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David Lynch: The Art Life



A rare glimpse into the mind of one of cinema's most enigmatic visionaries, David Lynch: The Art Life offers an absorbing portrait of the artist, as well as an intimate encounter with the man himself. From the privacy of his home and painting studio in the Hollywood Hills, a candid Lynch conjures people and places from his past, from his boyhood in Idaho and Virginia to his experiences at art school in Boston and Philadelphia to the beginnings of his filmmaking career in Los Angeles—in stories that unfold like scenes from his movies. This remarkable documentary by directors Jon Nguyen, Rick Barnes, and Olivia Neergaard-Holm reveals the story behind Lynch's early years as a painter and director drawn to the phantasmagoric, while also illuminating his enduring commitment to what he calls the "the art life": "You drink coffee, you smoke cigarettes, and you paint, and that's it."

SPECIAL FEATURES

• High-definition digital transfer, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• New interview with codirector Jon Nguyen
• PLUS: A new essay by critic Dennis Lim

Really shocked that this is a stand-alone. Even at the lower price-point, it's skimpy. Still, Lynch fans (including myself) will probably buy it. If there was something that would have made a great second disc on a Lynch feature, this is probably it, but it's probably hard to "demote" something to errata status after touring it extensively.

Odd release. It's like they released a supplement disc without a feature.

FrauBlucher wrote:Odd release. It's like they released a supplement disc without a feature.

It's this year's Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words

The existence of the Ingrid doc only reinforced our expectations that this would be its own disc; I just hoped we'd be proven wrong. If there's a proper Lynch title in the month or two following, it'll be even more bizarre.

I've heard this doc has had pretty wide range of reviews: "meh" to "pretty good."

domino harvey wrote:

FrauBlucher wrote:Odd release. It's like they released a supplement disc without a feature.

It's this year's Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words

At least that film had extras though. This is a lot less than that.

But an interview with one-third of the relatively unknown directorial staff on a contemporary profile doc is high-quality content for the website!

domino harvey wrote:

FrauBlucher wrote:Odd release. It's like they released a supplement disc without a feature.

It's this year's Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words

The Ingrid doc had more reason to exist as a spine than this. At least that has old, archival features with Bergman on it that have some importance.

With how much Lynch material is out there, that fact that they couldn't at least pair this with some shorts is bizarre. I really wouldn't be surprised now if the FWWM release doesn't just contain a new transfer and that's it.

This is like the equivalent to the Bergman Island release.

I saw this and had the same problem about this that I do with most documentaries about great directors or artists: the film itself isn't as good as their work. It's essentially an hour-and-a-half monologue by David Lynch where Lynch continues his history of avoiding many details about his life or artistic philosophy and even leaving stories and thoughts incomplete. This is cut to archival footage of his family photos, home movies, art works, and him at work. Even at a brisk 90 minutes, it feels a little too long and seems to cut between filler footage (flies on a window sill, Lynch mixing stuff with a glove numerous times) with a bad, dark ambient score along with some excellent footage of him at work on his early shorts and Eraserhead. But it's always a pleasure to hear Lynch talk and serves a level of comfort on his voice alone.

Right. There's really not much to recommend the film as a film beyond the fact that the viewer may be interested to see/hear more about the subject. Certainly, I am, but your description seems to meet my expectation based on everything I've read. I think I'm just especially punchy because I know I'll buy the damn thing.

Knowing how demanding Lynch is, I'm sure Criterion had their hands tied. Maybe this is part of some trade off with his future releases.

Or maybe the filmmakers pushed for it to have its own spine, and not just treated as a supplement?

The guy who directed the Ingrid Bergman doc had made a couple of Criterion supplements previously, but what pull do these guys have?

They managed to make a film about David Lynch

I would bet the primary motivator towards making this its own release is that their other Lynch releases probably sold very very well.

Oh, lets not kid ourselves: this will sell. It's just, you know, this label is sitting on perhaps hundreds of great films it is in no rush to release and instead we get this, which would no doubt have found a Blu-ray release from any other label just fine

I don't think there's anything to figure out here: it's a theatrically released feature-length doc about a filmmaker with a cult following that overlaps with Criterion's to a substantial degree. It would have gotten a standalone release from someone if Criterion wasn't interested. Pretty sure that's all there is to it.

Did fire walk with me likely get delayed a month ?

I wish they'd at least paired it with the "Pretty as a Picture" doc from '97 or something.

Ah me... as a Lynch completist, I'll still buy it.

Perhaps its this year's Jellyfish Eyes. At least the price is reasonable!

This is an Amazon Studios title in which Janus/Criterion was selected as their distribution "partner". It was always going to be a standalone release.

It's probably also important to Criterion/Janus to establish a good relationship with an emergent studio that's going to have a huge amount of content going forward, to encourage future collaboration. That doesn't necessarily excuse the decision to go basically featureless here, but does at least kind of motivate the release itself.

I watched this the other night, and in a way I'm happy it gets it's own release. I think it shows profound respect for the titular concept, and the man himself, and may help many artists with common struggles--social, financial, existential, and more--that aren't necessarily comment on specifically, in such a way, and by someone as influential as Lynch.

Away from subjective reading of its possible effects on the audience, I found the documentary to be excellent. To be a simpleton about it: it didn't try to say too much. It was nice to have them focus on his beginnings, and the topic of his world view and that towards art as well.

To be honest, days before this was announced, when watching the film, I remembered the Ingmar Bergman doc from years ago, and thought for a second we'd see this get a stand-alone DVD, and a FWWM bonus disc blu-ray release. Nonetheless, here we are, and it's nice for what could be just cast aside as a feature because of its subject matter, get the respect of any other documentary. And just on that though, what disc would this belong on appropriately? I would argue the Eraserhead disc that already exists, due to the specificity of era. This has much broader commentary on Lynch as an artist, and the functions of one, than to slap on any of his features and call a supplement.

Agree with Pretty as a Picture though. Wasn't that an Image release on DVD?

Hoping that will end up as a supplement on a future Lost Highway release.

I was one of those who contributed to a Kickstarter for this documentary five years ago.
I recently got an e-mail claiming that the DVD was finally due to be sent.
Still no sign of it.