In this archival interview, Stewart Gardiner speaks with the director of the 2007 David Lynch documentary Lynch (One)

It started with a comedy fishing show, a grant having been received to shoot a pilot. A producer’s friend tells him this over lunch and the producer thinks that if a comedy fishing show can receive a grant then so should a documentary on David Lynch.

Lynch is the mesmerising result of this thinking, allowing the viewer unprecedented access into the artist’s world. I spoke with director blackANDwhite.

Lynch one

Your identity is shrouded in mystery – I even heard a rumour that Lynch directed the film himself.

The mystery surrounding the director is kind of surprising to us. We never expected that people would give so much attention to a person’s name. But I guess it’s understandable that with a project surrounding David anything unexplained would need to be explained. I can say that the film was definitely not directed by David and that the director is a real person.

What was it like watching Lynch at work?

It was incredible to see David go through the process of creating INLAND EMPIRE. He would come up with pieces to the puzzle not knowing for sure how they related to the puzzle as a whole. And then he would go shoot them, confident that they would fit together in the end.

Lynch has a surprisingly commanding presence on set.

David is an incredibly warm man on, and off, the set. His crew loves working with him and he quite often works with the same people. He is a director though and decisions need to be made. Sometimes he has to be very direct and that might seem a bit harsh to some. But it is an in the moment thing and once the moment has passed the mood on the set gets light again. People love working with David.

You shot over 700 hours of footage.

Lynch was, and is, a project that cannot be defined by one film or DVD. We always saw it as a multi-part series in which the DVD extras as well as the films would give the complete picture of who David is. In the series there are three films: Lynch, Lynch 2, and Lynch 3.

This article originally appeared in issue 26 of Plan B Magazine (October 2007)

Stewart Gardiner
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