Colin Odell - David Lynch

Six Figures Getting Sick (1966), The Alphabet (1968), The Grandmother (1970)

The Amputee (1974), Eraserhead (1977)

The Elephant Man (1980)

Dune (1984)

Blue Velvet (1986), The Cowboy and the Frenchman (1988)

Wild at Heart (1990)

Twin Peaks (1990), Industrial Symphony No 1: The Dream of the Broken Hearted (1990), Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992)

On the Air (1992), Hotel Room (1993), Lumire and Company: Premonitions Following an Evil Deed (Lumire et compagnie) (1995)

Lost Highway (1997)

The Straight Story (1999)

Mulholland Drive (2001)

Rabbits (2002), Darkened Room (2002), INLAND EMPIRE (2006)

David Lynch Productions and Acting Roles, Commercials, Music Videos and Production The Artist And Animator, Transcendental Meditation and World Peace

See that clock on the wall? In five minutes you are not going to believe what I just told you

In the territory between light and dark, between sleeping and waking, there lies the world of David Lynch. It is a frightening and wonderful place, full of mystery and discovery, of hopes and fears, and dreaming. Always dreaming.

David Lynchs films contain some of the most distinguishing images to grace the screen, both silver and small. As an artist who also works in the media his output displays a singular worldview, both distinctive and idiosyncratic in a marketplace over-burdened by mediocrity and trends. Although this has gained him considerable critical acclaim, including a Palme dOr, the Lgion dhonneur and a Leone dOro (Golden Lion), it has also meant that funding and backing have on occasion proved challenging. Key to his ability to engage an audience is the symbiosis between sound and vision. The sound design in all of his work is exemplary but also unconventional, often creating an ambient mood that complements the picture or a sense of menace or wonder.

Many of Lynchs films deal in mysteries, either in the conventional sense or through the unravelling of dreams, and often both simultaneously. His main protagonists frequently hide their curiosity for the darker side of life beneath a veneer of wholesomeness. In this respect they are representations of Lynch himself the all-American Eagle Scout of the idyllic rural US, fracturing societys fragile shell to find the rancour within. The line between despair and desire can be paper-thin. Rather like director Tod Browning, Lynch has an affinity with unconventional characters. His adoption of unusual individuals to populate his films sometimes ordinary people hes found on set is not a simple one of exploitation, nor is it one of identification. Instead there is a revelling in the diversity of humanity in all its shapes and forms, allowing him a wider palette to play upon. Unlike the work of Tim Burton, say, in which the abnormal is lauded, Lynch offers us a more realistic overview where there is good and evil in everyone regardless of their appearance.

As Americas most high-profile purveyor of the surreal and an empathiser with the Surrealist movement, Lynch is not, as is commonly held, just a creator of the bizarre or macabre but a realiser of the subconscious. Dreams reveal the subconscious desires and fears of the dreamer and as such, no matter how outr, have their origins in the everyday. What Lynch brings to his works is not only a dreamlike state, half remembered in the haze of the morning, but also the absurdity of the mundane. In most film and television work, even long-running soap operas, the actuality of life, with its slow pace and coincidences, is often compressed for the sake of narrative convenience. Whilst such devices are necessary to all of Lynchs work, what really marks him out is his ability to pause the narrative thrust demanded in conventional Hollywood storytelling and observe the veracity of life in sometimes painful, raw close-up. The cinema of David Lynch is one where emotion and feeling rule over logic and reason. This is counter to the Freudian assertion that dreams fulfil wishes (even at a buried level) and that they are representative of the existence of the unconscious mind. In Lynchs world dreams are the doorway to a greater consciousness beyond conventional understanding rather than being metaphors for our waking existence they are keys to a greater mystery and a wider being. Dreams do not reflect our world; they expand it and in some cases invade it.

David Lynchs world lies on the border between absurdity and reason, where the surreal invades the mundane. It is a strange and mysterious place but also a rewarding one where the barriers of reality have crumbled away. So join us on a journey to a land where creamed corn is scary, where robins bring dreams, where ugly is beautiful and theres always music in the air.

David Keith Lynch was born in Missoula, Montana on 20 January 1946, the eldest of three children. His father was a research scientist who worked for the Department of Forestry, which meant that David spent much of his childhood travelling around the country. Lynch has since described his upbringing as idyllic. It was a dream world of droning airplanes, blue skies, picket fences, green grass, cherry trees. there were limits in the portrayal of movement on static canvas. Lynch created his first film with Jack Fisk, a one-minute loop called Six FiguresGetting Sick, which was part film and part sculpture.

After seeing Six Figures Getting Sick, wealthy acquaintance H Barton Wasserman approached Lynch to make a similar film for his personal collection. Lynch purchased a camera and spent hours figuring out the intricacies of cinematography. He animated the entire film only to discover, on developing, that there was a camera fault and the whole thing was worthless. His generous benefactor was not unduly distressed, however, and allowed Lynch to use the rest of the money to make The Alphabet, a short film comprising live action as well as animation. Featuring Lynchs wife Peggy as The Girl, the film shows a number of disturbing animated images set to the chanting of the Alphabet Song.

By now, Lynch was becoming extremely interested in film as a medium, but could not afford to pursue his goals. It was only after Bushnell Keeler told him about the newly formed American Film Institute that he submitted a script consisting of ideas and images along with The Alphabet and was awarded a grant. The result was TheGrandmother, a disturbing tale of a boy so cruelly neglected by his parents that he decides to grow his own grandmother. Lynch won himself a place at the American Film Institutes Center for Advanced Film Studies and, with some assistance from the Institute and his close friends, began work on a feature-length picture. His dedication to the project was remarkable; he didnt start shooting until after two years into pre-production. Times were tough and he had to take several jobs to support himself, his wife and new daughter, including delivering the WallStreet Journal and building sheds. But the final result was to be one of the most remarkable debut features ever.

Eraserhead has often been cited as autobiographical. While still at art college, Lynch married his pregnant girlfriend. Yet this interpretation reads too much into the film. Lynchs extreme vision exaggerates and accentuates feelings, situations and emotions, but shouldnt necessarily be taken as a direct reflection of his life. He himself has stated that a Lynch was given complete control over