SHORT FILMS, WEB PROJECTS, AND COMMERCIALS

David Lynch Painted by Alessandro Fantini (2003)

Most filmmakers use the short-film format to train themselves in filmmaking basics and to open doors for professional employment to direct feature films. Once these new directors make the transition into features, they rarely return to this format. David Lynch is an interesting exception to this pattern, who took his first steps toward film production with an experimental animated painting in the late 1960's and who continues to direct a sizable number of experimental shorts to this day.

Lynch Lifted Some Scenes from his Web Projects to Help Complete Inland Empire (2006)
And Some Scenes from Inland Empire Evolved into Independent Short Films

David Lynch certainly experiments more than most filmmakers, but even he is subject to certain financial constraints when operating in a feature film production. These pressures might preclude the director from exploring all the free-form possibilities he might otherwise like to experiment with, since he is responsible for making a movie that is narratively sound and remains a financially viable investment to recoup the millions of dollars its cost to make, as well as hopefully generate a healthy profit.

Directors are Often Weighed Down with Expensive Problems on a Feature Film Set
Pictured: David Lynch Directing Blue Velvet (1986)

But short films, on the other hand, are so cheap to produce and so small in scale that the directors' workload is considerably easier and more manageable. Like a lab for filmmakers, short films provide a safe venue to experiment with the tools, techniques, and concepts of film. For this reason, many filmmakers take a break between feature films to make music videos, commercials, or otherwise find some means of compensating for current short film productions. Since the technologies and techniques of filmmaking are always evolving, most directors value a low-pressure forum where they can simply play around in their stylistic sandbox with the newly developed tools of their trade.

Abstractions in Film

David Lynch loves this sandbox and unabashedly returns frequently. For a filmmaker specializing in surreal yet intelligible feature films, this experimental playground is vital to Lynch's artistic process. Here David Lynch explains how the introduction of surrealism in his films can encourage deeper analysis: "Barry [Gifford] may have his idea of what [Lost Highway] means and I may have my own idea, and they may be two different things. And yet, we worked together on the same film. The beauty of a film that is more abstract is everybody has a different take.

Interpreting the Ideas of Lynch's Film

"Nobody agrees on anything in the world today. When you are spoon-fed a film, more people instantly know what it is. I love things that leave room to dream and are open to various interpretations. It's a beautiful thing. It doesn't do any good for Barry to say 'This is what it means.' Film is what it means. If Barry or anyone else could capture what the film is in words, then that's poetry" (emphasis added, link to quote source).

SECTION I: SHORT FILMS

As a fledgling, struggling artist in Philadelphia and then Los Angeles, David Lynch produced his first three short films before beginning the five-year production of Eraserhead (1976). These short films were shot with color film, but Lynch purposely made the color palette monochromatic and added only some accents of color here and there to add contrast. These three short films showcase his development from painter to filmmaker and help us understand his unique sense of style that would blossom in Eraserhead.

The Short Films of David Lynch

While the concept of paintings moving through time first drew David Lynch into the world of film, it would be the ability to add soundtracks that would clinch his relationship with motion pictures: "Half of the film is picture, the other half is sound. They've got to work together. I keep saying that there are ten sounds that will be correct and if you get one of them, you're there. But there are thousands that are incorrect, so you just have to keep on letting it talk to you and feel it. It's not an intellectual sort of thing."

Below is a video clip of a recent interview with David Lynch at his art exhibition in Paris. Lynch elaborates on his aesthetic and stylistic preferences in the medium of painting and how it influences and interacts with his style in motion pictures, and vice versa.

Lynch Painting Interview in Paris Pt. 1

(Click on "Part 2" to See the Last Half Once "Part 1" Finishes)

SIX FIGURES GETTING SICK (1966)

As we mentioned in our analysis of Eraserhead, David Lynch felt he made his first real strides as an artist when he avoided the traditional painter's education in Europe and lived in an industrial wasteland in Philadelphia. Filled with a feeling of dread from the violence and human decay in the ghetto where he lived, Lynch finally came face to face with his muse. For the rest of his career, the alienation of modern society and the soot and grime of industrialization would texture all his work.

