The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - PREVIEW： The Career of David Lynch： Part I

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to this premium director's series that we're doing on the Lotus Eaters.

00:00:04.900 I'm Harry, joined again by Josh.

00:00:06.940 Hello.

00:00:07.420 Returning guest from the Kubrick series, we have Chloe from Proper Horror Show. 0.83

00:00:11.560 How are you doing?

00:00:12.280 Hi, Fex. It's lovely to be back. Thank you.

00:00:14.200 Thank you very much for joining us.

00:00:15.780 So this was something that we were thinking about while we were doing the Kubrick series,

00:00:19.080 as if we were really enjoying those discussions.

00:00:21.500 The audience was enjoying them as well.

00:00:23.320 So who would we follow on with?

00:00:24.960 And we thought it was only appropriate to cover a director that we're all very fond of,

00:00:29.420 that being David Lynch.

00:00:31.020 I know the most obvious thing for me, David Lynch is my favourite director.

00:00:34.840 So it was no surprises for having guessed who it was going to be.

00:00:39.180 But this series is going to be quite similar to the first one,

00:00:42.140 where we're going to talk about his entire filmography,

00:00:44.800 mainly his feature films that he produced,

00:00:47.020 because David Lynch is a lot more than just his feature film series,

00:00:51.640 where there was a lot of adverts that he produced,

00:00:55.480 a lot of artwork that he produced as well.

00:00:57.520 So as far as I can tell,

00:00:59.220 Chloe's going to be filling in some of the details on that for us,

00:01:02.160 because I've not explored that part of his creative output anywhere near as much.

00:01:06.700 He also was a musician who'd released quite a bit of music.

00:01:10.400 I didn't know that.

00:01:11.820 I've already learned something in the videos.

00:01:13.600 Hardly started yet.

00:01:14.620 Yeah, he wrote the sort of music that you would expect him to.

00:01:17.760 Of course he did, yeah.

00:01:18.780 Yeah, old rock and roll style stuff,

00:01:21.300 and also industrial.

00:01:22.640 He's a fan of Nine Inch Nails, isn't he?

00:01:27.280 So I can see that.

00:01:28.020 He got them to guest in The Return.

00:01:29.560 He did, yeah.

00:01:30.100 Although you've not got to that part yet,

00:01:31.560 so we'll leave that as is.

00:01:34.360 So as we go through the films,

00:01:37.800 we'll do our best to analyse them,

00:01:39.600 fill in a lot of the details of them,

00:01:41.060 and of course there will be major spoilers for each of these films.

00:01:45.800 Not that I do think in the same way that you can spoil the Stanley Kubrick narrative,

00:01:50.960 you can't really spoil some of David Lynch's more esoteric works,

00:01:55.320 because they're very experiential.

00:01:57.680 They're the kind of films that you have to feel through yourself,

00:02:01.180 which is part of the enjoyment of them.

00:02:03.160 But if you are worried about basic narrative plot details as you go through,

00:02:06.700 we'll let you know when we start talking about a particular film that we're going to,

00:02:11.360 and we'll try and get the editors to put up a timestamp

00:02:13.460 so that you can skip ahead if you would like.

00:02:16.080 First though, obviously everybody knows my feelings on David Lynch,

00:02:19.700 so let's start with you two.

00:02:21.320 What's your general overview of Lynch's work that you've watched so far?

00:02:25.300 Because I don't think any of us have yet watched all of his work.

00:02:29.880 Ironically enough, despite him being my favourite film director,

00:02:32.620 I've not yet watched Straight Story, which I will be watching in the process of doing this.

00:02:38.760 So I will give you some more time to think, Chloe.

00:02:43.220 But I suppose I'll be quite brief.

00:02:46.900 If David Lynch just made Twin Peaks, I would still think he was a great director.

00:02:51.480 The fact he's done other stuff is just an added bonus in my mind.

00:02:56.900 Twin Peaks holds a very special place in my heart.

00:02:59.360 It's such a wholesome, in places, series.

00:03:05.460 But there's something about it.

