Original subtitles

(birds chirping)

I think every time you do something like a painting or whatever,

you 鈥

you 鈥

And sometimes the past can conjure those ideas and color 鈥檈m.

Even if they鈥檙e new ideas, the past colors them.

I was born in Missoula, Montana.

Then my parents got a house in Sandpoint, Idaho,

and I lived there for two years.

So, I remember Sandpoint, Idaho.

Little Dickie Smith, my friend,

he and I

sat in a mud puddle under this tree.

My mother dug a hole, or my dad did,

that we could sit in in the hot weather,

and they鈥檇 fill it with, you know, water from the hose,

and we鈥檇 sit in this mud puddle.

It was so beautiful.

And you get to squeeze mud and sit with your friend

under the shade of this tree?

Forget it.

And then they moved to Spokane, Washington.

In those days,

my world was very, very small.

It extended up to this grocery store in one direction

and down to a friend鈥檚 house,

which was, like, two houses down.

And then the other direction

down to my friend Bobby鈥檚 house.

Mostly, we played outdoors all day

and we made our own guns

and we would play war.

And I would draw rifles and pistols

and airplanes and knives and things like that

鈥檆ause the war was still kind of freshly over

and, you know, somehow we all got into it.

(girl babbling)

(scrubbing sound)

Because I was always drawing, my mother did 鈥

This is the greatest thing she did. One of the greatest things.

She refused

to ever have me have coloring books.

She did not do that for my brother or my sister.

Somehow, a really beautiful thing came to her

that those would be restrictive...

and kill some kind of creativity.

And she did not...

ever tell any off-color jokes.

She was totally against any racism.

She was religious, but not preachy about it.

She was a 鈥

But she wasn鈥檛 demonstrative.

She wouldn鈥檛 grab your cheeks and kiss you.

Not in a million years.

But you knew that she loved you

and wanted the best for you

and expected you to, uh, live in a certain proper way.

I never heard my parents argue ever

about anything.

They got along like Ike and Mike.

Super happy household.

You know, as I look back, I didn鈥檛 think anything of it,

but I had tremendous freedom.

Nobody was overbearing.

It was as if there was just a foundation of love,

and off we went, you know,

each in our own direction.

One night 鈥

I kind of have the feeling

it was in the fall and it was pretty late.

Usually, my father would go outside

and yell,

鈥淛ohn? David?鈥

And that would bring us home.

But this night, it must鈥檝e been,

I don鈥檛 know, close to that time.

It seemed to be pretty late.

(door closes)

I don鈥檛 know what we were doing,

but from across Shoshoni Avenue...

out of the darkness

comes this...

like, uh, kind of like a strangest dream.

Because I鈥檝e never seen an adult woman naked.

And she had beautiful, pale, white skin...

and she was completely naked.

And I think her mouth was bloodied.

And she kind of came strangely 鈥

walking strangely across Shoshoni

and came into Park Circle Drive.

And it seemed like she was sort of like a giant.

And she came closer and closer,

and my brother started to cry.

Something was bad wrong with her.

And I don鈥檛 know what happened, but I think she sat down on a curb, crying.

But it was very mysterious,

like we were seeing something otherworldly.

And I wanted to do something for her,

but I was little.

I didn鈥檛 know what to do.

And I don鈥檛 remember any more than that.

Like I said, maybe, you know, my world was no bigger

than a couple of blocks...

up until high school.

Really no bigger than a few blocks.

And that鈥檚 why I say huge worlds

are in, you know, those two blocks.

Huge.

Everything鈥檚 there.

Everything.

And you could live in one place and have everything.

(thunder rumbling)

The night before we left Boise...

it was a summer night,

but it wasn鈥檛, uh,

a joyful summer night.

There鈥檚 a triangle of grass between our house and the Smiths鈥

And at the base of the triangle, there鈥檚 a tree.

And... I must have said good-bye to everybody.

The whole family was out there. My dad was out there.

I think my brother and sister were out there.

