Berliner Zeitung; December 2nd 1999

Where the longing may take you

Director David Lynch talks about rare 'Bingo!'-feelings,  and the good and evil hidden in life

After making dark, manieristic features like "Lost Highway" and "Blue Velvet",  David Lynch wanted to tell "The Straight Story" straightforwardly: as the story of Alvin Straight, who`s travelling the United States to reconcile with his brother. Birgit Glombitza interviews the director.

A Lynch-movie has never been so down-to-earth and peaceful like "The Straight Story". What`s wrong?

Funny, everybody thinks, I`m sick. It`s like with Elvis Presley. Everyone thought: "Yeah Elvis, that`s this wild rock`n`roll guy". And then he came up with a song like "Love me tender". You should never try to live up to the audience`s expectations. I am my own audience.

"The Straight Story" is based on a true story, unlike most of your other films. Does one have to tell the truth in a straight way?

There`s nothing so strange or weird like the so-called truth. Not even fiction. That`s why true stories often seem so kitschy and false and are transferred into dimensions of pathos by sentimental minds. Truth can be complicated, not necessarily straight and linear. I came across the story of the estranged  Straight-brothers, fell in love with it immediately experiencing one of these rare "Bingo!"-feelings  and all I had to do was to listen.

Why listen?

Because the story itself told me how it wanted to be told. Other stories demand to be told obscurely, hermetically or in a surreal way. But this one was different. It´s so minimal and pure in its core, that it needs to be told carefully, straight and linear . There mustn`t be any annoying effects, no pathos or leaps. That would have ruined the whole thing.

Apparently your idea of being creative  is quite romantic. Do you regard yourself as a medium that`s chosen by a story?

Definitely yes. This is my romantic ideal as an artist. But that`s what my experience taught me as well. This isn`t my story. It`s inside me, projecting its images onto the screen of my inner imagination. And I`ve got to stay as faithful as possible to this inner preview.

Compared with other road movies, Alvin Straight isn`t exactly mobile on his lawnmower. He isn`t travelling hostile territory either, like the pioneers in western movies used to do, and he`s moving East. Is "The Straight Story" something like the first Amercian Eastern?

I didn`t have that in mind, but I like the idea of having made America`s first Eastern. I didn`t try to ironically comment on western movies. But when Alvin leaves with this stubbornly slow pace, it´s obviously a stark contrast to that part of American film history.

The film is never faster than its protagonist. Was that also a hint how to direct dictated by the story itself?

Yes, but it`s also been a decision due to childlike care. I really wanted to stay close to Alvin, because I was afraid, something might happen to him. The film adapts his pace to comprehend how Alvin experiences space in his own way - by slowness. This changes the whole world. You can make out more details, and the sky gets a totally different dimension. It becomes a meditative image that`s changing real slow. I loved this tightness.

"The Straight Story" seems so conciliatory and idealistic. Have you finally rediscovered brotherhood and humaneness after all the nightmares before?

This is not completely new territory for me. those elements are present in my other films to a certain extent as well. Besides Alvin´s life isn`t simply fine and wonderful. His health is weak. This time I`m not showing the dark and nightmarish aspects [of life] but the other side to it. For the evil is mostly hidden in life. In the idyll, in peace. It`s only in these two hours of "The Straight Story" that nothing bad is happening. The evil always remains even if it`s out of sight.

What kind of utopia do you long for as a romantic artist?

Simply the next thing to fall in love with. When a movie is finished, it`s like a divorce. You don`t know how long it `ll take to fall in love again. Or what the woman will look like. Not knowing where the longing may take you, is one of the wonderful abstractions life has got in store for us. It would be a mistake to ignore blonde women, only because you have only loved brunette women before.