00:03:06.900 It's got a soul, much more so than a lot of things.

00:03:10.300 And some of his films, I might upset Harry a little bit,

00:03:14.640 are a bit hit and miss with me.

00:03:16.820 There are some that I thought were excellent.

00:03:19.320 There are some that I feel like maybe I either went over my head

00:03:23.740 or I didn't get the point, which I'll get on to.

00:03:28.780 It's an unusual way of looking at the films.

00:03:31.400 But he's certainly a filmmaker that will make you think about what you've watched,

00:03:36.400 which, as far as films go, is all you can really ask for.

00:03:40.960 You know, if you're watching a piece of cinema,

00:03:44.240 you want to go away and actually have to think about what you've watched

00:03:47.280 rather than have it spoon-fed to you.

00:03:49.220 And if you like that sort of thing, which I think most people who watch films

00:03:54.240 and are actually interested in cinema,

00:03:56.440 they're very much interested in that approach to things.

00:03:59.620 And so there's always something to think about.

00:04:01.980 There's always a way of analysing it.

00:04:03.360 And it's always fun to do so.

00:04:07.020 So I feel like that's my thoughts on Lynch.

00:04:09.740 Wonderful. Chloe?

00:04:11.200 Oh, excellently said.

00:04:12.860 I mean, Lynch is a great follow-on from Kubrick

00:04:15.540 because both of them are making films that they refuse to elaborate on.

00:04:20.700 They will not explain.

00:04:22.720 But I think for different reasons,

00:04:25.240 or in the case of Lynch, I totally agree with you.

00:04:28.180 He wants people to think and maybe even more to feel.

00:04:33.080 Very much so, yeah.

00:04:34.500 There's a phrase that Kubrick used called the tyranny of the verbal,

00:04:38.020 which was his way of expressing, like,

00:04:41.280 if I spell it out for you, I reduce it down.

00:04:45.520 I don't want to spell it out for you.

00:04:47.520 I want you to think.

00:04:49.140 And Lynch has this idea of the way he talks about catching big fish,

00:04:52.780 getting the great idea,

00:04:54.040 is almost like he wants the idea to come to you.

00:04:57.680 And the second he puts it in words,

00:04:59.860 he's chopping bits off the idea.

00:05:01.540 He's breaking it down into this really narrow form.

00:05:04.880 And he doesn't want to do that,

00:05:07.040 which is why the films are such an experience of imagery

00:05:10.460 and symbol and implication.

00:05:13.340 And I've looked at him before,

00:05:16.140 but I feel like it's only after seeing some other analyses

00:05:19.180 that I worked out how to look at him.

00:05:22.360 And it's just meant that I see the films in a very different way now.

00:05:25.680 It's been great sort of enjoying one level of them

00:05:28.860 and then trying to feel around for what else might be going on there.

00:05:33.820 So we might have completely different takes on these films as we go,

00:05:37.000 but that's, I think, the joy of David Lynch's stuff.

00:05:39.740 Yeah, that's part of the point.

00:05:41.260 From what you're both describing, I agree completely.

00:05:44.500 When you approach a Lynch film, you get this wide variety,

00:05:48.760 this vast expanse of different paths

00:05:50.820 that you can go down in analysing it

00:05:53.200 and trying to figure out what it means, what he meant,

00:05:56.380 and most importantly, what it means to you.

00:05:58.400 I think that's the most important thing that Lynch wanted from his films

00:06:01.840 is for you to have your own personal experience with it.

00:06:06.720 So if he were to explain exactly what he was thinking the entire way through,

00:06:11.000 it closes off all of those other paths

00:06:13.160 and leads you down that one narrow path,

00:06:15.200 which is much, much less interesting.

00:06:17.700 And amongst that as well,

00:06:19.180 there are different layers of interpretation

00:06:21.380 and puzzle solving that you can go through as well,

00:06:25.100 which is his films always have a baseline narrative

00:06:29.620 that you can follow.

00:06:31.800 And there is sometimes the mystery of what's going on in the narrative.