I don鈥檛 know if my mom was there.

She might鈥檝e been just inside the house.

And the Smiths were all out.

We were just out there.

And Mr. Smith came out.

And...

(exhales)

I can鈥檛 tell the story.

I just 鈥

hardly ever...

but, boy...

Then we went to Virginia,

and the day I started school,

there was a huge hurricane.

And the rain was coming down. You couldn鈥檛 hardly see the school.

It was, like, dark almost. It was so thick, this storm.

There were two other guys starting school...

and those two guys became my friends,

but...

they were not the friends I should鈥檝e had.

See, Boise, Idaho...

seemed like sunshine...

green grass, mowed lawns.

Such a cheerful place.

Such a great place.

Virginia seemed like always night.

And...

I developed spasms of the intestines.

I was 鈥

I was 鈥

uh, going into DC and drinking...

and sneaking out of the house at night.

It was, um...

It was like 鈥

control it, you know?

It just 鈥

My mother鈥檚

main saying to me a lot

was, 鈥淚鈥檓 very disappointed in you.鈥

I was real busy...

not doing what she wanted,

especially when I was in the ninth grade.

I got in with a bad bunch and got into a lot of trouble,

but I 鈥

I had to live two different lives,

and I always felt

that she thought 鈥

And I don鈥檛 know why she thought this,

and I don鈥檛 know where this thing came in,

but I had the feeling

she thought

I had something really good in me, you know, like a high potential.

So the reason that she would say she was disappointed in me

is when she didn鈥檛 see that thing.

Not as an artist, but like just some kind of thing.

I don鈥檛 know where she latched onto that,

but I kept kind of letting her down.

I never studied.

I never did anything.

I hated it so much.

I hated it, like, with powerful hate.

The only thing that was important is what happened outside of school,

and that had huge impact on me 鈥

people and relationships,

slow-dancing parties,

big, big love

and dreams 鈥

dark, fantastic dreams.

Incredible time.

鈾櫔 (鈥淭en Little Indians鈥

(chirping)

I had a girlfriend named Linda Styles.

And one night 鈥

And it was about 9:30 or 10:00.

Somehow I was on the front lawn of Linda Styles鈥

and I鈥檓 meeting this kid, Toby Keeler,

who didn鈥檛 go to Hammond High School.

He went to private school.

And Toby told me his father was a painter,

and that, you know, kind of realization

that you could be a painter

popped 鈥

And that鈥檚 what I wanted to do from that second.

So I begged him to take me to his father鈥檚 studio.

And at that time, Bushnell Keeler had a studio in Georgetown.

And I only actually saw it once, that next weekend.

I went 鈥

and I saw his studio.

And it was the classic studio.

I mean, it was so beautiful.

Bushnell could really set up a studio.

Um, many areas set up for, like, drawing and for painting

and for different kind of experiments.

And, uh, it was just

what you would call, you know, the art life,

you know, right before your eyes.

I don鈥檛 know when I started using the term 鈥渢he art life,鈥

but one of the things Bushnell did besides, uh, just being a painter

and living it 鈥

he gave me the Robert Henri book, The Art Spirit.

And I loved that book.

I can鈥檛 remember much of it now,

but I 鈥

and The Art Spirit sort of became the art life

and I had this idea that you drink coffee,

you smoke cigarettes and you paint.

And that鈥檚 it.

Maybe 鈥

but basically,

it鈥檚 the incredible happiness

of working and living that life.

The reason we moved to Virginia in the first place

is my dad got, uh, promoted,

um, basically to a desk job in Washington, DC.

So we lived in Alexandria, Virginia,

and my father...

instead of taking a bus or driving to work,

would, many days, wear his forest service uniform

and a ten-gallon cowboy hat...

and walk out the front door and walk into DC.

It was so uncool to me...

uh, to see him going off in this, uh, cowboy hat and this uniform.

But then later, as it always happens with kids,

uh, now it seems, uh, supercool.

