Reflections: An Oral History of Twin Peaks

Brad Dukes' volume offers an in-depth look into the making of the series

Brad Dukes, Reflections: An Oral History of Twin Peaks

From Abigail Schaeffer (Chicago Literati):

Released just in time to coincide with the much anticipated Blu-Ray release of Twin Peaks: The Entire Mystery and Missing Pieces, Brad Dukes’ new book, Reflections: An Oral History of Twin Peaks sheds new light on the beloved cult TV series.

The book, which is done entirely in interview format, features cast and crew members speaking candidly about the filming of the show. With great nostalgia, writer Mark Frost rehashes the story of the show’s conception. Frost and auteur David Lynch originally met through their mutual agents and were in talks to do a biopic called Goddess about Marilyn Monroe. While that project never came to pass, Lynch and Frost nevertheless became friends. Legend has it, one unsuspecting day while sipping coffee at a diner, Frost and Lynch conceived Twin Peaks.

Originally titled Northwest Passage, Lynch and Frost were inspired by an old ghost story Frost had heard growing up. The character of Laura Palmer evolved from that story and allowed Lynch and Frost a way to, “peel back the onion” and go deeper within the layers of the seemingly innocent Pacific Northwest town. It should also be noted that Lynch and Frost, both huge fans of film noir, named the character of Laura Palmer after the 1944 Otto Preminger film, Laura. [Read More]

Find on Amazon: US | UK

Also at A Piece of Monologue:

• Filmmakers: David Lynch
• Twin Peaks: Behind the Scenes Photographs
• The Production Design of Lynch, Malick & Anderson
• Angelo Badalamenti on Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks
• David Lynch on Film vs. Television

I See Myself: David Lynch on Eraserhead

From interviews conducted by Chris Rodley

Working the night shift: Cast and crew members of David Lynch's Eraserhead

An excerpt from Chris Rodley's wonderful book, Lynch on Lynch, quoted by Criterion Collection:

Eraserhead took five years to complete. You must have been completely dedicated to the film to sustain both the project and your own enthusiasm over such an extended production period. What was it about the idea that you loved?

It was the world. In my mind, it was a world between a factory and a factory neighborhood. A little, unknown, twisted, almost silent lost spot where little details and little torments existed. And people were struggling in darkness. They’re living in those fringelands, and they’re the people I really love. Henry’s definitely one of those people. They kind of get lost in time. They’re either working in a factory or fiddling with something or other. It’s a world that’s neither here nor there. It came out of the air in Philadelphia. I always say it’s my Philadelphia Story. It just doesn’t have Jimmy Stewart in it!

I could be on the set at night, and I would imagine the whole world around it. I imagined walking out, and there were very few cars—there might be one far away, but in the shadows—and very few people. And the lights in the windows would be really dim, and there would be no movement in the window, and the coffee shop would be empty except for one person who didn’t speak properly. It was just like a mood. The life in that world . . . there was nothing like it. Things go so fast when you’re making a movie now that you’re not able to give the world enough—what it deserves. It wants to be lived in a little bit; it’s got so much to offer, and you’re going just a little too fast. It’s just sad.

When he reviewed Blue Velvet, novelist J. G. Ballard said that the film was “like The Wizard of Oz reshot with a script by Franz Kafka and decor by Francis Bacon.” Kafka certainly comes to mind in Eraserhead. Do you like his work?

Yeah. The one artist that I feel could be my brother—and I almost don’t like saying it, because the reaction is always, “Yeah, you and everybody else”—is Franz Kafka. I really dig him a lot. Some of his things are the most thrilling combos of words I have ever read. If Kafka wrote a crime picture, I’d be there. I’d like to direct that for sure.

In a way, Henry is akin to Josef K in Kafka’s The Trial—a man by turns bemused and alarmed by what is happening to him.

Henry is very sure that something is happening, but he doesn’t understand it at all. He watches things very, very carefully because he’s trying to figure them out. He might study the corner of that pie container just because it’s in his line of sight, and he might wonder why he sat where he did to have that be there like that. Everything is new. It might not be frightening to him, but it could be a key to something. Everything should be looked at. There could be clues in it.

There seems to be little differentiation between the outside and the inside in Eraserhead—something that becomes much more pronounced later in Twin Peaks. Views through windows are of brick walls, and although the sounds might be different, it’s mostly just as noisy inside Henry’s apartment block as it is in the world outside. The feeling is of no letting up. There’s a constant . . .

