Even Auteurs need a break from themselves By Brendan Lemon

In 1994, Alvin Straight, a taciturn, proudly independent old man, drove his John Deere riding mower across Iowa to visit his enstranged, ailing brother in Wisconsin. Four years later, the director David Lynch made a movie about the journey, "The Straight Story", which Disney will release on Friday. And for those who think that Mr. Lynch, best known for movies with sadistic, drug-enhanced sex and small-town violence, must have discovered Iowa`s dark side - the creepy-crawlers beneath the corn - the news is that "The Straight Story" is Disney`s cleanest non-animated picture since "Son of Flubber".

Mr. Lynch`s film received enthusiastic reviews at this year`s Cannes International Film Festival. In The New York Times, Janet Maslin called it "eloquently simple, deeply emotional" and said that Richard Farnsworth, who plays Straight, gave the festival`s "best leading performance".

But the film is also notable because it is a part of a larger trend in cinema: major directors with reputations for outré subjects are making fare to which they can, at last, take their young children. David Mamet wrote and directed the well-regarded 1999 adaptation of "The Winslow Boy", a verbally buttoned-up English period piece. Wim Wenders, known primarily for moody European puzzle-films, came up with an uplifting concert movie,  "Buena Vista Social Club," about a group of forgotten Cuban musicians, And though Martin Scorsese`s next picture, "Bringing Out  the Dead," is a gritty urban story about emergency medics (set for release on Oct. 22), he may have anticipated the trend with his last film, the Buddhist idyll "Kundun".

But it is "The Straight Story" that throws the brightest light on how inveterate explorers of adult themes cope when they opt for a more restrained tone or subject. How do they adjust? And do they see their movies as part of a shift in the cultural winds or as stubbornly individual cases, providing a bracing but perhaps brief respite from their more characteristic films?

Mr. Lynch views his film at least in part as emblematic of the Zeitgeist, and his history lends him some authority in this area. After all, "Eraserhead", his 1977 movie about a catatonic misfit and his spastic girfriend, reflects its decade`s midnight-movie phenomenon; his 1986 work, the Hardy Boys-meets-Hitchcock curio "Blue Velvet," exposed with unsettling eerieness the dark side of the Reagan era; and his 1990-91 television serial, "Twin Peaks", helped expand the boundaries of network programming into sexy and surreal areas that continue to ignite discussion.

The director appears to be as startled as his fans might be by his move into "Hallmark Hal of Fame" territory. "The switch had nothing to do with getting older," Mr. Lynch said in a deadpan tone from his Hollywood Hills home. "When I first heard about 'The Straight Story,' I had the feeling that it wasn`t my thing." But then he read the script, written by Mary Sweeney, Mr. Lynch`s live-in girlfriend, and her childhood fiend John Roach.

"I responded to the emotion in it," Mr. Lynch said. "The I felt it would be the correct thing to do. I felt its yearning for pure, intense feeling represented something that was in the air. I don`t know whether what`s in the air is also a desire to have a break away from sex and violence or, rather, a yearning for more tender, more direct storytelling."

Disney responded as favorably as Lynch had and took on the project, which was produced by the director`s production outfit with French partners. After the now 80-year-old Mr. Farnsworth was cast as Alvin Straight, and Sissy Spacek agreed to play his concerned, oddball daughter, Mr. Lynch was set for a six-week shoot last autumn among the rolling roads of Eastern Iowa.

Mr. Lynch does not like leaving his home, where he spends time painting when not engaged in filmmaking. But he said he enjoyed being in the Midwest. Though capturing the slow, gliding rhythms of his rural setting was something of a challenge, he said, the transition to working on a feature devoid of sex and violence was not particularly difficult.

	The director David Lynch, right, and Freddie Francis, the director of photography, at work on "The Straight Story." It opens on Friday.

"With every film," he said, offering an image suggestive of Missoula, Mont., where he was born, "you sense the size of your corral. There`s always places you can`t go." He added, "It always amazes me how much you can do with a story and still stay within the rules." He said he learned this lesson while filming the 1980 movie "The Elephant Man", which,  despite being set in Victorian England, offered filmgoers some disturbingly contemporary truths.