And he was his own guy, you know.

He didn鈥檛 鈥

This was what he 鈥

Since my father grew up on a ranch,

and you had to 鈥

if something鈥檚 broke, you have to fix it.

And we were always building things.

Always projects.

Always, you know, working on one thing or another on the weekends.

So this kind of goes into your brain

that you can do these things, and they鈥檙e 鈥

It made all this work really fun.

And he was, uh, a research scientist.

Meaning, he was, uh, looking into things.

There鈥檚 a lot of... things,

like when you punch a pin into a bug,

there鈥檚 incredible textures

just to a little bug.

Incredible legs on insects,

and wings

and innards.

It鈥檚 unbelievable.

(water shuts off)

I wanted to get a studio in Bushnell鈥檚 studio,

a room he was renting me.

I think it was 40 bucks a month.

And my father, bless his heart, said he would pay half if I paid half.

So I got a job at Hurley鈥檚 Drugstore

delivering prescriptions at night.

One time I came in during the daytime,

and I went to the soda fountain to get a Coke.

And Jack Fisk was the soda jerk.

And so he said, 鈥淚 hear you have a studio.鈥

And I said, 鈥淵eah.鈥

He said, 鈥淯h, you want somebody else to share the rent with that?鈥

Then pretty soon, Jack was painting all the time down there with me,

and it was too small.

So then Jack and I got three more different 鈥

And I knew, uh, my stuff sucked.

But I needed to burn through 鈥

I needed to find what was mine.

And the only way to find it

is just to keep painting and keep painting

and keep painting

and see if you catch something.

My father wanted me home at 11:00 on school nights.

I didn鈥檛 wanna come home at 11:00.

All I wanted to do was paint.

So we had a big fight.

And we never had fights.

But this particular time, it was really bad.

And I remember, like, you know, it was terrible.

And I said I wanted to stay out later than 11:00,

and I might have said something like, 鈥淲ell, I鈥檓 going to stay out later than 11:00.鈥

And my father said, 鈥淔ine.

You are no longer a member of this family.鈥

And he just left the room.

And this hit me like a, you know, sucker punch.

You know, just really.

-And I went up to my room. -(door closes)

And I remember I just was, like, you know, devastated.

But then Bushnell called my father.

(phone rings)

鈥機ause I explained to him, you know, what it was.

And he said to my father 鈥

He said, 鈥淚 don鈥檛 wanna interfere with any of your business,

but I would like to let you know that every day,

David comes down here and is painting.

He鈥檚 not goofing around.

And I wish my son had something that he loved to do

and, you know, was working like this.

I just think it鈥檚 important that you know he鈥檚 real serious about this

and he鈥檚 really working.鈥

And so this went a long way with my dad.

And I think after that, I could come home any time I wanted,

and it was totally cool.

You really couldn鈥檛 ask for a better father.

He didn鈥檛 have any kind of deviousness in him.

He was really pure

and he was super fair,

just naturally honest and fair.

Whenever I wanted anything, his first thing was,

鈥淢eet me halfway.鈥

I鈥檇 have to do something, and he would do something.

And I just, um, saw that

as a super good, you know, thing.

I would be able to get what I wanted with his help,

but I had to do something too.

-(babbles) -Are you ready?

Oh, shit.

Oh, fuck.

Oh, you motherfucker.

In the tenth grade, the sunshine starts coming back.

Then I made a whole bunch of different friends,

and that started a good turn.

Now, all those new friends, we would go into DC all the time,

but it wasn鈥檛 the same dark vibe,

so I still was living, like, maybe three lives now

because I had those friends and I would do stuff with them,

I had my home life and would do stuff there,

and then I had the, uh, studio.

So you act and speak and think one way

in this environment,

then you act and speak and think in this other environment totally different.

And then another way of acting and speaking and thinking in the other one.

For instance, my girlfriend, who was a beautiful, wholesome,

wonderful person,

I never brought her home.

I never brought any friends home, if I could help it.

