Fresh Air - Remembering David Lynch

Episode Date: January 24, 2025

Filmmaker and painter David Lynch died January 15 at age 78. He spoke with Terry Gross in 1994 about making his surrealist first movie, Eraserhead, leaving things up for interpretation, and where he finds inspiration. Also, we'll hear from Isabella Rossellini who starred in Lynch's Blue Velvet as a nightclub singer, and Nicolas Cage, who worked with him in Wild At Heart. And our TV critic David Bianculli shares an appreciation. Also, Justin Chang reviews the new film supernatural thriller Presence.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This is Fresh Air. David Lynch, the artist and filmmaker who broke boundaries with such unsettling films as Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive Drive died last week at the age of 78. Today we'll listen back to our archive conversation with David Lynch as well as old interviews with some actors who worked with him. But first I'd like to start with a tribute to the writer and director whose vision was largely responsible for one of the most influential and singular series in television history, Twin Peaks. David Lynch's career began with the 1977 cult hit Eraserhead, which so impressed Mel

Brooks that he hired Lynch to direct the ultra-serious, very moody movie, The Elephant Man. Brooks kept his own name off the credits as producer for fear that audiences might expect a comedy. But The Elephant Man, as a drama, was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including one for Lynch as best director. He didn't win, but soon went on to make two visually remarkable movies starring a young actor named Kyle McLaughlin, the science fiction epic Dune, and his moody, otherworldly Blue Velvet.

McLaughlin also starred in Twin Peaks, the 1990 ABC series co-created by Lynch and Mark Frost. And McLaughlin starred as well in that show's unexpected, incomprehensible sequel, presented by Showtime in 2017. For the big screen, after Blue Velvet, Lynch kept making movies that seemed to be pulled directly from his subconscious. Wild at Heart, Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire, and of course, Twin Peaks, Fire Walk with Me. In addition to making films and TV shows, David Lynch loved music and photography and art and old movies and classic television. He pursued his many passions all his life, from composing and recording albums of music and practicing transcendental meditation to woodworking and making and posting eccentric short videos on YouTube. For two years, he made daily one-minute videos called Today's Number Is,

appearing on camera to reach his hand into a big glass jar of numbered ping-pong balls. The dialogue was the same every day, but the settings varied, as did the results. Here we go for today's number. It's December 16, 2022. Ten balls. Each ball has a number. Numbers one through ten. Swirl the numbers. Pick a number.

Today's number is one. Whenever Lynch made art, he made plenty of room for accidents. In 2023, he invited into his studio the veteran folk singer Donovan. He asked him to sit on a stool with his guitar and begin improvising and singing just to see what happened. What happened, with Lynch filming in black and white, was a music video released under the title, I Am the Shaman. I am Shaman. I am.

I am Shaman. I am. I am Shaman. David Lynch also spent some time in front of the camera, rarely but always entertainingly. On both incarnations of Twin Peaks, he played a hard-of-hearing, fairly goofy assistant FBI director named Gordon Cole. In the original, visiting the local diner and served by Shelley the waitress, played by Maech and Amick, Gordon was as strange as anyone else in Twin Peaks, which is saying something. The name is Gordon Cole and I couldn't help but notice you from the booth and well, seeing your beauty now, I feel as though my stomach is filled with a team of bumblebees.

You don't have to shout, I can hear you. And in one of David Lynch's final on-camera roles, in Steven Spielberg's 2022 film, The Fablemen's, Lynch played another larger-than-life movie director, the great John Ford. In the movie's final scene, based on a real encounter during Spielberg's first visit to Hollywood, the young wannabe filmmaker, played by Gabriel LeBel, is ushered into the office of John Ford for a very brief conversation.

Lynch, as Ford, gives his young visitor an instant, impatient, profanity-laced lesson in visual artistry. They tell me you want to be a picture maker. Um, yes sir, I do. Why? This business, it'll rip you apart. Well, Mr. Ford, I... Why? This business, it'll rip you apart.

