What I learned from two years in David Lynch’s presence “David Lynch isn’t somebody that you can simply book appointments with.” Jon Nguyen is reflecting on the two and a half year […]

“David Lynch isn’t somebody that you can simply book appointments with.”

Jon Nguyen is reflecting on the two and a half year struggle to extract the celebrated film-maker’s childhood recollections.

Nguyen, along with co-director Rick Barnes, were given unprecedented access to the legendary auteur.

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The result was ‘David Lynch: The Art Life’ – a fascinating insight into the ultra-creative mind of the secretive director.

Living with Lynch

“From morning to night he’s up in the painting studio, pottering around, creating art.”

For more than two years Jon Nguyen and Rick Barnes were on standby for the Twin Peaks creator. “We had to be available when Lynch was in the mood to talk about his life, we needed someone there to set up and record,” he explains.

While Nguyen spent extended amounts of time in Lynch’s vicinity, his co-director effectively moved in with the director at his Los Angeles home and studio: “Rick Barnes was living up there, he had a room within the compound.”

In that time the pair collected 24 hours of footage in total.

The process could be painstaking.

“Sometimes it would go months between interactions. Lynch has this intercom system set up throughout his compound and after months we’d get a buzz to come down and talk.

“The conversations would last anywhere between 20 minutes and an hour.”

“I think that culture clash had such a major impact on him, that’s why his films had such a juxtaposition between good and then the underbelly.”

The exchanges between Rick Barnes and David Lynch wouldn’t be your typical interview either, Nguyen notes.

“David isn’t someone you can question like a journalist,” he says. “There wasn’t a series of questions and answers, it was more like, ‘hey let’s hear about your father’, then he would ramble on.”

So what exactly was Lynch doing for the duration of their extended stay? Nguyen explains that the Mulholland Drive director was constantly dedicating himself to art.

“From morning to night he’s up in the painting studio, pottering around, creating art.

“He’s constantly a creative whirlwind – if he’s not in the music studio recording music, then he’s up in the painting studio making art, or he’s in the wood shop making furniture.”

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Shaped by small-town America – and inner-city Philadelphia

‘David Lynch: The Art Life’ focuses on the formative years of the enigmatic director, tracking Lynch’s movement from a number of small American towns to inner-city Philadelphia.

While Nguyen initially wanted to focus the documentary on Lynch’s films, he knew this was a lost cause.

“We wanted to focus on his films but talking about his films doesn’t get much out of David, so we knew that by digging around his past, we would uncover clues to his films.

“We’ve been accused by some people that the film is ‘nothing about his movies.’ But really if you read between the lines then Lynch fans would see that the documentary is quite often about his films, it’s just that we go about it very indirectly.”

Despite Lynch’s unrivalled ability to create nightmarish cinema and television, Nguyen notes that he had a typical American childhood.

“People who don’t know David think ‘oh he’s so weird, he must have had a traumatic childhood’, but we tried to show that ‘hey it’s his natural creativity that creates all these things’.

“He had a very supportive family, he grew up in an era in the Fifties which was very innocent.”

“Even though he’s known as a filmmaker – that only takes up five per cent of his time, maybe two per cent of his time. “

Nguyen observes that it was Lynch’s move to a struggling Philadelphia that most influenced the director.

“Two weeks before he showed up in Philadelphia there was a race riot where 224 businesses were burnt to the ground and destroyed.

“He moves into one of the worst neighbourhoods and he’s just a country boy.

“I think that culture clash had such a major impact on him, that’s why his films had such a juxtaposition between good and then the underbelly.”

Happy and lucky

From Eraserhead to Twin Peaks, Lynch has left not so much a mark as a gargantuan impact on the American screen.

As the 71-year-old moves into the twilight of his career, Nguyen believes that Lynch is content with his achievements.

“I think he is happy, because he’s doing exactly what he wants to do. He could be doing a million other things, but he chooses one thing, to create art.

“Even though he’s known as a filmmaker – that only takes up five per cent of his time, maybe two per cent of his time.”

Asked what surprised him most about his time with the film-maker, Nguyen reflects on an encounter with one of Lynch’s old art school classmates.

“To me he seemed just like David – but he said ‘I had to raise a family, I had to earn money, so he gave up the arts and I felt like I was talking to who David would have been if he hadn’t been handed a grant to make Grandmother [one of Lynch’s first short films].

“It makes you realise how many artists and musicians who are out there, who had to give up this art life because they had to make a living.

“That’s what surprised me the most, that David got lucky – of course he was talented, but he required certain breaks.

“And I think David’s very aware of it.”