And I kept things very separate.

And I did not want my parents to go to my graduation,

but they went anyway.

I just, um, was afraid of what would come out

if everybody got together.

For some reason,

I always liked the idea of going to Boston.

And it just sounded like, uh, a good place.

And my father helped me move everything in,

and then he took me to the supermarket,

and we stocked up on a lot of stuff

and brought it back to the apartment.

And then I walked out with my dad

and said good-bye to him on the street

and watched him drive off.

Then I went back in my apartment.

(door closes)

And I never left.

It was two weeks before school.

I had a transistor radio,

so I sometimes listened to music,

but I ended up sitting in a chair.

And the only time I got out of the chair

was to, uh, pee or eat.

And the batteries went down and down on the radio,

so I had to hold it to my ear to hear it,

and then it went dead.

And so I was just basically really unable to do anything

and definitely unable to leave the apartment.

And I say it took all my strength

to go to school the first day.

So, it was something I needed to go through, I guess.

But I still, um, would much rather stay at home.

And there is, uh, always, um,

nervousness of going out.

(radio static crackling)

(static continues crackling)

-(car horn honking) -LYNCH: See you, Mary.

I don鈥檛 get out much.

-Come on. -(turn signal clicking)

Come on.

My father, uh, told me, you know, I could get this place,

but I had to take a roommate,

and my roommate later turned out to be Peter Wolf

of the J. Geils Band.

He鈥檚 a great musician.

And he knows the blues.

But he didn鈥檛 ever lift a brush.

And the first night, there was, um,

another guy named Peter who had a pickup truck.

And the three of us, uh, got in his pickup truck

and drove back down to, uh, New York City, in Brooklyn.

And it was on that trip

that I smoked, um, marijuana for the first time.

And then it was my turn to drive.

So I was driving on a freeway

and pretty soon I hear, 鈥淒avid?鈥

And I said, 鈥淲hat?鈥

And they said, 鈥淒avid.鈥

I said, 鈥淲hat?鈥

鈥淒avid!鈥

鈥淵ou stopped on the freeway, man.鈥

And I had stopped right in the 鈥

Not the right lane, but in the middle.

鈥機ause I was watching these white lines

and then it got slower and slower, it was such a dream.

And the next time I smoked dope...

uh, Bob Dylan was playing, you know,

at this big place right down the street.

And so, lo and behold,

out of thousands of people in this, you know,

auditorium kind of thing which was real steep 鈥

I was way in the back.

Out of all those seats, when I sat down,

there was this girl sitting next to me that I鈥檇 just broken up with.

Then Bob Dylan came out on the stage

and I couldn鈥檛 believe how little he was.

And I measured him with my fingers on my knee,

and I said to her, 鈥淗is jeans are only this big.鈥

And then I measured his guitar and I says, 鈥淗is guitar is only this big.鈥

And I wasn鈥檛 even digging the music, it was so far away.

So I wanted to get out of there really bad.

Then when the concert was over, Peter came back with a bunch of his friends.

He said, 鈥淣obody walks out on Dylan.鈥

I said, 鈥淚 walk out on Dylan. Get the fuck out of here.鈥

And, um, so that was the end of Peter as my roomie.

I just didn鈥檛 wanna be,

you know, anywhere in this world.

It was, you know, now my world.

I hated Boston.

Boston Museum School was kind of like 鈥

to me like going back to high school.

I didn鈥檛 like anything inside that building except the sculpture department.

They don鈥檛 do anything except make you do these exercises.

And it鈥檚 just 鈥

And they want the exercises to be a certain way,

and if your way isn鈥檛 that way,

you鈥檙e just gonna, you know 鈥

It鈥檚 a joke.

And then no kids were serious about painting.

So, it was just, uh, a kind of a waste of a year,

and I quit going to school.

And then I heard from Jack. He was fed up with Cooper Union.

I was more than fed up with Boston Museum School.

And we decided we鈥檙e gonna go to Europe.