Well... Mr. Ford, I... So what do you know about art, kid? I love your movies so much. No. Art. See that painting over there? Uh, yeah. I mean, yes. Yes, I do see it. Walk over to it. Well, what's in it?

Describe it. Oh, okay. So there are two guys, and they're on horseback, and they're looking for something, so maybe they're scouting. No. No. Where's the horizon? There's a horizon.

There's a horizon. There's a horizon. There's a horizon. There's a horizon. There's a horizon. There's a horizon. There's a horizon. There's a horizon. There's a horizon. guys and they're on the horseback and they're looking for something so maybe there's... No! No! Where's the horizon? The horizon? Where is it?

It's at the bottom. That's right. Walk over to this painting. Well? Right, okay, so there are five cowboys, you know, they could be Indian... No, no, no, no, no! Where's the ****ing damn horizon? Um, it's there. Where? At the top of the painting. All right, get over here.

Now remember this. When the horizon's at the bottom, it's interesting. When the horizon's at the top, it's interesting. When the horizon's in the middle, it's boring as s***. Now, good luck to you. And get the f*** out of my office. David Lynch was fabulous as John Ford, but nothing was as fabulous as his small-screen masterpiece Twin Peaks.

Sure, the original series ended by running out of breath, and the revival series was even more challenging, surreal, and flat-out strange. But especially in the episodes directed by Lynch himself, Twin Peaks was and still is unique and unsurpassed. In the original, McLaughlin played FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper, who came to a remote logging town in the Pacific Northwest to investigate the murder of a high school prom queen named Laura Palmer. Her body had been discovered by Pete Martell, a Twin Peaks resident played by Jack Nance, the star of David Lynch's first film, Eraserhead. Pete called the local sheriff, Harry S. Truman, to report the unsettling news.

Phone rings Morning Pete, Harry. She's dead. Wrapped in plastic. The murder of Laura Palmer obsessed the nation that spring and summer, even though it got very weird very quickly. A few episodes in, Dale Cooper had a dream in which an older version of himself was introduced to a woman who looked like Laura Palmer

in a velvet-lined red room presided over by a strange little man who seemed to talk sort of backwards. And walk and dance sort of backwards, too. But the next morning, when Kyle McLaughlin's Dale Cooper met the local sheriff and his assistant for breakfast at the diner, he was as excited about the dream as he was about the food. Perry, Lucy, it is an absolutely beautiful morning. Short stack of griddle cakes, melted butter, melted butter,

maple syrup, lightly heated slice of ham. Nothing beats the taste sensation when maple syrup collides with ham. Griddle cake, slice of ham. Who killed Laura Palmer? Harry, let me tell you about the dream I had last night. Everything in Twin Peaks worked on multiple levels. The murder mystery, the supernatural elements, the broad comedy, the playful performances.

And the sound and music and the images were as crucial as the dialogue. Angelo Battilamenti's music was a character of its own. And all those elements and actors and writers and other directors combine to make Twin Peaks a standout, a freakout, and a legend. As it turns out, the spirit of Twin Peaks, a series often described as lynchian, has been David Lynch. And now, let's hear Terry's 1994 interview with David Lynch. Later, we feature interviews with people associated with Lynch's films. When he spoke with Terry, he had a book of photographs called Images, which included stills from his films as well as other photographs that cataloged his visual obsessions. One chapter was called Organic Phenomena. It

included a photo he took in a basement hospital of a cabinet with drawers marked Amputated Foot, Gangrene, Kidney, and Larynx Carcinoma. There's also a photograph from his early cult film Eraserhead of a decapitated hit. Well, I want to connect this organic phenomena section of your book Images to the first movie that was actually theatrically released, Eraserhead, which really is one of the most unappetizing movies ever made, I think. The story is a... I don't know. What's that?