Pressure. Well, again, it’s industry and different things going on—a lot of it unseen but heard. But to me, even though there was plenty of ambiguous torment in Henry, his apartment—actually, his room—was, you know, fairly cozy. It was just this one little place he had to mull things over. The anxiety doesn’t let up, but it doesn’t really let up for anybody. Pressure is, you know, always building. In a way, I’d like to live in Henry’s apartment, and be around there. I love Hitchcock’s Rear Window because it has such a mood, and even though I know what’s going to happen, I love being in that room and feeling that time. It’s like I can smell it.

How did Eraserhead come about?

Well, fate stepped in again and was really smiling on me. The Center [the American Film Institute’s Center for Advanced Film Studies] was completely chaotic and disorganized, which was great. And you quickly learned that if you were going to get something done, you would have to do it yourself. They wanted to let people do their thing. If you could get it going, they would support it. They didn’t have any kind of real program. They ran films all day long, and you could look at them. And if there was something you wanted to see, or something somebody said you’d gotta see, you’d go up, and there it would be. It was an unbelievable screening room. Anything that was on film, they could show there. And people would get ahold of really rare prints. The chandelier would drift up into the ceiling and dim as it went. And they had the greatest projectionists!

My first year at the Center was spent rewriting a forty-five-page script I wrote called Gardenback. The whole thing unfolded from this painting I’d done. The script had a story, in my mind, and it had what some people could call a “monster” in it. When you look at a girl, something crosses from her to you. And in this story, that something is an insect.

Well, a couple of things happened. Caleb Deschanel read this script, and he called me up and said he loved it. He was a fellow at the Center and a director of photography. He said he wanted to shoot it. And that was really great with me. I’d worked with Caleb on a film he was shooting for a guy named Gil Dennis. They wanted a snake to crawl between the wall and the wallpaper in this thing, so I built this snake and this rig and did this thing for Gil. It didn’t work out real well, but it was okay. So Caleb was telling me about this producer over at Fox who was ready to do a series of low-budget horror films. This guy was a sort of friend of his, and he wanted my permission to show him Gardenback.

Frank Daniel—who was the dean of the Czechoslovakian film school—was by far the best teacher I ever had. Just a great, great teacher. Unbelievable! I never really liked teachers, but I liked Frank because he wasn’t a teacher, in a way. He just talked. And he loved cinema, and he knew everything about it. Frank was always trying to talk to me about Gardenback, but I wasn’t, you know, talking. So one day, Caleb and Frank and I went to see this guy at Fox. And this guy said, “Look, I want to give you fifty thousand dollars to make this movie. Caleb will shoot it, and it’ll be a labor of love—you’ll get everybody in there to do stuff for nothing.” But he said, “It’s only forty-five pages. You gotta make it 115 or 110 pages—it’s gotta be a feature script.” And this, like, hurt my head! “What does he mean?”

So Frank tried to explain to me. He said things like, “You have to have these scenes between the people. And they have to talk. You should think about some dialogue.” And I still didn’t know what he was really on about. “What are they gonna say?” I said. And so [laughs] we started having these weekly meetings that were like an experiment, because I really didn’t know what they were getting at. And I was curious to see what they were going to say to me. Eventually, a script got written. Gil Dennis was a writer and would come into the meetings. And Toni Vellani [codirector of the Center] would sit in on these meetings too. So they would all talk to me, and I’d go home and try to write these things.

What I wrote was pretty much worthless, but something happened inside me about structure, about scenes. And I don’t even know what it was, but it sort of percolated down and became part of me. But the script was pretty much worthless. I knew I’d just watered it down. It was way more normal to me. The bits I liked were there, but they were interspersed with all this other stuff. And now it was the end of the first year, and there I was with this thing.

On the first day of the second year, the old fellows came in and met the new fellows. And at the end of this meeting, they assigned different groups to different places to kick off the new year. And I was assigned to a first-year group. In my mind, this was a humiliating thing, and I didn’t understand it. So I got really, really upset. All this frustration came out, and I stormed up to Frank Daniel, and I screamed at him. I just barged in and told him, “I’m outta here. I quit.” I went and told Alan [Splet]. I said, “I’m outta here!” He says, “I’m going with you,” because he was fed up too, and we both stormed out of the place. We went down to Hamburger Hamlet and just sat there drinking coffee. It was over.

I finally went home, and Peggy [Lynch’s wife] said, “What the hell’s going on? They’ve been calling every ten minutes!” And I said, “I quit.” And she said, “Well, they want to see you.” So I calmed down, and the next day I went up, just basically to hear what they had to say. And Frank said, “We must be doing something wrong, because you’re one of our favorite people and you’re upset. What do you want to do?” And I said, “Well, I sure don’t wanna do this piece a shit Gardenback now—it’s wrecked!” And he said, “What do you want to do?” And I said, “I want to do Eraserhead.” And he said, “Okay, do Eraserhead then.”