So, we started making plans,

and we found out this guy, Oskar Kokoschka,

had this class in Salzburg, Austria.

So we decided we were gonna go do that.

But it was, like, not even half-baked, these ideas.

So we were gonna go for three years.

And 鈥

But we came back in 15 days.

So Jack was, really, my best friend.

But when Jack and I came back from Europe,

we had a pretty big falling out.

Next thing I hear is he鈥檚 up at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts,

which made me really happy for him.

But... Bushnell

and some of the painters in that area 鈥

I would go to Bushnell鈥檚 and have coffee with him, you know, every day.

And so he got this idea that he said,

鈥淟et鈥檚 all snub David.

Let鈥檚 make life miserable for him.

And then maybe he鈥檒l wanna go back to school.鈥

And that鈥檚 what they did. I鈥檇 go over there, they鈥檇 hardly talk to me.

And I just, I鈥檇 get this strange feeling,

and Jack telling me how good it was.

One day, I said, 鈥淏ush, I think I鈥檓 gonna go to 鈥

And he said, 鈥淲ell, bully for you.鈥

He wrote a letter, secretly, to the school,

a really powerful letter on my 鈥

I did never know about it till way later.

When I went up there to school,

they not only accepted me,

but they put me in advanced classes.

And it wasn鈥檛 anything to do with my work.

It was Bushnell doing it.

It was great.

First of all, yeah, I wanted to go up there

鈥檆ause Jack said it was good.

But Philadelphia was one of the last places in the world I ever wanted to go.

There鈥檚 something about Philadelphia that I didn鈥檛 like,

and so when I got 鈥

I forget the way the bus goes, but you鈥檙e not in Philadelphia,

and then you go across a bridge

and that bridge takes you.

So, on the bridge, I was saying,

鈥淚鈥檓 not in Philadelphia, I鈥檓 not in Philadelphia, I鈥檓 not in Philadelphia.鈥

Then I got halfway over the bridge and I said,

鈥淚鈥檓 in Philadelphia, I鈥檓 in Philadelphia.鈥

And I just couldn鈥檛 believe it.

(whirring)

(whirring stops)

Philadelphia...

was kind of a poor man鈥檚 New York City.

So it was a weird town.

It was a kind of a mean town.

One woman, who was my neighbor,

reeked of urine.

And she was a complete racist.

There was another woman

who was totally crazy.

She was a neighbor, lived down the street with her parents.

And she would go around the backyard on her hands and knees

and squawk like a chicken

and say, 鈥淚鈥檓 a chicken, I鈥檓 a chicken,鈥

and squawk and squawk

and go around and around in this tall white grass in her backyard.

She came up to me one day on the street...

and she said, 鈥淥h, my nipples hurt!鈥

And she was squeezing her 鈥

standing in front of me, squeezing 鈥檈m and shaking 鈥檈m 鈥

鈥淢y nipples hurt!鈥

Then there is, uh, that person I walked by, you know,

going to the store to get some smokes or something.

I鈥檓 walking down the street.

There鈥檚 a very nice lady with her little 鈥

her little baby on her lap out on the stoop.

I鈥檓 walking by.

I say, 鈥淗ow you doing?鈥

(imitating lady鈥檚 sarcastic voice) 鈥淗ow you doing? How you doing?鈥

She turned to her baby and said,

鈥淵ou grow up like that and I鈥檒l fucking kill you.鈥

There was a thick,

thick fear

in the 鈥

There was a feeling of sickness, corruption...

of racial hatred.

But Philadelphia was just perfect to spark things.

And the students were great,

and they were workers.

And we had a kind of camaraderie,

and it was like the art life, uh, the art spirit was alive and well.

Philadelphia was what started...

started, uh...

It was so good for me.

Really, really good.

Even though I lived in fear,

I鈥檝e kind of, um, uh...

I-It was...

thrilling...

to live the art life in Philadelphia at that time.

I...

had some kind of a cubicle set up

in this painting studio at the academy.