00:06:35.660 There are ones that are a bit simpler, like Blue Velvet,

00:06:38.340 where the narrative itself is very straightforward,

00:06:41.180 and then there are the ones where it's a bit more complicated,

00:06:44.460 like his LA trilogy, particularly Inland Empire,

00:06:48.680 which I'm very interested to see what you two make of that when we get to it.

00:06:52.560 But above that pure narrative interpretation,

00:06:56.020 there are all of the other abstractions that you can take from it as well,

00:07:00.500 where it takes on perhaps more of a symbolic meaning,

00:07:03.920 a more archetypal meaning with some of these characters,

00:07:07.220 and as well as that, a more metaphysical reading

00:07:09.880 that you can take from all of it.

00:07:11.420 And I think that's all intentional, all supposed to be read into,

00:07:15.080 but he doesn't want to guide you down the path.

00:07:17.840 He wants you to choose your own.

00:07:19.200 It's like choose your own adventure sort of thing.

00:07:21.340 So that was something that attracted me to him.

00:07:24.360 I just remember the first time I watched Blue Velvet,

00:07:26.980 which I finally watched after my dad had told me for years how good it was during lockdown.

00:07:32.600 And the first thing that captured me was the feeling.

00:07:36.900 The feeling that no other filmmaker had been able to give me,

00:07:40.760 which was this feeling of both incredible lightness, wholesomeness in some parts of the film,

00:07:49.720 and the dread and experiential darkness of other parts of it.

00:07:54.320 And I'd never found that in any other filmmaker and wanted to recapture that.

00:07:58.180 So I went through the rest of his films and have still not been able to find any other director that did it.

00:08:03.080 But I think what's also unique about him is it's a kind of feeling that can only be captured through cinema.

00:08:09.520 Given that he'd experimented with all of these different mediums for expressing himself,

00:08:15.060 I think he had a good understanding of how to use each as it should be used.

00:08:19.920 In the same way that Kubrick is a filmmaker whose stories could only be told through film and cinema

00:08:25.560 and the techniques and artistry that comes with that.

00:08:28.540 So I think that's something unique that they both share together.

00:08:31.300 And why you can draw so many parallels between them.

00:08:33.840 I think comparing Kubrick and Lynch, I think, is actually quite good in understanding both of them respectively.

00:08:42.300 In that, I think, not to say that they don't have considerable overlap in terms of themes,

00:08:48.060 but I think Kubrick is more concerned with sort of the realm of ideas.

00:08:55.980 He's a bit more analytical, perhaps.

00:08:59.060 Not to say that Lynch isn't, but that's sort of how I think Kubrick thinks about his films.

00:09:05.580 Whereas Lynch, I think, is far more concerned with expressing emotions in the viewer

00:09:11.560 and giving you a very well-crafted, atmospheric experience.

00:09:20.020 And, of course, films like The Shining, which Kubrick masterfully directed,

00:09:26.720 certainly has an atmosphere, but they have a very different feeling, both each of their films, don't they?

00:09:33.120 And I think that particularly the way in which Lynch approaches duality,

00:09:40.740 in that he has both light and dark expressed in some of their most extreme ways

00:09:45.920 and contrasted next to each other, the feelings that he evokes in his films are very unique.

00:09:54.080 It sort of makes him very distinct from a lot of other directors.

00:09:58.900 See, I would say Kubrick is actually one of the only other filmmakers

00:10:02.840 who's come close to capturing that same kind of atmosphere as Lynch,

00:10:07.660 particularly in films like Full Metal Jacket.

00:10:10.760 Because in Full Metal Jacket and some of his more satirical pieces,

00:10:14.740 he has a similar feeling of the absurd that you get as Lynch,

00:10:21.160 where there are these utterly depraved, monstrous characters in it,

00:10:26.020 but they are so over-the-top, so evil,

00:10:30.200 in a way that still feels true to life,

00:10:33.020 that it becomes a bit absurd in and of itself.

00:10:36.180 Because there are horrible, awful people,

00:10:39.200 but there's also something laughable and something pitiable about them,

00:10:44.840 which I think is captured in both of their works.