So you already had the idea ready to go?

I had this twenty-one-page script. And they said, “It’s twenty-one pages,” and Toni or somebody said, “It’s a twenty-one-minute film.” And I said, “Well . . . er . . . I think it’s going to be longer than that.” So they elected it to be a forty-two-minute film. But the beautiful thing—because they were now feeling a little bit guilty—was that I was able to go to the equipment shed. My friend David Khasky was in charge of all the cameras and cables, lights, everything. And I had this Volkswagen with a four-by-eight wooden rack that held tons of stuff. Well, it was packed four or five feet tall with cables and lights. And the car was packed with camera equipment. And I’d drive down to these stables owned by the school, unload, and drive back up and get more.

The stables were down at the bottom of the mansion down Doheny Road. It was a little mansion in and of itself. It had a greenhouse and a garden shed, all made of brick, with these shingle roofs. But it was all getting old and funny. It had garages and a hayloft, a big L-shaped room above the garages. It had a maid’s quarters and places above for different people who worked for Doheny, kitchens, bathrooms, like a little hotel, with a lot of other stuff around. And I got four or five rooms and the hayloft and a couple of garages.

You just laid claim to them?

Yeah. No one wanted them anyway. They were empty. So we had a camera room, a greenroom, an editing room, rooms for sets, a food room, and a bathroom. We just sort of had the run of the place. I had those stables for many years.

They knew you were there, but they just left you alone?

Yes. They didn’t know I was living there—I got divorced in my second year, and I started living there. I also stayed at Jack Nance and Catherine Coulson’s house sometimes. And Al stayed at the stables a lot. That’s another thing I had: since Al was head of the sound department, I had access to the entire mixing room, the Nagras, microphones and cables, and all the rest. And the soundman. I had everything going for me. I was doing the thing I wanted to do most of all, making films. And I practically had my own little studio.

Did you get a grant to go to the Center, or did your parents have to pay?

You have to get there, and you have to take care of yourself. My father lent me money—me and Peggy and Jennifer [Lynch’s daughter]—and Peggy’s parents helped out too.

So how were you taking care of yourself during that time?

I can’t remember what year it was in Eraserhead, but I got this paper route, and I delivered the Wall Street Journal. That’s how I supported myself. We only shot at night, and my route was at night. So at a certain point, I’d have to stop the shoot and go do the route. But I had the route down so fast that I was only gone about an hour and eight minutes. Sometimes it would be fifty-nine minutes, but I was going flat out to make the hour.

Why were you only shooting at night?

Well, you know, because it was dark! And the park department was up there during the day, so it was noisy and there were people around. At night, no one was there. And it was a nighttime film. The mood was perfect, and that is critical.

Did you now regard yourself primarily as a filmmaker?

I didn’t really think about it; I was making this film. But I always felt there were these filmmakers out there, and I wasn’t part of that. I was separate from that. I never really considered myself in the system at all. [Read More]

Find on Amazon: US | UK

Also at A Piece of Monologue:

• Filmmakers: David Lynch
• Eraserhead: Original Soundtrack Recording (Deluxe Edition)
• David Lynch: Behind the Scenes on Eraserhead
• David Lynch: Eraserhead Interview (1979)
• David Lynch on Film vs. Television
• David Lynch on Meditation

David Lynch's Industrial Symphony No. 1

Open Culture tracks down a copy of the 1989 musical play

From Open Culture:

It is time, I thought to myself just a couple weeks ago; time, I thought, to watch Twin Peaks again. How I had missed Leland Palmer’s crazed dancing/crying jags, Agent Cooper’s straight-shooting cornball savvy, Audrey Horne’s tongue-in-cheek slinkiness, and the absolute nightmare of Bob. How I had especially missed the haunting score of Angelo Badalamenti and the ethereal interludes of Julee Cruise. Immersed now in the second season, I already mourn the premature end. But you can imagine my delight when I discovered the film above, a Lynch musical play scored by Badalamenti and showcasing the otherworldly voice of Cruise, who appears as “The Dreamself of the Heartbroken Woman.” Cast as the actual heartbroken woman is Lynch stalwart Laura Dern, whose heart is broken over the phone by then-young-heartbreaker Nicolas Cage. Rounding out the cast is another familiar face, Michael J. Anderson—Twin Peaks’ “Little Man From Another Place”—appearing here as “Woodsman/Twin A.” Logs are sawn, neon signs flicker, dancers writhe, and Badalamenti’s twisted cool jazz lulls us into bizarre Lynchian neo-noir terrain. [Read More]