I don't know about that. The story is about Henry who gets his girlfriend pregnant and their baby is this kind of braying creature And I just want to play the scene Where his girlfriend's mother corners Henry to see if he's the father and if he if he's been having sex with the daughter Henry I asked you if you and Mary had sexual intercourse Well, I don't think that's any of your business. Henry! I'm sorry. You're in very bad trouble if you won't cooperate. Mary? Mother! Answer me! I'm too nervous. There's a baby.

It's at the hospital. Mom! And you're the father. That's impossible. It's only... I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.

I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.

I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm too nervous. There's a baby. It's at the hospital. Mom! And you're the father. That's impossible. It's only been... But they're still not sure it is a baby.

It's premature, but there's a baby. I think you were already a father when you made this movie. Was fatherhood disturbing to you? Yes, it was. What was disturbing about it? Well, I was studying to be a painter and very keen on living the art life. And in the art life, the way I saw it then, you know, it didn't have room for, you know, a family life. I'm wondering if the idea of a crying infant was almost incomprehensible to you, if you

felt so far away from understanding an infant, if it seemed like a creature or an animal to you. Well, Eraserhead's about, you know, a couple of different things. And one of the things it's about is a family, but it could also be about other things. So I really love abstractions and things that maybe could be interpreted in different ways. So I don't really like to talk about the meaning so much. It's open for interpretation. It sure is, and everybody interprets it differently.

I mean, I've personally heard so many different interpretations of Erased Head. I can understand you wanting to leave it that way. Now, I think when you make a film a film inside you I don't always know what I'm what I'm doing and it's a process you know from when you start to when you finish it's becoming something and you have to always be questioning yourself and finding if it feels right and it has on some level it has to feel correct and honest to the person making the film but as soon as it's over and

people see it it's it's like I say when it's a little bit abstract everybody has their own interpretation that's the way it should be. Now people are making films that are so one thing that most people have the same interpretation and it's not very exciting to me. It sounds like you must work pretty intuitively. That's the whole thing. Well this whole sense of the body and what's normal and what's abnormal and what's ugly and what's beautiful, I mean, that's not only part of a racer head, but

it's also in a very different way in the film Elephant Man, which you directed, which is a beautiful film about the man who had tumors all over his body during Victorian, in Victorian England and was saved from a freak show by a doctor who was interested in studying his body. Was this a subject you were already interested in and when the movie was proposed to you did it seem like a perfect fit to you? Yes, I heard the name The Elephant Man and a physical pop went off in my brain and I knew I had to make that film and luckily I was able to do it. Now you know in the Broadway version because it was originally a Broadway show, No, you know, in the Broadway version, because it was originally a Broadway show, the show prided itself on not showing any of the actual tumors on the elephant man.

It was all done through kind of posture and suggestion. Your film is the opposite. I mean, it quite graphically shows terrible tumors growing from this person's face. Was that important to you to actually picture it? I mean, at the beginning of the film, he has a shroud over his head, and then that shroud is lifted. Mm-hmm. That's very important. The whole idea was that you could have someone that was so horrible on the outside, yet his spirit was so, so beautiful. And the more you get to know him, the more the outside disappears, the more the spirit

and the shines through. And if you don't start from the reality there's really nowhere to go and this person was revealed you know in many ways throughout the film and and no matter what he looked like people fell in love with him and that's the the story there are other people that look fantastic and once you get to know them, what's shining forth from inside is not so pleasing. Eraserhead was your first theatrical release movie and it became a midnight movie classic.

Did you know anything about how to market a film? Did you know how to represent yourself to the film industry? No, I knew nothing about, when I started making films I knew nothing about films. And after Eraserhead was finished, after five years of working on it, I didn't know if anything would ever happen to the film but Ben Barinholtz who they call the grandfather of Midnight Films he got Eraserhead for this his company Libra Films and he told me he said David we're not going to spend one nickel on this picture. We're just going to open it in the theater and let it sit there. And this is a word of mouth picture. And he said, if we hold on long enough, you know, one day the theater will be full. And that's exactly what happened. And those were the times when there were many theaters that had midnight shows.