00:10:47.500 Because really I think both of them capture this idea that evil is corruption,

00:10:53.540 evil is monstrous, but also evil is pathetic most of the time. 0.99

00:11:00.880 Most of the time it's pathetic people. 0.98

00:11:03.040 And that's something that we'll get onto when we get further into his catalogue,

00:11:07.540 which is that all of Lynch's big villains tend to share particular defining characteristics with one another, 0.95

00:11:12.980 that being that they are insane sexual degenerates. 0.93

00:11:19.220 And what he meant by this I think we'll discuss as we go on. 0.98

00:11:23.060 But first, let's actually get into his filmography

00:11:26.660 and some of the time before his filmography with Eraserhead.

00:11:30.760 His first debut feature film that came out in 1977

00:11:35.060 was five years in the making, I believe,

00:11:39.060 because he kept running out of money and was very much a passion project.

00:11:44.000 And really, re-watching it for the first time in ages for this series,

00:11:48.700 it was remarkable to me how much of his vision was fully formed

00:11:54.160 from that very first feature.

00:11:57.560 So many of his calling cards and tropes that he would employ,

00:12:01.140 some of the absurdist humour,

00:12:03.300 the use of camera movement to create a ghostly atmosphere,

00:12:06.700 the sound design, the characters themselves being strange and off-putting,

00:12:15.920 but also kind of real in the awkward way that they all speak to one another.

00:12:20.220 So much of it felt like a mission statement,

00:12:22.860 fully formed for the rest of his career.

00:12:25.700 So, Chloe, you've been doing the reading.

00:12:29.060 You've got all of these wonderful books.

00:12:30.520 You've managed to track down a very difficult-to-get-hold-of book.

00:12:33.540 Here of his artwork, you've got Room to Dream.

00:12:36.760 Josh has got quite a few other works.

00:12:38.640 I assume you've read each of these cover-to-cover, correct?

00:12:41.580 Oh, every page, definitely.

00:12:43.840 No, no.

00:12:45.540 I mean, some of these books, bless them,

00:12:47.600 I'm not saying they're all worthless,

00:12:50.300 but I've brought some of the modern film criticism

00:12:54.320 and I will be giving people a little sample of it

00:12:58.420 for exactly why we're not going to use much.

00:13:01.720 In fact, shall I just inflict it on some people right now?

00:13:05.700 Why not?

00:13:06.460 Let's give people a treat. 0.84

00:13:07.280 No better time than the present.

00:13:09.200 Let's give people a treat. 0.84

00:13:10.280 This is the world of film criticism.

00:13:15.180 And who's the author of this?

00:13:16.980 So this is from Mike Miley,

00:13:22.020 David Lynch's American Dreamscape.

00:13:23.840 This is a fairly recent compilation of film criticism articles

00:13:27.460 about him focusing on the music in particular,

00:13:31.200 which I thought was quite nice.

00:13:34.580 And, oh, how cancerous do you want it?

00:13:38.800 I'll just inject it straight into my veins.

00:13:41.120 Microwave me.

00:13:42.080 Oh, okay, okay.

00:13:45.820 How about further the cover songs on page 147

00:13:51.840 for about a paragraph?

00:13:53.900 And this is about Lost Highway.

00:13:56.240 So will this spoil much of Lost Highway for right now?

00:13:59.720 No, no.

00:14:00.120 Okay.

00:14:00.580 There is a very good point about in a film where,

00:14:04.820 I suppose this is a minor spoiler,

00:14:06.080 let's say, where people's identities are fluid, let's say.

00:14:12.300 Up in the air.

00:14:13.020 Up in the air.

00:14:13.560 To keep it on spoiler.

00:14:15.360 Which is also basically a recurring theme of his work

00:14:18.240 from Twin Peaks onwards.

00:14:19.840 Yeah.

00:14:20.280 There's a really good point that a lot of music in there

00:14:22.960 is cover versions.

00:14:24.520 So one song you expect to be done by one person

00:14:27.320 is taken over by someone else.

00:14:28.800 I thought that's a really interesting point.