Find on Amazon: US | UK

Also at A Piece of Monologue:

• Filmmakers: David Lynch
• Lost Highway Screening: V&A, London
• Mulholland Drive Screening: Barbican, London
• David Lynch's Club Silencio
• David Lynch Artwork Retrospective

Lost Highway Screening: V&A, London

Introduced by author Richard Martin

Lost Highway (dir. David Lynch, 1997)

Lost Highway (dir. David Lynch, 1997)

Lost Highway (dir. David Lynch, 1997)

From V&A: ‘Special Event: Richard Martin, author of the forthcoming book The Architecture of David Lynch, introduces Lynch’s uncanny noir thriller, Lost Highway (USA 1997 / 135mins / Certificate 18) and discusses how we might unlock the secrets of Lost Highway by looking carefully at the film’s design elements and architectural spaces.’ The screening will take place on 13 September 2014 [Read More]

Find David Lynch on Amazon: US | UK

Also at A Piece of Monologue:

• Filmmakers: David Lynch
• Mulholland Drive Screening: Barbican, London
• David Lynch's Club Silencio
• David Lynch Artwork Retrospective
• The Production Design of Lynch, Malick & Anderson

Mulholland Drive Screening: Barbican, London

Introduction by author Richard Martin

Mullholland Drive (dir. David Lynch, 2001)

If you are in London on 27 September 2014, the Barbican are organising a screening of David Lynch's Mulholland Drive (2001). The screening comes complete with an introduction from Richard Martin, author of The Architecture of David Lynch:

David Lynch’s surrealist neo-noir marries a mood of urban anxiety to a narrative that is not simply set in Los Angeles, but actually scrutinizes the collective dream that is LA. How many aspiring starlets have come to the city, only to have their dreams smashed?

This hallucinatory tale of a perky blond ingénue (Naomi Watts) caught up in a mystery involving an amnesiac brunette (Laura Elena Harring) begins with a bone-crunching car accident on the famous road above the city. [Read More]

Find David Lynch on Amazon: US | UK

Also at A Piece of Monologue:

• Filmmakers: David Lynch
• David Lynch and Digital Modernism
• David Lynch's Club Silencio
• David Lynch Artwork Retrospective
• The Production Design of Lynch, Malick & Anderson

David Lynch Artwork Retrospective

Pennsylvania Academy from 13 September 2014

David Lynch working at his home/studio in the Hollywood Hills

Jack Fisk (left) and David Lynch (right) in Philadelphia, 1967. Photograph: C. K. Williams

The screen for “Six Men Getting Sick,” (1967). Photograph: Rodger LaPelle and Christine McGinnis

David Lynch, “All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth” (2012). Credit: David Lynch/Kayne Griffin Corcoran Gallery

David Lynch, “Boy Lights Fire” (2010). Credit David Lynch

From Hilarie M. Sheets (The New York Times):

David Lynch’s rooftop painting studio, perched high in the Hollywood Hills, is littered with the byproduct of work. Paintings with crude, childlike figures doing menacing things lean up against the walls, unfinished drawings are strewn over his huge desk, and the floor is carpeted with cigarette butts. While the dark visual sensibility of his film work — “Eraserhead” (1977), “The Elephant Man” (1980), “Blue Velvet” (1986), “Wild at Heart” (1990), “Mulholland Drive” (2001), and his TV series “Twin Peaks” (1990-91) — has permeated the public consciousness and widely influenced other filmmakers, writers and artists (including Cindy Sherman and Gregory Crewdson), Mr. Lynch’s own visual art is almost unknown. Yet painting is where he started, enrolled as an advanced student at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia in 1966 and ’67, and it is the medium he continues to work in most actively. His first United States museum retrospective, “David Lynch: The Unified Field,” opens at the Pennsylvania Academy on Sept. 13.

“I loved my time at the academy,” Mr. Lynch said, drinking coffee and smoking at his desk, his genial small-town manner a vivid counterpoint to the eerie tenor of his films. “The building was almost black. All of Philadelphia had a kind of coal-dust patina and a mood that was just spectacular. There was violence and fear and corruption, insanity, despair, sadness, just in the atmosphere in that city. I loved the people there. All these things, whatever way it was, was my biggest influence.”

Despite the cultlike devotion to Mr. Lynch’s films, “nobody’s paid attention to him in terms of my colleagues at American museums,” observed Robert Cozzolino, the senior curator of the Pennsylvania Academy, who organized the show. It brings together paintings and drawings from five decades and includes a trove of barely exhibited early work from Mr. Lynch’s time in Philadelphia that set the tone for everything that followed.

