VICE INTERVIEW - DAVID LYNCH

You already know what we think about David Lynch’s incredible new film INLAND EMPIRE, so when Lynch himself showed up in London yesterday to promote his latest three-hour mind-bending mystery, we went to have a cup of tea with the 61-year-old director who's made at least two of your favourite ever films (admit it).

Vice: There seems to be a lot of cryptic messages in your movies. Can you, for instance, explain the significance of the rabbits that pop up in INLAND EMPIRE?
Lynch: It’s like, er, no. It’s the weirdest thing, and it could sound like a cop-out. Number one, I don’t like to talk about a meaning – it’s my understanding and it shouldn’t be anybody else’s. So with the rabbits, well, there are things that are like openings, and they feel correct and cause wonderings and openings and that’s what the rabbits are. It’s a wordless thing. It’s a wordless thing. Heheheh. I have a tough time on my meanings. But I think I should know my meanings for myself but others may get different meanings and those different ones are valid.

Why did you use a live cow to promote INLAND EMPIRE recently in Los Angeles?
Well, I got this idea, and I didn’t have the money to support Laura Dern [the film’s lead] in the traditional way, and I thought: Oh, I’ll go see what happens at the corner of Hollywood and La Brea because we found a place we could go to there, it was very nicely situated there. And I’ll take a cow and this placard and promote Laura this way. Within one hour Channel 4 News was there and Channel 5 News was there, and a good-sized crowd was there, really nice people. And I didn’t realise the love people have for cows. Tremendous love – and curiosity. And it worked to a point getting the word out on her behalf, but it didn’t get her a (Oscar) nomination.

You’ve got a major exhibition of your art opening at the Fondation Cartier in Paris on March 3. What can we expect from that?
Yeah, it’s a big exhibition. I’ve shown some of my work before in much smaller venues. This is quite a range in years, going back to high school, and drawings, photographs, paintings, big paintings, a lot of things. Some sound design. We haven’t even started that, we’re just gathering raw materials, but we put that together around the middle of the month.

How’s your music coming along?
It’s coming along really good, thanks for asking. I don’t know what’s going to happen but you need time and I want to do some music when I get back home and then we’re gonna release some albums. I’m working with this girl Christobel, she sings in INLAND EMPIRE, and do an album with her. Then I was involved in producing a group called Foxbat Strategy. The lead guitar player and singer died suddenly. So it will be a tribute album to him, there’s only six or seven tracks, that’s all we have. And Angelo Badalamenti and I have this thing called Thought Gang, that’s almost finished. A lot of things are almost finished but not quite.

You’re really into Transcendental Meditation (TM) and set up the David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace to promote the practice. To what extent did your use of TM inform INLAND EMPIRE?
Wow, we’ll get into that. OK. Trancendental Meditation is a mental technique which allows any human being to dive within. And diving within one experiences subtler levels of mind and intellect and then at the border, one transcends and experiences this ocean, unbounded, infinite, eternal, pure consciousness, modern science’s unified field, the kingdom of heaven, the absolute, totality, absolute intelligence, creativity, bliss, energy, dynamic peace: all these qualities exist in this unmanifest field at the base of mind and the base of matter. The experiencing of this deepest level enlivens it and one grows in those qualities, and they say it’s a holistic experience. It’s the only experience – transcending, experiencing this deepest level – that lights the full brain on the EEG machine. And we’ve been told we only use 5 to 10 per cent of our whole brain and here’s the whole brain engaged with this experience. And so what happens is consciousness starts expanding, bliss starts expanding, intelligence in understanding, wakefulness, awareness, appreciation, all avenues of life get better, creativity flows and the side effect of this is negativity begins to recede. Things like anger, anxiety, stress, fear, depression, sorrow, they start to go, clearing the way for, woah, enjoyment of the doing, appreciation magnified, energy to do the things, without that heavy weight that kills creative flow, and things get very, very, very good. Intuition grows, it’s an ocean of knowingness, pure knowingness, unbelievable bliss, physical, emotional, spiritual happiness – boom, giant, unique experiences, but so familiar. It’s a beautiful thing. Regular diving in, diving in, it’s like going to the treasury every day and getting more and more and more and you carry this with you more. So it feeds the creative process, feeds the enjoyment of the doing, and people like coming to sit next to you and give you money.