And when I went into my little cubicle,

it was very private.

And there were other cubicles like that around.

But people could work in privacy.

And I was painting a painting

about four-foot square.

And it was mostly black,

but it had some green plant and leaves

coming out of the black.

And I was sitting back, probably taking a smoke and looking at it.

And from the painting

I heard a wind.

And the green started moving.

And I thought, 鈥淥h!

A moving painting, but with sound.鈥

And that idea stuck in my head 鈥

a moving painting.

One night...

I met the man who was the night man at the morgue

at Pop鈥檚 Diner,

and I said, 鈥淚 sure would like to come over there and 鈥

and, uh, see.鈥

And he said, 鈥淟et me know.鈥

Uh, you know, 鈥淟et me know.鈥

And so I went across over there, midnight, rang the bell.

This guy lets me in.

In the front was a kind of like, uh 鈥

had, like, those square tiles,

green and 鈥

and it had a cigarette machine, a Coke machine,

some couches and a desk.

So it was kind of like a lobby room in the front.

Then there was this big door with a glass pane in it and wire in the glass,

and a doorknob 鈥

You open up that, go down this corridor,

and now you鈥檙e in, you know, the back room where they do everything.

But nobody was working 鈥檆ause it鈥檚 鈥

And I went into the cold room and, you know 鈥

(chuckles) He closed the door behind me.

And, um, so I鈥檓 in there sitting, uh, kind of on the floor

and there鈥檚 these, like, bunk beds.

All these people dead 鈥

you know, bodies all around me,

and, um, I just sort of sat there

and, uh, felt it.

It was...

It was strange.

And then I went home.

The thing that gets you is that you wonder the story of each one.

You wonder the story 鈥

who they were, what they did, how they got there.

Just makes you think.

And...

it makes you think of stories.

This was 1967...

and I was living

at 2429 Aspen Street.

Peggy had, at that time,

sort of started moving in to 2429.

And I get a call

that my father had to make a trip

from California out to, say, DC or something,

and he would like to come up and visit, uh, in Philadelphia.

So I said, 鈥淥h, my God.鈥

I had to make arrangements.

Peggy had to move out 鈥

Uh, not move out, but not be there.

And...

I picked up my dad and brought him back to 2429 Aspen Street

and we had a visit.

And just near the end of the visit I said,

鈥淥h, I gotta show you 鈥

And, uh, I took him down to the basement,

which was, like,

earthen floor, really old.

Cobwebs and stuff all around the ceiling level.

And dirty basement windows.

But I鈥檇 set up these little tables,

little, like, platforms out of wood and stuff,

and I had all these experiments going.

Like, I wanted to see what fruit would do after a long period 鈥

different stages of fruit and how it would decay.

And I had some dead birds and I had my mouse in plastic

and I had, you know, a bunch of stuff I鈥檇 collected.

So I wanted to share this with my father.

So I took him down to the basement.

And it鈥檚 pretty dim light.

And looking at these things I鈥檓 sharing with him, right?

And he鈥檚 looking at them.

So then we went back up,

and we were on the stairway, and I was ahead of him,

and I was smiling, uh, to myself.

It was great that he got to see this.

And I kind of turned with a smile.

As we were going up the stairs I turned back toward him,

and I see this pained expression on my father鈥檚 face,

which he was hiding from me.

Then I got back in the truck

and we were driving back to the, uh, railroad station,

and it was in that truck

driving back, uh, to the station

that he said to me, 鈥淒ave?鈥

I said, 鈥淵eah?鈥

鈥淚 don鈥檛 think you should ever have children.鈥

He was 鈥

But inside me I felt there was nothing to worry about.

But I still understood why he said it.

He misunderstood, um, my experiments

for, um...

(laughs) some kind of, uh...

like, diabolical, you know,

man who needs serious help,

mentally and probably emotionally.

The ironic part of this is,

unbeknownst to me and my father,

Peggy, at that very moment, was pregnant.