“I think the art world has been suspicious of David, although he was trained as an artist,” said Brett Littman, executive director of the Drawing Center in New York, referring to the fashion of creative people prominent in one arena trying their hand in another. “He’s not James Franco.” Mr. Littman organized a smaller show of Mr. Lynch’s works on paper and photographs last year in Los Angeles at Kayne Griffin Corcoran, which represents the artist.

“David changed the way that we think about visual culture in the United States through his movies,” Mr. Littman said. “You may or may not like his visual artwork, but it’s definitely worth looking at.” [Read More]

Find David Lynch on Amazon: US | UK

Also at A Piece of Monologue:

• Filmmakers: David Lynch
• David Lynch Loves to Paint
• David Lynch, Works on Paper
• David Lynch on Painting
• David Lynch on Film, Art and Photography

David Lynch's Factory Photographs

Sara Barnes on Lynch's industrial images

Photograph: David Lynch

From Sara Barnes (Beautiful Decay):

If you’re familiar with the films of David Lynch, then you know the subtle uneasiness that he makes you feel. It doesn’t just stop with movies, as Lynch is also a photographer. Between 1980 and 2000, he shot monochromatic images of factories in Berlin, Poland, New York, New Jersey, and England. The result is a book of photographs titled The Factory Photographs, selections of which are currently on view at The Photographers’ Gallery in London.

It’s clear that the filmmaker’s eye transfers effortlessly between the moving picture and a static one. These landscapes are beautiful, but desolate and haunting; Their moodiness makes them feel as if they are of a different time and dystopian future. “I love industry. Pipes. I love fluid and smoke. I love man-made things. I like to see people hard at work, and I like to see sludge and man-made waste,” Lynch writes in his book.

The photographer practices transcendental meditation, and his penchant for delving into the strange and unconscious part of ourselves is not lost on these photographs. In the exhibit’s press release, Lynch says, “I just like going into strange worlds. A lot more happens when you open yourself up to the work and let yourself act and react to it.” These provocative images invite us to do the same. [See More]

Find David Lynch on Amazon: US | UK

Also at A Piece of Monologue:

• Filmmakers: David Lynch
• Burroughs, Lynch and Warhol: Photography Exhibition
• David Lynch on Film, Art and Photography
• David Lynch: Eraserhead Interview (1979)
• Kyle MacLachlan on David Lynch

David Lynch on Twin Peaks: The Entire Mystery

American filmmaker, musician and artist revisits a TV phenomenon

Twin Peaks: The Entire Mystery boxset

Twin Peaks: The Entire Mystery boxset

From Jeremy Kay (The Guardian):

Lynch always intended to revisit Laura Palmer’s world in movie form. After the US network ABC pulled the plug on Twin Peaks at the end of the second season in June 1991, he told himself he would do just that once he had completed work on Wild at Heart. “I always loved Laura Palmer,” he says, “and in the series she’s dead, so I loved the idea of seeing the last week of her life.”

Fire Walk With Me received a critical and commercial drubbing when it opened in 1992, following the world premiere at Cannes. “There were very bad reviews. I was under a bad cloud during that time and it just didn’t go well.” He pauses briefly. This may be a reference to his 1991 breakup with then-girlfriend Isabella Rossellini.“But I loved the film and when you do something you believe in and it doesn’t go well it’s OK. If you sell out like I did on Dune and it doesn’t go well then you really die.” [Read More]

Find on Amazon: US | UK

Also at A Piece of Monologue:

• Filmmakers: David Lynch
• Twin Peaks: Behind the Scenes Photographs
• The Production Design of Lynch, Malick & Anderson
• Angelo Badalamenti on Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks
• David Lynch on Film vs. Television

Twin Peaks: Behind the Scenes Photographs

Actor Richard Beymer captures the making of the final episode

Photograph: Richard Beymer

Photograph: Richard Beymer

Photograph: Richard Beymer

Photograph: Richard Beymer

Photograph: Richard Beymer

Photograph: Richard Beymer

Photograph: Richard Beymer

Photograph: Richard Beymer

Photograph: Richard Beymer

Photograph: Richard Beymer

Photograph: Richard Beymer

Photograph: Richard Beymer

Photograph: Richard Beymer

Photograph: Richard Beymer

Photograph: Richard Beymer

All photographs via Welcome to Twin Peaks.

Find Twin Peaks on Amazon: US | UK

Also at A Piece of Monologue:

• Filmmakers: David Lynch
• The Production Design of Lynch, Malick & Anderson
• Angelo Badalamenti on Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks
• The Blue Velvet Project
• David Lynch on Film vs. Television

Angelo Badalamenti on Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks

Film4 talks to David Lynch's long-time musical collaborator

Angelo Badalamenti

From Film4:

How did you come to work on Blue Velvet?

