The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - August 20, 2025


PREVIEW： The Career of David Lynch： Part I


Episode Stats

Length

19 minutes

Words per Minute

164.55084

Word Count

3,288

Sentence Count

185

Misogynist Sentences

5

Hate Speech Sentences

1


Summary

Harry and Josh are joined by returning guest Chloe from Proven Horror Show to discuss David Lynch's incredible career and work as a film director. The Lotus Eaters is a new series on the Lotus Eater Podcast, produced by Harry and Josh, and based on the popular series on Stanley Kubrick. In this episode, the team discuss Lynch's entire filmography, from his first feature film, 'The Moon is Blue' to his final film 'The Silence of the Lambs' to 'The X-Files' and beyond.


Transcript

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.
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.
00:11:00.880 Most of the time it's pathetic people.
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,
00:11:12.980 that being that they are insane sexual degenerates.
00:11:19.220 And what he meant by this I think we'll discuss as we go on.
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.
00:13:07.280 No better time than the present.
00:13:09.200 Let's give people a treat.
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.
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
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,
00:19:12.820 depraved,
00:19:13.920 antagonist of Blue Velvet.
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
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.
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