The Last Figure on the Right Looks Eerily Similar to The Elephant Man

Designed as a painting that moved through time while projected on sculptured 3-D faces as its screen, Six Figures Getting Sick (1966) aptly prefaces the bizarre and disturbing facets of David Lynch's repertoire. We even see a small glimpse of a recurring question that Lynch seems to be asking in his art: Is mankind reducing itself to a hideously deformed shadow of its former self?

David Lynch Summarizes his Early Career

Although a crudely drawn animation projected over a screen of hideous sculpted faces married with a soundtrack featuring an implacable, blaring siren run in a continuous loop in Six Figures Getting Sick might seem simple compared to his later works, this short film established David Lynch as an art student to be reckoned with and brought him to the attention of art investors who helped fund his next short films.

THE ALPHABET (1968)

"Please remember, you are dealing with the human form."—The Alphabet Vogon

As David Lynch explains in the above video clip of his interview in Paris, The Alphabet (1968) is a short film, part animated and part live action, which represents Lynch's concern of the education system pressuring children in their learning process. Lynch fears the system is transforming what should be an straightforward process into a monster that dehumanizes our children and implants in them unhealthy neuroses. This short film is inspired by a real incident involving a young niece, who repeated her ABC's over and over again out loud while having a nightmare in bed.

The Alphabet

David Lynch presents this story as an abstract nightmare, apparently representing the school, teacher, and teacher's instruction with monstrous animated images and intercutting those images with a young girl in bed dreaming. The young girl was actually played by his wife Peggy Lynch. The Alphabet sounds an abstract voice of warning against the subhuman mistreatment of children in modern society, who are frequently looked down on as small computers that simply need to be programmed. Many parents, teachers, and adults tend to emphasize the ability to spout off facts on demand, rather than help the children love the learning process and think for themselves.

In the final analysis, The Alphabet explores what a child feels like when he or she is bullied into learning facts, while being denied the more effective tools of self-development that we could be teaching children instead. The most valuable thing we can teach children is love of the learning process itself, not fear that they will not score high enough on tests to earn adults' approval. Perhaps David Lynch wishes to encourage schools to not teach lessons, but teach people.

The Alphabet is a bizarre nightmare vision, but is no more terrifying than the abuse it symbolizes. This short film is where we first note the underlying compassion present throughout the rest of David Lynch's motion pictures and it foreshadow his first major Hollywood film production The Elephant Man (1980), when John Merrick is cornered by a frenzied crowd of onlookers. To one degree or another, we have all felt John's pain as he screams out a heart-shattering plea, "I am not an animal! I am a human being! I am a man!"

THE GRANDMOTHER (1970)

Jack Nance remarked that after first reading the screenplay for Eraserhead (1976), he was unsure David Lynch could pull off such a strangely abstract film. It was not until Nance watched The Grandmother (1970) that he finally believed Lynch had the talent to do the story justice.

A plot synopsis is more or less obsolete for a film of this nature, as we said about Eraserhead, too. But the basic concept of the story revolves around a lonely boy whose parents are too busy with their apathy, anger, and mutual abuse to bother themselves to offer their son any love or affection. The boy longs for someone who will love him and play with him, so he sets out on a mission to secretly grow a grandmother for himself in his bedroom.

In a stroke of Lynchian bizarreness, the boy succeeds in his task and grows a plant that eventually gives birth to his grandmother. The boy loves every minute of his life with her, but eventually his parents learn the source of his happiness and essentially destroy the grandmother. This leaves the boy in mourning for his formerly joyful existence with her. Imagine David Lynch taking the concept of the French short film Le Ballon Rouge (1956)—or as it is commonly known by in English The Red Balloon (1956)—and then Lynchifying it into a completely different, darker remake and you might get an inkling of what The Grandmother is like to watch.

When being interviewed about Lost Highway (1997), David Lynch explained a principle of his filmmaking style that we clearly see originating in these early films: "I always like to have the people stand out, so the furnishings have got to be as minimal as possible so you can see the people" (link to quote source).