00:14:30.620 And then you get to this.

00:14:32.340 Toxic masculinity, it turns out. 0.95

00:14:34.080 Oh, no.

00:14:34.940 Further, the cover songs in Lost Highway

00:14:36.820 reveal how these notions of desire and agency

00:14:39.620 in rock music and cinema

00:14:41.040 have been coded to satisfy and maintain

00:14:43.440 a patriarchal order.

00:14:46.500 The film's visuals indulge heavily in macho,

00:14:49.440 rockist iconography,

00:14:51.300 particularly in its fixation with cars, pornography,

00:14:54.460 pin-up fashion, and most of all,

00:14:56.440 aggressive, and aggressively whitened male,

00:14:59.600 rock music.

00:15:01.360 The visual iconography

00:15:03.100 partners with the sonic abrasiveness of the covers

00:15:06.060 to suggest that what Martha Nickumson 1.00

00:15:08.600 calls the mid-century cultural fantasies

00:15:11.380 about family love and male identity

00:15:13.320 have, like Fred Madison, Bill Pullman's character,

00:15:16.840 undergone painful transformations

00:15:18.780 and become caustic, manic, and violent.

00:15:22.220 By the end of the film,

00:15:23.080 Lynch's covers and their affiliating

00:15:25.060 misidentifications

00:15:27.960 fulfill Kasabian's claim

00:15:29.420 that compilation scores challenge-dominant ideologies.

00:15:34.920 Hmm.

00:15:36.120 Such as patriarchal authority

00:15:37.680 by preventing viewers from being

00:15:39.240 tightly tracked into identification

00:15:41.360 with a single-subject position,

00:15:43.220 even if the film does this

00:15:44.300 by cultivating discomfort.

00:15:45.360 Now, I think the point of him using

00:15:48.640 particular covers of songs

00:15:51.400 to highlight the wayward identities

00:15:54.900 and the fluid identities of the characters,

00:15:57.300 that's interesting.

00:15:58.320 That's an interesting point

00:15:59.320 and probably something that he thought about.

00:16:01.300 The rest of it,

00:16:02.700 I hate to break it to you,

00:16:04.480 I think David Lynch

00:16:05.540 just actually really liked

00:16:07.440 all of those things

00:16:09.880 that are featured in most of his films,

00:16:11.840 like Cars, Coffee, Smoking,

00:16:15.720 Beautiful Women.

00:16:17.100 I think this is a case

00:16:18.400 of reading a little bit too far into it,

00:16:20.680 reading your own ideology

00:16:21.900 out of the text,

00:16:23.640 because this has been remarked on

00:16:26.140 by quite a few people who knew Lynch.

00:16:28.060 Those things that keep featuring in his films,

00:16:30.480 like White Picket Fences,

00:16:32.120 Small Town America,

00:16:33.260 everything else I just listed,

00:16:34.580 he just genuinely loved them.

00:16:36.620 Like, on the Small Town America point,

00:16:39.320 Lynch talks about his childhood

00:16:40.540 as being perfect and idyllic

00:16:42.980 and how he had such a lovely upbringing.

00:16:46.860 So he's not going to look at

00:16:47.900 White Picket Fences

00:16:49.120 and say,

00:16:50.620 yeah, this is terrible.

00:16:51.900 He's coming up because

00:16:52.920 it's a soft spot for him, right?

00:16:56.560 Absolutely.

00:16:57.680 Were anyone to make a film,

00:16:59.660 you present things

00:17:01.860 that are important to you, obviously.

00:17:04.220 You wouldn't present things

00:17:05.280 that are insignificant.

00:17:06.860 And Lynch also,

00:17:07.800 this is an argument

00:17:10.540 I got into with people online

00:17:12.200 when he passed away

00:17:13.560 earlier on this year,

00:17:15.080 where people were trying

00:17:16.200 to make the argument

00:17:16.880 that all of his work

00:17:17.820 was violently anti-patriarchal

00:17:20.780 because of characters like,

00:17:22.700 minor spoiler here,

00:17:24.340 but we've already talked about Twin Peaks

00:17:26.000 in a separate video,

00:17:27.440 so hopefully you should be familiar with it,

00:17:29.440 because of characters like Leyland Palmer

00:17:31.360 and what he does

00:17:34.240 in that series.