So, uh, that 鈥

that鈥檚... uh, interesting.

I started doing a...

kind of a split-screen...

thing,

and it was gonna be Mary Fisk

dancing on one-third of the screen

and...

on the other two-thirds an animated thing.

So I animated that thing for two months.

And I had a hundred feet of film in the camera.

And I didn鈥檛 know technically what I was doing really,

but I took the hundred-foot roll out of the camera,

took it to the lab,

and a couple of days later I got it back.

And I was standing in the doorway

鈥檆ause I opened the door so I could get sunlight and just 鈥

I just wanted to check the first part, make sure everything was okay.

So I unspool 鈥

And I can鈥檛 find anything. I unspool some more.

And it dawns on me

that this entire roll of negative is a blur.

And Peggy...

Her recollection is that I was really upset.

But... in a strange way...

I wasn鈥檛 that upset because...

I must have been getting an idea for something more.

And I wanted to do live action and animation both.

That鈥檚 when I made The Alphabet.

So, accidents or destroying something

can lead to something good.

It can lead to something good.

Very controlled things,

not being open to...

You know, just like being 鈥

like these boundaries, they just screw you.

And you have to sometimes make a huge mess

and make big mistakes

to find that thing

that you鈥檙e looking for.

(rotary saw starts whirring)

(whirring stops)

Right after The Alphabetwas finished,

right after it was finished,

we must have moved up to 2416 Poplar Street.

It must have been right around then...

that we needed money.

And...

I was sawing wood in the dining room.

And it was like...

You know, the sweetness of freedom

was just going.

But I loved sawing that wood.

It was my last free night.

And then I started this job.

And I鈥檇 go there, you know, five days a week.

(no audible dialogue)

(rain falling)

When I was printing for Rodger LaPelle,

Jennifer was, like, two or three or four months old.

I had applied for a grant

to the American Film Institute,

an independent filmmakers grant.

The winners of the first group were announced.

And when I read the names of the winners,

I knew I wouldn鈥檛 win,

鈥檆ause they were all really well-established underground filmmakers.

So 鈥

So I just gave up. I mean, I didn鈥檛 really give up.

I just said, 鈥淭here鈥檚 no fucking way.鈥

So I would go to work printing,

and Philadelphia, you know, was, like, already...

just suck your happiness away

and, um, fill you with a sadness and a fear.

So, you know, I didn鈥檛 have any time, really, to paint.

But Rodger would give me $25

to come out on Saturday and paint,

and then paid me for printing.

And that鈥檚 what kept us afloat.

One day, a few months later,

I said to Peggy, 鈥淐all me if anything exciting happens.

I鈥檒l call you if anything exciting happens.鈥

And I headed out to print.

That day...

First I think Peggy received a phone call.

Because the phone rang and Rodger came downstairs from upstairs

sort of smiling

and said, 鈥淭he phone is for you.鈥

And it was George Stevens Jr. and Tony Vellani on the line,

and they said, 鈥淒avid, we鈥檙e 鈥

Something like, 鈥淲e鈥檙e very happy to tell you

that you have won a grant

from the American Film Institute.鈥

And, you know...

It just...

(exhales)

Total life-changing phone call.

(no audible dialogue)

In the house,

I kind of had started to have a setup.

And when I made the film, I had all these rooms

to shoot the film right there.

I only had a couple of scenes outside.

It was just 鈥

It was just perfect.

Tony Vellani came up to Philadelphia on the train

and we filmed The Grandmother.

Tony flipped out.

I drove him back to the train station,

and on the way he said,

鈥淒avid, I think you should go

to the Center for Advanced Film Studies in Los Angeles.鈥

Well...

I almost died and went to heaven,

just him telling me that.

I鈥檇 seen this booklet of the mansion

and all the stuff going on there,

and I would just look at this booklet

and dream about this place,

and here is somebody telling me, you know,

basically he鈥檚 gonna help me get there.

LYNCH: You want a round cake?

