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The Short Films of David Lynch (V) More at IMDbPro »

11 out of 15 people found the following review useful:
Fascinating look at early Lynch, 8 April 2006

Author: MovieAddict2012 from UK

For Lynch fans in particular, I'm sure this would be an amazing treat. Essentially a collection of Lynch's early student films, it also features newly-recorded (2002) introductions from Lynch himself as he explains his feelings for each piece of his work. He also provides some trivia tidbits and anecdotes.

These are all very bizarre, some better than others. The strangest is probably "The Amputee," which was filmed to test the difference between two different kinds of stock footage supposedly. Lynch plays a nurse who walks into a room and replaces an amputee woman's leg wrap. Blood begins to spurt everywhere almost comically and as the nurse begins to panic she remains totally unaware of his presence. Very weird.

They're not all very good but they're interesting merely for the sake of being an insightful look at a great director's early work.

Recommended - and highly recommended to Lynch fans.

11 out of 16 people found the following review useful:
Untie!, 10 February 2006

Author: Polaris_DiB from United States

It's really nice having this collection around. Lynch's short films are important because they are a more potent and unabridged form of his style and work--he has a lot more freedom with the form, and thus can do basically whatever comes to mind, versus making things feature length which also means making them feature-like.

Some are better than others. Some are wildly out there. Overall they're great fun to show to friends for that whole, "What the--?" value when they're unfamiliar with who you're presenting, and anybody who is familiar with the material will enjoy it anyway.

I don't know where I stand on Lynch's introductions, though. On one hand, it's nice to have a back story so that the viewer knows not only what he's watching, but how it came to be and thus, to a degree, what it means. However, some of it gets pretty tedious. I relate to a lot of Lynch's emotions when he describes the processes and events that got him into film, but still, I'd rather just get to the film. The DVD this comes with has the nice ability to go right to the films from the menues, but there's no "play all without introduction" so that can be tedious too.

But overall, definitely worth the time and effort to find and watch this.

--PolarisDiB

4 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
displays the vast range of David Lynch's artistic abilities, 30 October 2005

Author: Judith_Rinner from Erlangen, Germany

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

The Short Films of David Lynch is just the thing for all those who have enjoyed his other work. Ranging from his first, art installation Six Men Getting Sick, over the deep and visually wonderful The Grandmother, to The Cowboy and the Frenchman and Lumière and Company, this collection gives a deep insight in and nicely rounds off Lynch's oeuvre.

Six Men Getting Sick, a one-minute 'scene' originally presented in an infinite loop, and The Alphabeth clearly mirror Lynch's background as a painter and give an idea of the visuality as well as the structural and colour quality of his art.

Some of the unique, disturbing and fascinating elements of his later films and television series Twin Peaks are foreshadowed in his ambiguous and highly aesthetic Grandmother, his third attempt at using moving images. Be it the rapid and sometimes unsettling, disorienting cuts, the dropping of frames, dark, under-lit interiors, associative combination of images and scenes, characters moving and uttering themselves in animalic ways – Lynch succeeds in telling a story that, far from being realistically filmed, moves, rings true, refrains from offering clear answers and positions, and that is extremely close to its protagonists.

Seeing these early pieces of his work one cannot help but wonder whether entering the outskirts of mainstream film-making did not compromise his unique artistic vision, his particular quality and outstanding talent to too great an extent.

The Amputee, purportedly conceived spontaneously when given the opportunity to test some new film material, is more Lynch then one would assume. As the subject of this technically simple one-shot is both an unexcited letter about some partnership/friendship conflicts and a medical doctor checking on the fresh amputation stumps of the letter-writer, the clip is a fine demonstration about what happens to the spectator as soon as basic conventions of film-making and focus setting are deviated from. The mind reels, trying to come to terms with the realistically portrayed medical operations on the amputated leg and the turns of the letter's story given in calm and detached voice over by the completely unimpressed amputee. The sound is awfully reminiscent of the matter-of-fact splattering and splurging of, for instance, Eraserhead – and final relief only sets in, when the doctor himself flees from his eerily non-chalant patient and her blood-spouting stump.

The Cowboy and the Frenchman is a piece of lighthearted comedy, and one soon comes to regret that such projects as Life of the Bovine have not made it beyond the initial stages of conceptualization. Here, the fabric of the story is woven out of the obvious stereotypes of the down-to-earth Westerner and the refined, gourmet Frenchman, tossing in the inevitable Indian as well as a bunch of Southern chicks. The ideas of liberté, égalité, and sister- rather than brotherhood eventually help bridge the cultural gap and lead to a shared drunken night with song and dance. Vive la France!

From the point of view of style, final Lumière and Company is probably the absurdest piece in the collection. Shot in the style of the pre-twentieth century short-shorts of brothers Lumière, Lynch's take has a decidedly Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet feel to it, including a disturbing fade to white. Set in what appears to be small town America, the four takes present us with the story of a murder linked to some obscure and no doubt secret operation involving masked men and a naked woman set up in a laboratory environment.

