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

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to our special director's series, continuing our journey into David Lynch's work.

00:00:07.020 This is part three. If you've not watched part one and two, I'd recommend that you do that now

00:00:12.360 because we are going to be carrying on from where we left off when we had just talked about Lost

00:00:17.780 Highway. Now we're going to be talking about his works, The Straight Story, Mulholland Drive,

00:00:22.880 and The Inland Empire. I'm your host, Harry, joined today by Josh and special guest and

00:00:28.680 returning friend of the show chloe proper horror show thank you for joining us again today thank

00:00:33.940 you for having me back yeah so i think this will be a very interesting episode because we've got a

00:00:38.300 real mix of stories right here even more so than in the very first one when we were talking about

00:00:44.520 his work on eraser head you know the daring art house debut surrealist film suddenly going into

00:00:52.120 something much more normal and mainstream with the elephant man and then going to the high budget

00:00:57.180 mainstream commercial and critical failure that was Dune. Now we have what I would consider to be

00:01:03.480 his masterpiece, or at least what's commonly known as his masterpiece in Mulholland Drive,

00:01:09.580 kind of bookended by his simplest story, I would say even simpler than Elephant Man,

00:01:18.120 and what many consider to be the truly impenetrable, most difficult and abstract

00:01:25.100 inland empire which is obviously it's a it's a three-hour labyrinth of a film many people see

00:01:33.040 it as impenetrable i'm going to be making uh kind of a hot take with it and i'm interested to see

00:01:40.160 how you both have responded to that one in terms of how critically uh you assess it and whether you

00:01:47.260 enjoyed it or not i have a feeling from discussions we've been having beforehand that josh was

00:01:50.800 probably not a big fan of it i don't know if chloe would have been either yeah but i i think

00:01:56.080 i think it's got its merits i can understand why people hate it it's not my favorite but still i

00:02:02.020 think it's got its merits but first let's get into the discussion with the straight story which many

00:02:08.480 people consider to be a bit of a like the unusual odd man out of lynch's filmography simply because

00:02:16.480 it is so simple it's a straight story some might say i have to say it i mean i'm sorry for one it's

00:02:23.120 based on a true story i didn't know that which is yeah it's based all the more wholesome alvin

00:02:28.500 straight was a real man who in the 1990s the early to mid 90s did embark on a journey across

00:02:36.480 midwest america about 250 miles on a ride on lawnmower so that he could see his brother who

00:02:42.600 suffered a stroke apparently it was in the news around 1994 and lynch's longtime collaborator who

00:02:50.100 he had a child with mary sweeney had been following the story on the news decided to write it up as a

00:02:56.240 script had mentioned it to david a few times but he had not actually signed on to it he had not

00:03:02.700 been going into it with the expectation that he was going to be directing the script that

00:03:07.140 mary was writing he just eventually read it one day and said i think i need to direct this yeah

00:03:13.500 i think like uh with wild at heart where monty montgomery who was a sort of worked with him on

00:03:19.380 ads and tried to get him to produce other films uh helped steer him towards a story in this one

00:03:25.500 mary sweeney fell in love with the story first developed it herself and then took it to david

00:03:32.340 Lynch when he was fully when it was fully formed and he just fell in love with it and I think you

00:03:37.380 can see in there all the things that he did fall in love with it for it is a real sort of I don't

00:03:44.560 know is it too corny to say like a love letter to the American Midwest is that too corny it is

00:03:50.660 no I think that's fair and I think that he's always had a sweet spot for that part of the

00:03:55.580 world hasn't he I think that that's part of the reason it appealed to him in the first place is

00:04:00.760 that it's sort of a rebuttal of what you might find at the American coasts where they think

00:04:08.120 they're all high and mighty and they think they're better than everyone else and yet

00:04:12.620 you see this very wholesome story play out where people might not have much but they're very

00:04:19.100 wholesome, they care about one another and it's talking about virtues in a place where people

00:04:26.660 tend not to think of it in America at the very least. Yeah it's the story of Alvin Strait and

00:04:34.100 his fortitude, his independence, his desire to go at his own way while also having to still rely on

