Terrell Howell (KnightsofNi11) If you didn't think David Lynch was weird enough by watching his movies then might I suggest the biographical documentary Lynch. Lynch chronicles David Lynch as he goes about making his most recent film, Inland Empire and the bizarre creative process he went through to make that film. It is a film that attempts to profile a man whose mind I don't think any of us could ever understand. The way Lynch thinks is in a completely different ball park than the normal human brain, and his films show that. After watching Lynch I'm not sure whether the auteur is a genius or a mad man, but I do know that he is a dedicated director who knows what he wants and damn sure gets what he wants.It is always interesting to see a director in front of the camera in their own natural habitat and surroundings, doing what they do best to produce the things we watch. Lynch plenty satisfies this interest as the focus of the entire film is on nothing else but him. David Lynch is the central figure for the entire documentary and everything is about him, which is only appropriate for a film called Lynch. Throughout the film we get to see and experience what Lynch does and what he is about, but I don't feel like I have any better understanding of the man after watching this documentary.Lynch is a film with no coherence and no structure. It is essentially just a bunch of clips, all focusing on David Lynch, strewn together in a meaningless fashion. Honestly, I feel the same way about the structure of this documentary as I do about some of Lynch's own films. And maybe that is what the filmmakers were shooting for, a documentary that paralleled the structure of the films it was documenting. Regardless, it only left me confused and perplexed.If there's one personality trait I can pull from David Lynch after watching this documentary, it is the fact that he is quite pretentious. I was feeling vibes of self righteousness and extreme self importance from everything that Lynch said in this film and it makes it hard to connect with the man. I respect his passion and ambition, but I get the sense that he feels he can do whatever he wants with film. Of course in a way he can, but it is at the expense of others who are getting yelled at by Lynch or those who are left detached because of how distanced and strange Lynch is.But it is through this that Lynch raises an interesting point of where one separates the artist from the art. I love David Lynch films and I always enjoy his bizarreness and disturbing surrealism, but I don't enjoy David Lynch himself nearly as much. He is a visionary, yes, but too full of himself and too strange to really connect with. He is a man in his own world, but when he brings that world to us through film, it is a pleasant experience.I wouldn't call Lynch fun or entertaining, but it is definitely strange and it provides an odd insight into David Lynch. This insight doesn't necessarily give us a clearer understanding of the man, but it certainly paints a picture as to why his films are the way they are and why they are all so strange. Because David Lynch, himself, is the ultimate incarnation of strange.

david I don't know what it is, but there is something about this film. I saw it just yesterday and I still don't know what to think. on one hand, the story doesn't flow, and I seriously doubt if there is a story at all. if there is, it is very well hidden within the layers of the film, just like in a good Lynch movie. however, don't bother yourselves finding it. I think it's not there...This is basically an elliptical look, shot very nicely on DV, of David Lynch at home and at work. it's not your typical documentary with interviews, history and opinions. rather than that, it's an intimate journey of the filmmaker through some moments he had with Lynch at his house and on the set of INLAND EMPIRE. as such, the movie lacks straightforwardness, which is essential to this kind of documentary. all sorts of different scenes of Lynch talking on the phone, preparing the sets for his film production, painting and telling stories from his life. it would definitely interest any Lynch fan, but as a movie whole this is not satisfactory.The beauty of the film lies within the montage itself, revealing a very real Lynch, not the artist, not the myth, but just the man, the human being who has great ideas for movies and paintings and just loves the "doing". this is a key morale to anyone out there who wants to be an artist. these little moments with Lynch alone really worth the watching. they are funny and sometimes surreal.An interesting point: the film was directed by blackANDwhite, a pseudonym for someone, and was produced by absurda, Lynch's own production company. that makes me wonder whether Lynch is the real person behind this film but didn't want to take the credit? maybe he is responsible for the lack of coherent story, just because nothing really important happened in his life, except for making INLAND EMPIRE? maybe this is all Lynch wants to reveal, until the next documentary? if this is true, all I can say is that Lynch is a great businessman as well, keeping us wanting more footage, more glimpse into his life and way of thinking. plus, look at the credits at the end: the thank you credits reveal some names from Denmark, and especially from zentropa productions. it seems the director was influenced by the danish cinema of the last decade. but, again, i'm not sure this is for the benefit of the film.

