Original subtitles

The art life is a life

lived around working.

It could be working in any of the art forms.

It could be working in cinema, painting,

lithography, music.

Every medium is infinitely deep.

And when you get to know them, they'll let you go deeper.

This is the art life.

In cinema, there are many filmmakers that make films primarily

to make money.

and it's more called entertainment.

I'd love money like everybody else, but probably I would do the thing that I'd

like to do for free.

The most valuable thing I could impart to new filmmakers is

what I always say, find your own voice.

Be true to that voice.

Never give up Final Cut and...

Total creative freedom.

Never take a bad idea, but never turn down a good idea.

And I just like this process of catching ideas that I

fall in love with and then realizing those ideas.

And I like all these different steps of creating something.

I love being in it. And I feel that when you're really in it, more

ideas flow, you get into it deeper and deeper, and it's a thrilling, thrilling

ride. All these different art forms are thrilling, thrilling to the soul.

So if you love the ideas that come along,

a deep love, you will find a way to realize those.

Hello, everybody.

My name is David Lynch, and this is my Masterclass.

When is it appropriate to break the rules?

Honestly, except for traffic, I believe Mr.

Eddie. I believe in Mr. Eddie.

You know how many fucking car lengths it takes to stop a car at 35 miles an

hour? The tailgating is really bad, and the people should stop for stop signs

and red lights.

But in cinema, I don't like rules.

We shot downtown LA.

I don't know that I even knew that you needed permits.

So we just went down there in an innocent way, shooting, and found

some fantastic, beautiful places.

And this was in the early 70s, and there was

no graffiti.

Would I advise people...

to go out and steal the shot without a permit.

You know, I know that Werner Herzog would want to do that.

I would want to do that.

But I think we live in a world now where

it's better

to...

Go and get those permits.

And a lot of times, they'll work with you if you're low budget or student

film or whatever.

And also, it's very important to go

when you go out in a safe way so no one gets hurt.

It's better to be safe all the way around.

I think.

That is part of this Lumiere project where they asked 40 different directors

make a film using the original Lumiere Brothers camera, which is made

of wood, beautiful wood, brass, and glass.

And the deal was you had three takes,

and each take was about 55 seconds.

in a beautiful little wooden magazine, hand -cranked camera, and

you got three takes. You had to use natural light. You could not edit,

but you could put in sound or music.

And so it was one continuous take.

The camera was the same, the lenses were the same, the emotion was the same, and

those were the rules.

I was in my wood shop and I got this idea of different

sets and to move from one place to another.

And then Gary D 'Amico and Phil built this box.

You just pull this little string and the doors just slam shut and it's

absolutely black. And then we go to another set.

And they'd fly open, and then they'd slam shut, and we'd move to another

Or this, we'd open up on smoke and go to four.

The mother, at the beginning on the couch, they find the little boy, the

Then it goes to the mother on the couch.

Then it goes to the women and the deer in this place. And then

they had to move the couch and the mother out around into another part of

set. We built these sets out at Gary D 'Amico's house. It was so much fun.

Restrictions sometimes can conjure really great ideas that

provide solutions.

It's really true.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

These things flow out sometimes with restrictions.

And if you have tons of money, you just don't think about those things. You just

know, you know, what the normal way to do it is, and you do that.

But if you have restrictions, you could come up with ideas to make it work, and

it could even be more interesting, you know, than the solution with the money.

Music, as everybody knows, is magical.

And what you try to do in a film is get the correct

music.

Music, in my mind, has to marry with the picture.

It has to form a union.

And it can't just be any piece of music.

It has to be the correct piece of music.

There might be, out of 10 trillion pieces, 10 that will work.

But when you pick the one, you pick it because it marries.

And then the way the music enters.

I love you, Jeffrey.

And how it rises and falls.

I love you, too.

And how it goes out is also critical.

So it feels correct as it's moving.

And a hope is when all these elements get together, that the thing can

jump and be that thing that whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

This, oh, it's a long story, this thing.

It's a story of me meeting Angelo Bartolomente.

I wanted the song to the siren by this mortal coil to

be in blue velvet.

And Fred Caruso, bless his heart, looked into it, and they wanted a whole

lot of money.

And Fred said, David, you're always writing these little things on pieces of

paper, these things.

write something and send it to Angelo and he'll write a

song for this.

I said, Fred, there are 25 trillion songs in the world.

I want Song to the Siren by this mortal coil.

What makes you think I can write these little things on a piece of paper, send

them to Angelo, he's going to do something to top that.

There's no other song that I want.

So one thing led to another, and eventually I sent these little shrivels

to Angelo, these lyrics, and Angelo laughed at them. He said, they don't

They're not like traditional lyrics.

He tried one thing that didn't work.

And he said, well, what's wrong? I said, it's got to sound angelic. It's got to

float. It's got to, you know, have this angelic floating.

So he got Julie Cruz.

And Julie Cruz and Angelo worked on it.

And then it had this very, very beautiful feel.

I still loved.

and always will love this Mortal Coils version of Songs of the Siren, but I got

to use it in Lost Highway after this.

But Mysteries of Love does have a good feel for this, and

it's turned out to be, in my book, a good song.

When we started working together, I would...

Sit next to Angelo on the piano bench is a Rhodes piano.

I would talk to Angelo with words and Angelo would

play my words.

And if I didn't like what he was playing, I would change my words.

And then little by little, my words changing

caused Angelo to play something that was.

Just right.

And once Angelo caught that thing that I liked, he would take off.

And it was a magical, a magical thing that was going on.

Once he caught a thing, this great talent of Angelo that pulls your

heartstrings, this most beautiful stuff comes out.

And many times I'd start crying. It was so beautiful.

It was incredible.

I work that way with Angelo still to this day, talking and him

playing.

Alan Splett was legally blind.

He wore contacts, but if he did have glasses on, they were the...

classic Coke bottle glasses.

And so he couldn't get a driver's license.

So I always thought that this sense of hearing went way up in Al

to compensate for his, you know, blindness.

And also Al loved

high quality sound,

clean.

full sound. So micing things and getting, and he loved to

experiment. So he loved to, you know, collect sound and

at least with me, make sounds.

But he just had a great ear and authentic.

authentic, natural things recorded in the most perfect way.

And technical, you know, genius too. He was really a

perfectionist. That's what Al, he knew that that's what I wanted. And so Al,

when he worked with anybody, he would try to find the sounds, the best quality

sounds

you know, create the best quality particular sound for that film.

I can tell you an example of a sound Al and I built for Eraserhead.

We filled the bathtub with water and

floated a Sparklets water bottle just barely

touching the water bottle.

and a microphone down inside, you know, halfway down inside the Sparklets water

bottle, and just gently moved it around the tub.

And it had this fantastic ethereal, it was a unique

sound. It had an ethereal quality. It sort of danced, and it moved.

And it's in Eraserhead in the scene.

with the beautiful girl across the hall and Henry in the bed in a love scene.

I've had experiences where people come in and they get the role for one thing,

but in talking to them, I see that they could do this other thing.

When you get to know somebody a little bit, you see other possibilities, and

then when something comes up, you know they could do that too, which is quite a

bit different than the other thing.

Are they that character? Can they be that character from a deep place within?

That's the one you want.

Because it's all common sense, you say, I want to get the right person for the

part.

That makes sense, doesn't it?

You can't just pick anybody.

You want the right person.

So you need to look at pictures,

explain what you saw in your mind, the look of the actor you want, and then

you explain the way the actor is in some things, and then people will help you

find pictures of actors, and then...

I go by their faith and then watching them talk about anything and watching

and listening to them, I can tell if they will make it through the film, if

they're the right one.

And sometimes someone comes in for one part, I hear them talk and walk and, you

know, look, and they're right for another thing.

So you watch their faith and listen to them and you can

tell if that person is, is the one that can make it through the film.

And you find that one that does make it through all the scenes that you're

playing in your mind, then that's the right one.

You're watching them and listening to them talk and you're seeing their face

you're running them through scene one they have to play.

Oh yeah, he could do that scene. Oh,

he could do that scene too.

Yeah, he would be great for that scene too.

And you're running them through the film.

This is your guy.

That's the night my sweet daddy died.

I know, sugar.

Daddy?

Dad?

Some big secret you've been carrying, sale.

We all got a secret side, baby.

Hope you don't think I've been lying to you about other things.

Laura Dern is like family to me, and she's a great actress with

all kinds of talent to do many, many, many different characters.

She understands the human condition.

She's pretty much 100 % fearless.

And she's a great soul.

When you get to know someone, in the case of Laura Dern, working with her on

Blue Velvet as Sandy, Sandy gave a certain feeling,

but then getting to know Laura Dern, I see that Lula can be there as

well. Lula is there in her.

And going even further in Twin Peaks The Return, I see

that Diane is in her, which is really almost like a grown -up Sandy.

So you get to know someone, you see all these different things,

possibilities.

and the talent to realize them.

All right.

The first thing I need is to get into her apartment and open a window that I

crawl into later.

How are you going to do that?

Right out in the car, I happen to have some old overalls and a bug -spraying

rig.

I will go to her apartment. I'll be the pest control man. I will spray her

apartment.

After a few minutes, you knock on the door, drawing her attention away from

at which time I will then jimmy a window.

And what am I supposed to say when she comes to the door? You will be a

Jehovah's Witness.

I have some awake magazines for you.

I don't need very much time, just a few seconds.

What do you think?

I don't know.

I mean, it sounds like a good daydream, but actually doing it's too weird.

It's too dangerous.

Danny, let's just try the first part.

I feel as if Kyle's family, and we have developed a kind of a way, not

a lot of talking based on look and hand signals, and

just quiet

moments standing together.

Danny knows what to do.

Are you going to kill me?

Yes, darling.