These short films exhibit extreme minimalist tendencies in terms of set and prop design that also enabled David Lynch to control the color scheme with an extreme absence of warm colors and light, helping him create a brooding atmosphere.

In a uniquely Lynchian way, David Lynch takes the opportunity to explore the birth and death of a loved one in an accelerated amount of time. The Grandmother is a dark and disturbing film, but it plunges you into a feeling of compassion that would mark every other production David Lynch has made since.

The characters of the grandmother and grandson seem to be so ingrained in David Lynch's mind that these figures would make guest appearances on Twin Peaks, both in the TV series (1990-91) and later in the prequel film Fire Walk with Me (1992). Although likely an homage to his former work, perhaps Lynch is playfully hinting at the possibility that the events of The Grandmother actually took place in the Peaksian White/Black Lodges. Whatever the case, these two characters seem to hold a special place in Lynch's heart and have crossed over into his other work.

David Lynch's Son Austin Plays the Grandson in Twin Peaks Episode 9

The grandmother and grandson duo first impersonate the Tremonds in the Twin Peaks TV series, and later impersonate the Chalfonts in Fire Walk with Me. In both instances, they seem to be portrayed as Lodgian entities who are in opposition to Bob's murderous agenda and they offer vital clues to help the characters uncover secrets about Bob. Chronologically speaking, they first helped Laura confront the fact that her father is Bob's vessel into our world. And they later helped Laura's best friend Donna Hayward discover Laura's secret diary, where she included many important passages about Bob and her visions of the White/Black Lodges.

From the off-handed remark by Mike in Cooper's vision that Bob and he lived above a convenience store, David Lynch created this surreal scene depicting a meeting of these entities that David Bowie's FBI Special Agent Phillip Jeffries somehow managed to attend.

At the end of the day, The Grandmother shines brightly as David Lynch's first narrative film and is as disturbing as it is touching. To again quote what Mel Brooks said about Lynch, "I felt I was dealing with a true artist, with David Lynch. I felt that he was as close to [understanding] the phenomenon of life and why we're here and why we have to die, as any artist I ever met."

THE AMPUTEE (1974)

In the middle of Eraserhead's production, David Lynch used one of the many breaks in production to experiment with new video technology, foreshadowing his eventual departure from film nearly 30 years later in favor of digital video. Catherine Coulson (Twin Peaks' "Log Lady") plays a woman amputee who has lost both her legs while she writes a letter about recent odds and ends that have been happening in her life, sharing certain thoughts she has been pondering, as well as discussing the status of her friends.

David Lynch appears in his first on-screen cameo as a nurse tending to the amputee's stitches when he accidentally cuts open the wrong thing and blood spurts out of the amputee's leg. Lynch runs out of the room, apparently to get help or maybe just to runaway from the consequences of what is happening as the woman remains oblivious that she is bleeding to death. Lynch seems to be parodying the human capacity of indifference even in the face of monumental dangers we face and how we tend to coast through our lives half asleep to these life-threatening perils.

THE COWBOY AND THE FRENCHMAN (1988)

Finally David Lynch makes his big splash into the comedy genre, laying a solid comedic foundation that would help him create a similarly toned On the Air (1992) and his later Disney classic The Straight Story (1999). At the turn of the 20th century, a Frenchman stumbles into a ranch of Cowboys and a Native American who all attempt to communicate with each other in spite of their linguistic differences. They all eventually decide to sing and dance the night away.

This short film provides an endearing break from his normally horror-oriented short films and is one of the more entertaining to watch of the bunch. By most standards, the story moves along slowly, but the absurd comedic tone and humorous stereotypical characters make for an enjoyable if rare comedy-centric Lynch viewing experience.

