World of Blue - Archived Forum 2007-2022

Read the whole list here: http://whatculture.com/film/david-lynch ... o-best.php

Stopped after #7, but i'll bet Blue Velvet is #1, it would be my #10.

It is, I would have changed the order of a few, but generally I agree.

I can't argue with their choice of top 3 being at the top, but Lost Highway is his greatest film imo.

Well, I at first thought this was David rating his own films instead of an amateur idiot, but got about what I expected when I saw the list and inane descriptions. OK, that's off my chest... No it's not. The writer had a LOT of information wrong! Mulholland Drive was NOT 'killed by its producers' as a TV show - it was killed by Dave himself. On purpose. He had a 118 minute cut of the pilot that he liked and a new Disney/ABC exec told him, "Sorry Dave, we sell advertising. You have to give us an 88 minute cut". So he butchered it with terrible edits. In the course of making MD as a pilot, ABC TV was sold. Capital Cities Broadcasting had greenlighted it, with Ron Howard;s "Imagine Entertainment" producing. In the course of making the pilot, which co-incided with the final mix of "The Straight Story" (another story for another time), everyone from Capitol Cities was replaced by Disney people. The phone numbers of all the top brass did not work anymore. We were talking to Disney people, who hated it. "Too slow". "Too vague", were some of the comments. Nevertheless we put it up on 'the bird' (satellite) first week of May, 1999 for ABC affiliates, and THEY turned it down - NOT the network.
Meanwhile, about a month later, with "The Straight Story" done, and with a Director's 'Answer Print' (35mm color corrected film print delivered for Director's approval) on hand, but no distributor lined up, Disney's Joe Roth was invited for a Saturday morning screening at the studio, where we scored and mixed it. He brought his then 14-year old daughter (certainly NOT the film's demographic!) with him. David's then-partner and editor Mary Sweeney made popcorn in the main house (2 buildings away) with coconut oil and sea salt - REAL tasty stuff! - and brought it over in brown paper, oily lunch bags. One of the office guys was on hand to make barista quality espressos and lattes with the high end studio Italian coffee machine. I was there to run the sound through the studio console.
No applause or comments from Joe at the end of the picture, but his daughter turned to him and said, "Daddy, can we see that again?".
That's how Disney came to get the film.
When the MPAA called after reviewing the film, they said they would award it a 'G' rating. David was amazed! They then said well, they COULD give it a PG-13 because of the occasional 'damn' and 'hell'. Dave went, "No... this is beautiful and surreal - Disney releasing one of my pictures, with a 'G' rating". So the 'G' stood.
Disney was not quite sure what to with the thing though, and only opened it in 7 theaters nationwide. Even though we had a red carpet premiere at the El Capitan Theater on Hollywood Blvd. (owned by Disney), they totally crapped out on the marketing of the picture and it died box-office wise, even though it was Dave's best approached by the general public picture.
Oh, well.
Many stories about that film.
It was fun to work on.
I did the temp score for that picture, for editing's sake, and one cue stayed in the movie, but not on the soundtrack CD (Angelo did not want his royalties diluted). It is the acoustic guitar and strings music under the scene where Alvin and another WWII vet are in the bar, towards the end, discussing their involvement in the war. Angelo wrote a cue for it, but in the end, Dave liked mine better for the scene.
The music in the doctor's office scene was also off Angelo's radar.
Dave wanted something abstract and moody, and we were mixing the scene one morning, when he went, "Boys, at lunch today, you all go home and get your instruments. We have a music cue to record". So Walter Spencer, the dialog editor went and got his standup acoustic Bass, and Ron Eng, the sound effects editor, went and got his acoustic guitar, and Dave and I fired up our electric "BlueBOB" instruments, and we 'jammed' to picture a few times, and the cue was done.
As to "Mulholland Drive", the writer made me really happy when they wrote about the scariest moment being the discovery of the bum in the alley behind Winkie's and credited the sound design for that mood.
That was another morning where we went down a number of roads and it just wasn't working.
Dave explained that he wanted it to sound like it would sound in the dying guy's head (Patrick Fischer).
I experienced a near death situation in 1976 and told Dave that sound is the last thing to go when you die. And it gets all echoey and tunnelly. So he got excited and after lunch we went down that road and that is the sound you hear in that scene.
I can't speak for the pictures I did not work on, but I did remix ALL of Dave's films in 5.1 (stereo for "Eraserhead 2000") except 'Dune', which he would not and was not asked to participate in, and "Lost Highway", which was his first 5.1 theatrical release soundtrack, mixed my the great John Ross at Digital Sound and Picture.
As to the writer's comments on "Inland Empire", he does not know what he is talking about.
That film was started as two separate dl.com series ("A Meeting Upstairs" and "axxon n."), and sort of accidentally came together as a 'film' when Dave got lost in editing it. It was the first film he edited himself, on a computer. We started it in July of 2003 and it came out in 2007. But that's another whole story.
I would refer the reader to a promotional DVD we traded a new console for, "Room To Dream", released by Digidesign/Avid, shot during some of the filming days for "Inland Empire".
Good night.