He didn't surprise me. He surprised a lot of people. But I knew Kyle's a great

actor. He's a born actor.

And he's got all those different things in him.

I always say, you know, a great actor, they've got a bad person in them.

And for like, I say, Kyle found his bad person.

But it's different than Frank Booth, you know, Dennis Hopper's bad

person. But it's his bad person. It's like Frank Booth is Dennis' one.

And you find that thing. You find Dougie Jones in Kyle.

And you find Cooper in Kyle.

So, you know, it's just, they're all in there.

And the only thing you really do is just help them bring it out to the fullest.

Shirley was cast first from a still photo and then an interview.

And she was only going to play a dead girl.

I told her I wanted to dip her in gray dye.

And she said that would be okay.

And that she'd be dead by the shore.

wrapped in plastic.

And then there was this picnic scene that had to be shot.

And she's with Laura Flynn Boyle, who, you know, was, you know, a bona fide

great actress.

And she just held her own as natural as can be.

Absolutely perfect.

Absolutely perfect Laura Palmer alive.

And it just was a shame that she had to be dead.

And one thing led to another, and she's lived on.

When you make a decision, you think it's the correct decision.

And sometimes it's slow motion realizing that it isn't. Sometimes it's fast.

But you think it's the correct thing.

All along the way, every single day, every single moment, we're making

decisions.

And you just do the best you can.

If things turn out to be a failure, like what happened to me on Dune,

I say that's a blessing in a way.

There's nowhere to go down further.

You can only go up.

So there's a sense of freedom that comes out of a failure.

If you have a success, there's kind of like an extended drum roll.

This next thing better be as good as that. It better be good or you're going

take the fall.

So you could start second -guessing yourself.

And so there's danger in a success.

I just keep going back to Dune as being a major failure for myself.

And making Blue Velvet came out of that.

So it was euphoria, nowhere to go but up, and a sense of freedom

and euphoria making Blue Velvet.

You don't have to suffer to show suffering.

You don't have to be filled with turmoil to show turmoil. Have it in the story.

I don't know what goes on in artists' heads, you know, but I think, All the

great artists loved, you know, working.

And a lot of people say, well, you know, suffering is good for art.

Look at Van Gogh, they say.

And I say, let's take a look at Van Gogh.

Van Gogh didn't go out painting because he hated it. The only time he was

happy probably was when he was painting.

He painted because he loved to paint.

And the rest of his life was pretty miserable.

He didn't sell anything. He was broke. A lot of times he was probably really

hungry. But it's just common sense.

Suffering reduces.

It's the enemy.

Negativity is the enemy of creativity.

It's common sense.

If someone is depressed, they say they don't even feel like getting out of bed,

let alone working.

If you're sad or if you're filled with bitter anger, that occupies the mind.

Maybe you do angry paintings. So what? You could do angry paintings, but be

happy in the doing. This romantic idea, it's a French idea, I say.

This guy is starving in the garret.

It's so romantic.

He's cold, he's starving, and it's romantic.

It's romantic, really, for everyone but him.

If he was honest, he'd say, I don't want to be cold and freezing here. I don't

want to live this charade that, you know, this is cool.

I don't want to be starving.

I want to feel good and paint.

If they're really honest, it would be a lot better to do the work and not

suffer. And especially if they knew that more ideas would flow and the work

could, you know, blossom, you know, who knows where.

The feature film is the thing that's in trouble right now.

Except for the so -called summer blockbusters, people don't go to the

They watch cable television. It's the new art house, and where you're going to

see something that is not in the summer blockbuster category.

And there will be directors that will come out of that, filmmakers that will

come out of that, that will shine.

And it's just going to happen in that world for a while.

Those things, 2 ,000 people in a big, giant, beautiful palace theater with a

giant screen and great sound, all watching the same film, that thing,

I don't see the old way, filling up theaters

night after night, I think is gone.

We're losing quite a lot because the thing I've

found out is when you have a theater filled with people,

the film runs slower.

And in a feature film, there's no commercial breaks. There's no breaks at

And you have to pull the audience.

for two plus or three hours, and hold them, and

with that many people, it seems to be a kind of an intelligence

that rises up in the group. They can think ahead of you, and they can drop

and you have to be able to hold them, and that's a tricky business.

With cable television,

there's just one or two or three or four people in the room.

It's a different thing.

They're more forgiving in one or two people.

One person is incredibly forgiving.

They won't be like 2 ,000 people in a room.

And they'll forgive many things.

And it's just the way it is.

In television,

I say it gives an opportunity for a continuing story.

And this, to me, is beautiful.

A story that goes and it gets the world going and characters going and it can

go and go and go.

And it can, you know, branch out and it can go here and there.

And great things can happen as you go deeper into it.

If you build a film for the audience,

Because it takes a year or more to make a film, the audience is going to be

a year different when the thing is done.

And you could, you know, have missed that time.

If you stay true to the idea and make it as good as you can, and you love

it, maybe others will love it too.

But you don't know.

If you think about the audience, and build it for them it might you got just

good a chance they might hate it you know but you didn't build it for

and it it's like um to me the wrong way to go

build it and make it true to the ideas and you are the final say and

have control and then when you release it

You lost your control. You just take what you get. It can be a great, big,

beautiful world.

We're all, like I said, different on the surface. So find your own way. Find

your own voice.

And, you know, compromise

is not an option.

Well, thank you all very much.

for listening and watching.

I hope this master class has been beneficial to you.

And I want to wish all of you all the very best of luck.

Take care.

I think sometimes actors are very sensitive.

And they're all wondering, and like detectives in life, they wonder about

life and they wonder about the film they're in.

The actor has to understand enough to make it real from a deep place.

So you've got to introduce the thing that's... needs to get across in this

particular scene.

You're looking at a scene, either in a rehearsal or, you know, just getting

going, you know, and if it doesn't feel correct, this is where this thing of

intuition comes in.

How do you know, it seems sort of obvious, but how do you know

if it isn't correct?

And then, on top of that, How do you know what to say to make it correct?

It's a tricky question.

Something has to be judging and watching and there has to be some

kind of thing that tells you this isn't working.

It could be the way they're standing.

It could be the loudness or softness of the voice.

It could be the speed, you know, like they're not spending enough time

about something. They're just like, there's billions of things. And then you

sort of analyze it and then the solution comes and you go talk to them.

Sometimes it just comes out flawless.

They have understood the thing from the get -go.

Sometimes the first things are far away from where it needs to be.

A lot of...

talking, looking them in the eye, and seeing if there's some understanding

based on these words you're saying.

The proof of the pudding is in the tasting. So the next rehearsal, the next

you try it, it will be closer if you've said the right things.

And then, you know, I always say the same thing over and over, but at a

point, after saying these things,

And it goes into them like a light bulb goes off in them. And they say, I got

it. And then there it is.

And they kind of then from then on own that character.

If the person is cast correctly, there might be some talk up front.

There might be a half a rehearsal or something.

And then in a first take,

tells everything.

You have that first rehearsal, it's either spot on or very close or we got a

of work to do. It's one of those.

The idea is telling them what to do. The idea came along to define this

particular character, the way this character is.

They've been cast because they feel they're the best one to realize that

character.

Then you talk to them so that that character they catch the same way you

it. And they say, ah, okay. And the way you do that is you have rehearsals.

The first rehearsal, I always say, could be very far away.

And then you go talk. And you say, when you say this and this, it could mean

this and this and this. That could be that and that. No, no, no.

It's this, this, this, this, this.

Oh, okay.

I got it.

And then you have another rehearsal. Now, instead of being out here, it's now

come into here.

Still, these things, those things.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

Another rehearsal. It's almost there.

And then you're fine -tuning this and this.

The light bulb goes off.

They've got it.

They've got it for this scene and probably for other scenes, maybe the

thing. They own it.

Now they bring all their talent down the correct road.

They've got that character.

And you've done your job.

We're all human beings.

So it would be wrong to say, you fuckhead. That is the stupidest thing

interpreted there.

This is not the right way.

So you would be, you know, kind and not embarrass them.

And you wouldn't want to do that anyway.

You want to go in and explain something.

And in so doing, you use words.

And you use your eyes.

And you...

send something from you to them and you use your hands and they get it.

A lot of times it doesn't work maybe because out of nervousness or some kind

fear or some kind of just not letting go and letting that character take over

for different things or not understanding.

So you make them feel comfortable so they can say goodbye to their

and take on a new one.

you make them feel that it's no problem failing and trying this thing, you know,

no problem. It's not embarrassing. It's a sign of courage, really, and great

work to try things to make it real. And no problem if it comes out embarrassing.

Fix it next time, whatever.

And then you explain certain things, and eventually they feel more and more

comfortable.

And they have more and more understanding, enough understanding to

there you go. You've got it.

It's recorded.

Did you ride that thing all the way out here to see me?

I did, Lyle.

Great, great actors.

Great good luck.

Both Richard Farnsworth and Harry Dean, they're two of the most natural actors.

on the planet richard does this inhale just it's got

all this uh feeling in it has it's just incredible just before the

camera lifts up and goes into the sky and angelo's music comes in

it's so beautiful

and harry dean harry has this thing

I don't know if it was Chief Sitting Bull. Some letter that a chief, Indian

chief, wrote to the president of the United States, I think.

And it would make anyone cry.

But you, Harry Dean, when he would read this, you know, he would start crying.

And I had that available.

And then Richard, I had them talking a little bit.

I think Richard.

said, I love you, Lyle, something like this that wasn't part of the script.

But it opened up a thing in Richard, and that's where

that little catch came, and that was so beautiful.

These things, they come along, and

just at the right time.

And that's got to be just great good fortune. There's nothing you can do to

plan that like that and at the same time have it be so real.

Fucking tailgate!