INDUSTRIAL SYMPHONY NO. 1:

THE DREAM OF THE BROKENHEARTED (1990)

In 1989 David Lynch had just shot the Twin Peaks Pilot (1990) and began directing Wild at Heart (1990). As if he were not busy enough already, Lynch decided to direct a live stage performance to showcase the songs he has been developing with his composer Angelo Badalementi for the heretofore unaired Twin Peaks. Lynch collaborates again with his Roadhouse singer Julee Cruise and the Little Man From Another Place Michael Anderson and creates a memorable live stage performance that was performed twice at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York City.

Lynch, Badalamenti, and Cruise

(The Music from the Performance is Edited Out

 of this Video, Most Likely for Rights Reasons)

The performance begins with a video conversation played out between characters reminiscent of Wild at Heart's Lula and Sailor, also played by Laura Dern and Nicolas Cage. David Lynch shot their segment during the production of Wild at Heart. Nicolas Cage's character breaks up with Laura Dern's, prompting Laura's broken-hearted dream self to float down across an industrial wasteland in the form of Julee Cruise, who begins singing the songs we have come to love later in Twin Peaks. Cruise's character literally descends on the stage, and sings over scenes of civil unrest, violence, and many other forms of dark imagery.

David Lynch takes us on a musical journey of heartache as a nightmare is performed live on stage. And in a moment of foreshadowing for the lumber-centric town of Twin Peaks, Michael Anderson dresses as a lumberjack and literally saws through a log on stage. Julee Cruise at one point is trapped in the trunk of a car, but is later released without skipping a beat of singing, actually miming/lip synching to her music throughout the performance. Men in uniform crowd around the corpose a giant, demonic skinned deer, who apparently reanimates on stage where it walks around on stilts in a truly bizarre vision of horror.

Julee Cruise's angelic voice fills the stage with a sense of wistful longing amid the apocalyptic scenery her character interacts with on this journey. In the finale, baby dolls descend from the ceiling and Julee Cruise floats up back into the night and pronounces: "The world spins..." Overall, David Lynch pulls off a remarkably strange feat of stage direction while simultaneously capturing the experience on video tape.

As Lynch fans, we love this bizarre and trippy musical journey through the themes and mindscape of Lynch's creative process when making Twin Peaks and Wild at Heart. But when you take into account that Twin Peaks and Wild at Heart had yet to be released when this live stage production was performed, you begin to understand how confusing the whole thing might seem for the audience. Without almost any context for the show, many in the audience formed negative opinions. But with the release of these tributary films and TV shows, a new light was shined on Industrial Symphony No. 1, making it a surprisingly powerful Lynch music video of sorts.

Not having the opportunity to attend this live stage performance, we must rely on an ingenuously crafted video of the production for this review, which is currently only available in the United States in David Lynch's Lime Green Set. Of course the image quality is less than ideal since it was shot on video, but the soundtrack and powerful imagery supersede these visual constraints of video.

PREMONITION FOLLOWING AN EVIL DEED (1995)

(Segment of Lumière and Company)

The fact that David Lynch's last short film on film was done with the world's oldest film camera is poetic enough to make this an interesting short film. But when you consider the bizarrely inventive storyline Lynch is able to suggest in just 52 seconds of film with the Cinematographe, the world's first practical film camera made by the Lumière brothers near the turn of the century, then this really becomes a must see for Lynch's fans. 40 directors took the challenge to create a film that was no longer than 52 seconds long, which could contain no synchronized sound, and could contain no more than three cuts. David Lynch reportedly worked around the three-cut constraint by projecting some shots on a screen which he burned away to reveal another set of actors on a set behind the screens.

SECTION II: WEB PROJECTS

Mulholland Dr. (2001) was the last of David Lynch's movies to be shot on film. Soon after Lynch fell in love with the world of digital video and from then on exclusively worked in this new medium. We explored some of his reasons for this decision in our discussion of Inland Empire last week, but we present video clips below in which Lynch explains his reasons.

His Original Journey into Film and Later Digital

David Lynch Goes Digital

David Lynch believes the world of media has forever changed into the digital medium and that film is a relic of the past. Although we understand his reasoning, we miss the look and feel of his movies shot on film. The clarity of film's presentation, the crispness of its image, and the contrast of its colors and light range have yet to be mimicked by digital cameras. But in the long term, Lynch is probably correct that digital technologies will be taken further and further until they could even conceivably surpass the standards of film. But we think it worth noting that Lynch's short films tend to look richer and more lush than his digital web projects.