With "The Straight Story", Mr. Lynch also encountered a lesson familiar to directors saddled with Hollywood`s restrictive Production code of the 1930`s, 40`s, 50`s and 60`s: how restraint can heighten emotional effect. "If we had stopped in the middle of this movie for a murder spree or a sex scene, to indulge audience interest," he said, "it would have totally ruined the intensity of the mood."

Like most artists, of course, Mr. Lynch prefers to exercise such restraint voluntarily. Being forced into it by the industry can be humiliating -  and can backfire. Referring to his experience with the Motion Picture Association of America ratings board over "Blue Velvet", he remarked, "The M.P.A.A. made us change a scene where Frank - that was the savage guy played by Dennis Hopper - hit Dorothy, the Isabella Rossellini nightclub singer. They said, 'You can`t show her being hit like that.' We changed it to make the hit start on screen and finish with a sound effect. But that only made it more upsetting."

Moviemakers have long known that suggestion can stir up fear or lust more effectively than mere explicitness.  As Eve Arden`s cafe hostess says when she notices Jack Carson`s  businessman mentally undressing her in "Mildred Pierce," "Leave something on me - I might catch cold."

But in 1999, relying on audience imagination carries high risks. Modern audiences, conditioned not only by films but by cable television, video games and even books ("Hannibal," "The Vampire Lestat") to having everything both spilled and spelled out, can grow restrive when they have to fill in gaps. In "The Straight Story," moviegoers must intuit why Mr. Lynch`s old man is so moved by the simple occurrences - a rainstorm, a sunset - that he encounters as he trundles across Iowa. As audiences witness the outward journey, they must imagine the one within.

While shooting "Kundun," Mr. Scorsese faced similar problems of translating implicit emotion. Like Mr. Lynch, he chose to work with a quieter sort of narrative. But Mr. Scorsese found the corral quite constraining.

"It was very, very difficult to get at emotion when it took place in such an internalized landscape," he said, speaking from his Manhattan office. "I had to rethink everything I`d ever done in movies - every shot. For one thing, 'Kundun' involved prayer rather than profanity. For another, it had men on horseback, not men in cars. And believe me, horses on a set are not very interested in hitting their marks."

When Mr. Scorsese was asked to name other directors who have diverged momentarily from their pasts to make gentle pictures, he mentioned "Junior Brunner," a 1972 western in which Sam Peckinpah tempered his signature violence, and "The Emperor Waltz," a 1948 Viennese schmaltzfest directed by Billy Wilder that is continents removed from Wilder`s usual émigré cynicism. Having named these movies, however, Mr. Scorsese immediately issued a qulification. "With a strong director," he said, "it`s always a little misleading to think of a movie as an anomaly, even if the tone is radically different from what we`re used to. There is usually some continuity - in theme, in preoccupation."

With Mr. Lynch, that thread has to do with his affection for small town eccentrics of all sorts; as an Iowan in "The Straight Story" says, "There`s a lot of weird people everwhere now." Even if Mr. Lynch`next movie takes him back to a dusty hamlet, he suggested, he will probably return to more typical subject matter."

At the very least, though, he and his fellow directors have struck a blow for variety. In an interview from Germany, where he was doing the music for his forthcoming film, "The Million Dollar Hotel," a love story, Mr. Wenders said, "Sex and violence was never really my cup of tea; I was always more into sax and violins." But he sees the development of high-profile G-rated fare as an indication that people have a desire for all kinds of movies. "My own personal wish," he said, "would be that cinema would enter the new millenium with its broader palette possible."

It is impossible to predict whether the trend for restraint on the part of edgy auteurs  will grow. Movies like "The Straight Story" add prestige to a studio`s roster, but they cannot be counted on to exert automatic appeal. The reasons are largely demographic. Even though movies attractive to both young and old consistently ring up the biggest box office, it is a specific niche in the market - teen-agers - who are most sought by studios. And teen-agers are unlikely to line up for the recent work of Mr. Lynch, Mr. Mamet or Mr. Wenders. These movies may be G-rated, but that doesn`t mean they`re for young audiences.

Mr. Lynch agreed that his new movie might have selective appeal. But that isn`t why he doubts he will undertake another experiment in purity. "I don`t want to limit my choice of projects," he said, adding that he hadn`t  yet determined his next one. "My sensibility was probably too warped at a young age for me to do more than dabble in the serene."