Hammer! Tell him you won't tailgate. Hammer!

I won't ever tailgate. Do you know how many fucking car lengths it takes to

a car at 35 miles an hour?

Six fucking car lengths! That's 106 fucking feet, mister!

If I had to stop suddenly, you would have hit me!

I want you to get a fucking driver's manual.

I want you to study that motherfucker.

And I want you to obey the goddamn rules.

Fifteen fucking thousand people were killed in the highway last year.

At first, Robert Locha was going the same

lines on the guy.

And I said, Robert, you know, I can't hear you.

You're whispering.

He says, what?

I said, no, I can't hear you.

And so he went louder.

I say, Robert, you're whispering.

I can't hear you.

And that went about five or six times until this one.

They can get themselves there.

They just need to know that that's what's necessary.

And it's in them. It's in them.

It's in them.

And they just have to bring it out.

There's definitely a connection to violence and humor.

And it is in compulsion. It's uncontrollable.

And it can reach into the theater of the absurd.

This extreme anger, beyond the beyond anger,

when someone is so driven and into

the stratosphere.

There's some chance for humor there.

Henry, what do you know?

Oh, I don't know much of anything.

It's the idea and the way the idea wants to be.

And when you're there on the day shooting, you work it so that it

feels like the idea.

And so these awkward pauses are holding on something.

Another thing I, you know, think is like, say someone walks out of the room

and closes the door.

A lot of times people will cut with the sound of the door click, you know.

and go to the next scene.

But if you close the door and keep

filming, you suddenly start seeing the room.

And something starts happening in the mind.

It's interesting.

The idea that got Henry was I grabbed Jack, in the very beginning, I grabbed

by the shoulders and made him show me his face.

And I'd say things to him like thinking or, you know, sadness or whatever, and

nothing was working, nothing.

And then I said, okay, you're a total blank, total blank.

And he did a total blank.

I said, that's Henry.

I think we should all have as much technical knowledge as possible

to make film. The technical knowledge of a camera, lenses, film stock,

lighting.

sound, editing machine.

But I think the main thing is to learn by doing.

When you have hands -on and are doing things, it brings you into the thing and

you realize what this does, what that does, and opens up possibilities for the

flow of ideas.

You're learning by doing, not an intellectual understanding, but an

thing.

That is so important as far as I'm concerned.

All the different parts, get into it.

And then in film school, if you're lucky, you'll be with other students.

And if they're the right ones, you'll inspire one another and light a bigger

fire.

And you can meet people that you'll stay with, you know, and work with.

And it could be really, really great, this school learning environment.

Maybe get a camera.

Save up, figure out a way to get a camera and learn how to use it.

Then maybe get some friends and write a scene based on ideas

that you might have caught and shoot that.

And then because you did that, and you see what the camera did, you see like,

oh, I should have been closer on that shot.

And you start learning, and then maybe you reshoot the thing, or

maybe new things have come along, and you learn by doing.

And then more ideas will come, because now, once you start seeing what...

this particular camera gives you, if you have this particular light, and you see

this girl saying this thing in a certain way, you start getting a, the

medium starts talking to you.

And it's like it introduces itself to you.

You get to know it.

And then the more you get to know it, the more it helps you get ideas.

Oh, if I did this, and that's an idea.

Or, oh, I could, oh, and then they come.

And so you just stay alert, do your work,

don't worry about the world going by.

It doesn't mean that you can sit around and not do anything.

You've got to get your butt in gear and do it.

And don't take no for an answer.

translate those ideas to cinema or to a painting or to whatever, and

figure out a way to get it done.

This is a sculpture screen for six men getting sick, minus this film

and the sound.

Two of the faces are me and one is of Jack.

And they're cast in resin, all put together to be this screen upon which

the film fell.

What you just saw started everything for me in cinema. That particular thing

started with an idea or a kind of a experience that

happened to me when I was sitting at night.

I picture it being around 9 .30 or 10 at night

in a...

a cubicle in a large studio room at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

I'm in there painting a picture about three or four foot square, mostly

black with this green, sort of a garden, a green coming out of the black.

I'm sitting back looking at this thing and as I'm looking at the painting,

the green began to move, and from the green and black came a

wind.

And I thought, oh, a moving painting.

And then I started thinking about a moving painting, and at the

end of every school year, they had an experimental painting and sculpture

contest. And I thought, oh, I'm going to build...

moving painting for that experimental painting and sculpture contest

I didn't know anything about film zero

and I went down to this I thought 16 millimeter cameras

were all the same so I called around and I got these varying prices some super

expensive some I ended up at this place called Photorama, downtown Philadelphia,

because they had the cheapest 16mm camera. And I rented a little wind -up

camera that took single frames and had these little bitty cooked lenses on

it, a turret of three.

And I loved this little camera.

I mounted it on the top of a dresser in an old hotel room.

that the Academy had purchased this hotel, and the rooms were all empty, but

the hallways there were beautiful brass beds and oriental carpets rolled up

and all kinds of different pieces of furniture.

But the rooms were open for work, and I built a sculpture screen in there, and

then I think came in faces and...

the sound of a siren and them getting sick.

So it kind of started, those ideas came, and

the siren was on a loop of quarter -inch tape, and the

film was not from a negative, it was a, what do you call it,

reversal. It was what you develop is what you show.

and so it was really trashed by going through the projector so much.

That whole thing cost $200, and I said, this is absolutely ridiculous,

and I can't do this anymore.

It was going to be the end.

But a wealthy former student saw it and commissioned me to build

a moving painting for his home, and that led...

further into the world of cinema.

And for me, I just

started getting green lights in that world.

The beautiful thing about making that was I started to fall in love with

cinema.

I think you should go into film history a little bit.

At the American Film Institute's Center for Advanced Film Studies, Frank Daniel

had what he called a film analysis class.

And I think this is a great, great thing.

There were maybe ten students who would come to the class, and

we'd meet.

for a few minutes in Frank's office, and he would say, okay, you're in charge of

editing, you're in charge of music, you're in charge of sound, you're in

of costumes,

you're in charge of this. Give everybody something.

And then we'd go see a film.

And then we'd go back into Frank's office, and each person would talk about

particular element, like the editing, or the sound, or the music.

And it helps to realize that there are these different sections,

and each one has so many possibilities to

realize those ideas in fantastic ways.

I love Billy Wilder for his timing, characters,

and sense of place.

I can't go on with the scene. I'm too happy.

You see, this is my life.

It always will be.

There's nothing else.

Just us.

And those wonderful people out there in the dark.

All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close -up.

Doesn't get much better than that.

I love Sunset Boulevard with all my being.

And I love his film, The Apartment.

And one thing I've noticed about both those films is that places,

they feel so good, so correct.

And it's just beautiful sense of place, time, mood, characters,

timing, humor, sadness. You know, all this human condition just

flows in a Billy Wilder film.

is a great, great, great artist.

You know, Sunset Boulevard is one of my all -time favorites. It captures the

golden age of Hollywood.

You know, all the different things, the stages, the back streets, the mansions,

this thing that Hollywood does.

It's just a magical, beautiful, incredible film.

This Chinatown, I say, is a great, great film and

will live on.

And one of the great things about it is, I say, you

know, like the thing, room to dream.

A film, even though it ends, the thing I like

about some, you know, endings, and

Chinatown is a...

perfect example.

The film ends, but there's still room to dream.

And in Chinatown, the thing that makes it so

much room to dream is that last line. Forget it, Jake.

It's Chinatown.

Boom. It just opens up this mystery.

of this place and the film continues and continues

even though it's over.

I love everything about Fellini.

One of the greatest filmmakers ever. My favorite film of Fellini's is probably

Eight and a Half.

But I love La Strada. I loved I Vitelloni.

I've loved all of his work that I've seen.

Every single thing has just got Fellini's mark on every frame.

That's the thing.

You know it when you see it.

His work is unique and

fantastic.

Have you seen my wife?

Merry Christmas, Daddy!

Kids! Pete!

Kids!

Janie! Janie! Tommy!

Look at you.

Oh, I could eat you up.

Where's your mother? She went looking for you. With Uncle Billy.

Daddy! Zuzu!

Zuzu, my little ginger snap. How do you feel?

Fine. Not a smidge of temper. Not a smidge of temper.

Hallelujah. Hello?

George! Mary! Mary! George, darling! Mary!

George, darling!

Mary! Oh, George! Oh, George!

Oh, George!

Let me touch you. Are you real?

George.

You have no idea what's happened to me. You have no idea what happened.

Come on, George, come on.

Incredible.

Frank Capra, another one, you know, all -time great.

And, um... This...

This film, It's a Wonderful Life, was made, I think, in 46,

after the war.

And Jimmy Stewart had been in the war for years. And when he

came out, he didn't know if he had the stuff.

And this thing came along.

He does some things in this film that are like...

There's one place in the film where he says the

word Mary.

It's unbelievable what comes out of his voice, his soul.

He's just so great in that film.

Frank Capra is one of the all -time greats for sure.

Frank Capra had a thing for this.

side of human beings that was so beautiful.

Mary? Mary?

I'm here.

Will you tell that guy I'm giving him the chance of a lifetime, do you hear?

chance of a lifetime.

He says it's the chance of a lifetime.

Now you listen to me.

I don't want any plastics. I don't want any ground floors.

And I don't want to get married ever to anyone. You understand that?

I want to do what I want to do.

And you're... And you're... George,

George, George.

Mary.

Oh, dear.

Oh, dear.

I always say ideas are everything.

So I go where the ideas lead.

It could be to the painting studio. It could be to an office to work on a

computer. It could be a sound room to work on sound.

You go where the ideas are telling you to go, where you're fired up to do this

or that.

And that leads you to those places.

We're nothing without an idea.

We don't know what to do without an idea.

And the idea tells us everything.