Many of David Lynch's Web Projects are Included on this DVD

Noting the growing importance of the internet and the technological shift in media toward digital, David Lynch created his own subscription website where people could access a number of his new digital shorts, which from now on we will simply refer to as "web projects." David Lynch also offered other miscellaneous amenities on his website, including a daily weather report in which he explained what the temperature and weather conditions were like for Hollywood at the time of his broadcast.

Daily Weather Report Sample

Lynch recently reconfigured his website into an online music store where you can buy new songs, like his recent single Good Day Today, or where you can find previously unreleased music from his past projects, including some music from the Twin Peaks soundtrack that has been unavailable to purchase until now. It is a good site and we recommend checking it out sometime and supporting his artistic endeavors.

RABBITS (2002)

Rabbits (2002) was David Lynch's first major effort in digital and it stars Scott Coffey and Mulholland Dr. veterans Naomi Watts and Lara Elena Harring as a humanoid group of rabbits all living under the same roof. The rabbits seem to exist in a netherworld where they are observed like characters in a sitcom and where they frequently encounter demonic entities that speak to them through their walls. They spend much of their time citing poetry and in one memorable sequence Naomi Watts sings an original song written by Lynch.

Anyone who has watched Inland Empire (2006) will recognize these memorable humanoid rabbits whose lives are inexplicably laughed at on a regular basis by a studio audience during strangely awkward moments. This web project actually ran as a series of episodic shorts over a course of months, further mimicking the forms of a sitcom. Although slow paced, this is an entertaining web project and we hope Lynch soon attempts another digital TV series.

In an interview for Lost Highway (1997), David Lynch explained: "There is a key in the film as to its meaning. But keys are weird. There are surface keys, and there are deeper keys. Intellectual thinking leaves you high and dry sometimes. Intuitive thinking, where you get a marriage of feelings and intellect, lets you feel the answers where you may not be able to articulate them. Those kinds of things are used in life a lot, but we don't use them too much in cinema. There are films that stay more on the surface, and there's no problem interpreting their meaning."

DUMBLAND (2002)

As crudely written as it is drawn, this strangely disturbing cartoon is punctuated with enough moments of uniquely Lynchian humor to make Dumbland worth watching for his fans when in a patient mood. This was also originally created as an episodic web series, with regular installments spread out over months. We did not find this quite as entertaining as Rabbits, but it still represents an interesting foray into digital animation techniques reminding us David Lynch began his film career as an animator. We learned of an interesting half-hour long behind-the-scenes documentary featuring David Lynch as he created Dumbland titled Does that Hurt You? (2002).

DARKENED ROOM (2007)

In this bizarre web project starring Cabin Fever's Jordan Ladd, David Lynch shows a young blonde woman who is stuck in room (against her will?) and is berated and insulted regularly by some type of dark, brunette female overlord. This web project has the feel of David Lynch's earlier short films, emphasizing a brooding tone and a raw atmosphere of dread.

We also see allusions to Blue Velvet (1986) with the strange humanoid doll in the room reminiscent of another oddly out-of-place humanoid doll in Ben's drug den. And the strangely nonsequitir prologue with a young Asian woman introducing the plight of her friend in the room also bears some resemblance to the scene in Inland Empire (2006) when a young Asian woman on the street of Hollywood discusses the plight of her friend in Pomona while Nikki Grace's character Sue Blue bleeds out on the street in front of her.

INDUSTRIAL SOUNDSCAPE (2007)

A simple animation featuring a subtly brooding musical soundscape playing as background noise to the oddly musical repetitive clanking of machinery. Those who like to dismiss Dune (1984) from what they consider David Lynch's feature films should note that the machinery featured in this short film looks similar to Dune's thumpers on the desert planet.