And it was beautiful because these were films that in today's world would come and go when something's allowed to only work or fail in one week's time. And so you'd see on the marquee eraser head year after year, and eventually you'd want to go see it. What was that point like for you when the eraser heads started to catch on and you started to get offers to do other movies? I didn't get any offers. I was brought into a couple of meetings at studios,

and they were just disastrous. Nobody wanted me to work just from Eraserhead, except Mel Brooks for The Elephant Man. You know, it's always surprising to me that Mel Brooks, who we think of for his comedies, was so interested in having you direct The Elephant Man. Yeah. interested in having you direct the elephant man. It's almost hard for me to imagine him relating to that pretty avant-garde eeriness and alienation in Eraserhead. Yeah, I was sweating bullets when Mel was in the screening room looking at Eraserhead.

He went in just to scout you? No he Jonathan Sanger who was a producer produced the Elephant Man told me that everybody the writers were on he was on you know the thing was going but Mel wanted to see Eraserhead before he would let me direct the picture and everything you know rode or fell on on That screening so I said Jonathan. There's no way Mel's gonna. You know like this Go for Eraserhead and Jonathan said well. Let's just wait and see so It's a true story after the screening, Mel literally ran out of the

theater and embraced me and said, you're a madman. I love you. But Mel is an extremely complex, interesting fellow. David Lynch speaking with Terry Gross in 1994. He died last week at the age of 78. Coming up, more of Terry's interview with him, and we also hear from Isabella Rossellini, who starred in his film Blue Velvet, and from Nicolas Cage, who co-starred opposite Laura Dern in Lynch's Wild at Heart.

I'm David Bianculli, and this is Fresh Air. Blueer than velvet was the night. Softer than Saturn was the night from the stars. We're remembering the influential filmmaker David Lynch who died last week at the age of 78. His first film, Eraserhead, became a cult classic. He also directed the film version of The Elephant Man and the films Dune, Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, Mulholland Drive, and the TV series Twin Peaks. Terry spoke with him in 1994. Now I want to talk to you about urban

landscapes which is another theme that runs through your new book images and through several of your films. In Razorhead for instance there's always something dripping or rumbling in the background. I mean the whole film is set against this grimy, abandoned urban decay. There seems to be two types of places that interest you most. One is the small overtly cheerful all-American town like Lumberton in Blue Velvet or like Twin Peaks. And the other is the decaying, abandoned industrial landscape like in Eraserhead. But even in Blue Velvet, the evil happens in the more urban part of town.

You've actually lived in both locations, haven't you? Right. You know, where you are now, Philadelphia is... I always say that Eraserhead is, you know, my Philadelphia story. And when you... I came from smaller places in the Northwest. I grew up there, I didn't move to the East Coast till I was 15. And when you come from someplace like that and see a place like Philadelphia or Brooklyn,

New York, it has an impact and it completely fascinated me. And I used to go around in Philadelphia and feel this strangeness and it was so powerful and fantastic. It really did something to me. Your interest in industrial settings, you know, urban decay. I mean, it's so apparent in a couple of your movies, Eraserhead, but also in Elephant Man. Elephant Man is set in the early days of industrialization in England when there's just like soot and grime all over the city. Right. And could you talk a little bit about

what What kind of effect you wanted the city to have in Elephant Man? What kind of visceral effect you wanted to have on the viewers? Well, it was on the viewers? Well it was because it was the Industrial Revolution going on at that time and because the elephant man you know looked the way he looked he was almost a like a product of that and and I and since I'm fascinated with smoke and fire and industry and that Mount St. Helena's eruption when you see close-ups of the eruption, the smoke, the curls of the smoke or like the curls of the smoke in an atomic bomb look very much like the growths on the Elephant Man's body. There's something,

there's some connection of the way a growth grows. It's just a slow motion version of an explosion sort of. These textures and the sounds and all these things seemed right for that world that the Elephant Man came from. No, I have to ask you a couple of questions about Blue Velvet. Was there something in particular that inspired the story? Not really. Two or three ideas were a neighborhood, kind of a green lawns with shadows like lit at night from a light bulb and red lips and the color blue. The song Blue Velvet, Bobby Vinton's version, influenced it a lot.