So it's common sense that ideas are super important.

And I love the idea of catching ideas.

And they're out there.

millions and millions of ideas, and we don't know them until

they enter the conscious mind.

And then we know them.

And we see them and hear them and feel them.

We know the mood of them, even if it's just a small fragment of what could be

a whole film or a painting or whatever.

We fall in love with it for some reason. Something inside of us says, this is a

great idea for me.

And then you write that idea down on a piece of paper in such a way that when

you read what you wrote, the idea comes back in full.

Super important to write down your ideas so you don't forget them.

I think I've forgotten three incredible ideas.

In my life.

So write down your ideas.

And save them. Because it's very important.

And then we can talk more about catching ideas. But I do equate catching ideas

with the thing of fishing.

You have to have patience.

And I say a desire for an idea is like a bait on a hook.

And it's like putting a little piece of bait on a hook.

and lowering it into the water.

And then you don't know when they're going to come or what will trigger them.

But lo and behold, on a lucky day, bingo, you'll catch

a fish. You'll catch an idea.

And like I said, you don't see the fish down there, but when you bring it up out

of the water, that's like the idea coming into the conscious mind. You see

fish. You see the details of it. You know, the fish's eyes, the mouth, the

all the shiny little scales.

You fall in love with this little fish.

And you write that idea down.

And now you have even more bait.

And you can lower that fish in.

And other fish will swim to it.

that are part of that school, and you'll catch more and more fragments,

and a script will start emerging.

And it kind of goes like that for me.

Another analogy is there's someone in the other room with a puzzle that's

completely together, and they flip one piece at a time into me.

So you can imagine the first pieces of the puzzle, they don't relate to

anything. You might love the colors of them or the shape of them or something

about them, but you just save those and then more come in, more come in, and

then you start seeing something emerge and finally the puzzle's finished.

When we get an idea that we love,

It feels very, very good. You see it and feel it and know it all at once.

But it's all at once, and it comes with, I always say, like a spark of

electricity, an inspiration kind of thing.

But then you kind of calm down and more leisurely examine it.

And on examining it, it's like,

You turned on your TV and the first thing was like a white flash.

And then it kind of, you know, comes in to, it pops on an image. And that's the

image. Then out comes the sound and the feeling.

And you just see it. And then you write down what you see and what you hear and

the mood.

And you feel very, very good. You've got something.

If it's a cinema idea, I like them for two reasons. One is the idea of itself,

and the other is the way cinema could say that idea.

And then you got something.

And all you have to do then is focus on that. And that focusing means lowering

it back into the water on a hook and waiting.

I say intuition is the number one tool, really, of the human

being.

Intuition, the way I think about it, is mind

and emotion, intellect and emotion together.

It's a feel thinking. It's a knowingness. A knowingness.

It is extremely important.

Everybody has this, but I don't think everybody has the same

amount. It's like consciousness.

They say every human being has consciousness, but not every human being

same amount.

The potential, however, for every human being is infinite consciousness.

enlightenment, supreme enlightenment.

And we could talk about that sometime too.

And intuition is tied tightly

to consciousness.

You can't just wish for more intuition.

You can't just imagine you have more intuition.

Same way with consciousness.

You can't just wish for more. You can't just...

uh imagine more you got to go where it is and get more it's like fishing you

put your hook on a desert and lay it on the desert in the sand you wait for

a long time for a fish maybe in huge huge ages of time before

water and fish come anyway um so you've got to go where that um

The treasure is. I guess the analogy is the chef doesn't make the

fish.

The chef just cooks the fish.

And the chef can cook it really, really high -end fantastic or

can cook it very poorly.

Maybe not even cook it all the way through and people get sick.

But the chef doesn't make the fish. Just like these ideas.

The person catching the idea doesn't make the idea.

It's crazy. We really rely on these gifts

to do anything.

A lot of ideas come from our world, and our world holds

a lot of violence.

Violence in the homes, violence on the streets,

violence in the city, violence in the country, violence in

all the countries.

A lot of violence, a lot of corruption, a lot of suffering, a lot of tension,

anger, hate, fear, a lot of mistakes.

Prisons are full.

Hospitals are full.

It's a mess.

And it doesn't have to be this way, but it is the way it is.

And ideas come from our world.

Stories emerge from our world.

And stories involve things that are in the world.

You know, I always say, have the suffering and the violence

And all the things of human nature, negative and positive, in the script, in

film, in the book, but not in your life.

And that you don't have to suffer to show suffering on the screen or in a

You can be very happy showing suffering.

And that's the key to things.

Stories all through time have had conflict and all these different things.

But the ideas come from the world.

They come from other places, it seems, also, but a lot come from just our world

and the feeling of being in this world conjures these stories that come.

Many things from our childhood stick with us, from our world, our friends,

experiences, feelings, dreams.

All these things go into the hopper and they swim around.

And new things come in. All these new things come in and they swim around.

And if you have time to daydream, they can conjure

some things.

And it's a very beautiful story.

Everybody has these things swimming about, and the

possibility is there that they can trigger ideas.

Everyone's hopper is pretty full, and they say that

the window to the hopper is wide open when we're growing up,

taking in all these things.

And for safety's sake, that window starts closing at a certain point,

and you start working with what you've got in there.

There's a story.

When I lived in Boise, Idaho, on Park Circle Drive, one night,

I think it was around

9 .30,

You know, in the 50s, in small towns, there were streetlights, but they

were dimmer than the lights of today. And it was near a streetlight,

near a street called Shoshone Avenue.

And across the way, I was with my younger brother.

Out of the darkness came...

A woman.

Completely naked.

And she had skin the color of milk.

And she wasn't walking quite properly.

I didn't understand exactly what was wrong.

And there might have been some blood on her mouth.

She was pretty much oblivious to me and my brother.

as she came out of the darkness and walked and sat down on a curb.

And I had never seen an adult

woman naked, and it was quite a powerful

experience. And I knew that she was hurt and in trouble, and I wanted to help

her, but I didn't know what to do.

It's not every day that you see a battered nude woman come out of the

But these kind of things happen.

And in this story, this happened.

Right in front of your own stupid house. Get out of here. Mike, stop it. Shut

up. Just shut up, all right?

Nobody's talking to you. Come on, Mike. Look, I don't want to cause any trouble.

Who's that, huh? Is that your mother? Is that your mother, Jeffrey?

No, come here, you I .B. shit!

No! I didn't notice.

Dorothy Ballant?

As far as people thinking, well, I don't have anything to say, maybe you don't.

But on the other hand, that might be the wrong way to look at it.

What might be better is to just daydream

and catch some things that start

a flow of ideas.

Just to see if a story comes that you like.

And more ideas can come, more ideas can come, and

there might be something that you find inside that you really love.

And then you say, oh, wait a minute, I do have something to say. I could say

this thing that came to me.

So it goes like that.

Having time, which is so difficult in this... in today's world, having time to

daydream, to sit by yourself and daydream.

It's really, really important for catching ideas

and going over things, just

daydreaming. From the outside, it looks like...

Maybe you should take this person not necessarily to a hospital but to maybe a

psychiatrist or tell them to get a job.

But it's real important.

It looks like you're doing nothing.

But what you're doing is so important for catching ideas. Have that time to

think into daydreaming because it can go deeper and deeper and you can catch

things.

that you can't catch in any other way.

As I said, I think that in this world today, people don't have

a lot of time to daydream.

But that's one place where it can happen. But it could also happen at

any moment doing anything.

Because in the back of your mind, you've got that desire.

You just keep that desire going. You can catch ideas.

The fish can be flying fish. They don't need the water. They fly right to you.

What scares fish away or makes it more difficult is stress, depression,

sorrow.

anxiety, tension, traumatic stress, hate, anger,

and fear, all these things are in the family of negativity,

and they restrict a lot of things. They restrict happiness,

and they restrict, you know, sleep, and you get fatigued.

Catching ideas.

And they, like I said, squeeze the tube through which the ideas flow.

They cloud the mind, all these things.

So give yourself a chance to get those ideas

and at the same time bring all these positive things along with them.

things that you're going to need, like energy and like awareness,

And, you know, it's real important.

I've used the shot from time to time.

where people come out of darkness, and I love that.

I love seeing just black, miles and miles of black, and

then from it comes something, and it keeps coming forward and reveals itself.

It's very beautiful.

So people coming out of darkness visually is beautiful, but the idea...

of coming out of darkness is really what life is about.

So it's something to think about.

I have this thing about darkness.

You know, if there's part of the frame that's really dark, again, it's like

to dream. You don't know what is back there.

If you see everything, it's more safe.

It is the unknown, this darkness.

things coming out of the darkness.

Herb Cardwell started the lighting. This world of Eraserhead had

to have a certain feel, sort of back in time, other world.

And Herb lit mostly with these little inkies.

Many little, little light, little pools of light.

So beautiful.

Took forever.

but it was so worth it.

In the lovemaking scene, we first lit it with the inkies, and then the mood was

totally wrong.

So we reshot that with soft light, but still really dark, but soft light where

they just sort of glowed in the darkness. It was so beautiful.

It was magical.

And black and white, they say, is much harder to light than color.

Because you have to separate things. Colors separate automatically.

But you get a pair of black pants against a black dresser, like we saw

times in Eraserhead.

You got to rim light those pants so they just blend right. It looks like it

doesn't have any legs.

It's tricky business.

Every move is plotted out. All the lights are set.

And with Jack Nance playing Henry, it was like...

choreographed, you know, down to the end. Jack loved doing this, you know,

to know every single little move.

And it was so good. Herb could just, you know, dial in the lights to catch this

and let this go into darkness and come out and get this.

It was very beautiful.

Very, very beautiful.

