David Lynch
David Lynch film season opens in Ballina
Ballina Film Club will celebrate the twisted genius of David Lynch by screening a series of his films throughout the rest of the month and into May, starting with his 1977 feature debut, Eraserhead, tonight (Tuesday).
Eraserhead is a 1977 surrealist ‘body horror’ film written and directed by Lynch. Shot in black and white, it stars Jack Nance, Charlotte Stewart, Jeanne Bates, Judith Anna Roberts, Laurel Near and Jack Fisk. The film tells the story of Henry Spencer (Nance), who is left to care for his grossly deformed child in a desolate industrial landscape. Throughout the film, Spencer experiences dreams or hallucinations, featuring his child and the Lady in the Radiator (Near). Surrealist imagery and sexual undercurrents are key thematic elements, the intricate sound design its technical highlight.
Lynch’s ‘The Elephant Man’ (1980) will be screened next Tuesday, April 29. Adapted from a book about the original John Merrick, and starring John Hurt, Anthony Hopkins and Anne Bancroft, this now-classic film centres on how this hideously disfigured man manages to negotiate a way through Victorian society. In portraying a character on the edge, it was a glimpse of what was to come in the director’s highly original if not always consistent career.
On Tuesday, May 6, it’s ‘Blue Velvet’ (1986), starring Dennis Hopper, Isabella Rossellini and Kyle Maclachlan. A firm Lynch fan favourite follows the story of shy, small-town adolescent, Jeffrey who discovers a severed human ear in an overgrown backlot. His decision to investigate leads him to observe, and finally participate in, an extremely violent sadomasochistic relationship between gangster Frank Booth and his moll, Dorothy.
The following week, May 13, ‘Wild at Heart’ (1990) finds Lynch in road movie territory. Lula’s psychopathic mother goes crazy at the thought of Lula being with Sailor, who just got free from jail. Ignoring Sailor’s probation, they set out for California. However, Lula’s mother hires a killer to hunt down Sailor. Starring Nicolas Cage, Laura Dern, Willem Dafoe, Wild at Heart is fun, fast and bears many of the director’s trademark motifs.
‘Mulholland Drive ‘(2001), to be screened on May 20, stars Robert Forster, Naomi Watts and Adam Kesher. An amnesiac woman is abandoned on LA’s Mulholland Drive, following a car accident. She makes her way to an apartment, where she meets an aspiring actress who helps put the pieces of her life and the mystery of it all back together. Elsewhere, other stories and characters weave into this ensemble piece, including a director with mobster problems and a man whose dreams come true.
The season winds up on Tuesday, May 27, with a screening of perhaps Lynch’s least surreal works, ‘The Straight Story’ (1999). This gentle film tells the story of an older man who sets off on a journey across the USA on his lawn mower to visit his estranged brother and discovers the warmth of strangers along the way. Richard Farnsworth stars in this true story of one man’s determination to be reunited with his family, alongside Sissy Spacek and Harry Dean Stanton.
The starting time for all screenings is 8pm; admission is €5.