Industrial Soundscape (2007)

Like Six Figures Getting Sick, this animated short looks like it was designed to play on a continuous loop in a museum where the you can wander into the exhibit and watch it for as long as it holds your attention. Although simple and repetitive, this web project does feature a lot of essentials from Lynch's artwork. First, it was rendered in black and white, which Lynch often favors for its abstract qualities. Second, it demonstrates the simple mechanism of machinery operating in a barren wasteland, which is a strong visual motif from his first three feature films: Eraserhead (1976), The Elephant Man (1980), and Dune (1984).

INTERVALOMETER EXPERIMENTS (2007)

(David Lynch Included No Soundtrack to this Experiment. The

Mulholland Dr. Track was Included by Someone on YouTube.)

An intervalometer is a device frequently used in time lapse photography or with other machinery that requires a machine to operate at regular intervals of time. With no discernible storyline or concept in this web project, David Lynch seems to just be experimenting with digital superimposing certain images over others through a continuum of time. The techniques he learned here would later be used extensively in his Duran Duran live webcast last week, where he would take still and motion images and overlay them over the live performance of the band to frequently brilliant effect.

BUG CRAWLS (2007)

A slow paced web project following a gigantic bug crawl across the screen, over a house, and encounter a difficulty on its way that we will not spoil here. Again, David Lynch seems to be experimenting with humor in his new digital animations more than anything else, but it is still an enjoyable little short.

OUT YONDER - NEIGHBOR BOY (2007)

Probably the funniest and strangest of David Lynch's web projects, Out Yonder - Neighbor Boy features David Lynch and his son Austin portraying a redneck, hillbilly father and son that have an interestingly colloquial way of talking to each other. They are eventually confronted by a giant neighbor boy who wants to drink all their milk, who throws a bizarre temper tantrum.

BOAT (2007)

If any of David Lynch's web projects seem influenced by French film styles, it would be Boat (2007), which has a woman's voice over describing a boat in poetic language as Lynch himself eventually steps into the boat, lowers it into the water, and takes it out for a spin on the water.

To a degree, this web project feels reminiscent to Alain Resnais's Last Year at Marienbad (1961), with poetic dream image accompany prolonged shots of inanimate objects until humans are finally introduced to interact with them.

MORE THINGS THAT HAPPENED (2007)

As part of the two disc special edition, you will find over an hour of deleted scenes from Inland Empire (2006) collectively referred to as More Things that Happened (2007). Some of the scenes are deeply tied in with the film Inland Empire, but some stand alone as interesting web projects on their own. Most of these 75 minutes worth of deleted scenes are incidental to the story, but some of them were so important in helping the audience connect the dots that we wonder why David Lynch cut them out. Our favorite deleted scenes include one with Nastassja Kinski being revealed as the woman in the hallway who cannot find her key, as well as some of Laura Dern's best scenes from On High in Blue Tomorrows.

ROOM TO DREAM (2007)

Although technically not referred to as a deleted scene of Inland Empire (2006), this web project was obviously created during the production of Inland Empire, since it was shot on a prominent location from the movie with three of its supporting actors. Had there been time in the movie, we imagine this web project could have fit into Inland Empire as an interesting tangent to the main narrative.

Room to Dream (2007)

And in a tradition that seems to have been started by filmmaker Robert Rodriguez on his DVDs, David Lynch includes a special feature on Inland Empire's second disc where he walks us through the making of one of his favorite dishes to eat: quinoa. For those unfamiliar with quinoa, it is a grain similar in composition to couscous. Like rice, quinoa is a filling food when seasoned and flavored well. But whereas rice is a carbohydrate, quinoa is a potein and is therefore a more robust and generally nutritious food.

DVD Special Feature: Making Quinoa

As David Lynch cooks the quinoa, he shares some fascinating stories from his childhood about a time when he visited Italy as a boy. And after watching this, you will be convinced that Lynch is not only a great storyteller via movies but also an excellent storyteller in person, too. Lynch is a fascinating man to listen to when he takes a walk through memory lane.