Freddie Francis shot Sons and Lovers. Freddie knew black and white, and

also is British and knew those times with gas lights and

early electricity, these kind of hospitals and the mood of them, the

thing, Victorian England.

So this was the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and smoke,

machines, all these things were coming into being and so they had to be in

the world of the Elephant Man.

Philadelphia is my greatest influence and all the architecture I fell in

love with, I fell in love with the smokestack industry.

Smoke and fire, all the noise, the machinery, the steel, the houses they

lived in, the imagined life.

It just was thrilling to me.

That all came out of Philadelphia.

The only problem I ever had, you know, a lot of times Freddie didn't want to

make it as dark as I wanted it.

And he would always say Lynch wants it so dark you can't see it.

But that's not true.

There's a mood.

And also London, you know, in those days, you know,

they say the fog and smog, you know, was so thick. You know, you want that kind

of feel everywhere.

And a lot of times really, really dark.

and a mood, especially at night.

Freddie was absolutely fantastic.

Became a great, great friend of mine.

And after The Elephant Man, he shot Dune.

And after Dune, he shot Straight Story.

The play on the stage was shot many different angles.

So all the pieces were there. But, you know, the play, if it had just been shot

straight, was, you know, even though it was a nice play, it was quite boring.

And this is seen through the eyes of, you know, John Merrick. And it's magical

to him. It had to feel much more magical than just a live thing.

It would be so easy to do that today in digital, so easy.

But then it was so difficult.

All these things have to go on an optical printer and get, you know, all

little dissolves and fades and all these different things, putting it all

together. had to be planned out to the frame and sort of really kind of guessed

and talked out.

And it was getting near the end of the mix. That thing still wasn't cut into

film. It took weeks. And if something goes wrong, you would have to start all

over again.

It was a thing that was built and took a long

time on the optical printer.

In Eraserhead, I would do these little storyboards and kind of work things out

for myself and show them to Herb or Fred.

But mainly I just like drawing them.

And I would change them sometimes too. But I always say, you know, like,

again, common sense for special effects shots or things involving lots of things

that need to come together, everybody needs to know.

Those things are talked about and drawn out and organized so that lots of

different people know exactly what needs to be done and when and how.

I had printed up

like these little

185 squares.

They're all up and down the page.

And then I would, say, have the dresser here.

And then I would have Henry's suit here.

And I'd have that box on the wall here and a plant here.

And maybe he would be reaching out.

To get something.

So it would be like that.

Yeah, they were a little bit bigger than that. And I was using a pen rather than

a marker.

So they were a little bit better detail.

But, and Henry, the thing about the widescreen, pretty widescreen, is

hair is tall.

So I would, you know, have to, you know.

His hair would probably go out of frame.

Like that.

And they'd go along, you know, do the sequence.

I feel that a set...

Should be like a happy family, almost like Thanksgiving every day,

happily going down the road together, getting along and

congratulating people all the time of their good work and, you

know, getting a really great feeling, a safe feeling, too, for the actors.

So they can, like I say, let go and go to a new character with as little fear

possible and really get in there deep.

People who run a set on fear or a business on fear, I say, are really

If you run their business on fear, you're going to stress the people.

You're going to cause all kinds of...

conflicts and jealousies and backstabbing to get ahead in the

When the father or mother come home from work, they're going to be coming home

tired and stressed.

And the little kids can feel this.

And there can be arguments in the home based on this stress and

anxieties and tension.

And the little kids are just like wondering what is this kind of world.

And when you have a fear -based thing, people don't want to go the extra mile

if necessary to help the company. They want to say, fuck you, man.

And they are not happy campers. And it doesn't serve the work. Ideas don't

Creativity doesn't flow so much.

I say negativity cramps that tube through which these ideas flow. It

down. And you're not happy to help the company. You're almost

hate. A hate grows for the company.

And that is really bad.

And it doesn't serve anybody any good at all.

So the happier the company, the more creative it's going to be. The more the

people will...

happily want to help if it's necessary one day to stay late.

Are you kidding?

They won't have a problem at all. The next day you have special lunches for

them. And, you know, it's beautiful.

You're all together on this planet trying to live a life, you know, a good

Why would you torture people?

It's crazy.

We're in this thing together. We've got to start enjoying this trip.

I arrive on a set wanting to get today's work done and have it be

absolutely true, every element to the idea.

So it's a precarious, uneasy

thing in the mornings or the beginning of the shoot time.

And a lot of times things are like molasses in January.

in the early starting of a day and sometimes it looks like maybe we might

make our day.

So it's very important that you get everything going and get into it so you

make the day and what's even better is to make the day and maybe even get some

extra things if they come along.

And I always say that in the morning or the beginning of the shooting day,

To me, it's like there's this deepest canyon, and you're building a

glass bridge.

It's so delicate, it could go wrong at any moment.

This glass bridge that's going to carry you across, and you don't know if it's

going to hold together. You're just trying to get everything right, and then

the end of the day, the glass turns to steel, and you've got everything, and

feel good that you got it.

True to the idea.

The day has come where you're on the set or on the location.

They're all kind of like sets.

And they've been dressed a certain way.

And the actors come in wearing certain things.

And now you're going to have a rehearsal.

So I clear everybody away.

and start rehearsing. And before we start rehearsing, you're going to say,

you're going to be here, you're going to be here, you're going to be here.

And then, okay, then we start the thing and we have a rehearsal and we talk a

little bit about something that needs to be talked about.

And then get it so it's pretty much really ready to go.

Then bring in the crew and show it to them so they know what to do, you know,

get ready to shoot it.

And it mainly involves lighting.

So then, you know, sometime later, you know, it's lit.

Everybody has done their job.

And in the actors come and we start shooting. And in the rehearsal, you

you're going around and you see where, you know, you want to be, where the

camera wants to be.

If making the day puts so much stress on you that you weren't open to things.

happy accidents or seeing something. It's never that bad.

It's just in the beginning, you want to get as good a start as you can so that

you will finish the day on time and get those things.

So I'd say it's important at the beginning to get the train rolling as

possible in a nice way, but as soon as possible because it can slip away.

And then if something else comes along, you know, There's many ways to skin a

cat, they say. You'll get that thing. That just will be added in, and people

will boogie and make it happen. It just is that way.

People who have worked with me kind of know wherever I'm sitting, that's the

main camera angle.

And so it's mostly common sense.

And a lot of times it's just like, you know, a wide shot, medium shot,

close up.

There's some kind of trick thing sometimes, but it's what happens in

and the size of those shots and the mood in the light.

It doesn't need a lot of trick camera things,

at least for what I want to do, mostly.

Getting the...

coverage that is true to the idea.

If 47 % happened perfect in this take,

then you try to get the 53 % in the next take. Maybe 27 % of

the next 53 % happens in take two, then the rest you got. In fact, the third was

good all the way through.

then you've got plenty of things to pick from.

Always a good feeling when you finish a scene.

And a lot of times that means you finish the day.

Now, if you have more time, which would be really nice to have, you might

get in and get some different kind of coverage of that scene.

Or you might shoot a clock on the wall or a painting on the wall or dust

under a chair.

Or drift across the floor if it plays into the scene some way.

And maybe some extreme close -ups

with a certain look.

And just give yourself some more things to work with.

I came into filmmaking through painting.

In painting, well, nowadays people have assistance even in painting. It's crazy.

But in a painter, you know, you do everything.

You don't have somebody paint the blue and then another person paint the red.

You do everything.

It was common sense to me that if you're going to build a set, you've got to

build it yourself or be involved with it yourself.

then you make it the way that you want it.

You become one with it.

And all these things are now almost like they were in your head.

And then, once you're in that, on Eraserhead, I'd say I was in the set,

I could almost hear distant factories, and I would imagine it raining,

and little diners.

and all these factory houses, row houses, little narrow streets,

stoops, and factory people, you know, and smoke and

fire, and all this world around.

And all those things outside.

That can all be said with sound.

And it's just a beautiful thing to get into it deeper by, you

know, getting your hands in there.

You're feeling and knowing the world by being in it.

If you're not with the crew, then

that won't happen.

We're all in the trenches.

And that's where it happens.

I was in Laura Palmer's house at the top of the

stairs in between the parents' bedroom, Leland and

Sarah's room, and Laura Palmer's room.

I was on my hands and my knees.

working on something on the rug, and I don't know what it was.

And I was pointed towards Sarah and Leland's room, and behind me,

the set dresser, Frank Silva, was arranging Laura Palmer's room, putting

furniture and arranging things.

And I heard a girl say, Frank, don't lock yourself in

that room.

Because he had just moved a dresser, apparently, in front of the doorway in

process of arranging.

But when I heard that, I pictured Frank in the room.

And something happened.

And I went running in and I said, Frank, are you an actor? And he said, why,

yes, I am, actually.

I said, okay, you're going to be in this scene.

He said, what am I going to do? I said, I don't know, but you're going to be in

here.

And so the next thing up was a slow panning across

Laura Palmer's room.

Just a slow pan. I forget what for.

And we did two very beautiful slow pans.

And then I said, okay, now, Frank, you go down to the foot of the bed and grab

onto these railings.

And look right at the camera. Freeze and look right at the camera.

So we got down there. And then we pan down.

And we stop.

And there's Frank.

I didn't have a clue what that meant.

So then that evening, we were downstairs in the living room. And Sarah Palmer,

totally distraught.

She's lost her daughter.

She's laying down on the couch, totally distraught, and she's

tormented. And in her mind's eye, she sees something which causes her to

bolt upright and scream.

And Sean, the camera operator on the wheels, goes, and I say, perfect,

we got it. Sean said, no.

I said, what's wrong?

He said, there was someone reflected in the mirror.

And I said, who was reflected in the mirror? He said, Frank was reflected in

mirror.

So something started growing, and then there it was.

Bob was born then.