On the whole, these short films do not only illustrate the range of Lynch's artistic abilities – and one would wish for him to indulge in that format more often; together with his paintings, they are also a great means to come closer to the mind and eyes of one of the most unconventional and visionary contemporary filmmakers.

3 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
pretty good, 29 January 2008

Author: mrcreen from MASSACHUSETTS, USA

I love David Lynch, so of course I was so excited when I got this. As much as I thought it was decently OK, I really just think that maybe my expectation of the short films were too high. The worst of the bunch by far is the one about the cowboy and the frenchman. The frenchman is quite attractive though, I must say. Overall, it's pretty dull, but still watchable. My favorite of the group is probably "The Alphabet." It's a total nightmare and very original, creative, and spooky, I do declare. I think probably the only people that would benefit from this DVD are real Lynch fans, like myself. Oh, and "The Grandmother" is really great too.

0 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
A must-see exploration of Lynch and his work for any fan of the artist., 26 August 2007

Author: Hegemonic_Arpeggio from United States

I bought this at the mall the other day, with little to no expectations of enjoying anything that was actually on their. I'd heard the films weren't too good on their own, but as a DVD collector and a fan of David Lynch, I figured it was worth buying just to have.

After having watched it though, I have to say I'm very pleasantly surprised. The introductions accompanying each short film gave great insight into the very beginnings of his career as a filmmaker. That added a whole other level to the DVD, and functioned as a concrete exploration of the films he made,the events surrounding them, and their profound significance on his life. The films themselves were up and down. On a pure level of experimental design, Six Men Getting Sick was very intriguing, but the real interest came from the whole thing was how it brought him into film-making. The Alphabet was fascinatingly imaginative and marked Lynch's extraordinary ability to film a nightmare even in the earliest stages of his career as a filmmaker.

My absolute favorite part of the whole DVD was The Grandmother. It was likely the only part of the collection that could have been completely removed from its context and still would've held together just as strong. Just as with his later feature length film Eraserhead, Lynch constructs a cohesive narrative and incredible atmosphere through elaborate visual metaphors and intensely eerie sound design. Its art is so careful and complex that I have no doubt that it, like Eraserhead, can be viewed again and again for its viewer to find more and more in every image and sound that he had missed the last time. True to his origins as a filmmaker, The Grandmother is very much a moving painting, every image carefully and densely composed. But in all this esoteric attention design, the characterizations remain completely intact. There is an understated masterfulness to every performance, as each actor succeeds to communicate themselves lacking not only language, but nearly every association to reality conceivable. Most impressive is the performance of the boy. The hinge of the entire surreal experience, he honestly and confidently performs his unique role without flaw. I can't count the ways in which the very process of making The Grandmother are just remarkable for Lynch's first narrative film.

I didn't care for The Amputee. Whatever it was trying to achieve beyond testing the film stock went over my head, and I didn't see any point in sitting there watching blood pour from an amputated stub twice. Whoever did the voice reading for the letter, though, did a decent job. I don't know how serious The Cowboy and The Frenchman was trying to be, but it was good for a laugh here and there. Though If I want comedy, I probably wouldn't head straight for the David Lynch section. Lumiere was a technical marvel. Had the restrictions of the submission not been read in advance, it would seem rather plain, but his innovation in the face of extreme limitation is a testament to his craft as an artist. It leads me to wonder what he would've produced had he been a filmmaker of the Lumiere era.

All in all, more than worth buying. For me at least.

9 out of 36 people found the following review useful:
Completely disappointing collection of "rarities"..., 30 September 2006

Author: MesaHead from United States

I was so excited when I discovered this was available! I couldn't wait to see it. What a waste of energy! It's kind of like that rarities CD by your favorite band you found in the back of the rack at your local music store. Being a hard core fan you were certain that it was a valuable discovery. But once you heard it it became obvious why these dogs never made it onto a real album. This DVD is only recommended for 'completionists' who must have everything Lynch has done. "Six Men Getting Sick" is somewhat visually interesting but short and repetitive. It lacks the power of Lynch's later work "The Grandmother" is quite simply an immature work. It's tedious and looks like a student film. But it was the 70's...It's interesting only if you hope to psychoanalyze the director. But you can see, briefly, the seeds of some of his trademark images and sounds. "The Alpahabet" is forgettable (No really! I can't remember this one at all!) "The Amputee" is pointless. "The Cowboy and the Frenchman" is just plain silly. "Lumiere" is the only worthwhile one in the bunch. Without dialog Lynch tells a disturbing tale comparable with his best work. I had to watch this one several times. But it runs less than 2 minutes. Hardly worth the trouble of renting or buying the DVD.

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