Here’s a bit of news that slipped through the net. In their own rights, directors Werner Herzog and David Lynch are known as eccentric mavericks, and have made some of the most intriguing, if not inspiring films in the last few decades, from Blue Velvet and Fitzcarraldo to Mulholland Drive and Grizzly Man. So it’s a delight to know that Herzog and Lynch are working together on a film.
The movie, entitled My Son, My Son, was scripted by Herzog and his assistant director, and is based on a true story in which a young man acts out a play by ancient Greek playwright Sophocles in his mind, which eventually culminates in the murder of his mother. It’s an odd premise, and probably only a fragment of the actual core meaning of the film. While this EW article only mentions that Lynch is to act as executive producer, this article, from a later date, states that the two are to co-direct. It would be strange to see two visionary artists work together to direct something, as disagreements would be inevitable, but it’s an exciting prospect. In the meantime, Herzog is working on a re-imagining of Bad Lieutenant, due out next year.
In other Lynch-related news, an official David Lynch box set, known as the Lime Green set, is due out in the US on November 18th. While containing films The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet, Eraserhead (as well as Industrial Symphony and the Dumbland flash series), the big draw is almost 2 hours of deleted scenes from the ultraviolent Wild at Heart, never available before.
David Lynch is one of the best filmmakers around. Like him or not, he is one of the last living directors to have a distinct, recognisable style, from Eraserhead to Twin Peaks, and even to his new phase of filmmaking, using DV cameras to make arthouse flicks such as INLAND EMPIRE.
So it’s always great news to hear an announcement of his next project. Hollywood Today reported that Lynch is already at work on a film entitled Catching the Big Fish. Fans of the man will recognise that title as the name of his book on creativity. The film is actually a sort of documentary, as Lynch travels the world, talking to regular and irregular people about life and, presumably, creativity. The article mentions that Lynch’s journey is also an attempt for him to catch his next big fish, his next idea for a feature film.
Lynch is heavily involved in promoting Transcendental Meditation, and he claims to owe all of his creative ideas of meditation. Indeed, from reading his book, and from attempting to write myself, it does make sense that creativity is blocked by everyday pressures, and meditation can be a way to ignore such obstacles. And hopefully this film will provide even more insight to such a distinct imagination.
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Just when you thought cheap horrors were dying away….
Jennifer Lynch’s latest film Surveillance will be screened during the Cannes Film Festival. I’m not exactly sure why, having seen the trailer above.
The film tells the tale of an FBI agent on the trail of a murderer. He watches interviews conducted with three witnesses of a certain incident: a junkie, a cop, and a little girl. The only problem is that their stories seem to vary wildly. Dealing with police brutality and serial killers, the film in principle seems like a cross between The Hitcher and Rashomon. The trailer attempts to throw in some pseudo-intellectualism with the tagline “Truth is illusion”, but it doesn’t really stick. The film really looks like another run-of-the-mill Saw-wannabe with a dash of CSI thrown in for the mix.
It pains me to say it, but I suspect nepotism has a factor in the making of this movie. For Jennifer Lynch is the daughter of David Lynch, the director of great dream-like mysteries such as Mulholland Drive and Twin Peaks. Jennifer’s last film was Boxing Helena, which was unanimously slated by critics at the time, and boasts a miserable 3.8 score on IMDB. This film doesn’t look much better, an off-aim idea that probably won’t sustain its 100 minutes, and was funded by Daddy’s reputation (indeed, the trailer tries to sell itself with the blatent message “Executive Producer: David Lynch”). Although Jennifer is flesh and blood, it seems as if talent isn’t hereditary.