Bob was born then.

He was born. Just like when someone's born, there they are.

It's like the thing exists somewhere already, and then we get it little by

little. They come in, what's necessary.

It's many times tough to get the day.

There's a lot of things that just take time to do, and it's the reality.

Your time with the actors in the scene, the part that goes on the frame,

you really focus on getting

those things that go on the frame to be correct.

And the rest is unimportant.

Just make sure you get what you need on those frames captured.

on that card and capture it on the sound card.

That's what you need.

You never compromise those things.

It would be pretty crazy to say, oh, I made it on

time, on budget.

I compromised like crazy and this film sucks.

So you want to get the gold no matter what.

Don't ever take no for an answer on that.

I'm going to do a drawing and this drawing is what I call

my poor man's unified field chart to describe what happened

and how transcendental meditation works.

So I'm going to draw this one line here.

This line represents the surface of life.

Surface. We see surfaces.

Metal and wood.

This side of this line we call matter.

And this side we'll call mind.

Mind and matter.

They say about three or four hundred years ago, these people called

they wanted to know what this matter was.

What is metal? What is stone? What is water? What is flesh?

What is it really?

So they started looking into matter.

And they found cells.

And they went a little bit deeper and they found molecules. Imagine what it

like for them to find a molecule.

Then they went deeper and they found atoms.

For a long time they thought the atom was the smallest particle.

They went deeper and deeper until they found what they call the

elementary particles.

The smallest particles.

in manifestation.

All these subatomic particles in here, bosons, hadrons, whatever all, quarks.

They found four forces that act upon these particles.

Four forces.

And on a deeper level, they found that these four forces became three.

These two, electromagnetism and the weak force, united.

And on a deeper level, they found the three became two.

Gravity and the unity of these things, rather. Grand unification.

In the 1970s, modern science, quantum physics, discovered the

unified field.

The unity of all the particles and all the forces in manifestation.

Unified field.

Oneness.

And this field is unmanifest.

Unmanifest. There is no manifestation in this field.

It is a field of no things.

Yet, even our scientists say that everything that is a thing has emerged

this field in a process they say is spontaneous sequential symmetry

implying that this field is perfect symmetry.

Ancient Vedic science has always and forever known about this field.

And they say it is a field of pure consciousness.

Self -referral pure consciousness.

Transcendental meditation is a mental technique, an ancient form of meditation

brought back for this time.

by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

He didn't make it up. It's an ancient technique and it involves

a mantra.

And the mantra is a very specific sound, vibration, thought.

And this mantra you're given in transcendental meditation is like a law

nature designed for a specific purpose. And that purpose is...

to turn the awareness from out, out, out, 180 degrees

to within, within, within.

Once you're pointed within, you will naturally and easily dive

through subtler levels of mind and then

deeper and subtler levels of intellect, and they correspond to levels of matter.

and at the border of intellect, you will transcend.

Transcend is the key word.

This represents the whole field of relativity.

You'll go beyond the field of relativity and experience non

-relative, absolute.

This field is eternal.

It is unbounded. It is infinite. It is immutable and it is immortal.

It's for always and forever been there. It never had a beginning.

It's there now and it will be there forever.

Everything in the field of relativity has a lifespan.

Some super short.

some not so long, some long, some extremely long, but everything within

field of relativity has a lifespan.

When you transcend and experience this field, because this pure consciousness

has qualities, all positive qualities, you will experience unbounded

intelligence,

unbounded creativity,

Unbounded happiness.

Unbounded love.

Unbounded energy.

Unbounded peace.

Unbounded intelligence, creativity, happiness, love, energy, and peace are

waiting for us in the big treasury within each one of us human beings.

All we need is a technique to get us there. In the world out there, there's

many, many forms of meditation.

And all these now have been tested on the EEG machine and different forms of

brain research.

And transcendental meditation is the only one that brings transcending. You

to experience this field.

Every time you transcend, you infuse some of this.

If you had a ball of consciousness this big, you infuse some of this, that ball

of consciousness is going to expand.

In the 70s or 80s, there were things called consciousness -raising groups.

They weren't raising consciousness, they were raising information.

This is a way to get more consciousness. Every human being has consciousness,

but not every human being has the same amount.

The potential for each one of us glorious human beings is infinite

consciousness, enlightenment.

It just needs unfolding.

You unfold it by transcending. You go where it is and bring it out. It makes

perfect sense.

And in expanding this consciousness, you're making the subconscious

In enlightenment, there's no sub.

It's all consciousness.

And you're dealing with a full deck.

Right now, everybody enjoys waking, sleeping, and dreaming. But there's four

states of consciousness above that culminating in what they call unity

consciousness, which is supreme enlightenment.

It just needs unfolding.

And this is the way to do it.

This is an area of all knowingness.

This is where, you know, all that intuition comes more and more and more

more you transcend.

In Transcendental Meditation, you practice this technique 20 minutes in

morning, 20 minutes in the afternoon, and then the rest of the time you go

your business and watch things get better and better and better.

The side effect, there's a side effect to expanding consciousness.

And the side effect is negativity begins to

recede, evaporate, go away. They say negativity is just like

darkness. And you say, what is darkness? And you look at it and it's nothing.

It's just the absence of something.

You can't go down to the store and buy a dark bulb, turn it on and the room gets

dark.

Darkness is the absence of light.

You ramp up this all positive and automatically negativity will go just

darkness goes in sunlight or with an incandescent light.

Automatically, without trying.

Things like stress.

This world is stressed like crazy these days. Post -traumatic stress. So

traumatic stress, it saves the vet suffering from traumatic stress.

Anxieties.

Tension.

Depression.

Sorrow.

Hate.

Bitter, selfish anger. And fear.

all start to lift away. I call it the suffocating rubber clown suit of

negativity. It starts to dissolve.

And this rubber clown suit is so heavy for us.

It kills creativity. It kills joy of work. It kills energy.

It makes you sick.

Stress -related illnesses. Stress can kill us.

This stuff starts disappearing. It dissolves the rubber clown suit.

No one wants to be a clown suffering.

Here is the thing that gets rid of it.

Here is a thing that brings more intelligence, see, more awareness, more

understanding. It brings more creativity. Ideas start flowing more. It

happiness in the doing. It brings peace, inner contentment, and a joy of living.

And it serves the work.

Money in the bank. Common sense.

This is the way to get more intuition, more happiness in your work, flow of

ideas more and more.

a way to solve the problems. The answers will come. The more consciousness you

have and that heavy weight of negativity going away is such a blessing.

So, as part of film school, you should learn transcendental

meditation.

Transcendental meditation is a unique form. If you practice a concentration

of meditation, because the mind is engaged in concentration, It will keep

near the surface.

Near the surface.

Maybe there's some benefit, but you're not transcending.

Contemplation form of meditation, like watching your breathing or smelling the

roses. That's a nice thing, but you're not going to transcend.

So you want a thing that gets you to the treasury, to the real thing.

and infuse that and grow in that, and you'll never, ever, ever be sorry.

To start Transcendental Meditation, it takes four days,

about an hour and a half each day, and then you have the technique for the rest

of your life.

You understand how it works, You know you're meditating correctly, your

questions have been answered, and you have it.

You need a legitimate teacher of transcendental meditation as taught by

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. There's other people out in the world that, oh, I'll

teach you that, I'll do this, you know, and that.

It's not the real thing. You want a legitimate teacher.

And you can call the TM centers, and they will, you know, confirm the teacher

being legitimate.

And like I said, four days, about an hour and a half a day.

And then you're rocking.

I wasn't so self -assured. I was creative, but I wasn't self -assured.

this business, you'll get steamrolled. You'll get killed.

And probably in any business.

There's, you know, self -assuredness.

And then there's many of us that work for the goal of the work, money.

But we don't enjoy the day -to -day so much.

And wouldn't it be great if you could be happy inside and enjoy the

doing of almost anything?

You enjoy the doing of things. You enjoy more and more being alive.

You see a bigger picture.

I say life becomes more like a game than a torment.

People have trouble sleeping.

People are tired.

And when you're tired and stressed, you do strange things.

Many people in prison are there because of stress and, you know, what it does to

the brain, causing us to do these strange, violent things that we, most

regret almost as soon as they've done them.

But nonetheless, they're in prison. Many, many illnesses are avoided because

you know, stress leaving.

So then there's, you know, this thing of love.

People start looking better. They start looking friendlier. And you see, you

know, more of loving all diversity.

You know, it's like

You start loving all people.

And it's really, really beautiful.

And understanding people more and more, it causes

much less conflict.

Negativity is the enemy of creativity.

It's common sense. If someone is depressed,

They say they don't even feel like getting out of bed, let alone working.

If you're sad or if you're filled with bitter anger, that occupies the mind.

Maybe you do angry paintings. So what?

You know, it's like you'd be doing, you know, you could do angry paintings but

be happy in the doing. But they take it out on everybody around them. They

poison the environment. They poison themselves.

This anger will kill you. It's a poison.

They say anger is a real sign of weakness.

It's a sign of weakness. They can't even control themselves.

You start meditating.

I was filled with anger when I started.

Two weeks later, my first wife comes to me. I took it out on her. I took it out

on her every morning.

And I made her life hell.

Two weeks after I start meditating, she comes to me and says, what's going on? I

said, what are you talking about? I said, it could have been any number of

things. And so then she said, this anger, where did it go?

I didn't even realize it.

But it was true. She realized it because I wasn't giving her trouble.

And it was so beautiful.

I started feeling better in my body. I started feeling more self -assured. I

started getting happier in the doing.

And I see that ideas flow more.

And it's like the joy

of living increases, you know.

All the time.

And you get more in tune with Mother Nature, the laws of nature.

And these laws of nature, sweet Mother Divine starts actually helping you. You

know, when you get in tune, it's so beautiful what goes on.

