Go Fish
lessons from David Lynch
Dear saturated reader,
I hope it is light saturated rather than rain-soaked (entirely possible today in the West of Ireland), but I suspect most people feel drenched in information and news these days. It’s hard to get away from the noise of the world. Yet, if there’s anything I’m learning from exposure to our data-dense online environments it’s the need to dial down the noise and find moments of quiet and stillness.
As if by magic I’ve noticed this topic coming up recently, but it’s simply the result of people reaching the end of their capacity for input. At some point your brain will insist you retreat to a calm spot and stop bombarding it with images/text. I hope you have access to such a sanctuary, whether it’s five minutes in your shower or thirty minutes on a walk. I’m finding it useful to take off my headphones for my rambles in the woods, and listen to the conversations between wind and leaf and branch: an inspirational stimulus.
The topic of today’s newsletter — Go Fish: Lessons from David Lynch — was influence by a conversation I had with Dr Rachel Knightley, for her The Writers’ Gym podcast. Rachel is a lecturer in creative writing, a writing coach, and a freelance writer of fiction and non-fiction with a background in performance. During the chat we had a short digression about artist and filmmaker David Lynch, and it inspired me to write a newsletter about the lessons I’ve learned from watching David Lynch’s films, and reading about his life and career.
If you want to listen to my chat with Rachel, here’s a link:
I encountered Lynch’s work long before I became entangled in the serious study of film and screenwriting during an intense period from 2002-2006. As a science fiction, horror and fantasy nerd my entire life I was always attracted to watching anything weird or strange, so I saw The Elephant Man (1980), Dune (1984) and Blue Velvet (1986) at various points, along with his iconic Twin Peaks (1990-1991) TV series which he co-created with writer Mark Frost. I’m pretty sure I saw his very oddball black-and-white debut, Eraserhead (1977), during a late-night TV screening in my early twenties and didn’t know what to make of it.1
Lynch began to percolate into my consciousness, but I can point to his deeply unsettling film, Lost Highway (1997), which hooked me into searching out all his work. That was the beginning of the DVD era, when it was easier and more affordable to collect the work by writers/directors you enjoyed. It was in this period, living in Dublin and close to the Irish Film Institute art house cinema, that I became a true cinephile. I began catching up on all the films I’d missed.
When I tell people I’m a horror cinema fan they seem to conjure up the most outrageous examples of the genre, such as Cannibal Holocaust or Human Centipede, forgetting that horror is a spectrum. Miserabilist horror films with extreme gore aren’t my favourite fare, although I can appreciate them if they’re well made with a resonant storyline. Generally I tune out my engagement as a self-protection instinct as there are certain elements I find difficult to watch: such as scenes of torture.
The films that grab me are the weird ones, the uneasy and disturbing movies that build slowly and maybe even have a fractured narrative. As I mentioned in my discussion of the recent Beau is Afraid, films like that will remain in my mind far longer that the tenth iteration of a long-running horror franchise film. Certain movies disappear from my mind within days of watching them. They truly are popcorn films: spectacle with no nourishment. I’m not knocking them, we all enjoy a light snack, but when we’re starving we seek out a hearty meal.
I’ve now watched most of Lynch’s work and even wrote a chapbook critique of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992), available via PS Publishing, which was written just before the release of Twin Peaks: The Return (2017).
During my time watching, studying, and thinking about his material I’ve learned a number of useful lessons that I apply to my own work.
As you’ll see from the above picture, Lynch wrote a book in 2006 called Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity, which is a pithy overview of his philosophy for making art and his love of daily meditation — which he credits as keeping him happy and creative. It’s a short text, and I was grateful my conversation with Rachel jogged my memory about it, as I was able re-read it over coffee the other morning.
It brings me to my first lesson I learned: never explain.
I think this is most apt if you write any kind of surrealist, fantasy, or horror fiction. People will ask you what does such-and-such mean? Lynch famously never responds to those questions. He believes that it is up to the viewer to figure it out, and if you’ve ever looked at the Twin Peaks forums, you’ll discover that there is nothing people obsess over more than a mystery.
A key thing to remember about Lynch is he started as an artist, and his philosophy was to finish the canvas, hang it in a gallery, walk away and begin another painting. Artists were not expected to explain their work but invite the viewer to experience it (and hopefully, buy it).
When I began creating fiction I decided to take that approach.2 Sometimes when you write a story for a collection or an anthology the editor will ask you write a note to accompany it. I’m happy to comply, but I stick to the context of the story’s genesis rather than hinting at what it ‘means’. One of the things that Lynch says in his book is apt:
The interesting thing is they (the audience) really do know more than they think. And by voicing what they know, it becomes clearer. And when they see something, they could try to clarify that a little more and, again, go back and forth with a friend. And they would come to some conclusion. And that would be valid.
Lynch believes in the ability of his audience to ponder and come to opinions about his work, and is unafraid to give them a challenge. Yes, he will alienate some people with his more obtuse scenarios. I don’t think Lynch’s work is inaccessible, but you do have to settle in and prepare for a bit of a bonkers story. Not everyone wants that in cinema. Sometimes he will frustrate you, sometimes he will elate you, but he is designing a journey. If you get off half-way through then you certainly won’t understand the design.
And it’s fine not to get on with his films (or all of them). There are some directors/writers whose work I don’t like even though people I trust rave about them. To each their own.
Another lesson: allow for happy accidents.
Aficionados of artist Bob Ross will have heard a similar lesson: ‘we don’t make mistakes, we have happy accidents’.
Back in 2003 I did a short filmmaking course, where we learned every aspect of making a film from writing, directing, sound, lighting and editing. We had to shoot and edit our own short film over one weekend as our ‘graduation’.
