Catching the Big Fish by David Lynch Read Free Book Online Page B

designers.

TEXTURE
     
     
     
    I don’t necessarily love rotting bodies, but there’s a texture to a rotting body that is unbelievable. Have you ever seen a little rotted animal? I love looking at those things, just as much as I like to look at a close-up of some tree bark, or a small bug, or a cup of coffee, or a piece of pie. You get in close and the textures are wonderful.

WORKING WITH WOOD
     
     
     
    Wood is one of the greatest materials to work with. There are soft woods and hard woods, and they all have their own beauty when you are working with them. When I saw through a piece of freshly cut pine, the smell of it just sends me right to heaven. The same goes even for pine needles. I used to chew Ponderosa pine pitch, which is the sap that oozes out of the tree and dries on the outside of the bark. If you can get a fresh piece of pitch, it is like syrup. It will stick to you and you won’t be able to get it off your hands. But sometimes it hardens like old honey. And you can chew this, and the flavor of pine pitch will make you crazy, in a good way.
    Pine, being a softer wood, is easier to work with and is readily available. When I was young, I did a lot of things with pine. But then, I started falling in love with Douglas fir, vertical-grain Douglas fir. When you varnish a piece of Douglas fir, it has a depth of beauty that is just phenomenal. And then when you put two pieces of wood together, you start realizing there are so many possibilities. And you learn some tricks along the way.
    And then there’s Günter, a German carpenter, who didn’t use electric tools at all. He would just come up to the house with a set of hand tools in a beautiful wooden box with a handle, which he’d carry around. And Günter—I’d watch this man—did little detail work on Douglas fir. He would put these two pieces of wood together, and then he’d rub his old, battered thumbs against the seam—and the seam would disappear. It was like a magic act, the pieces fit so perfectly. Günter was a real carpenter.

HAVING A SETUP
     
     
     
    Some mornings, in a perfect world, you might wake up, have a coffee, finish meditation, and say,“Okay, today I’m going into the shop to work on a lamp.” This idea comes to you, you can see it, but to accomplish it you need what I call a “setup.” For example, you may need a working shop or a working painting studio. You may need a working music studio. Or a computer room where you can write something. It’s crucial to have a setup, so that, at any given moment, when you get an idea, you have the place and the tools to make it happen.
     
    If you don’t have a setup, there are many times when you get the inspiration, the idea, but you have no tools, no place to put it together. And the idea just sits there and festers. Over time, it will go away. You didn’t fulfill it—and that’s just a heartache.

FIRE
     
     
     
    Sitting in front of a fire is mesmerizing. It’s magical. I feel the same way about electricity. And smoke. And flickering lights.

LIGHT ON FILM
     
     
     
    Often, in a scene, the room and the light together signify a mood. So even if the room isn’t perfect, you can work with the light and get it to feel correct, so that it has the mood that came with the original idea.
    The light can make all the difference in a film, even in a character.
     
    I love seeing people come out of darkness.

THE STRAIGHT STORY
     
     
     
    I didn’t write The Straight Story. It was something of a departure for me, because it’s completely linear. But then, I fell in love with the emotion of the script. So you can fall in love with something that already exists, too, and it’s similar to falling in love with an idea. You get that feeling of what it could be on film, and that guides you.

HEROES OF FILM
     
     
     
    I am a huge admirer of Billy Wilder. There are two films of his that I most love because they create such a world of their own: Sunset Boulevard and The Apartment .
    And