00:04:41.040 the help and charity of complete strangers who reveal themselves to be you know kind and generous

00:04:47.580 people. But it is also like you say a love letter to that part of the country which even at the time

00:04:53.880 people were making notes may not exist in the same way that he's portraying it and it is really a

00:05:00.400 shot against those who would say that lynch's work is all cynicism twin peaks and blue velvet is all

00:05:07.040 about how the little white picket fence town in midwest america is actually just a hot bed of

00:05:13.640 disease and vice and dirt underneath you know they always cite the opening shot blue velvet

00:05:19.500 it. Whereas I think this is a much truer and clearer example of what Lynch actually feels

00:05:26.340 about that part of the country. What people miss with that interpretation, though, is that

00:05:30.560 he uses the white picket fence and the sort of wholesome town with a dark underbelly to give you

00:05:39.100 some sort of stakes in caring about its preservation. It has to have some virtues to that

00:05:44.320 for you to care about it being threatened in the first place and so it's sort of necessary to tell

00:05:50.920 that story that there's something worth saving and if anything i think lynch excels at showing

00:05:56.580 the more wholesome interactions between people like particularly in in twin peaks there are loads

00:06:03.300 of interactions in there where i'm just like that is incredibly wholesome um and it's sort of where

00:06:08.640 you see it reach its height in many cases and so i think that it's really missing the point

00:06:16.040 well there's the beautiful scene which we'll get into in the last episode when we talk about twin

00:06:20.960 peaks in the second series of twin peaks with bobby talking to his father major briggs where

00:06:26.800 all of the animosity all of the distance that had grown between them melts away as major briggs

00:06:34.020 gives this beautiful speech to his son about the dream that he had. Straight Story feels like the

00:06:39.860 spirit that motivated that scene, because that was a Lynch-directed episode, stretched out to

00:06:45.440 about an hour and a half. There's no cynicism that some would accuse his films of having in this

00:06:51.720 film. There's no way that you can try and inject cynicism. And that's not to say there is no

00:06:57.340 darkness in it. There is the scene where Alvin is sat at the bar speaking to another old-time

00:07:04.000 about their mutual experiences in the war and how it shaped them and how it traumatized them.

00:07:09.860 There's Alvin's own struggles off of the back of that with alcohol. And there's the implication

00:07:16.540 towards the end there when he's sat at that bar and he decides, I'm going to have my first beer

00:07:22.320 in about 10 years. And you get a little bit of that lynchian darkness slip through implied when 0.97

00:07:29.080 the bartender asks do you want another one and there's that dark rising atmosphere in the audio

00:07:35.060 and the sound of the wind and it's always a sign of trouble in lynch's works

00:07:39.900 but it passes and alvin overcomes that

00:07:43.380 another beer this will do me fine i wonder could you point me to lyle's place i haven't seen him

00:07:54.340 in an awful long time and he decides to stay on this path that he's started because the road that

00:07:59.200 he's traveling is not just the road to his brother it's the road to redemption and that part of

00:08:04.080 redemption started with him choosing to let the leave the alcohol behind now he's in greater

00:08:10.060 control of himself he's able to have his drink and leave it i also like having a sort of hero's

00:08:19.200 journey story where it's an elderly man i think actually that makes it more powerful than if it

00:08:27.620 wasn't because it's demonstrating well he's already got to this stage of his life and he's still got

00:08:32.600 a long way to go and it sort of to my mind illustrates well you know you've got to continue

00:08:39.680 pushing the frontiers of being a good person right up until you you know you die and so i think that

00:08:46.260 it elevates the the message behind the whole thing no certainly what were you going to add

00:08:53.560 I noticed you picked up your book the cinema of David Lynch indeed indeed it was just when you

00:09:00.420 I think you both mentioned about the sincerity and the lack of cynicism in this academic

00:09:06.200 collection of essays there is quite a lot of pondering over whether or not Lynch is dealing

00:09:14.060 with parody or pastiche or kitsch or neo kitsch and i'm not going to try and dissect the definitions

00:09:21.240 of those but it's just quoted a lot it's just a load of academic buzzwords for people who i think

00:09:28.540 are trying to read their own cynicism into works that don't contain it like like with