I've always wondered how you managed to take a Bobby Vinton record and turn it into a song about sexual fetishism. Well it's all in the lyrics there. You think? Yeah, I guess. Did you hear it that way when you were young? No. You know, sometimes the timing has to be correct.

You hear something for years and nothing happens and then one day you hear it connected with some other thought that may be happening and something magical happens. I just have one other body kind of question for you. Okay. And this is about the ear in Blue Velvet, in your film Blue Velvet. The plot is set in motion when Kyle McLaughlin discovers a decapitated ear in the grass. What makes this especially disturbing is not only the ants crawling through the ear, but

also that some of the hair is still attached to the ear. Could you talk at all about how that image came to you? Well, um, I don't know exactly how it came, but it, um, Jeffrey, uh, the ear is, is like a canal. It's like a, an opening, a little egress into another, another place. And it seemed like a, finally seemed like a perfect, it's like a ticket to another world that he finds. And I mean, if he hadn't found it, you know, he would have kept on going home and that he needed to discover and work through.

Well, I want to thank you so much for talking with us about your work. Well, thank you for talking to me. David Lynch recorded in 1994. In his 1986 film Blue Velvet, Isabella Rossellini played a nightclub singer who was in a very abusive relationship with Frank, a frightening character played by Dennis Hopper. Rossellini is the daughter of movie star Ingrid Bergman and Italian director Roberto Rossellini. Terry Gross spoke to her in 1994. Please note, their conversation includes a discussion of rape and physical abuse as

depicted in the film. I want to ask you about Blue Velvet. You were so wonderful in that film. You played a nightclub singer who is exotic and mesmerizing but is in a weird and abusive relationship with a psycho played by Dennis Hopper. Yes. How did you get the part and what interested you in this part? To me it was the only time that I could portray a battered woman and a Stockholm syndrome where it's very hard for a victim to recognize that they are victim. Generally a victim feels guilty and does anything to please the person who's torturing them. It's an absolute strange twist that our mind gives us.

It is a recognized syndrome on kidnapped people or raped victims. I thought it was quite interesting to play that part. And that's what appealed me for the role. It was a wonderful way to portray sexuality and the darkness of it. And I played a femme fatale that was, it was femme fatale just because she was kind of beautiful and she was singing and she had the features of somebody beautiful, but yet she was completely destroyed inside. And it was a pretty good role, you know.

Most of the time, the femme fatales are portrayed as women who know exactly what they want and completely, and sex is portrayed as something that you don't, that you go out there and choose for yourself. Well, we know that the reality is often we, you know, we just have to, it just happens to us and then we don't know what to do with it, what to make of it. Danielle Pletka I'd like to play an excerpt of a scene that you had with a young man played by Kyle McLaughlin. And in this scene, you know, he's trying to solve the mystery of who you are and who Frank, the Dennis Hopper character is.

In this scene, you're being very seductive. You're trying to seduce him. Do you like the way I feel? Yes. Feel me. Hit me. Dorothy, no! Stop it! Hit me! Hit me! Hit me!

Isabella Rossellini, did you understand why this character asks to be hit? Yes, I do, because I once was beaten. And I remembered when I played that part, and I had to say that line, beat me, beat me. I said, why would this woman want to be beaten? And then I remember that the time that it happened to me that I was beaten, the first blow to my head, and you just see little stars, exactly like Donald Duck. And there was a sense of bewilderment, and you don't know where you are. But I wasn't panicked.

