David Lynch: La vie artistique

OMG! I fell asleep!!! Having David Lynch tell his own story in his soft MONOTONE voice makes a fascinating story, a yawner. NOT the stories themselves, but the way the tone in which they are told.

I am a David Lynch film fan and his art, while fascinating, isn't my "taste". I appreciate the visuals along with his stories.

He is a fan of home movies - which helped. And he is honest about his family.

But this movie is by far mostly about his art and his life, not his films. That was a bit of a disappointment. 95% of this is about the first 22 years of his life.

Not wasted time at all. But just not what I had hoped for.

David LYNCH: THE ART LIFE: INSPIRING

I know David Lynch mainly from the Twin Peaks series I love. The fact that Lynch is not only a great film director but also an artist - and an inspiring one – comes as a pleasant surprise.

ARTISTIC

During the film Lynch is busy with extraordinary figures, shapes and materials. I did not understand what he was doing and at the same time it was very inspiring to watch. His artistic talent becomes clear from purely looking at him. I also saw many impressive paintings from him.

CINEMORE

The documentary about Lynch was shown during a monthly evening in Cinecenter, Amsterdam: Cinemore, an in-depth program for special films. Prior to the film a lecture was held, which was brought with humor. A nice introduction to this documentary.

TWIN PEAKS

One of the reasons I wanted to see David Lynch: The Art Life was to learn more about Twin Peaks and how he developed it. Unfortunately, this is not discussed in the film. Only a small part is about how he entered the film world.

PERSONAL LIFE

For the most part, and of course the name says it all, this documentary is about his artist's existence. In addition, his family ties and his personal life are discussed. Funnily enough, he himself is often the narrator of the story. That sometimes makes the film chaotic and difficult to follow.

CONCLUSION

The biggest conclusion I can draw after watching is that David Lynch is an intriguing man. David Lynch: The Art Life is an inspiring documentary, with the only two drawbacks that Twin Peaks gets no attention and that the voice-over by himself is not always the most informative choice. Nonetheless: recommended.

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Some revealing insights into Lynch as an artist, his childhood and his films which open the lid on his creative process.

As far as documentaries go, there have been more substantial and significant, affecting ones that have come out about artists' work. However, considering that David Lynch is one of the most enigmatic directors who fully represent and defy what art means, of course any film revolved around him would get the job done. This film takes a pretty simplistic approach in examining him and it's a collection of stories he gives about his childhood, but they're all worth it. This would be a fascinating documentary for any die-hard fan as well as any other film buff in general. Definitely recommended.

David Lynch at around 70 years old talking, smoking, and doing his art. That's about it. But as he says about his childhood, when the whole world was only 2 blocks, but you can have everything you need in the world in 2 blocks, David Lynch - The Art Life - a film about 2 blocks long compared to a Hollywood blockbuster - still can give you everything you need for a really fascinating film experience.

If you are hoping for an exploration of the films of David Lynch, and of the filmmaker David Lynch, stay at home. Only David Lynch the neophyte filmmaker is explored because this is a natural development of the real star of the show - David Lynch the painter. One day he sees one of his paintings moving, and that's when the seed is planted for him to make movies - he wants to make moving paintings.

We see a lot of the finished artwork of David Lynch, and most of it is stunning and quite dark, the latter being somewhat of an incongruity considering that David Lynch seems to be a happy and contented person. In one scene, Mr. Lynch talks about showing his father some of his art as a young man, and his father's reaction is grave concern that Mr. Lynch is seriously mentally ill. "Don't have children," his father tells him. David Lynch once described his art as "violent comedy". Indeed, if you get the violence but not as much the comedy, you might think something is deranged about the man. During the whole 90 minutes I spent at the TIFF Lightbox Cinema in Toronto with David Lynch, I never got the sense that he was a nut job. His toddler of a daughter made several appearances in the film, and David Lynch was warm, playful, and attentive with her, and never acted bothered by her as she played while he was painting. He told story after story the way that regular guy that everybody likes in your life would. It finally occurred to me that Mr. Lynch had found the perfect catharsis in his art for anger and violence - which are within all of us - and the result was a cleansing of sorts, the mentally wholesome fellow I spent some time with yesterday at the cinema.

Every art student, budding artist, artist wannabe, art appreciator, and artist appreciator should see David Lynch - The Art Life. And every David Lynch fan, of which I am one...a BIG one. The rest of you might be bored.