00:09:34.080 with blue velvet and that opening shot that all of these types of people would say

00:09:39.200 is reflective of like oh the secret darkness of the of suburban america that they're reading their

00:09:47.760 own image of suburban america into a work that doesn't actually contain it i think that's much

00:09:53.000 more reflective of like in this room to dream which is the semi-biography semi-autobiography

00:09:59.740 of his life and work he mentions that he had a great childhood he had no issues growing up he had

00:10:06.060 uh close relationship with his mother his father may have been able to be there a bit more but was

00:10:11.700 everything that he needed him to be says you know he wasn't always physically but there but the

00:10:16.500 feeling of love and support was always there from his father even when he wasn't there physically

00:10:22.300 so lynch attaches a lot of deep beauty and meaning to those places of small town america

00:10:28.940 and what i would imagine is actually going on there is that i can just picture in my mind

00:10:33.980 a young lynch admiring a white picket fence and then looking down and then just noticing that

00:10:41.120 there's all of this dirt and mud and the worms and the creatures crawling underneath it and

00:10:47.020 probably just thinking to himself how much more beautiful the white picket fence, the innocence

00:10:52.520 and the sincerity makes it that the two clash with one another and the two complement one another

00:10:58.140 because he, being a proponent of transcendental meditation, you hear a lot of speech of

00:11:03.660 balance within Twin Peaks. He believes that balance brings it all together and creates a

00:11:09.480 bigger picture that allows for true appreciation of the good in the world.

00:11:13.260 And of course, contrast in filmmaking elevates both things, doesn't it, by comparing them to

00:11:19.640 one another. So there's also a sort of cinematic device there.

00:11:23.840 Yeah, certainly. And the straight story is also interesting because before we came on,

00:11:28.960 I mentioned that despite the fact that I would say it's a simpler story than The Elephant Man,

00:11:35.220 you know, The Elephant Man has a larger cast of characters, it has these questions of morality,

00:11:42.160 it has these questions of, not to say that The Straight Story doesn't have any of these questions,

00:11:46.120 but in terms of the pure linear narrative, there's more going on in The Elephant Man.

00:11:51.220 Straight Story is literally just the guy decides that, you know, I'm on my last legs,

00:11:55.900 my brother's on my last legs we had a massive argument 10 years ago over something that i can't

00:12:00.440 even remember now i can put that behind me it's something small that doesn't matter anymore i can

00:12:05.900 put it behind me so i'm gonna go on this journey goes on the journey faces a few hardships meets

00:12:10.920 the beautiful kind and generous people of the midwest and gets there so it's a simpler story

00:12:16.760 but i would still say stylistically it feels more like it has the lynch directorial touch

00:12:23.580 than The Elephant Man does.

00:12:25.380 The Elephant Man is shot in a much more conventional

00:12:27.860 Hollywood studio manner

00:12:30.280 because it was produced by Mel Brooks.

00:12:33.080 It wasn't a project that Lynch got started on to begin with.

00:12:35.640 Brooks was like, hey, you want to start in Hollywood?

00:12:38.340 You take this script.

00:12:39.480 I feel like you'd be good for it.

00:12:41.240 So it's shot in a very conventional manner.

00:12:43.180 This has much more of the Lynchian audio design.

00:12:47.720 It has the Lynchian camera work

00:12:49.880 where the camera is not always locked off.

00:12:51.980 there's lots of shots where the camera is kind of floating dreamily through a scene it has more of

00:12:58.340 that dreamlike quality it's got a pace you would never get away with in a mainstream production

00:13:03.100 no certainly not it's what like an hour and 45 minutes something like that it's quite a short

00:13:08.100 film but it still takes its time with all of the scenes this is a this is a story that could be

00:13:13.020 told in 30 minutes usually well i mean if you're following an old man on a very slow lawn there

00:13:19.380 it'd be very strange stylistically to then make it very quick it would be very jarring you've sort

00:13:25.160 of got to drag it out to emphasize the themes in the story don't you that that's exactly you

00:13:31.460 um alvin is given many shortcuts uh you know the why not just you know this guy who he takes him