I wasn't anything. I just was bewildered, a strange feeling. And I thought that this woman, who had so many torments in her mind Became the victim of the abuse that she Because they she was raped and beaten by the character of Dennis Hopper so that when she Did get the first blow the first punch She would see this star and her tormented thoughts could stop. And that's why she asked to be beaten. What an interesting way of looking at it. Who beat you?

I don't want to give the details of all that. I don't want to start being like, oh, fool me, fool me. It happened, but I'm fine now. Fine. Okay. Okay. There's a scene in the movie where you're wandering around the street naked. Tell me about that scene and what you wanted

your body to look at. It's not a vanity scene. Léa Léa No, not at all. I mean, not at all. David Lynch told me that when he was a child coming back from school, he saw a naked woman walking in the street. And instead of getting aroused or excited at that sight, he started to cry. He terrified him. And he wanted to convey the same terror. He wanted Dorothy to walk in the street of Wilmington, where we shot the film, naked, and convey the same sense of terror instead

of the sense of sex appeal. And when he was talking to me, there was a photo of Nick Ott that I remembered. And it was a photo of a young girl in Vietnam. She has been a victim of Nepal attack and her clothes have been completely torn off the body and she has skin hanging. And she's completely naked and she walks in the streets with the arms outstretched in such a helpless gesture. And I couldn't think of anything else that is absolute helpless gesture and walking like

that. If I would have walked covering my breast or covering myself, it meant that Dorothy still had some sense of pride, still had something in her to protect her. That woman had to have lost everything, and so she had to walk completely exposed, just saying, help me. And that photo is the photo, I took the gesture from that photo and used it. And I hope that I conveyed the same sense of despair. I wanted to be like raw meat. My nudity was like raw meat, like a butcher, like walking in a butcher and see a cow hanging, a quarter of a cow hanging. That was the thing that I wanted

to convey. It seems to me you really have a very analytical approach to acting. No, really, I mean that you really have a very analytical approach to acting. No, really, I mean that you really kind of think it through on many levels. Well, I do, you know, I don't know. I can't tell, but this is the way I do it. I don't know if it is more or less analytical than others. Isabella Rossellini spoke to Terry Gross in 1994. Coming up, we hear from Nicolas Cage, who starred opposite Laura Dern in David Lynch's film Wild at Heart.

This is fresh air. In the 1990 David Lynch film Wild at Heart, Nicolas Cage plays Sailor, an ex-con obsessively in love with Lula, a free spirit played by Laura Dern. They travel through the South to get away from her crazy mother, who's forbidden their relationship. Terry Gross spoke with Nicolas Cage in 1990, when Wild at Heart was released. This is not the first time you've played an ex-con. Did that have anything to do with David Lynch wanting you for the movie? Oh, I don't know.

I know that he likes Raising Arizona and he likes the Cone Brothers. I don't know if that had anything to do with it though. I ran into David a couple of times once I ran into him at Thrifty Drug and Discount Store and I was looking for some cold medication for my girlfriend at the time and he said hello and then I ran into him at an old restaurant here in Hollywood called Musso and Frank's Bar and Grill. And he said, Nick. And I turned around and there was David Lynch and I thought he was Jimmy Stewart. And he looks a hell of a lot like Jimmy Stewart. And after that, you know, I heard about the book Wild at Heart and that he wanted me to read it. and we talked about possibly making it into a movie and it all came together. Lynch's movies like Blue Velvet for instance have a real dream

quality to them they're not exactly realistic. I assume there's that kind of dream quality in Wild at Heart and if so what kind of opportunity does that give you as an actor to do things that are beyond realism? Well, you know, I think that the dream state is a wonderful playground and it gives an actor license to do just about anything, which is a hell of a lot of fun for me because I was starting to feel kind of stagnated and kind of just locked into this whole naturalism thing. And I started looking for scripts such as Vampire's Kiss, which a lot of it happens in the hallucinatory state or the psychotic dream state, and Peggy Sue Got Married, which also was sort of a dream state, if you will, from Kathleen Turner's