One of the film's producers, a friend of mine, mentioned to me that Isabella Rossellini was having trouble with the song Blue Velvet in the film. He asked if I would come and coach her, so I did. We worked for about three or four hours and got one great take with her singing and me on piano. We took this to David Lynch – it was the first time I had ever spoken to him – and he listened to it and was just astounded. Then we collaborated on Mysteries of Love, my score and his lyrics, which was another great experience. When I first got David's lyrics, I was appalled because there were no rhymes or hooks. I mean, I'm a songwriter. I was looking for something to latch onto, and there was nothing. So I asked him what kind of music he wanted with it, because I had no clue. He said, "Oh, just make it like the wind or the ocean. Let it float and put a little plastic in it." I had no idea what he was talking about, but I wrote Mysteries of Love and he loved it.

[...]

Tell us about the score for Lynch's Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. The film was greeted with derision when it was released but now has a great following.

We had a few themes from the TV show, which had a really popular 1950s sound with little jazz overtones, but the haunting quality of the music in the TV series was the thing that captured everybody's imagination. The movie gave us opportunities to do other material which still has a lot of that flavour in it.

There is an extraordinary contrast in Twin Peaks between a cosy vision of 50s Americana and a postmodern sense of the world falling apart. This is reflected in your score, which is nostalgic but very brooding and unnerving. How did you achieve this?

There are two basic elements: melody and harmony. The melodies have a warm, simplistic feel, but then you take those melodies and you harmonise them in a certain way; I'm a sucker for suspensions, which are dissonances that are held over and rubbed, you know? A lot of times you think you're going to hear it go one way and then it jumps to someplace that is totally left field. I got into suspension by studying Bach. I fell in love with his use of suspensions. They have a kind of dissonance that resolves. The harmonies that I use are also dissonances that resolve, but sometimes as they resolve another dissonance comes up, and so you've got this weaving and overlapping that creates a beautiful tension. [Read More]

Find on Amazon: US | UK

Also at A Piece of Monologue:

• Filmmakers: David Lynch
• The Production Design of Lynch, Malick & Anderson
• Krzysztof Penderecki: Horror Composer
• The Blue Velvet Project
• David Lynch on Film vs. Television

The Production Design of Lynch, Malick & Anderson

An interview with Jack Fisk

Jack Fisk

Jack Fisk is a production designer perhaps best known for his work with David Lynch, Terrence Malick and Paul Thomas Anderson. Fisk agreed to share rare sketches and photographs with Trevor Hogg, who interviewed him back in 2012. Their conversation reveals some interesting insights into Fisk's working processes, and into what it's like to collaborate with some of Hollywood's most revered filmmakers.

On David Lynch

David Lynch's The Straight Story (1999)

Jack Fisk appears as Man in the Planet in Eraserhead (1977)

David Lynch's Mulholland Drive (2001)

From Trevor Hogg (Flickering Myth):

“David [Lynch], I have known since 9th grade, and he is a complete original in a world of his own design – as much a painter and furniture maker as a filmmaker. I know that David cannot stop creating and if he is not making a film, he is painting, drawing, printmaking, making furniture, composing music, or writing. To work with David you need to embrace his style, but he is a kind and fun to be around.” A break in the routine was to make a movie with Lynch which was grounded more in reality. “It was fun to watch David take a real story like the one of Alvin Straight and make it his own. I think he was able to draw from his real life to find quirky original moments for Alvin and the film. Working together on The Straight Story [1999] was fun as David would often paint and build on the sets; he loves to work.”

[...]

“It seems that it was completely by accident that I became a production designer, but now after 40 years in film I see how everything I learned and experienced before working in film has helped me be a better film designer,” says Jack Fisk. “I moved to Los Angeles with David Lynch who came to attend the first classes at the American Film Institute. Having seen an impressive show of James Rosenquist’s paintings at the Met in New York, I was looking for work as a billboard painter. There were no jobs available painting billboards, but I learned of a small biker film hiring assistants and signed on to that for $100 a week. I remember on my first day I was holding traffic on Topanga Blvd about a quarter of a mile from filming. I became curious about filmmaking and met a network of young people working on non-union films around Hollywood; that’s how I first started working on films. On each film following I worked to get closer to the action and began working in what became the Art Department. At that time there were few film schools, however, we worked for Roger and Gene Corman and learned a lot about making films.”

[...]