00:13:40.300 in when his lawnmower breaks breaks down and says look i can just drive you there and he's like no

00:13:45.360 i've got to do it myself i think it's very notable he says that to a younger man because it's like

00:13:50.260 the young man probably doesn't quite get it that he is on a journey it has to take time and we have

00:13:56.400 to feel it alongside him and he has a number of encounters with younger men like where there's

00:14:01.860 the cyclists who will go past him that he sees that he stays overnight at the campsite that

00:14:07.280 they're all staying out with and they're all obviously they're all cycling they can move

00:14:11.320 faster than him by the pure power of themselves on a bicycle rather than having to rely on

00:14:16.700 something with an engine uh so he's staying with them and they're throwing the ball about they're

00:14:21.060 like oh what's the what's the worst part about being old that kind of morbid curiosity that

00:14:26.000 young people have and he's like oh it's the just remembering when you were young that's that's the

00:14:31.040 worst part and it's almost like he accepts his limitations he knows his limitations but he's

00:14:37.300 still the same guy on the inside as he was when he was fighting the war when he could still do

00:14:42.340 all of these things by himself so he has to prove to himself that he can even if it takes longer

00:14:47.520 that's something lynch talks about is he thinks age is rather externalized the body the corpus

00:14:53.420 and internally your spirit stays the same age he really believes that i mean and you could kind of

00:14:58.800 see that he you can understand why he really identified with the story when you start to read

00:15:06.080 this about some of the struggles that he had making the return where the return was this

00:15:11.100 grueling five or six months um shoot where they were just doing everything all at once for all

00:15:17.260 18 episodes and he was involved in every aspect of it he was doing 12 hour days 17 hour days

00:15:24.220 when he turned 70 and the struggles that he was you know sometimes he would get there and he would

00:15:29.660 have a head rush and he would be old and he got really sick producing and directing it so he'd

00:15:34.440 have to lie down. But he felt that he had to be the one in control of it all. This was his

00:15:39.100 directorial stamp on something that was unfinished business for him. So you could say that actually

00:15:45.240 the production of The Return was Lynch's own personal straight story. Unfinished business

00:15:52.720 where he couldn't let the physical limitations of age keep him from doing what he needed to do

00:15:59.160 for his own sake and for the sake of the people that he loved around him.

00:16:03.100 i think that's a really good take on it yeah something that comes out in the making the

00:16:08.360 straight story is he says uh richard so richard farms with the chap playing alvin got younger

00:16:15.140 as they were making it so like literally the effort made him feel more alive more reinvigorated

00:16:21.860 i think lynch probably got that even though it was a struggle the fact that he was working on

00:16:27.260 something he cared about that he needed to do gave him the energy um there's another really

00:16:33.640 nice aspect to this as well as uh farnsworth coming back in who had come out of retirement

00:16:38.760 and there's quite a few people who will come out of retirement for david lynch yeah especially for

00:16:43.520 the return big ed not starred in anything since the straight story yep i i loved i loved seeing

00:16:50.820 him turn up i didn't know he was in this that wasn't neither did i yeah this was this was my

00:16:55.560 first time watching this film actually i'd watched all of his films multiple times prior to this

00:16:59.700 but for some reason i'd i'd managed to miss the straight story every single time and this was

00:17:05.580 you know a real it was like it was like a little little treat a little delightful treat nestled

00:17:12.000 amongst all of the darkness of a lot of his other works this one shining little gem yeah uh one of

00:17:19.000 the other people who came back and i have to shoehorn this in uh since you mentioned the elephant man

00:17:24.140 we have a returning collaboration with freddie francis now he turned up a lot in i want to say

00:17:30.820 part one probably uh when we talked about the elephant man and june freddie francis is an

00:17:37.880 english filmmaker associated with a lot of the um questionable quality 70s horrors that i adore

00:17:44.120 um he but the bbfc had some big problems with exactly call back to our first videos together

00:17:50.040 watch the history of the bbfc on the website if you haven't already indeed indeed great conversation

00:17:55.160 um so freddie francis had kind of stopped working dune was a bit of a sour note obviously

00:18:01.080 they hadn't really as i understand done anything since dune so coming back and freddie francis was