I worked hard with the screenwriter to come into that weekend prepared since we’d be up against the clock. We’d created our master list of shots and lashed into them quickly. For one setup we needed a shot of the exterior as the protagonist approached a door, and another shot of him entering a room. As we assembled the equipment we noticed a screen in one of the rooms that displayed the exterior thanks to a camera at the door. We instantly decided to film the screen on a close-up as our actor approached the door and then pull back to show him entering the room, real-time. We did it in one take and it eliminated the need for two shots.3
Over that weekend we had to change and adjust to circumstances many times, but because we had a guideline, and we were organised, we were able to finish with enough time to shoot some extra pick-up shots.
If you do enough work you learn to trust the nimbleness of your creativity to figure out solutions to problems, and if you are under a ticking clock that might spur you into more interesting choices.4 Lynch trusts his instincts and leaves breadcrumbs for himself believing he will find a way to guide himself home.
Famously, the central villain for Twin Peaks — Bob (Frank Silva) —was hired as a set dresser for the pilot of the series. Lynch spotted him crouched down at the bottom of a bed, and insisted they shoot the scene, unsure why he needed that shot, but trusting his lightbulb instinct. Later on, while shooting a different scene, Frank was accidentally caught as a reflection in a mirror, and that sealed his relevance to the show. Lynch knew it was meant to be.
‘So things like this happen and make you start dreaming. And one thing leads to another, and if you let it, a whole other thing opens up.’
Another lesson: suffering is not good for the artist.
I’m with Lynch on this. Even though many of Lynch’s films depict violence, horror and disturbing scenes he doesn’t believe that also means he must suffer. He also likes to maintain an easy relationship with his crew and cast believing it leads to better outcomes. Sure, he’s a quirky guy, but almost everyone say he’s a happy dude most of the time. Generally, my experience is that most horror writers are thoughtful, interesting people (but as with any crowd, there are the exceptions). They express their fears rather than bottle them up and explode.
Keeping things professional can be testing, especially if a creative partnership goes badly, which is not uncommon in the film industry. Dune (1984) was a terrible experience for Lynch, and consumed four years of his life, but he learned lessons. For instance: insisting on final cut of his films.
It’s good for the artist to understand conflict and stress. Those things can give you ideas. But I guarantee you, if you have enough stress you won’t be able to create. And if you have enough conflict, it will just get in the way of your creativity. You can understand conflict, but you don’t have to live in it.
In stories, in the worlds that we can go into, there’s suffering, confusion, darkness, tension, and anger. There are murders; there’s all kinds of stuff. But the filmmaker doesn’t have to be suffering to show suffering. You can show it, show the human condition, show conflicts and contrasts, but you don’t have to go through that yourself. You are the orchestrator of it, but you’re not in it. Let your characters do the suffering.
A final lesson: be you.
Lynch had a stellar run from 1990-1992. He had a massive, international hit with Twin Peaks, was lauded and feted for Wild at Heart (1990), and then he released his spin-off feature film, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992) — it was universally hated. Lynch stripped away much of the beloved dottiness of the TV series and focused instead on the dead girl at the centre of the series: Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee), and traced the last days of her life. She was no longer the girl found ‘wrapped in plastic’, only seen via diary entries and remembrances, she was a living, breathing teenager coping with a devastating secret. It was an astonishing, upsetting, tragic movie with surreal moments depicting an unravelling life.
The film was booed at the Cannes Film Festival and received damning reviews. Lynch did not work for four years after this project, and returned to making art while trying to figure out his next project.5 That was Lost Highway in 1997, which demonstrated that Lynch was going to be Lynch, no matter what the critics made of his work. As he says:
Stay true to yourself. Let your voice ring out, and don’t let anybody fiddle with it. Never turn down a good idea, but never take a bad idea.
He notes that failure and success can cause you creative problems, but you need to keep putting out bait for new ideas.
Ideas are like fish.
If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you’ve got to go deeper.
Down deep, the fish are more powerful and more pure. They’re huge and abstract. And they’re very beautiful.
I look for a certain kind of fish that is important to me, one that can translate to cinema. But there are all kinds of fish swimming down there.
When you land that fish, and enjoy the meal… you have to return to the ocean.
You caught a beautiful fish yesterday, and you’re out today with the same bait, and you’re wondering if you’re going to catch another. But if you carry on the analogy of fishing, sometimes, even if you sit with lots and lots of patience, no fish come. You’re in the wrong area. And so maybe you reel in the hook, get the paddle, and move to another place. That means you leave the chair where you’re daydreaming or you move on to another thing. Just by changing something, the desire often gets fulfilled.
(I have other lessons I’ve learned from Lynch’s work, but this is a good start.)
It’s a reminder that sometimes films or books arrive at the wrong time for us. If we’re lucky they return when we’re receptive.
And from my years in academia I knew that there would be as many opinions about my work as there were readers. That is their business.
Not an approach you might take if you had more time, but it suited our no-budget test film.
I wouldn’t recommend always using a deadline to force yourself into creative solutions. It can become an addictive mechanism to achieve results, but it’s exhausting. Some people thrive under pressure — it’s not for everyone.
As I mentioned, sometimes a film comes out at the wrong time — today, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me is a cult classic, and the original opinions are considered short-sighted.
I love this! I learned about David Lynch when I was getting trained in transcendental meditation back when I was 16. I definitely need to watch more of his films and learn more about his work, but these lessons are so universal and timeless. Love that he's had such an impact on your life!
I show my students (high school, all-boys) the Rabbits webseries in class sometimes. At first they are baffled, and some of them make fun of it, but the brighter ones sooner or later fall into a kind of captivated wonder where they roll around in their own minds trying to tease out the meaning. I've gotten some interesting interpretations from them.