As to the writer's comments on "Inland Empire", he does not know what he is talking about.
That film was started as two separate dl.com series ("A Meeting Upstairs" and "axxon n."), and sort of accidentally came together as a 'film' when Dave got lost in editing it. It was the first film he edited himself, on a computer. We started it in July of 2003 and it came out in 2007. But that's another whole story.
I would refer the reader to a promotional DVD we traded a new console for, "Room To Dream", released by Digidesign/Avid, shot during some of the filming days for "Inland Empire".
Good night.

I love the idea that the process was accidental. INLAND EMPIRE is his best film for me. It's so daring and inventive.

That was a fantastic anecdote to read John, thanks for sharing!

I agree, very insightful!

Thank you, Mr. Neff. The news about Inland having begun as a web project makes a lot of sense, given the Rabbits references in the film and the axxon n. stuff.

I still hold out hope that we'll see more material from it one day.

David himself claimed they had 313 40-minute tapes of footage shot (3 cameras total.)

John Neff wrote: I would refer the reader to a promotional DVD we traded a new console for, "Room To Dream", released by Digidesign/Avid, shot during some of the filming days for "Inland Empire".
Good night.

Yeah, I have that promo DVD. Interesting to see the development and bits that didn't end up in the final movie.
I sometimes show that DVD to my students.

Fall_of_Sophia wrote:

As to the writer's comments on "Inland Empire", he does not know what he is talking about.
That film was started as two separate dl.com series ("A Meeting Upstairs" and "axxon n."), and sort of accidentally came together as a 'film' when Dave got lost in editing it. It was the first film he edited himself, on a computer. We started it in July of 2003 and it came out in 2007. But that's another whole story.
I would refer the reader to a promotional DVD we traded a new console for, "Room To Dream", released by Digidesign/Avid, shot during some of the filming days for "Inland Empire".
Good night.

I love the idea that the process was accidental. INLAND EMPIRE is his best film for me. It's so daring and inventive.

Same here. I would say IE is his best and then Lost Highway. Then Mull Drive, then Blue Velvet.

Sweet bump, here's what I think:

10. Elephant Man

9. Eraserhead

8. Dune

7. Blue Velvet

6. The Straight Story

5. Lost Highway

4. Mulholland Drive

3. Wild at Heart

2. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me

1. INLAND EMPIRE

I think 7 and up are masterpieces so it's a dumb thing to try and rank them honestly. But I love lists about as much as movies haha.

I imagine every true Lynch fan would have a different list and most would be valid. I honestly couldn't rank them. There are so many different things that appeal to me about each one that it might depend on what mood I'm if I decided to truly rank them. I'd put Inland Empire, Mulholland Drive, Eraserhead and FWWM in the top tier; Lost Highway, Wild at Heart, Elephant Man, The Straight Story and Blue Velvet in the next tier (still great, but not quite as transcendent as the top tier ones for me). Dune is the only one I'd put on a less than great tier, but honestly it's been such a long time since I've watched it. I'd also include the Twin Peaks episodes he directed in the top tier... hope to be adding to that list in a couple of years!

FauxOwl wrote:I imagine every true Lynch fan would have a different list and most would be valid. I honestly couldn't rank them. There are so many different things that appeal to me about each one that it might depend on what mood I'm if I decided to truly rank them. I'd put Inland Empire, Mulholland Drive, Eraserhead and FWWM in the top tier; Lost Highway, Wild at Heart, Elephant Man, The Straight Story and Blue Velvet in the next tier (still great, but not quite as transcendent as the top tier ones for me). Dune is the only one I'd put on a less than great tier, but honestly it's been such a long time since I've watched it. I'd also include the Twin Peaks episodes he directed in the top tier... hope to be adding to that list in a couple of years!

Dune is also for me the only one of his films that I don't like as much as his others but I've met some people who like Dune a lot. It's like you said it's hard to rank them and everyone has a different list depending on the persons taste. By the way there's an older thread about this topic in the David Lynch section of this forum called "How would you rank David Lynch's films ?". Sorry, unfortunately I don't know how to post the link but if you search for it you'll find it instantly.

I also found Dune to be less rewarding but I had a friend who was really into the book and he seemed to get a lot out of it so that might be a factor. And I found Straight Story to be a disappointment but really should watch it again. I think people who didn't like it were accused of only liking Lynch for the sex&violence shock value...maybe I failed to appreciate some sort of perfection in film grammar at the time...or maybe I really just like shock...at least when done so masterfully by Lynch that it's really beyond shock.

As for Elephant Man...it might be a great movie...but it's just too depressing for me to sit through...the subject matter...I just never wanted to watch any of the movie versions all the way...too sad.