Scars_Remain David Lynch, in my opinion, is the greatest living director in the world. This film is not the most well put together movie I've ever seen but it gets an 8 because it is very interesting to see how David Lynch uses his creativity, hear him tell very interesting stories and seeing him work with his crew. It's a movie that all Lynch fans should look into for those reasons alone. There are some interesting abstractions but ultimately, I didn't think they really fit in with the documentary film that this was attempting to be. Don't expect an amazing, well done film but definitely look forward to learning much more of the mysterious and talented David Lynch!

brananedgens It's Lonely Being Lynch.The new documentary "Lynch" reveals so much about the man and his methods without pretending to understand him. I have been very disappointed by many of the reviews of this film – it seems the reviewers were expecting a different movie and were frustrated they were not seeing the film they imagined or hoped to see. V.A. Musetto writes, "Provides little new insight into Inland Empire". Was it supposed to? Variety complained, "like the feature it loosely chronicles, has no immediately discernible through line and a wide variety of video-image densities". Again, this sounds less like criticism and more like complaining. The Village Voice, "Much of this is tedious -- no more or less exciting than surveillance-cam footage of a regional sales manager." Expecting excitement seems to be the failure here. And most obtuse of all is Ken Fox's review, "anyone looking for a general overview of the director will do better looking elsewhere." Again this presumes that "Lynch" should have been a general overview, when it wasn't meant to be. All of these criticisms sound like blaming an elephant for not being a Zebra.The documentary does assume the audience is already familiar with Lynch, his work and specifically, Inland Empire. I think it would be a fantastic companion piece for the DVD release of Inland Empire.I found the film incredibly illuminating and I have been an avid fan of Lynch's for the past 20 years. I have always respected his refusal to explain things and resistance to simple symbolism. So I didn't expect the film to offer any insight into a man who is so famously inscrutable. But the filmmakers did it right – they simply present the viewers with various vignettes of the man at work and in various moods: joyous, contemplative, angry, frustrated, depressed and inspired. But throughout the work something else emerged about the man: It's Lonely Being Lynch. The man is a slave to his creative urges and it makes little room for close personal relationships. The frustration this causes is palpable and it suddenly hit me that THIS is the source of that peculiar haunted anxiety that typifies what we all now call "Lynchian". There is a scene in "Lynch" where he stands in an abandoned factory and yells into the cold cavernous space, "Sally! Do you remember me?" over and over. It's funny at first but the more he yells the more desperate it sounds and finally haunting, "Lynchian". He can fill even a candid moment such as a sound check with so many layers of meaning and emotion he seems more like a conjurer. The filmmakers knew to let the moment go for a long time to let the ghosts emerge. I knew then and there this filmmaker really knew this was the only way to make a portrait of the man.Some people have complained that the film is not chronological enough. It is critical that it isn't. To arrange these vignettes into chronological order would create a sense of narrative and causation – This doc must avoid this kind of editing. To make obvious spatial or causal relations between the vignettes would presume to know more about Lynch than even Lynch seems to know about himself. It's the only kind of approach that could ever work to describe such an inscrutable character.I have studied Lynch for decades and read everything on him I can find. I didn't expect to learn anything from this doc but I did. There are moments of watching him work where his focus is so palpable, his need so urgent that suddenly I had new insights into his work. The insight comes from seeing what gets him excited and getting clues to his motivation. I could even sense my opinions on his films reordering retroactively as I watched this documentary.If you are a fan, do not hesitate to see "Lynch". If you are looking for an "unpacking" of his motives then you are probably not the kind of person who likes him or his films anyway.