00:18:08.480 like 80 now david lynch was 53 when he was making the straight story if i can work that out correctly

00:18:14.700 so these are people are quite advanced in years but they came back together for this

00:18:19.120 and freddie francis and a lot of people from the very early days jack fisk production designer and

00:18:26.480 brother of uh lynch's second wife mary fisk uh sissy spacek who had been a sort of helping make

00:18:33.920 a raise ahead or around when he was making a raise ahead actually getting to star in this as well as

00:18:39.860 a lot of people from his really early years came together for the straight story i had this wonderful

00:18:46.200 final collaboration it's it's really lovely yeah it was it was interesting seeing sissy spacek in

00:18:52.180 this because at first i i mean i think the only other thing i've seen her in is of course carrie

00:18:56.780 the brian the palmer stephen king adaptation i didn't recognize her at first in this because

00:19:01.940 it's 20 years after carrie had been shot but also the she gives such a convincing performance as

00:19:09.120 somebody with a kind of i don't know developmental disorder perhaps you'd call it uh that i thought

00:19:17.580 it was a classic case that lynch had just found somebody who spoke like that normally

00:19:22.140 and put them in his film because there's so many stories in this particularly when you get to like

00:19:27.420 mulholland drive of there's just well i mean the twin peaks as well you know frank silver a set

00:19:34.040 designer who just got caught in one shot that lynch is like you are now the main villain of my

00:19:40.400 entire show you are the you are the the key to all of this you know the blue lady in mulholland

00:19:46.920 drive at the end when they're in the theater that's again just like a costume designer or a

00:19:51.920 set coordinator or something and he's just like can you get would you look good in a blue wig

00:19:57.160 get a blue dress made up for her right now what was that about lynch impressions earlier oh that's

00:20:02.080 fine i make an exception for myself of course yeah cory glazer just a i think costume or script

00:20:08.780 supervisor and then just told she she's like no no i can't do i can't do it and then lynch says

00:20:13.780 in a voice i'm not gonna do you'll be great up you go yeah it's it's really lovely reading all

00:20:19.300 of the stories from on set of all of these people who worked with him basically making him sound

00:20:24.920 like he was not to be too punny here he was like the dream director he's like the director you hope

00:20:31.240 to work with no wonder so many people always came back to work with him he wouldn't shout he wouldn't

00:20:35.900 raise his voice he wouldn't make you do take after take after take he was like the the anti-stanley

00:20:41.700 kubrick where stanley kubrick would make you do a hundred takes just to agitate you so he would

00:20:48.100 get the right performance out of you lynch rarely did more than between one and three takes because

00:20:55.100 he cast in a way that he knew he could get an automatic performance out of them because

00:21:01.180 he would see the character in the actor he would cast in that way that he knew he didn't really

00:21:07.280 have to do much so he would guide them through he would be sat really close to you on set giving

00:21:13.780 you instructions of what to do mad genomic and twin peaks gave us a little story in this about

00:21:18.880 how he had her sat in the front cabin of a lorry and he's he's like sat underneath the seat of the

00:21:26.920 lorry giving her instructions right then and then he's just like now lift your eyes up so that you

00:21:31.860 can look at the top of the cabin now draw your eyes along the top of the cabin and then bring

00:21:37.100 them down here and she just followed everything that he said and she's like david what's what's

00:21:42.020 my motivation for this why am i doing this and he goes it looks good it looks good so he like he was

00:21:50.160 able to make these people really comfortable on set he would if it was your last day on set in a

00:21:55.520 production no matter who you were he would get everybody to come around and give you a thank you

00:22:00.340 and give you a round of applause is this wonderful experience so again i just thought sissy spacek

00:22:05.260 was not sissy spacek i thought that she was some kind of slow person that he'd met in the street

00:22:09.980 and decided to cast in his film she was convincing yeah she was very convincing if if i did have one 0.96

00:22:17.920 little complaint about the film it was that her manner of speech the affect was a bit annoying

00:22:25.520 oh i found it a bit annoying even my cold heart wasn't that um impatient with it in the first 0.50