point of view. And then David, who has this very specific world that he creates, is almost always in that kind of higher reality, if you will will kind of dream state so it's a very liberating thing to be able to work uh... in in that kind of a format the problem with it though is that there are very few movies which allow for uh... that kind of behavior to basically let go and uh... try new things so

uh... you have to sort of go back to your your roots or naturalism if you will can you give us a sense of some of the uh... you have to sort of go back to your your roots were naturalism if you will can you give us a sense of some of the more adventurous things that you tried in your role as a seller you know what the biggest adventure for me was the was that i had to sing and i'm not a singer and uh... i only saying once before that was in the place who got married and uh... the character wasn't supposed to sing very well,

so I wasn't too nervous about it. But David is a huge lover of music, and he wanted me to sing two Elvis songs. And at best, my singing sounds like a barking dog, so I was pretty nervous. And I think that was a little bit of an adventure right there to be able to pull that together with them One of the songs is love me tender, right? Right. So the other one is love me. So so how do you do it?

Are you supposed to be impersonating Elvis or? well, the thing about sailor is he does sort of Have this adopted Elvis Essence to him. And I, David really wanted that to come through with the character. It's kind of a chancy thing, you know,

because people might look at it and say, oh, that's a caricature of Elvis Presley, but actually it's more of a tone thing, if you will. You know, kind of a, just an idea, a mood. And so I went ahead and sort of adopted some of Elvis Presley's mannerisms and vocal intonations. Which mannerisms did you pick up on? Well, you know, kind of like all that, how you doing, baby? Keep them white panties on. Hahahaha. Hahahaha. Um,

Blue Velvet, for instance, had some very disturbing images in it. And I've been hearing from people who've screened Wild at Heart that there's some very disturbing images in it. I wonder, wondering what those images are and if you are aware of that, when you're in it or if you actually have to see the film

back to understand visually what's happening in it or if you actually have to see the film back to understand visually what's happening in it? Well you know that's a good question because during the whole making of the movie, David's process with the actors, with everybody, the set people and the designers is very positive and up and fun-spirited. So here's a bunch of people having a hell of a good time working together and then you see the movie and there's some moments that are truly terrifying and I wonder how those moments were spawned out of such a Kind of a jolly time

What's one of those moments? Well, there's a moment in the movie where Harry Dean Stan gets his head blown off. That is it's just It just smells like black magic and ritual and it's it's pretty pretty scary like black magic and ritual and it's pretty scary. Nicholas Cage speaking to Terry Gross in 1990. That concludes our tribute to the influential filmmaker David Lynch who died last week. He was 78 years old. Coming up, film critic Justin Chang reviews Presence, a new supernatural thriller from director Steven Soderbergh.

This is Fresh Air. Our film critic Justin Chang says the new supernatural thriller Presence puts an ingenious new spin on the haunted house movie. It's the latest picture directed by Stephen Soderbergh and stars Lucy Liu and Chris Sullivan as a married couple who move into the house in question along with their two teenage children. The movie opens in theaters this week. Here is Justin's review. The haunted house thriller Presence has a formal conceit so clever, I'm surprised it hasn't ever been done or attempted before.

Maybe another movie has done it that I'm not aware of. This is a ghost story told entirely from the ghost's point of view. We see what the ghost sees. The ghost cannot leave the house, and so the movie never leaves the house either. You could say that the ghost is played by the director Steven Soderbergh, who serves as his own cinematographer as usual, working under the pseudonym of Peter Andrews. That's Soderbergh holding the camera as it glides up and down the stairs, following the characters from room to room, and hovering over them as they try to figure out

what's going on. As the movie opens, Rebecca and Chris, played by Lucy Liu and Chris Sullivan, are about to move into a handsome, craftsman-style house with their two teenage children. into a handsome, craftsman-style house with their two teenage children. The family dynamics are tense, and a little on the nose. Rebecca, a high-strung type who works in finance, clearly favors their popular, jockish son Tyler. Chris is the mellower spouse and parent, and he has a close bond with their daughter Chloe, who's quieter and more withdrawn. Even as we get to know this foursome though, the movie's most interesting and enigmatic

