Empire Builder David Lynch talks about his new movie, his new book and his
meditation methods
By Richard von Busack
HAVING traded "the suffocating rubber clown suit of negativity" for "the
flak jacket of bliss," David Lynch is back with a new movie, a new book andto
wash them both downDavid Lynch Signature Cup coffee line: "It's good for you!
An idea in every bean!" Lynch's latest motion picture, Inland Empire, opens
locally Feb. 9. To tell the world about it, Lynch encamped in a grassy knoll at
Hollywood and La Brea with a live cow as a one-man Oscar campaign for star
Laura Dern.
I chatted with Lynch via car phone as he drove through Delaware. (Click here
to read the full version of the interview.) He was easy to talk to, provided I
stayed away from the cause-and-effect in his cinematic dreams. Today, when even
the most inane film comes with a director's track on DVD, Lynch's cinema
represents one of the last realms of unknown territory. Refusing to explain
himself, Lynch tells his audiences that they know more than they think they do.
"I have to stay true to my abstract ideas, but I think it's beautiful that
there are so many interpretations."
I unloaded part of my theory about the connection between the Little Man in
Twin Peaks and the demons (if that's what they were) in Mulholland Dr. "That's
good!," he said, encouragingly and, I feel, honestly.
Silence. Time to try another hunch. Was he influenced by Nathaniel Hawthorne?
"Is he the one who wrote Day of the Locust?" Lynch asked, jumping to Nathanael
West.
I mentioned the author of Twice-Told Tales because he wrote about haunted
forests, devils in the woods and towns that turn their back on the wilderness.
"The forest is a place of mystery and the unknown," Lynch commented. "Many
people turn their backs on that; ... going into a forest and going into a movie
theater are both like entering these realms. There's a little more safety in a
theater, maybe."
How Lynch gets his ideas is explained in Catching the Big Fish: Meditation,
Consciousness and Creativity (Tarcher/Penguin; $19.95). In some 10,000 words,
he describes his enlightenment through years of Transcendental Meditation. He
also discusses other favorite filmmakers. But meditation is the subject he
seems to consider most exciting: "Meditation is the door to the stuff that's
down underneath. I dive in twice a day. It's constant creativity unblocking,
and there's so much power and intuition in it."
Followers of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi once offered to crime-proof San Jose
through meditation instruction, all for the modest sum of $55.8 million. One
might consider the warning of the anti-Maharishi website suggestibility.org,
which tells us that through TM "you may reach a stage where you never get out
of the 'spacey' state, i.e., you may experience chronic dissociation." Lynch's
films might carry a similar warning [italics added]. What's hard to imagine is
why Lynch, whose work is so full of turbulence and decay, would be interested
in inner peace?
Lynch replied, "An artist doesn't have to suffer to show suffering. A lot of
people fear meditation. They think they'll get so peaceful, they'll drop out.
They mistake anger for an edge, but anger cramps you up. And when you're
depressed, you can't work. Meditation is an evolutionary force. The world is
changing fast, Richardmore people are ready for it now."
Finally, what did he think of Jean Cocteau's comment, "If there's another
world, it's inside this one?"
"They say there are worlds within worlds, dimensions within dimensions,"
Lynch responded. "We can all feel them and we can all sense them. It's so
beautiful when you can dive in, and experience these subtle levels of
intellect, the big reality which the scientist calls 'the Unified Field Theory'
... that something that Is, It Will Be, Foreverthat totality."
David Lynch appears at a booksigning Saturday (Jan. 20) at 2pm at Barnes &
Noble, 2200 Eastridge Loop, San Jose.
Find this article at:
http://www.metroactive.com/metro/01.17.07/david-lynch-0703.html
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