It's a cosmic thing.

And for some reason, human beings have lost contact with this field.

But now there is a way to reestablish contact.

and unfold our full potential and start enjoying life, walk away from suffering

and negativity, and party time.

When you want someone to understand the things that have come with the idea, you

do it by talking or like a show and tell.

you want them to get on the same road that you're on, and that road is based

on the ideas. So every department, you need to get with them

and describe to them with words what it is

that you're after to make those ideas come true.

So if it's a production design, you talk about...

um furniture and um you talk about rooms

windows light you talk about um what things um

go in uh the place and how it goes and the feeling it is

that the time that is it the 1940s the 50s is it you know um

completely outside of any of that, like science fiction or some kind of strange

place.

And you describe it to them, and then they understand it.

And they might bring drawings, and then you say, well, that's just about right,

but this thing is not quite right, and this and this and this. And then they

finally get going down the same road. Same way with every department.

Same way with every actor.

You just keep going until we're all going down the same road.

It's not because...

I want them to be, you know, I want it. It's because the ideas want to be that

way.

When you get an idea, you see it.

So you know what it looks like.

And so if you could start building and keep checking the idea, theoretically,

you could build exactly what's in your head, what the idea looks like.

In this world, You can build some sets, but you could also find locations.

And locations could be very close to what's in your head and fill the bill.

But not only that, sometimes locations will give you more gifts, more ideas.

Because, oh, look at that.

And that could work. And ideas flow from those.

It's really strange.

A set would just be exactly what's in their mind based on the idea, but

locations can sometimes be even more than that.

These are oil tanks.

that once existed underneath the Beverly Center.

And this set of oil tanks had a donut of earth that went around it.

So you couldn't really see it from the street.

The donut of earth was there in case one of the tanks burst.

This wall of earth around would hold the oil from going, you know, too far away.

And so you go up and down into this world.

It's absolutely magical.

This here is high art.

This is one of the most beautiful places on earth, and it's now gone.

I don't know how I found it, but it was a lucky day.

I do drawings.

But they're very poor little drawings.

I do drawings to show where the furniture is and where the people will

moving.

But while I'm doing the drawings, I'm also talking to them about different

things. So they can look at the drawing and not much is there, but if they

remember the words, then they can go and do the thing.

Well, I'll show you a pathetic thing.

Okay, so here's the couch.

And here's the, and then she'd be sitting, you know, right here.

And then she's going to get up and go to the window. You got to have that window

here.

And then she's going to pull the curtain back. You got to have curtains there.

And this is like an old, old, you know, run down place. So it's going to have

mop board.

It's going to be, you know, like, so it's a standing lamp here.

And then, you know, he's going to look out and then Pete will come in here.

And so behind Pete, we got this side, this door.

It's an oval top thing.

And this is old wallpaper along in here.

And you come in and she turns and she sees that he's got a gun.

And so he's here like this and points his gun at her.

She didn't see him come in.

If you can remember the words, if you look at it later, you'd say, what the

hell?

On Dune, Tony Masters was the production designer.

Great, great, great, great British production designer.

I went for a boat ride one night in Venice, Italy.

And these strange mansions were coming out of the black water.

And it just was like another world.

And some of this, not all of it, but some Italian design, I started talking

Tony about these things.

And that was the angle on a lot of the sets that he designed

and some of the costumes and some of the props.

When it's not of this world, it could be anything, but it needs to be something.

So you get an idea of what that something is.

And then you build that.

In this case, it was a fleshy grasshopper. That was the idea.

You look at a grasshopper and make it flesh, and then you get pretty close.

Carlo Rambaldi built it.

He built E .T.

And the thing, a lot of artists, they build themselves.

To me, the Guild Navigator and E .T., both of them look like Carlo Rambaldi.

We have just stolen space from X.

Jack Fisk is my best friend.

I met Jack when we were in the ninth grade.

First thing I ever told Jack was a lie.

He said, what grade are you in? I said, I'm in the tenth grade.

We became great friends because out of, I don't know how many, 4 ,000 people in

our high school,

We were, you know, two of a few that wanted to become painters.

And so we had four different studios that we worked in

during high school and then ended up together in Philadelphia going

to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

And one of my four wives was Jack's sister, Mary.

So Jack is family and my best friend.

And we share this, you know, living the art life thing,

which is super important.

We worked together on Mulholland Drive.

And Jack became a great, you know, production designer.

And so he was production designer on Mulholland Drive and on The Straight

And his wife, Sissy, was in The Straight Story.

There's very little room to move in a way.

Unless they give you an idea that you say, oh, that would be incredible.

And, you know, that can happen.

Or they fulfill the idea so beautifully you just can't imagine it being any

better. That was the case with Jack for sure.

And so, but it would be wrong to say, Jack, you do whatever

you want.

And this department, you guys bring me any kind of props you want. And you guys

bring me those clothes. Anything goes with me.

This thing's not going to hold together.

It's not a compromise and it's not exactly

mutual collaboration.

And it's not an ego trip for the director. It's to stay true to the

Why wouldn't you want that to be the thing?

Why would you want a whole bunch of unrelated things and the thing isn't

to hold together?

When you're location scouting, absolutely, you're looking for locations

fit the idea that you saw in your mind.

And before you go out looking, you see many photographs.

So the photographs that hold promise, then you have to go see the actual

location and see if it fits the idea.

I can tell pretty quick if it's going to work or not.

Idea says it's this way. You try to find the thing that fits the idea.

And, you know, you see a thing, like in the case of Pete Dayton's house in

Lost Highway, the driveway was on the left, the door was there, the living

you will enter into. On the right is the hallway that goes down to the bedrooms,

and the kitchen is over here.

Because the idea, when you see it, movements are all, you know, there in

idea. And so you're trying to get the location so it, you know, it flow like

does in the idea.

Corey is the script supervisor studying her face. Her face is very, very

beautiful.

So we get to this location, and I

guess maybe I saw that balcony up there. I don't know what triggered it, but

I said, Corey, come over here, and I just started looking at her face.

And she said, what is it? I said, I want you to be in this. And she said, no,

no, I don't want to do it. And I said, Corey, you know, and then I got the

costume, you know, designer and started to talk about this dress and all this

stuff. Pretty soon Corey came out and she was just beautiful.

And there she was as the last line in the film.

No, it's just the idea popped in. How can you take credit for these things?

It just happens.

Pati Norris was a production designer.

And she came to me and she said, David, they want to tear the... this cabin set

down, I'm coming to you to make sure you're, you know, finished,

you know, with it and would take it down.

And I said, well, let me think about that.

Don't take it down.

And, but she started this thing going and I went over to Gary D 'Amico's

trailer.

And Gary at Special Effects, and I say, Gary, could

you blow up that cabin?

So Gary went to work, and I told Patty we're going to blow it up.

And so not only are we going to blow it up, but we're going to shoot it in

reverse.

And what was even more beautiful, since Gary didn't have...

the things he would have used, he came up with these balloons of gasoline

and other things that he had, and it was a soft explosion. It was soft

and different than it would have been.

The wind and dust and the soft explosion, it was

so beautiful. I think we had three cameras on it, and it was just...

A magical, magical thing. And it came out of, do you want it torn down or not?

It's like along the way, ideas can come. And you say, oh, that is so

necessary.

It changed the thing. You know, when you have that thing going, it's a magical

place. It feeds into the mystery of everything.

And it gives a feeling. It gives a feeling and

gives a thinking.

And it was just an incredible thing that came along.

There's many stories connected to that particular scene right there.

It was so cold, I went to this outdoor sporting store and got clothes, and the

guy said, these clothes, you could be warm at the North Pole.

I was freezing in those same clothes that night. The cold worked into the

We were shooting this scene, and...

It came time to move into the close -ups.

And we got in there.

Both James and Donna were shaking. They were so cold.

And snot was coming out of their nose. Their noses were bright red.

And it would have been a joke to try to make this, you know, thing there at

night with that weather.

So we pulled the plug and went home.

The next day, we woke up. There was two feet of snow on the ground.

So all the things we were supposed to do that day were out of, you know, we

couldn't do them.

And then I think it was probably Patty had the idea, come to my workplace.

And on the second floor up the ramp is this concrete area.

We open up all the windows, bring in some trees, and we can shoot those close

-ups right there. It'll be cold enough to see their breath, and it will be

beautiful. And that's exactly what we did.

Indoors, daytime, against two cut -down trees.

If you want to make a feature -length film, all you need to do is get

70 ideas, 70 scenes.

And you write these 70 scenes on 3x5 cards, and you put them up, and when you

have 70 of them, you've got a feature film.

I never considered myself a writer.

And I don't know how to spell. I don't know how to type.

To me, writing is like a way just to remember ideas.

Schools have developed a formula.

This word, formula,

in the Department of Writing is like

death penalty crime.

The thing I think should sort of come naturally

and feel good, and that's with all

of these ideas talking to you.

I think...

Revising the writing is part of the process.

You don't want to be worried about how it comes out when it's starting to flow.

But then as you go back later, when more and more has come in, you

see that, oh, that one is, you know, talking too much.

and it's getting weak, and let's take those things out, and this is much

like that.

This is the thing about a formula where they say that in the first, it's a three

-act formula, I think, or something like that, and I don't know what the latest

formula is, but something happens, and then it gets into the nitty -gritty,

and then there's a resolution.

All stories...

need a beginning.

Where the middle is depends on where the end

is, I guess.

But in a continuing story, there could be theoretically no end.

When it comes time to writing,

I like to write.

What I mean is like, well, the

last time I was really writing was with Mark Frost on Twin

Peaks.

But at night, we would write over Skype, Mark being in...

Ojai, California, and me being in Los Angeles, and we worked during the day.

