Kieler Nachrichten; 21. September 1990

 

Interview with director David Lynch

 

"Just don`t let it end up in a luke-warm mess"

Already his first movie Eraserhead became a cult classic for  lovers of horror-movies, his second, The Elephant Man received no less than eight oscar-nominations. Wild at Heart won the Palm d`Or at this yearīs Cannes Festival - much to the embarrassment of many critics: The FAZ [Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, conservative German daily newspaper] called it "obscene" and the "most disgusting film shown at Cannes". 

 

 David Lynch

The response to "Wild at Heart" is often wild but rarely warm ['heartfelt']...

Thatīs okay with me. You can`t please everybody. You just make the film and the rest is up to the audience.

Do you enjoy terrifying your audience?

When leaving the cinema, you should think: "I never had an experience like this before", you should be touched in a way you have never been touched before. Cinema must have power. The power of good and the power of evil. That`s the only way to make things move. If you don`t take that risk, it`ll all end up in a luke-warm mess.

When do you get your ideas. From your dreams or when taking a walk?

Both. I prefer to go to a diner, diners are safe places. You can imagine simply everything. And if starts being dangerous, you`ll simply return to the diner. It`s like a movie. You see all these things and are really involved. But then again, you`re only watching a film.

You love mysteries...

Absolutely. I love to explore the unknown. And I`m fascinated by the idea, that there`s a surface with so many things beneath. Film is such a fantastic thing, an access to another world.

Mood is essential to your films, what is mood about in your opinion?

It`s a feeling everyone knows. Like a sax-player at a nightclub at 2 o`clock in the morning. Or an American Diner, at 8.30 a.m. in the morning in winter. That`s mood to me. And thatīs what I want to create with my films.

You`re labeled a cult-director, do you agree? 

Well, if you make commercially successful movies, you`re labeled  'commercial'. If you`re movies are critically acclaimed, you`re labled  a 'cult-director'.

Dieter Oswald