Matthew Kalil on David Lynch – Episode 1
Welcome to Talking Movies. I’m Spling. We begin episode one of our conversation with ‘Three Wells of Screenwriting’ author and David Lynch Film School’s Matthew Kalil, a tribute to the late filmmaker David Lynch.
Matthew, it’s just such a pleasure to be speaking to you about someone that we both admire. His name is David Lynch, an artist turned filmmaker, a true artist who has crossed over. He’s now moved to the next room, as you said.
Yeah, it’s a recent event that’s got strange ramifications, surprisingly for me personally, and also I think for the world of filmmaking and also just generally the world in terms of creativity and art and all manner of things.
You are someone who has been a fan since a very young age of David Lynch, but that led you to the Maharashi University where you now teach screenwriting at the David Lynch Film School, so I mean I don’t think we could get a more direct hit in terms of finding someone who can speak about David and his work, but also about his life.
I’ve been very blessed in that I, you know, I loved David Lynch’s films from quite a young age, probably like 13 was my first Lynch film that I saw in a cinema, and it really affected me without me necessarily knowing who he was or anything.
My dad took me to see this film, Dune, and I had no idea what it was. I just enjoyed it, enjoyed a lot of it. Had little Dune action figures and used to play around as a kid, a 13-year-old, pretending that I was Paul Atreides, and then when I got to university, I studied more of his films and started to see more of his films.
Twin Peaks was obviously very important. He’s been a huge part of my life, and I don’t even know it… I haven’t really known it until this moment.
Now that he’s passed on, I’m realising he’s really infected every sort of the DNA of my body as a filmmaker, a creative, and a human.
Yeah, I think he’s had that effect on many filmmakers. He’s the kind of director that would get people into filmmaking to begin with. So inspirational, so influential, and I think because he’s very much made it about his own path, and I don’t mean that in a self-indulgent way, even though you could say that he has been extremely self-indulgent, because he isn’t really making films for someone specifically other than himself, and all of his films have got that dreamlike quality. It’s like he’s decided to take what was in his mind and put it on the screen for everyone to enjoy, and it’s kind of a generous act if you think about it.
Yeah, it’s quite intimate, and I think that’s the thing that David does, is he communicates with his viewers in a very intimate level, which is when you meet Lynch fans, they are like deep Lynch fans.
You know, it’s not like… you get some filmmakers who like, you know, maybe Spielberg, people like his movies, but there’s this intimate connection that David does, because I think he expresses himself from a place of such almost innocence, and then it resonates with the audience, and you could hate his movies, but at least it’s a response.
It’s kind of a visceral response that one has to his work, and I think that connects him to people in a very different way. You know, in a way, when I finally did meet him on a Zoom call, I was like “wow, he’s like the Dalai Lama of filmmaking”. He’s just transcendent in some strange way, and his work, I think, often does that, that transcends. He’s all about just unleashing that creativity within.
Lynch is a creative genius. I watched the documentary about his life, and he has led the artist’s life. I’m very envious of it. He’s been able to do what he loves, which is create.
Yeah, absolutely. He is, you know, he was an artist first and foremost, as in a painter, and he, when he was younger, he kind of read this book called The Art Life, and he lived to that life. In a way, he was quite a simple man, actually.
He just very simply wanted to create and do his art and be in a studio and make paintings or, you know, be a carpenter and make chairs and furniture and draw comic books, and, you know, he did all these things. I think he was definitely a true artist and uncompromising. He actually compromised on that very film Dune that I was talking about, where he gave up final cut to the producers of the movie, and so the movie you see, David Lynch’s Dune, is actually not David Lynch’s Dune.
It’s Dino de Laurentiis, or the producer’s film, and every time we would meet with him, he would just say, “insist on final cut, always”. That was his big thing, and that was a big lesson for him, and I think he, it’s difficult to do that as a creative person, but he had enough people that were interested in seeing his work that he would have that power, and if he didn’t have that power, he wouldn’t make the movie. He actually had many films that he never made.
I can think of at least two unmade David Lynch projects, and you’d think he would have the power, you know, it’s David Lynch, he just wants to make this thing, but it’s not quite like that. I think because he was so uncompromising, he would sometimes have to sacrifice certain projects, and they just weren’t ready to be made, and sadly now will never be made.
It’s such an interesting thing, because obviously Dune has now been remade, some would say very successfully so, with the sequel sort of racking up best movie of the year on many lists. I also find it really interesting with David, because I don’t know if we are going to get to the point where we are going to have directors who are as thoroughly auteurs as David was, because as brilliant as Denis Villeneuve is, there is still a commercial aspect that has to be attended to, very much like Lynch’s sacrifices with Dune.
Thanks for listening. This episode was recorded at Best Case Scenario Media in Muizenberg.
For more movie reviews, podcasts and interviews, visit splingmovies.com and remember, don’t wing it, SPL!NG it.
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