I am very familiar with David’s style as I have been around him since we shared a painting studio in high school. I work with David by designing in the ‘style of’ Lynch. It can be fun and refreshing to work in someone’s style, especially a style as unique as David’s. [Read More]

On Terrence Malick

Fisk's photographs of set construction for Malick's Days of Heaven (1978)

Fisk's photographs of set construction for Malick's Days of Heaven (1978)

Fisk's photographs of set construction for Malick's Days of Heaven (1978)

A still from Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line (1998)

A still from Terrence Malick's Tree of Life (2011)

A still from Terrence Malick's Tree of Life (2011)

From Trevor Hogg (Flickering Myth):

Terry Malick and I have been working together for 40 years, since his first feature Badlands, and we have developed a style together. The minimal style first started because we had tight budgets and I started choosing dressing carefully because we could only afford a few things. This led me to an appreciation of painters like Edward Hopper who has a great economy to his images and to minimalist artists. Now, having worked with Terry so long we can communicate pretty well as we have many reference points in our history together.”

[...]

When we finally found the location for Days of Heaven [1978], I learned that because the Hutterite farmers were going to harvest the wheat in 6 weeks I would only have four weeks to design, build and dress the house and buildings around it. We were too young to know it couldn’t be done! We did it with some great carpenters, design shortcuts and a lot of luck. I hired a lot of young Hutterite boys to work every Sunday after church to help in construction. Other challenges that come to me are: the ships in The New World [2005], the airplanes and landing craft in The Thin Red Line [1998], the whole film Phantom of the Paradise [1974] was a challenge, and the fires in Badlands [1973] and Days of Heaven. Building a village in Guadalcanal with native women was a fun challenge; they are hard workers, but the men chewed betel nut and watched.”

[...]

For Terrence Malick, Jack Fisk has always been his production designer of choice. “His films are made today with his select crew, which he describes as like a jazz band, or fingers of the same hand. Of course he is the only one with the music; we all contribute the best we can.” As for what has led Malick to make three films in two years, the resident of Charlottesville, Virginia remarks, “Two things have propelled Terry into making so many films in the past few years. First he has found an enjoyable way, for him, to make films, with a crew that is in synch with his new methods. Secondly, I think Terry has ideas that he wants to put into film and doesn’t know how much time he will have to do it. He works constantly. I asked him why he didn’t take a day or week off once in a while and Terry answered, ‘I took fifteen years off.’” [Read More]

On Paul Thomas Anderson

Jack Fisk's draft design for the oil derrick in Anderson's There Will Be Blood (2007)

A still from Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood (2007)

A still from Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood (2007)

A still from Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master (2012)

From Trevor Hogg (Flickering Myth):

“I search to find the challenges in each film I do,” reveals Fisk. “As much as designing settings solving problems is an important part of the job of a production designer. Sometimes it’s the miniscule budget and sometime it is the scope of the film. Each challenge has a solution and finding it is one of the fun parts of film design. I remember PTA [Paul Thomas Anderson] asking me how I was going to build the derrick in There Will Be Blood [2007] and me replying, ‘I have no idea.’ He seemed to like the honesty of my answer but I needed to figure it out. My solution was to build it real just like they would have in 1916. I found plans for an 1896 wooden derrick at the oil museum in Taft, California which I purchased for $3. I added a staircase and put it on the side of a hill, but it was the 1896 derrick.

[...]

After working on There Will Be Blood for about two months, Paul asked me one day, ‘Why are you picking all of the colours?’ I gave him a new Benjamin Moore paint swatch book and said, ‘Okay, you pick ’em.’ I watched him carry that colour book around for a few days. When finally he came up and handed me back the swatch book, Paul said, ‘You pick ’em.’ When Paul called me to work on There Will Be Blood we started an interesting creative journey; his first design related comment on that film was, ‘Let’s not have any signs.’ I liked that idea; it fit well with my minimal approach and the design evolved from that. We didn’t look for easy solutions choosing to shoot in West Texas because it was so inhospitable and rough. We worked to keep it real but a stylized real eliminating all the clutter of the actual world. Paul shared his writing research so our sources for the visuals of the film were the same.

[...]