-LULA: A round cake. -LYNCH: Okay.

LULA: Can you make a dot?

A cake with a candle.

Cake with a candle.

Hot dog!

Here are the babies here.

There are the babies.

And there鈥檚 the cookies for the babies.

Little tiny cookies.

Little tiny. Yum.

LYNCH: I thought...

When I got married I said, okay, that鈥檚 it.

That鈥檚 it.

In some way, your life is over.

(chuckles) But...

it was actually the best thing that could鈥檝e happened to me.

Because, you know,

there are certain things that come along

that get you off the dime.

You know what I mean?

And...

I didn鈥檛 think of where I would go if I wasn鈥檛 in Philly,

but it seemed like I was gonna be there.

鈥機ause to get up and move 鈥

I had that huge house. It was such a setup.

But I didn鈥檛 know 鈥

It鈥檚 just, um...

It seemed... like...

No, I wasn鈥檛 鈥

It just 鈥

I don鈥檛 know what would鈥檝e happened if I hadn鈥檛 gotten that grant.

I really don鈥檛.

So when we drove out, we went, um, to 鈥

down Sunset and turned left on San Vicente,

parked the big truck,

and the next morning was that first morning

I experienced California sunshine.

Unreal.

I just stood in the street and looked up at the sun.

It was unbelievable.

And it was a kind of a thing where...

it was pulling, uh,

fear out of me.

You know, imagine coming from Philadelphia and that world

out to LA

and being shown

where you鈥檙e gonna go to school 鈥

a 55-room mansion on the top of a hill

in the best part of Beverly Hills.

And the stables were given to me.

And it wasn鈥檛 like anybody else even wanted them, you know.

It was just they were sitting there,

and I was able to get them.

It鈥檚 just unbelievable.

What a gift that was.

Unbelievable.

For four years I had those stables.

And able to build down there, live down there, eat down there.

It was incredible.

(footsteps)

-(muffled chattering) -MAN: Go.

LYNCH: Play it, Fred.

MAN: Go.

LYNCH: I just love being in that mood.

Sometimes I would sit on the sets at night.

I鈥檇 be working or something,

and I could imagine a whole world outside

that doesn鈥檛 exist.

But it really would be such a world.

Around me was the factory neighborhood,

and I would imagine it,

and it was so real.

And sometimes it would rain,

and I鈥檇 hear this rain,

and I鈥檇 be in this room,

and I knew what the streets were like out there, and the diners.

It was really dark

and filled with smoke

and big factories 鈥

huge smokestacks,

fire and smoke and steel.

And these homes with little doilies and stuffed chairs.

And hot inside,

and pipes kind of leaking, and all these things.

I was divorced from Peggy

and living at the stables,

and my brother was visiting out in Riverside.

And my brother and my father wanted to talk to me.

I sit down.

I remember it was dark in the living room.

Then the whole thing was,

鈥淕ive up this film...

and get a job,

because your 鈥

this film isn鈥檛 getting made,

and you鈥檙e wasting your time.鈥

This kind of thing.

And it got me...

It got me really in a deep, deep way.

鈥機ause they didn鈥檛 understand

and I just couldn鈥檛 believe it, what they were saying to me.

And they were totally serious.

And so I left there and I went back,

and my sister was in the back bedroom,

and I started crying.

But, um, it was 鈥

it was just one of those things...

where, um,

there was no way I was gonna do that.

LYNCH: See, what I wanna do is have the 鈥

Mainly the-the-the look on 鈥

It鈥檚 so real. I feel like he鈥檚 here.

-But anyway, um, uh 鈥

The look on Henry鈥檚 face just when he鈥檚 getting ready to cut. You know, the big cut.

Eraserhead,

to me, was one of my greatest,

happiest experiences in cinema.

And what I loved about it was the world

and having it be my own little place

where I could build everything and get it exactly the way I wanted it

for hardly any money.

It just took time.

It just, uh, was so beautiful.

Everything about it.

Everything about it.