00:22:35.600 30 minutes there are quite a few scenes where she's kind of giving exposition and it was kind

00:22:42.380 of one of those feelings like of all the characters to have explain this david you're you're making

00:22:48.360 fun of me with this but as well you know i can understand she was endearing she was sweet

00:22:54.940 and it kind of came back around when there's this beautiful scene when he alvin's set out on his

00:23:02.780 journey in full he's had a false start his original lawnmower cracked out on him so he goes to big ed

00:23:09.800 and he gets a John Deere and then he's on his journey in strength and he's sat out camping in

00:23:16.000 a field in the dark and this girl comes up and he gives the story when they're talking of how

00:23:22.500 she's one of his four or five daughters and she had a litter of children herself and she was away

00:23:30.160 from them because I think she was working they were being looked after somebody else

00:23:33.900 and there was a fire one of the children got burnt no one died but the state as a result

00:23:38.860 took her children away from her because given her mental state they or at least her manner of

00:23:44.640 speech they thought she was an unfit parent so that kind of wrapped her story back around because 0.76

00:23:50.500 you only see her i think once in the rest of the film i think after that the purpose of her

00:23:55.400 character in the narrative is that it's something that he's doing it all for in the first place

00:24:01.760 right that he's being healthier he's making amends he's making things right because he's got

00:24:08.620 her at home and it's sort of not necessarily stated but it's always sort of in the background

00:24:14.160 um of every scene to a certain extent is that you know you know she's at home waiting for him and

00:24:21.320 when he finally gives her a call it's a very sort of significant moment it's almost like a milestone

00:24:26.420 and so it adds emotional weight to it i think and um before i forget it's also worth mentioning i

00:24:34.060 wonder how much John Deere paid him for this film. It surely wasn't enough because the amount of

00:24:40.540 free advertising they get throughout the whole thing was sort of unprecedented. The maker of

00:24:45.440 incredibly reliable, well-trusted tractors John Deere, that John Deere. Some of the farmers down

00:24:52.520 my way might have a thing or two to say about it. Some of the most reliable ride-on lawnmowers that

00:24:57.960 you can find across the entire country. Well you notice that first tractor craps out but luckily

00:25:03.180 he switches to John Deere

00:25:04.780 well the fun thing was is that

00:25:07.020 John Deere was a part of the original true

00:25:09.060 story so he was

00:25:11.120 just being true to it but yes

00:25:13.140 John Deere do presumably

00:25:15.220 still owe a significant

00:25:17.000 sum of change to the

00:25:19.100 Lynch estate and the funny thing

00:25:21.100 is one of the famous

00:25:22.980 clips in an interview with Lynch is where

00:25:25.200 they talk about what do you think about

00:25:27.120 product placement

00:25:28.000 in films and then

00:25:31.220 I can't remember exactly what he says

00:25:33.140 but it was quite sweary and and very final um he basically hates it and then i watched straight

00:25:40.900 story after knowing his opinions on it was like hang on a minute well it was just part of the

00:25:46.540 story it had to be that way because it was that way uh whereas i now that you mention it i think

00:25:52.540 about all of his other films and there's like no very little no recognizable products basically in

00:25:59.980 any of them in straight story not only do you have you know big ed selling him his own tractor

00:26:06.220 from the 1960s the guy who helps him when his tractor breaks down also works for john deere

00:26:12.360 so it's just like it's sort of like john deere workers are like a secret society like the

00:26:17.900 freemasons but just of wholesome people who help people in need well honestly after after reading

00:26:23.680 this bloody thing right okay my new conspiracy right is not that you know uh there are certain

00:26:30.100 secret cabals or particular groups pulling the strings behind hollywood right not not the ones 0.68

00:26:36.460 not the ones you're thinking of get your hands off the keyboard stay out of the comments right now

00:26:40.940 no the secret cartel running hollywood is the maharashi yogi oh yeah and the transcendental

00:26:48.200 meditation practices. Everybody. They're all in on it. Michael Cera. Michael Cera practices

00:26:56.120 transcendental meditation. Richard Boehmer, who played Ben Horne in Twin Peaks, they got along

