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Full story)
By Lionel Laurent
PARIS |
Tue Dec 11, 2012 1:05pm EST
(Reuters)
- Behind the doors of a 19th-century printworks in south-central Paris,
filmmaker and painter-by-training David Lynch takes a cigarette break
after hours of etching abstract shapes and twisted limbs onto stone and
wood.
Although best known for dark,
surreal movies such as "Eraserhead", "Blue Velvet" and "Mulholland
Drive", Lynch was an artist before he began filmmaking and since 2007
has been using the Idem workshop as his studio in Paris, creating some
170 lithographs and engravings.
As
three workshop staff clamber onto one of the six giant mechanical
presses to print up a fresh design, Lynch - dressed in a blue apron and
sporting his trademark white, bouffant hairdo - explains that there is
something uniquely inspiring about the Parisian printworks.
"This is totally Parisian. In people's dream of Paris, this place would fit in that dream perfectly," the 66-year-old tells
Reuters,
speaking above the noise of the whirling cogs and hand-operated cranks
that he says remind him of the twisted, industrial world of his debut
feature film "Eraserhead".
"Everybody that comes to this place, they feel it...I can feel the past. I can feel the whole art of life going on here."
Artists
such as Picasso, Matisse, Chagall and Miro all had their prints
produced at the site, a two-floor workshop built in 1880 that is still
in use today by artists including Lynch. Encircled by piles of
engraving-stones and the odd stuffed toy panther, the presses can also
print from digital files.
Lynch's
prints - which he says he etches from scratch after "catching" an idea
in his mind - vary from Keith Haring-esque red-and-white squiggles and
doodles to ghostly Edvard Munch-like humans stranded in desolate
landscapes, with titles like "Things In Air Over City" or "Oh, A Bad
Dream Comes".
They seem to combine
the black-and-white, nightmarish imagery of "Eraserhead" and "The
Elephant Man" with the abstract, surreal narratives of Lynch's last two
movies, 2001's "Mulholland Drive" and 2006's "Inland Empire".
Lynch
has explored other media over the past decade, creating a series of
animated shorts posted online called "Dumbland", directing a Duran Duran
concert streamed on
YouTube and even recording his own solo album called "Crazy Clown Time".
He
has even adapted his trademark palette of dark tones and surreal shapes
to French tastes, designing a limited edition of Dom Perignon champagne
bottles as well as an underground nightclub in the center of Paris
called "Silencio".
Despite his obvious enthusiasm for trying out new things, Lynch's affection for Paris comes from its protection of tradition.
"I
like the way the French people live. They protect the arts more than
any other country," he says. "Here, almost every avenue of life is like
an art form."
In a seemingly
upside-down world where governments and bankers are suffering from the
financial crisis but where big-name artists are fetching higher prices
than ever before, Lynch says that he can still separate the urge to make
money from the urge to make art.
"It's like Hollywood versus the art way," he says. "I love
money for getting things to work and to live. But it's not the reason in my mind to make a film or to make anything."
Asked
what his next move is going to be, Lynch says he will continue to work
on music and art but adds that there is a movie idea also in the
pipeline.
"Music and painting and
maybe cinema, but we'll have to wait and see," he says. "Maybe it's
going to happen but you need to be deeply in love and, you know...I'm
falling in love."