“The strength of the design of There Will Be Blood is that every part of it was designed and constructed. We rented a 50,000 acre ranch in West Texas and created our world there. Paul and I would walk around dreaming and designing where we would put the church, the town, and the derrick. It is easier to design everything and can make for a more cohesive film.” In regards to the visual research he conducts, Fisk remarks, “I usually try to find photographs and writings of the subject and the time period when researching a film. Much like a detective I approach writing skeptically taking in account the human factor. I love to see period drawings, paintings, photographs and documentary films, if they exist. I usually avoid looking at commercial films for research. I don’t want to be confused by other designers and directors take on a story. By the time we start building the sets I have a feeling for the time and place; I have left the research, and work on instinct and gut feelings.”[Read More]

Jack Fisk has also spoken to the Paul Thomas Anderson site, Cigarettes & Red Vines, on his experience of working on The Master [Read More]

Also at A Piece of Monologue:

• Filmmakers: David Lynch
• Comparing Terrence Malick and Andrew Wyeth
• How Terrence Malick Constructed To The Wonder
• David Lynch: Behind the Scenes of Eraserhead
• Paul Thomas Anderson: An Autocritique

David Lynch on Film, Art and Photography

From a 1998 interview with the artist and filmmaker

David Lynch on the set of Wild at Heart

The following is from an interview conducted by Brett Wood, published in Art Papers (FOCUS ON ART AND FILM), 22/5 Sept.Oct 1998 (via The City of Absurdity):

Brett Wood: Do you feel your work responds to or is shaped by the social climate of its time, or is it relatively free of political and pop-cultural influence?

David Lynch: It has to be shaped some by the time, but it's not political.

Why is the head such a subject of fascination and horror for you?

The whole human body is filled with mysteries.

How does the passive act of meditation influence the active process of painting?

Meditation expands consciousness and makes it possible to catch bigger ideas-sometimes.

Why do you resist naturalistic color in painting and photography?

It's a personal preference. I like organic earth colors.

Do you dream in color or black and white?

Full color.

Do your dreams more closely resemble your artwork or your life?

They don't relate to either one, with a few exceptions.

What are some of the things that have inspired you in the lives and works of such acknowledged influences as Ray and Charles Eames, Francis Bacon, the Wright family, Mark Rothko, etc.?

Once in awhile we see or hear something that strikes a beautiful chord within us. These things reverberate around us. These artists you mentioned and some others have done this to me.

Why did you become a filmmaker instead of continuing your pursuits as a painter? Do you think it's easier to establish one's self as a filmmaker or a painter/photographer?

Because I wanted the paintings to make sound and move and that led to film. Fate sometimes smiles on everyone.

Do you feel you express yourself better when constructing a formal narrative (i.e., making films) or creating non-narrative and in some cases non-representational images?

They're two different things and the mind can get into each one. [Read More]

Find David Lynch on Amazon: US | UK

Also at A Piece of Monologue:

• Filmmakers: David Lynch
• Eraserhead: Original Soundtrack Recording (Deluxe Edition)
• David Lynch: Behind the Scenes on Eraserhead
• David Lynch Cooks Quinoa
• David Lynch on Film vs. Television
• David Lynch on Meditation

David Lynch: Eraserhead Interview (1979)

Rare video recorded for a television-production class at UCLA

[Source]

Find David Lynch on Amazon: US | UK

Also at A Piece of Monologue:

• Filmmakers: David Lynch
• Eraserhead: Original Soundtrack Recording (Deluxe Edition)
• David Lynch: Behind the Scenes on Eraserhead
• David Lynch Cooks Quinoa
• David Lynch on Film vs. Television
• David Lynch on Meditation

David Lynch: Behind the Scenes of Eraserhead

Exclusive interviews with the cast and crew of Lynch's first feature film

David Lynch

Film editor Kenneth George Godwin has posted a number of Lynch-related materials on his website, Cagey Films:

In the early 1980s I was lucky enough to stumble into a connection with filmmaker David Lynch, thanks to my fannish obsession with his first feature, Eraserhead. I ended up writing about him and his film for the magazine Cinefantastique, and because of that I found myself hired (with no qualifications at all!) as part of a video documentary team attached to the production of Dune in Mexico in 1983. The results of these experiences are documented here. [Read More]

The jewel in the crown is the website's Eraserhead section, which includes essays about the film alongside interviews with Lynch himself, actor Jack Nance, cinematographer Frederick Elmes, and other members of the cast and crew (Catherine Coulson, Alan Splet, Doreen Small, Jack Fisk, Laurel Near, Jeanne Bates). In case that wasn't enough, Godwin has also spoken to Ben Barenholz, Mel Brooks, Stuart Cornfeld, Jonathan Sanger in connection with Lynch's work.

Find David Lynch on Amazon: US | UK

Also at A Piece of Monologue:

• Filmmakers: David Lynch
• Eraserhead: Original Soundtrack Recording (Deluxe Edition)
• David Lynch Cooks Quinoa
• David Lynch on Film vs. Television
• David Lynch on Meditation
• David Lynch on Twitter, Parties and Freedom