00:17:35.840 And one example

00:17:37.020 does not prove

00:17:38.400 that all of his work

00:17:39.480 was patriarchal.

00:17:40.340 There is a definite theme

00:17:41.540 in all of his work

00:17:42.780 of women in danger.

00:17:44.640 That was literally

00:17:45.120 the tagline

00:17:45.820 for Inland Empire,

00:17:47.800 a woman in danger.

00:17:49.960 It's an apt description

00:17:51.320 of most of his work,

00:17:52.680 but most of the time

00:17:54.340 those women in danger

00:17:55.400 in his films

00:17:56.600 are not saved

00:17:58.140 by being girl bosses.

00:17:59.680 They're saved by being

00:18:01.740 sweet, kind, feminine,

00:18:05.880 and being protected

00:18:06.860 by a dominant, charismatic,

00:18:10.520 wholesome man.

00:18:12.200 That's typically what happens.

00:18:14.940 So if you're going to say

00:18:15.860 that that's patriarchal,

00:18:17.660 anti-patriarchal,

00:18:18.760 I think that's, again,

00:18:19.700 people reading their own ideology

00:18:21.280 into it,

00:18:22.300 when really what he's showing

00:18:23.320 is the two sides of the coin.

00:18:25.580 As with everything,

00:18:26.500 there's the duality

00:18:27.300 of masculinity corrupted

00:18:29.660 in Leland Palmer

00:18:30.700 and a positive masculinity

00:18:32.520 in somebody like Agent Cooper.

00:18:34.620 I think many of Lynch's characters

00:18:36.540 actually pose a very detailed

00:18:39.040 and nuanced view

00:18:40.140 of different sex roles,

00:18:43.740 but in a quite wholesome

00:18:45.660 and positive way.

00:18:47.980 Like, Lynch doesn't seem

00:18:49.480 to be casting judgment

00:18:50.600 on either one, necessarily.

00:18:53.880 He's directing his camera lens

00:18:56.360 to both.

00:18:57.200 Yeah.

00:18:57.600 The human condition

00:18:58.360 more generally.

00:18:59.360 Something he's very specifically said

00:19:01.640 and raised

00:19:02.540 through repeated use

00:19:04.120 of duality

00:19:04.860 is just the idea

00:19:06.940 that we have these depths to us.

00:19:08.540 Like he said,

00:19:09.580 Frank Booth

00:19:10.300 is in all of us.

00:19:11.380 So the villainous, 0.80

00:19:12.820 depraved, 0.95

00:19:13.920 antagonist of Blue Velvet. 0.99

00:19:16.300 Maniac.

00:19:16.740 He's like,

00:19:18.140 Frank is in all of us

00:19:19.480 and, you know,

00:19:21.540 we're not just sort of one thing

00:19:23.460 and he wants to be able

00:19:24.860 to express all these facets.

00:19:27.280 That's part of the point

00:19:28.180 of the character arc

00:19:29.220 that Jeffrey,

00:19:30.920 that's the main character

00:19:32.320 in Blue Velvet, right?

00:19:33.040 That's part of the character arc

00:19:33.940 that Jeffrey goes through

00:19:34.980 in that

00:19:35.280 is finding that he has

00:19:36.340 a bit of Frank in himself

00:19:37.500 and having to overcome that

00:19:39.220 and destroy the external Frank 0.63

00:19:41.480 to tame the internal Frank

00:19:43.060 within him.

00:19:44.200 Again, spoilers.

00:19:44.800 Sorry, I'd love to tame

00:19:46.880 the internal Frank.

00:19:47.940 I mean, we all have to.

00:19:50.780 If you would like to see

00:19:51.540 the full version

00:19:52.240 of this premium video,

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00:19:55.260 and subscribe

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The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - August 20, 2025

PREVIEW： The Career of David Lynch： Part I

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