made two hundred dollars a month and I was able to live nicely on that. My route went through two different zip codes so there were two different garbage nights, and people would throw out wood, and I’d leap out and load this stuff up and I got so much found wood. My landlord, Edmund, collected wood, too, and he let me use it, and I built a whole shed in the backyard with found wood, found windows, found everything. It was a beautiful world. There’s a whole bunch of negative things going on these days and many diversions keeping us from knowing what’s really going on. There’s so much harm being done to us and our world because of love of money over love of humanity and Mother Nature.
I’m happy I went on the sixteen-country tour for Maharishi. Even though I don’t like public speaking, I get blissful telling people about the knowledge and technologies Maharishi revived for the world. Maharishi had two goals: the enlightenment of individuals, and peace on earth. He put everything needed in place for both to happen. It’s now just a question of time. If we humans—or even a few of us—work together on this, we can speed through this transition and the goals will be a living reality. Enlightenment for the people and real peace on earth. Real peace is not just the absence of war, but the absence of all negativity. Everyone wins.
* * *
—
If I look at any page of this book, I think, Man, that’s just the tip of the iceberg; there’s so much more, so many more stories. You could do an entire book on a single day and still not capture everything. It’s impossible to really tell the story of somebody’s life, and the most we can hope to convey here is a very abstract “Rosebud.” Ultimately, each life is a mystery until we each solve the mystery, and that’s where we are all headed whether we know it or not.
MAY EVERYONE BE HAPPY
MAY EVERYONE BE FREE OF DISEASE
MAY AUSPICIOUSNESS BE SEEN EVERYWHERE
MAY SUFFERING BELONG TO NO ONE
PEACE
Dedicated to His Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
and
the world family
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My first thanks go to Martha Levacy, Peggy Reavey, Mary Fisk, and Michael Barile. Their patience and support throughout the making of this book were crucial and I’m eternally in their debt. Thanks also to Anna Skarbek, whose encouragement and knowledge were immensely helpful, and to Sabrina Sutherland and Mindy Ramaker for their kindness and generosity. Noriko Miyakawa was a godsend.
Ottessa Moshfegh made the key connection that launched the long journey of Room to Dream—thank you, Ottessa—and Chris Parris-Lamb and Ben Greenberg made the book a reality. I couldn’t have asked for better colleagues. The many people who agreed to speak with me for the book provided the heart and soul of the narrative, and I thank them all for the time they gave me and their willingness to share their experiences with David. Many thanks to Loren Noveck for her impeccable copy editing and for making me seem smarter than I am.
Thanks also to Ann Summa, Jeff Spurrier, Steve Samiof, Kathleen Greenberg, Hilary Beane, the Asolas family, Lianne Halfon, Michael Bortman, Laurie Steelink, Nick Chase, Jack Cheesborough, Samantha Williamson, Mara De Luca, Michael Duncan, Glenn Morrow, Exene Cervenka, Dan & Clare Hicks, Kati Rocky, Joe Frank, Richard Beymer, Adrienne Levin, Merrill Markoe, Marc Sirinsky, Cannon Hudson, and Jennifer Bolande. Leonard Cohen and Diane Broderick are reliable northern stars, Walter Hopps is always there, and Gideon Brower was an essential presence throughout my work on the book—much gratitude to all of them. Lorraine Wild taught me how to make books; thank you, Lorraine. My deepest thanks go to David Lynch. I’m honored that he trusted me enough to allow me to take part in the telling of his story and feel very lucky to know him. A surprising thing happened during the making of this book on David, in that the closer I got the better he looked. David is an extraordinary and generous man who’s helped many people. I am one of them.
—KRISTINE MCKENNA
FILMOGRAPHY
1967
Six Men Getting Sick (Six Times)
1 minute / color / animation projected onto sculpted screen
Director, producer, editor, and animation: David Lynch
Fictitious Anacin Commercial
1 minute 5 seconds / color / live action
Director, writer, producer, and editor: David Lynch
With: Jack Fisk
Absurd Encounter with Fear
2 minutes / color / live action and animation
Director, writer, producer, and editor: David Lynch
Music: Krzysztof Penderecki
1968
The Alphabet
4 minutes / color / live action and animation
Producer: H. Barton Wasserman
Director, writer, photographer, and editor: David Lynch
Sound: David Lynch
Title song: David Lynch, performed by Robert Chadwick
With: Peggy Reavey
1970
The Grandmother
34 minutes / color / live action and animation
Director, writer, photographer, editor, and animation: David Lynch
Producer: David Lynch, with the American Film Institute
Assistant script consultants: Peggy Reavey and C. K. Williams
Still photography: Doug Randall
Sound editing and mixing: Alan Splet
Music: Tractor
With: Richard White, Virginia Maitland, Robert Chadwick, and Dorothy McGinnis
1974
The Amputee (two versions)
5 minutes / black and white / live action
Director, writer, producer, and editor: David Lynch
Photography: Frederick Elmes
With: Catherine Coulson and David Lynch
1977
Eraserhead
1 hour, 29 minutes / black and white / live action and animation
Production company: American Film Institute, distributed by Libra Films
Director, writer, and editor: David Lynch
Producer: David Lynch
Photography: Herbert Cardwell and Frederick Elmes
Production design and special effects: David Lynch
Sound design and editing: David Lynch and Alan Splet
Assistant to the director: Catherine Coulson
With: Jack Nance, Charlotte Stewart, Allen Joseph, Jeanne Bates, Judith Roberts, Laurel Near, Jack Fisk, Thomas Coulson, Hal Landon, Jr., Neil Moran, and Jean Lange
1980
The Elephant Man
2 hours, 4 minutes / black and white / live action
Production company: Brooksfilms
Director: David Lynch
Writers: David Lynch, Christopher De Vore, & Eric Bergren
Producer: Jonathan Sanger
Executive producer: Stuart Cornfeld (uncredited, Mel Brooks)
Photography: Freddie Francis
Editor: Anne V. Coates
Production manager: Terrence A. Clegg
Production design: Stuart Craig
Sou
nd design: Alan Splet and David Lynch
Costume design: Patricia Norris
Music: John Morris
With: John Hurt, Anthony Hopkins, Anne Bancroft, Wendy Hiller, John Gielgud, Freddie Jones, Michael Elphick, and Hannah Gordon
1984
Dune
2 hours, 17 minutes / color / live action
Production company: Dino De Laurentiis Company/Universal
Director: David Lynch
Writer: David Lynch
Based on the novel by Frank Herbert
Producer: Raffaella De Laurentiis
Executive producer: Dino De Laurentiis
Photography: Freddie Francis
Second unit photography: Frederick Elmes
Editor: Antony Gibbs
Production design: Anthony Masters
Sound design: Alan Splet
Costume design: Bob Ringwood
Music: Toto; “Prophecy Theme” by Brian Eno
With: Kyle MacLachlan, Sting, Francesca Annis, Leonard Cimino, Brad Dourif, José Ferrer, Linda Hunt, Dean Stockwell, Virginia Madsen, Silvana Mangano, Jack Nance, Jürgen Prochnow, Paul L. Smith, Patrick Stewart, Max von Sydow, Alicia Witt, Freddie Jones, and Kenneth McMillan
1986
Blue Velvet
2 hours / color / live action
Production company: De Laurentiis Entertainment Group
Director: David Lynch
Writer: David Lynch
Producer: Fred Caruso
Executive producer: Richard Roth