Wow, thanks, David.
Thank you.

* INLAND EMPIRE opens nationwide in selected cinemas on March 12.

Comments

[gr]

David Lynch is the most boring man alive

[Jimmy]

"David Lynch is the most boring man alive..."

And you are his muse.

[kid koala]

"and people like coming to sit next to you and give you money." !!!?

I love David Lynch, but I saw Inland Empire and my man's maybe been doing a little too much of that inward diving... you know what I mean?

[Nicholas Gayzor (is my Star Wars handle)]

I can't not love David Lynch. He's amazin. People who find David Lynch boring are people who are bored already. People with open minds will be duly amazed by him.

[klakope]

"and people like coming to sit next to you and give you money." yeah well enlightened people can give off really weird and interesting vibes sometimes, that's why people like them

[joe]

why is everybody trying to shit on david lynch all of a sudden? he's the only filmmaker i can think of who consistently surprises his audience on every excursion. i think that in and of itself is virtue enough to make the man bulletproof. remember that scene in mullholland drive where the two dudes go to that denny's knock-off joint and see that terrible caveman/demon thing? and that one man dies of a heart attack? was that one scene not worth the entire leathal weapon franchise? c'mon folks. the dude's a straight up fucking artist, and not realizing that just makes you sad, and possibly not very well read. that's all.

alright.

on to the bickering.

[Scott Baio]

David Lynch is an Eagle Scout.

[nik van de kamp]

i used know an old guy called david lynch. he was unaware of the director when i told him. i never saw him again. also i knew another old guy called john dillinger. he used to tell me how he robbed banks. i said "no you didn't".

[Jetpack]

Lynch films always strike me as being weird for weird's own sake, not because of any layered significance. Non sequiturs aren't necessarily indicative of depth, or Family Guy would be the most profound show on television.

[jessop]

david lynch has made a career out of being a terrible scripwriter by prentending his films have "hidden messages" or "meaning". in fact he's a stupid asshole who believes in that trandencial mediation shit and tries his best to make films, but it just ends up as shitty nonsense, loved by idiots who fail to realise this.

[<]

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David Lynch does his own thing and people give him money to do so... you type comments on websites and come off as a bitter cock doing so.

The Straight Story

[Rodneyoscopy]

OK then, jessop, given.

But enlighten us: Who, in your estimation, is a 'good' filmmaker who does not make 'nonsense?'

[kleeklaw]

heres an exercise... try to creeate something that lasts for three hours, all the while being completely engaging, yet never actually forcing an idea on the viewer. art is hard work folks, its just that we're used to advertising so we forget what real art looks like. of course, maybe david lynch is full of shit and just trying to bolster his retirement fund. either way i've still got a chubby for his work.

[David Miscavidge]

Jessop is right. 'trandencial mediation' gets you all retarded and then your shit makes no sense. Ask the Beatles.

[Joe]

Maybe this transcendental meditation thing is the solution to all our problems but the 5-10% of our brains thing is a definitely a myth. Spread the word.

http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/10percnt.htm

[Jimmy]

And here's to another lame Vice interview. Shit. What a wasted opportunity...

[Scope Sanders, Brother Of Steve]

DAVID LYNCH DAVID LYNCH. I've been listening to his book on TM on tape, read by the man himself. it's well soothing my inner Mandragora Helix kind of like how Busy used to soothe Amanda offscreen on Ready Or Not. I recently started doing TM cos I'm broke and can't afford KM, my usual interior meditation methodology that costs an astounding fee here in England- I think it costs like 100 pounds a week for the course and it's only offered in this run down in Shoreditch which I find an incredibly depressing place during the daytime. anyway TM is free and you can find a mantra on the internet - I use WEEBWEEB and find it works a just ask Jesse Pearson, before he started with the TM he was making veggie burgers with the crusties for 4 bucks an hour and hoping to find foil on the ground outside his apartment and now look, he's hairier than ever and the editor of Vibe magazine, the hippest Gen X vegan sardonicus guy with carefully selected big glasses around. it's like magic in your stomach that leads to money. anyway Lynch has made my favorite movies that include The Elephant Man, Wild At Heart, Twin Peaks movie, Mulholland Drive, The Straight Story. I like that cartoon Dumbland. even the ones that aren't favorites are better than most movies. if you disagree you need more piracetam mucus in your walnut because you're an idiot with bad taste in movies, and if you have bad taste in movies it's because you have something wrong with your brain and soul