00:27:02.360 because they practiced transcendental meditation. Harry Dean Stanton didn't meditate, but he was

00:27:07.720 into Taoism and Buddhism and all of this. It's a little bit of a sort of California-y thing,

00:27:13.040 isn't it more than anything i think because meditation is pretty common in sort of more

00:27:19.720 artsy circles anyway like whenever i go to a sort of indie music festival there's always some sort

00:27:25.100 of meditation thing and i'm like i'm far too hungover for that but um yeah i think it's more

00:27:33.000 just a convergence of of character than anything else with shared interests you know how you sort

00:27:40.320 find that no i think it's the maharashi pulling the strings behind the scenes david lynch like

00:27:45.860 just happens to get into it in 1973 and then he manages to get a racer head made kickstarts his

00:27:51.780 entire career gets loads of other people and then by the time you get into the mid-2000s he's going

00:27:56.940 on 16 country speaking tours with a guy called bobby roth about about meditation transcendental

00:28:03.320 meditation it's big india again pulling the strings well he was living in the netherlands so i

00:28:08.620 I assume the Dutch have something to do with this as well, as always. 0.98

00:28:13.700 The Dutch are always behind it. 1.00

00:28:15.360 One way or another. 1.00

00:28:17.020 There's the Maharashi pulling the strings, and behind the Maharashi, the Dutch. 1.00

00:28:22.680 Big clog. 1.00

00:28:23.260 Yeah.

00:28:27.200 No, but one of the other enduring themes throughout this that we've already touched on was the, again, summed up really beautifully in the scene under the stars.

00:28:38.620 when he's speaking to that young girl who is running away from home because she's got an

00:28:43.600 unwanted pregnancy we assume she's going to go through with the pregnancy she just doesn't want

00:28:48.540 to have to put up with the disappointment from her family all of the expectations that come from that

00:28:54.060 it is the theme of the strength of family like you say he's doing this for his daughter he's

00:29:00.120 doing it partially to show her that no matter where her children are there'll still be that

00:29:04.940 connection because he's still got that connection with his brother even after all of these years

00:29:09.640 the strength of bond that they built up through their time growing up together and also he's

00:29:17.000 showing this young girl that listen they might you might have made some mistakes but the biggest

00:29:24.040 mistake that you could make right now is leaving abandoning your family and taking on this journey

00:29:31.540 on your own. And he uses the metaphor

00:29:33.720 of when he was showing

00:29:35.120 I think one of his children, he was showing

00:29:37.400 him, you know, I picked up a stick

00:29:39.460 and I snapped it in two.

00:29:41.520 And then I picked up a bundle of sticks and put

00:29:43.540 them all together. Yeah, yeah,

00:29:45.520 go on. There's no cynicism

00:29:47.720 in this discussion, right? This is pure

00:29:49.780 and sincere and

00:29:51.500 beautiful. He's sincerely

00:29:53.560 a bundle of stick

00:29:55.700 enthusiast, yeah. Yes, like

00:29:57.460 yourself, Josh. What?

00:29:59.460 like yourself josh he picks up this bundle of sticks and he tries to break them and he says

00:30:06.860 you're saying he's a bushcraft fan okay that's what it is well lynch was very into woodwork it's

00:30:16.100 what him and uh what was it it was what him and uh you know roy orbison got along with after they

00:30:22.240 made blue velvet and orbison eventually turned around on the film and said you know this is

00:30:26.720 good and then they did a remake of in dreams together it's woodwork that brought them together

00:30:30.400 and on the basis of this being about nature and family and woodwork when bundled together

00:30:38.140 in way you could say as a classical fasci you can't break them when they're all bundled together

00:30:46.320 like that when i put it like that what did what did david lynch mean by this woodwork makes the

00:30:52.680 good work certainly certainly does i think that that scene is a particularly good example of it

00:30:59.420 just being a wholesome bit of messaging it enclosed in a film because that little lesson

00:31:05.520 there is just unequivocally good advice just doesn't need to be in context of the film it's

00:31:11.700 just like that's just wholesome and good and i'm glad lynch included that if you would like to see

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The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - April 09, 2026

PREVIEW： The Career of David Lynch： Part III

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