A road trip

May 16, 2009 6:29 AM

The David Lynch Interview Project. A 121-part documentary series featuring 3-5 minute portraits of ordinary (and sometimes extraordinary) Americans from all over the country starts on June 1. Here's a Preview.
posted by fearfulsymmetry (14 comments total)

Awesome. This reminds somewhat of a very long version of Errol Morris' Vernon, Florida, which is one of the few truly amazing/fantastic films I've seen. I'm very looking forward to seeing all 121 parts of this doc. Thanks!
posted by billysumday at 6:53 AM on May 16, 2009

This was great. The preview interview with Mr. Freebourn was surprisingly uplifting.

The Interview Project seems to be going for the same feel as Lynch's Straight Story. This is a good thing, in my humble opinion. Say what you like about his movies and his beliefs, but David Lynch does geniunely seem to love people in all shapes and sizes. Or at least strong characters.
posted by slimepuppy at 6:59 AM on May 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

I wanna be interviewed by David Lynch!
posted by ZenMasterThis at 8:01 AM on May 16, 2009

This is going to be just wonderful. Indeed reminiscent of Vernon, Florida, a truly great film featuring some of the wackiest real people you'll ever see on camera. Morris' series First Person has half-hour interviews of people that are also fasinating.

I've been steadily going through the entire storycorps library, and loving it, and this is exactly what I need.
posted by ORthey at 8:03 AM on May 16, 2009

Excellent stuff.
posted by Bookhouse at 8:37 AM on May 16, 2009

I'm fascinated by this current trend of recording people telling their own stories. Like ORthey, storycorps was the first thing I thought of upon reading the description. It's something that I've been mining in my own work as well. I wonder if our incessant march forward (all hail the alter of progress!) hasn't instilled a deep fear that we're going to lose our connection to our past, prompting us to record as much of that past as we possibly can.

Whatever the reason, though - keep it coming.
posted by TheRoach at 11:19 AM on May 16, 2009

Awesome, really looking forward to this.
posted by dhammond at 11:56 AM on May 16, 2009

Almost as good as Crispin Glover & David Lynch: Friends 'Til The End.
posted by signalnine at 1:18 PM on May 16, 2009 [1 favorite]

He's asking people questions? That's odd. I asked him a question and he didn't answer.
posted by jfrancis at 1:14 AM on May 17, 2009

And at the end, we are all attacked by tiny dancing grandparents.
posted by cerulgalactus at 2:33 AM on May 18, 2009

T.J.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 12:14 PM on May 29, 2009

The site has officially launched now with an interview of Jess.
posted by slimepuppy at 1:49 AM on June 1, 2009

Yeah, I was thinking about posting this today, but now I see it's already been posted. I'm looking forward to this series.
posted by defenestration at 6:40 PM on June 1, 2009

Ok can we snark about it now? I'm pretty fuckin' underwhelmed. From the looks of Jess we're looking at something that Lynch is not directly involved in, only producing, so yeah, he can call the edits, but the actual footage is just rather... well it's what I'd expect a few film students to come up with -- trying too hard to evoke images or meaning out of shots that are just poorly composed. Although the presumed editorial choice of Lynch not to actually show Jess talking and only treat him in voiceover felt kind of artsy it also felt like a cheap way of cherry picking the good bits to use.

I mean, the most interesting part of the 3 minute clip was the 8 seconds of Lynch introducing it. At least we got a cool desk shot.
posted by cavalier at 11:09 AM on June 2, 2009