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DAVID LYNCH IN DIRECTOR blackANDwhite'S LYNCH. COURTESY ABSURDA.
JAN 4, 5, 6 FRI 7 PM, SAT 7 PM, SUN 5:30 PM
LYNCH
US/DENMARK 2007
DIRECTOR: BLACKANDWHITE
This fascinating, indeed "Lynchian," portrait offers a rare glimpse into the enigmatic mind and creative process of the famed director of ERASERHEAD, THE ELEPHANT MAN, BLUE VELVET, and MULHOLLAND DRIVE, to name just a few of his surreal and seminal works. Filmed over a period of two years (by mysterious producers) it follows David Lynch at home and at work on the set of his recent INLAND EMPIRE with Laura Dern and Jeremy Irons. Delving into his artistic process and "hands-on" approach to painting, sculpture, music and screenwriting, the film taps into Lynch's infectious enthusiasm, inspiring us to tap into the well of creativity that he believes we all share. "When I catch an idea for a film, I fall in love with the way cinema can express it. I like a story that holds abstractions, and that's what cinema can do."-David Lynch. (82 mins.)
JAN 4, 5, 6, FRI 9 PM, SAT 9 PM, SUN 7:30 PM
ERASERHEAD
US 1977
DIRECTOR: DAVID LYNCH
As startling a directorial debut as any you can think of, David Lynch's ERASERHEAD became, and remains, a cult sensation. Described by Lynch at the time only as "a dream of dark and troubling things," the bleakly comic story chronicles the travails of Henry (Jack Nance) and Mary X (Charlotte Stewart), who inhabit a dank, acoustically terrifying apartment in a decaying industrial city with their baby, a reptilian mutant that cries ceaselessly. When Mary eventually flees, leaving the child alone with Henry, he quickly spirals into the madness of Lynch's surreal, nightmare world. Long out of circulation on 35mm, we are pleased to screen a new print restored by Lynch with the assistance of the Museum of Modern Art. "A masterpiece of texture, a feat of artisanal attention, an ingenious assemblage of damp, dust, rock, wood, hair, flesh, metal, ooze."-Nathan Lee, VILLAGE VOICE. (89 mins.)
JAN 6 SUN 2 PM
INLAND EMPIRE
US 2006
DIRECTOR: DAVID LYNCH
INLAND EMPIRE features Laura Dern in a bravura performance as a fading movie star who not only inhabits her role in an overcooked melodrama, but also becomes inhabited by it. A Moebius strip of a film that threatens to spin off into insanity at any moment, it maintains a fluid inner course straight from the mind of its director, who shot much of the film in secret. (INLAND EMPIRED was shot entirely on video, and Lynch has proclaimed that he will never return to film as a medium.) "Interchangeably terrifying, maddening, shockingly hilarious and perversely exciting, and that's just to those who end up disliking it."-PREMIERE. "My advice, in the face of such hallucinatory brilliance, is that you hang on."-Peter Travers, ROLLING STONE. (172 mins.)
Northwest Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium at the Portland Art Museum: 1219 SW Park Ave.
Admission Prices: $7.00 General, $6.00 Members, Students, Seniors