At night, because I smoked cigarettes,

my wife Emily would put me outside, and I

would face east, and I would have yellow pads and a ballpoint pen,

black, and...

Cigarettes and red wine.

Bordeaux.

And I'd sit in this lawn chair and work like

that. And if you have a yellow pad on your lap and a

ballpoint pen, pretty soon that pen will start moving and words will come

out. And you get on a thing.

And I say, You know, even 90 % can be, you know,

worthless, horrible stuff.

But maybe as you're writing what you're seeing or thinking, you'll catch a vein

of gold and a thing will start pouring out.

And that's sort of the way I guess it is. You catch a vein.

It could be a character. It could be a whole part of a story. It could be a

scene.

But you've got to be like in fishing with patience and you've got to have a

and a line and a hook.

And you've got to be, you know, ready for it to come in.

Character comes from an idea.

Something that we see can trigger a character.

Something can happen in a daydream where a character will just walk in.

When they do come along, it's as if you always knew them.

They appear as if out of nowhere.

And again, it's like an idea.

It is an idea.

And you hear them talk.

You know them as if you've known them for a long time.

You know what they look like. You know what they're wearing. You know the way

they are, how they speak, fast or slow, their timbre of their voice, this whole

thing. You know them, and you write them down. And even the

words.

you know they come out.

They just come out. They come out in a certain way based on that character that

you know and who they're interacting with.

A character is an idea, just like a location is an idea, a mood

is an idea, a sound is an idea, music is an idea, the way it needs to be based

on the ideas that come.

Mystery and detectives in cinema relate 100

% to life.

Most of us, we don't know where we were before we were born.

We don't know for sure where we're going after.

We don't know why we're here.

We don't know much about anything.

We're floating on a ball.

in something they call a universe on the edge of a galaxy with about 100 or 200

billion suns, and we are going to football games and watching TV. It's

like pretty crazy.

It's the way it is.

But we're detectives, everybody. We're looking around.

When we have time,

Sometimes it's just before we go to sleep, we start thinking maybe questions

like, why am I here?

What is going on?

Or we see things in life and we say, whoa.

Or we hear things and say, does that make sense?

Do you think that's true? We use our intuition as detectives to see what's

and what's false and try to figure out what's going on.

And I think that's one of the great... things about detective stories, it

relates to what life is telling us.

The ideas, you know, tell you everything.

And if you think it's imagination, really, you say, I imagine,

by the time you got the word imagine out, The ideas have already fed it to

It's not really you imagining it. It's the flow of ideas.

And that's where daydreaming comes in.

Let's say there's a scene in a diner, and the diner has all these windows, and

it's the daytime, and it's got the smell of cooking and coffee

going, the sounds of the machines.

and the refrigerator, you know, thing cooling, working, and the sounds of the

Coke machine going sometimes, the cash register, you know, different things,

people going around, people talking, you know, knives and forks, you know,

plates, or mica, you know, footsteps.

Outside, some sounds are coming in, and a light is a certain way.

Say it's in the northwest, so it's a kind of northwest feel, kind of a

bluer light coming in.

It could still be, you know, sometimes it can be warm and friendly, but

depending on what's going on, you might want it to be bluer and colder.

Then you might have something on the jukebox that fits in with the mood.

Yeah, it comes with the idea. All these different things in the right mixture

can get the mood to be true to the idea.

A script is organized ideas.

So the, say, future director picks up the script,

opens the script,

and starts reading.

And when they're reading the script, they're picturing

things and hearing things.

What you're picturing and what you're hearing and what you're feeling when

you read that script, it's just like catching ideas from the

ether.

And you remember...

what you saw, what you heard, and the feelings.

And those are your ideas now to follow.

And everything along the way of making the film, you try to remember those

feelings that came through from the words and what you saw and felt and the

and the way people talked and the way they were or what they were wearing and

the things in the room.

All these things now are your guide to making the film and stay true to every

part of that thing that came in your mind because you fell in love with it.

That's the thing you want to do.

You got the idea. You're in love with the idea. All your ideas are together,

say, in a script.

Now you go and you start putting all the elements together to make that idea

a reality in the material world.

A film is made up of many, many, many elements.

So you have to be true to every single little tiny element in order

to have a chance that the whole will be pulled together.

And even so, if you're really true to every element and not walk away

until they feel correct based on the idea,

you can get a magical thing that they say the whole is greater than the sum of

the parts.

A magic thing can happen when these elements swim together and boom, it's

the magic of cinema.

Anyone who reads the script, this same thing is happening.

But now this is the one who's going to make the film.

So this one is picturing this and hearing this and this like this.

for him or herself, now the filmmaker's job is to get

all the people that are going to help to help get

this thing out of the head onto the screen.

And that's going to involve talking to different departments and getting them

get the right clothes, the right light, the right this, the right that.

So now this was alive in here and now it's going to be alive on the

screen.

If it's new to you, it's new.

They say there's nothing new under the sun.

If it's new to you and you love the world, then you go.

When is it okay to borrow?

I guess it depends on borrowing

or stealing.

And so in Wild at Heart,

Sailor and Lula, it just started creeping in that they just loved The

Oz and would make references to it because they loved it.

like so many other people, but it kind of was strange that Saylor would like

But it makes sense to me.

It was a little bit stealing, I guess, but it made sense to the characters,

and in my mind, it honors this great film, The Wizard of Oz, which

is a film that's caused people to dream now for decades.

And there's something about the Wizard of Oz that's cosmic.

And it talks to human beings in a deep way.

Sailor.

Sailor.

The good witch.

Sailor Ripley.

Luna loves you.

But I'm a robber.

I'm a manslaughterer, and I haven't had any parental guidance.

She's forgiven you all these things.

You love her.

Don't be afraid, sailor.

But I'm wild at heart.

If you're truly wild at heart, you'll fight for your dreams.

Don't turn away from love, sailor.

Don't turn away from love.

That's Cher Lee, who's also Laura Palmer.

It's perfect that she floats down.

I said, are you afraid of heights? And she said, no, because she didn't want to

say the truth.

She's desperately afraid of heights. We had her strung up really high.

Fred Elms did a great job lighting that. He had a pool of water on plexiglass

and was dancing lights, and it was really, really beautiful.

And Saylor and the Good Witch did a beautiful job.

You know, Barry Gifford, you know, the book ends not in a happy way, and

nobody wanted it to end.

in an unhappy way.

And that's when the good witch really came in and saved the day.

Barry was really, really, really great to work with because he

didn't care. I always say, Barry's books I love, but they're very

minimal. The chapters are short, they're minimal, and

it's a certain way he writes.

his writing has just got these seeds that sprout and go off, you

know, in all different directions.

And so he said, David, you do whatever you want. And there'll be

David Lynch's Wild at Heart and Barry Gibbard's Wild at Heart. He was just

really generous in that way.

But his book, you know, I loved and inspired

what came out.

When you're just starting out, it's very difficult, unless you're from a wealthy

family, it's very difficult to have the time and materials

to live the art life.

So you have to live the art life

around whatever job you have to earn money to eat and have a place to live

work. And it's tough.

But all the time that you're working to earn that money, you can be thinking

and you can be saving up your money

and getting those materials and that...

as much time as you can to dedicate to your work, your work, which is the

artwork.

When I started out, all I wanted to be was a painter.

And you don't need a lot of money to be a painter.

I raised money by delivering prescriptions.

uh for place herder's drugstore in alexandria virginia and my father made a

with me i wanted to get a studio he said he'd pay for half if i earned the money

and paid for the other half so i delivered prescriptions in the evening

night in a red and white jeep and made enough money just working a couple

a week to uh get a studio where i'd go after school

and work until late at night.

So I've had to do things to earn money, but

I've gotten what I call a setup, which a setup is a place to work and

materials to do the tools and materials to do the work.

So if you're interested in painting, you need a place to paint, and you

need paint, and you need to get all this stuff together and the space, and then

they call it a painting studio.

Every single thing that we do, we need a place and machines or materials or

equipment to make it happen.

You asked about this little bungalow I had on Rosewood Avenue.

I was there during a time when gasoline was 27

cents a gallon.

I had a paper route. I delivered the Wall Street Journal.

I picked up my papers at 11 .30 and I made $200

a month.

That was plenty of money to...

And I had, I built a shed onto the side of the bungalow for a

little tiny workshop.

I built some sheds in the yard.

And I had the ability to

make things. I still didn't have enough money to paint.

The way I wanted to paint, AFI, at the time I went, the Center for Advanced

Studies, was housed in the Greystone Mansion, a 55 -room mansion

in the best part of Beverly Hills, California.

At night, no one was there, and I got to take over the stable.

I had a mini studio for four years.

I had all the equipment I could ever dream of. I had rooms for storage of

equipment. I had places outside to build sets.

I had a setup like you cannot believe for four years.

And I even lived there. I lived in Beverly Hills, California on about a

week. It was beautiful.

And what we called the food room where we ate.

When I finished a pack of matches, I would do drawings on the inside.

They're abstract, but these are all Italian Renaissance drawings.

These have been found and collected, and now they're all framed. They're really

beautiful little things.

So these are my matchbook drawings from the days of Eraserhead.

My friend Bushnell Keillor, who really was an inspiration in the early days,

said artists need at least four hours of uninterrupted, guaranteed uninterrupted

time to get one good hour of painting done.

And this is so true.

Every interruption, just like a knife stab in the middle of

thought and getting into it. And you start again. You start again.

It's horrible.

These days, there's interruptions around every corner, almost every second.

I've said that you have to be somewhat selfish.

But selfishness, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

If you're with the right people,

it cannot be seen so much as selfishness.

It can be seen as that's your work in life.

And you need the time and the material, you know, to do it.

But you have to protect that space and that time or you

won't get anything done.