character is the silent specter behind the camera. You keep asking yourself, who is this ghost, and what does it want? Is it the spirit of the house's previous owner, or is it someone else entirely who has some unspoken connection with the family? Before long, paranormal things start to happen. The ghost begins manifesting itself in physical ways, making the lights flicker and the walls rattle, or knocking a cup of juice to the floor. Initially, only Chloe, played by Kalina Liang, seems to notice these strange phenomena, and she tries in vain to tell her parents and Tyler about what's happening.

No, I haven't felt or sensed anything unusual here. Do you mean like a... A presence. No. Have you? Yes. Can you elaborate? No. Have you? Yes. Can you elaborate?

I'm not sure I want to. Okay, maybe you and me can talk later. At first I just sensed it, and then things moved. Moved? Yes. What things? A lot of things. Jesus Christ.

I saw it. You saw it? You saw things move? I saw the aftermath. And there's a feeling I get, and sometimes it's really, really strong. What feeling? Athezogoraphobia. I don't think I know that word. What does that mean? It's the fear of being forgotten or ignored. And I can feel it. It's here, in the house.

Oh, for Christ's sake. Seriously, what the f***? I get it that you guys have to listen to this s***, but I don't. Tyler, played by Eddie Madej, is a bit of a hothead. He has little patience with his sister's anxieties, which, we soon learn, are tied to a recent tragedy involving one of her best friends. Presence isn't just an unsettling ghost story. It's one of the more incisive recent movies I've seen about the inner lives of teenagers, whether it's their feelings of loneliness and disaffection, or their vulnerability to high school gossip, and worse.

Eventually Chloe begins dating Ryan, a friend of Tyler's, and there's a voyeuristic queasiness to the way the camera, which is to say the ghost, eavesdrops on their moments of intimacy. There's nothing prurient about these moments. On the contrary, what you feel is the ghost's enormous concern for Chloe. Soderbergh's camera movements are so delicate and expressive, he can convey empathy with a mere twitch or shudder, or rage with a sudden violent lurch. Before long, we realize that the ghost isn't trying to scare this family, it's trying to warn them. No American director is churning out independent movies as deftly and resourcefully as Steven Soderbergh. This is his latest collaboration with the

veteran screenwriter David Kep, whom he last worked with on the home invasion thriller Kimmy, which ingeniously reinvented Hitchcock's rear window for the age of Alexa and Covid. Like Kimmy, but in a completely different way, presence makes brilliant use of spatial confinement, different way, presence makes brilliant use of spatial confinement, and extracts maximal tension from a minimalist premise. As ever, Soderbergh seems to have approached this material as a technical challenge, a problem to be solved. How do you make a movie entirely from a ghost's POV? Soderbergh is mentioned in interviews that he wore martial arts slippers so as to muffle

his footsteps as he chased his actors around the house with his camera. I'm not usually big on behind-the-scenes documentaries, but Presence is one movie I'd make an exception for. But while Soderbergh may be flexing his technique, Presence never feels like a mere exercise. That's mainly due to the fine actors, especially Kalina Liang as the sensitive, troubled Chloe, and Chris Sullivan as a loving family man trying to keep the peace in a frightening situation.

Their performances are haunting in every sense of the word. Justin Chang is a film critic for The New Yorker. He reviewed Steven Soderbergh's new film, Presence. On Monday's show, as part of Saturday Night Live's 50th anniversary celebration, Amir Questlove-Thompson has co-directed a new documentary about the show's musical guests and musical sketches. He'll share behind-the-scenes stories and tell us how the SNL band influenced him as leader of The Roots, the Tonight Show's house band. I hope you can join us. For Terry Gross and Tonya Mosley, I'm David Bianculli.