[Superjohnny]

David Lynch is amazing. He is one of the few film makers out there who makes movies that are about something. He has a sense of how to convey beauty to the mind, the eys and the ears. Every frame of his films would make a beautifully framed photograph. He's always energetic about the process. David Foster Wallace has a really great essay on him in "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" and in it he asks how many film makers are able to get their audience members to go and discuss their movies over coffee. David Lynch has been at it for thirty years and he is still on the search. I love him.

[Elin Viande]

HI, I love cows too, they're delicious and have soulful eyes like my mate Tawny. if you're in the country next to a field of em, they like it when you crouch down beside the fence, they'll always approach if you're at their eye level cos they're all right sorts. don't read anything sick into that you cynical jokepackers I'm talking about feeding them grass is all. we owe so much to cows, we drink their refreshing milk and fill our sandwiches with their cheese and their beef makes our blood and muscles strong - they're like the mothers of the human race. heres to the cow, they may be farting away our atmosphere, but that's 100 percent our fault and they're a damn fine cup of species when in chili form

[COMMIE]

You either like Lynch or you don't, you cant really compare him to anyone else. I respect him for not explaining his films. It's brain food and it stays with you for a long time. We don't all have to like the same stuff you know, negative fuckers. fight me.

[Kash Kowmann]

I have a question for David, and any other TM proponent... why do they feel justified in charging $2500 for what amounts to around 4 hours of instruction. what are they, scientologists? it costs almost nothing to teach, I don't get how they think such a fee is reasonable, where's the justification. current British price is £1280... insane amount of money for someone to teach you something so fundamental and ancient, inherent and beneficial to us all and necessary for the survival of the planet blah blah blah. I think it's laudable that Lynch is trying to make TM instruction free to any child who wants to pursue it, but I think its laughable that at the same time he can unswervingly support the Offical (TM, Copyright, all rights reserved) TM Foundation when they charge so damm much for something they advocate as totally essential, and especially when the people who seem to need it most could never be reasonably expected to afford it or take a chance with that much money.

there's a big credibility gap between the supposed enlightenment this technique is supposed to bring about (which I do believe in btw, based on the evidence and my own limited experience) and the attitude that 2500 bucks is a fair price to charge someone who wants to start. if new practitioners are so important, then why are they faced with such an off-putting amount of money at the outset? it's weird. I refer interested (UK) parties to http://www.tm-meditation.co.uk/index1.htm where they can learn the technique from accredited instructors (taught by the Maharishi) for a fraction of the cost. oooh, you mean we won't be eligible for the free lifetime "checking" service? well that's a bummer but the fee to become Official is a truly ridiculous amount of money... sorry about the scientologist crack but it's an absurd sum. Hare Krishna, good night

[mark]

I prefer to watch static on a telivision, i can make my own patterns in it just as much as i can make patterns trying to extract the deep meaning of lynch films.
Anyone who does this to a lynch film has fallen victim to the gnostic indie elite bullshit that all university dorms spawn. On the other hand you could just watch it and laugh at the absurdity of his work, just as students laugh at the absurdity of vic and bob....its a catch 22 situation really, you are going to end up an arse on either end of the scale.

[TP]

"gnostic indie elite bullshit that all university dorms spawn"

Is this really a thing, or just words that sound good? Maybe my school just missed out on this, but I would have preferred a little gnosticism to the rampant tedious-Wim-Wenders-let's-talk-about-how-"challenging"-Almodovar-is'm I've been wading through.

[klakope]

Kash: Totally with you on that.

And yes enlightenment does exist. It's not magic, it's just arguably the nicest permanent brain damage a human being can subject themselves to.

[obscene_pickle]

I love him. That is all.