ABSURDA (2007)

(Segment of To Each His Own Cinema)

David Lynch created this web project for the 2007 Cannes Film Festival and features Ballerina footage Lynch includes on his Inland Empire DVD special edition. The story is conceptually similar to the climax of Inland Empire, when Laura Dern views herself on the screen at the movie theater doing precisely what she is doing at that moment. Somewhat interesting, but its static camera placement and lack of visible protagonists (apparently sitting behind the camera) makes this viewing experience a little uneven.

Absurda (2007)

As you can see, there is an interesting correlation between prediction and causation, echoing certain themes from Frank Herbert's Dune Chronicles, where Paul Mua'Dib encounters a problem when his prophecies create the very futures he predicted rather than simply foretell them. The ideas of hypnotism and suggestion potentially leading you to murder are also hinted at in a subplot from Inland Empire.

LADY BLUE SHANGHAI (2010)

Although technically not a commercial, we include this under web projects since this is a significantly longer and more nuanced project than any commercial we have seen before. For that matter, this extended commercial is even longer and more nuanced than most of David Lynch's other short films and web projects. This was created as part of a short-film/commercial series developed by Christian Dior to advertise the launch of their new line of Lady Blue handbags, all of which star their celebrity spokesperson Marion Cotillard (Big Fish, La Vie en Rose, Inception, Etc).

Lady Blue Shanghai Pt. 1

Lady Blue Shanghai Pt. 2

We knew Marion Cotillard was a great actress, but we really did not understood how under utilized she  tends to be, even in her normally excellent roles. Cotillard is a truly talented star and we look forward to her future projects. This web project actually makes us hope we get a feature film collaboration between Cotillard and Lynch someday soon. They can clearly take an audience somewhere special.

Lady Blue Poem

Lady Blue Shanghai - Behind the Scenes

SECTION III: COMMERCIALS

David Lynch on Product Placement

David Lynch on Advertising

David Lynch is not opposed to advertising, but he does not like the dishonesty of filmmakers ostensibly creating a movie for an audience but subtly slipping in commercials for which they are getting secretly paid by the advertisers. In other words, Lynch is fine with the concept of marketing and advertising, but he disagrees with product placement in movies. Lynch has made a number of commercials throughout the years, a small sampling of which are provided below.

Playstation 2 Commercial #1

Playstation 2 Commercial #2

We have never wanted a Play Station as much as when watching Lynch's commercials. But Lynch's strengths are also used to help keep the streets clean in this foreboding Public Service Announcement.

Anti-Littering PSA

David Lynch loves to shoot things backwards and this bizarre commercial is certainly one of the more playful uses of this technique.

Cigarette Ad

David Lynch advertised for various colognes and perfumes throughout the years with strangely sophisticated yet playful commercials.

Gucci Perfume by Gucci

Jilsander's "Background" Cologne

David Lynch "Opium" Perfume

Calvin Klein "Obsession" Perfume #1

Calvin Klein "Obsession" Perfume #2

Calvin Klein "Obsession" Perfume #3

In a sign of things to come in the Duran Duran live webcast tonight, here David Lynch advertises for a Michael Jackson event.

Teaser for Michael Jackson's Dangerous

And David Lynch is still keeping busy on several video and audio projects, including tonight's David Lynch directed live webcast on youtube of Duran Duran's concert tonight! Below is a video teaser Lynch created for the webcast, which as far as we know is his first foray into HD digital motion picture technology. Until now Lynch has tended to eschew HD in favor of the lower definition MiniDV format. We are glad to see him exploring HD for this concert.

Lynch's Teaser for Duran Duran Webcast

Nearly all of David Lynch's short films and web projects can be found on his Lime Green Set or purchased separately on The Shorts Films of David Lynch and Dynamic:01. And David Lynch's live webcast airs on Duran Duran's Vevo Page on Youtube at 10pm EST tonight March 23, 2011. Here is a video invitation from Duran Duran. It sounds like we will get a little bit of the old Industrial Symphony magic again tonight.

Duran Duran Invitation to the Webcast

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