'David Lynch: The Art Life' is another documentary on David Lynch by one of the directors and the cinemtographer of the earlier production 'Lynch'. 'Lynch' was filmed during the making of the directors last film 'Inland Empire', while in 'The Art of Life' we see Lynch working on various projects in his home studio, many in the company of his toddler daughter.
'The Art of Life' focuses on the first 30 years of Lynch's life, a childhood mostly in Idaho and Virginia, art school in Phildephia, and film school in Los Angeles. The film ends as the director is putting the finishing touches on his first feature film 'Ereaserhead', so the film isn't really about his film work, but about the formative life experiences that would later manifest in it.
David Lynch tells a lot of stories, many of which I was aware of, but it can be the way that he tells them that is most arresting. The Lynch family heavily documented the boys childhood so there is no shortage of photographs and home movies to supplement the remincences, Lynch would carry that impulse to documentation into his own family and work lives.
The contrast between David's loving family and childhood happyness, and the dark edge present throughout his film work is fascinating. That Lynch was thrown into what for him was such an alien and urban environment, while going to film school amidst the violence and industrial decay of 1970's Philadelphia, is indeed central to the visual and tonel style that would come to define his work. ***1/2
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