DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF ANGELO BADALAMENTI'S "TWIN PEAKS THEME (INSTRUMENTAL)")
BIANCULLI: David Lynch, the artist and filmmaker who broke boundaries with such unsettling films as "Blue Velvet" and "Mulholland Drive," died last week at the age of 78. Today, we'll listen back to our archived 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 MacLachlan - the science fiction epic "Dune" and his moody, otherworldly "Blue Velvet." MacLachlan also starred in "Twin Peaks," the 1990 ABC series co-created by Lynch and Mark Frost. And MacLachlan 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 pingpong balls. The dialogue was the same every day, but the settings varied - as did the results.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DAVID LYNCH: Here we go for today's number. It's December 16, 2022. Ten balls. Each ball has a number, numbers one through 10. Swirl the numbers.
(SOUNDBITE OF PINGPONG BALLS RATTLING)
LYNCH: Pick a number. Today's number is one.
BIANCULLI: 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."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I AM THE SHAMAN")
DONOVAN: (Singing) I am the shaman. Yeah, man, I am the shaman. Yeah, man, I am the shaman.
BIANCULLI: 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 Shelly the waitress, played by Madchen Amick, Gordon was as strange as anyone else in "Twin Peaks" - which is saying something.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "TWIN PEAKS")
LYNCH: (As Gordon Cole) My 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.
MADCHEN AMICK: (As Shelly Johnson) You don't have to shout. I can hear you.
BIANCULLI: And in one of David Lynch's final on-camera roles, in Steven Spielberg's 2022 film "The Fabelmans," 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 LaBelle, 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.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE FABELMANS")
LYNCH: (As John Ford) They tell me you want to be a picture maker.
GABRIEL LABELLE: (As Sammy Fabelman) Yes, sir. I do.
LYNCH: (As John Ford) Why? This business - it'll rip you apart.
LABELLE: (As Sammy Fabelman) Well, Mr. Ford, I...
LYNCH: (As John Ford) So what do you know about art, kid?
LABELLE: (As Sammy Fabelman) I love your movies so much.
LYNCH: (As John Ford) No, art. See that painting over there?
LABELLE: (As Sammy Fabelman) Yeah. I mean, yes. Yes, I do see it.
(SOUNDBITE OF FOOTSTEPS)
LYNCH: (As John Ford) Walk over to it. Well, what's in it? Describe it.
LABELLE: (As Sammy Fabelman) Oh, OK. So there are two guys, and they're on horseback. And they're looking for something, so maybe they're scouting.
LYNCH: (As John Ford) No. No. Where's the horizon?
LABELLE: (As Sammy Fabelman) The horizon?
LYNCH: (As John Ford) Where is it?
LABELLE: (As Sammy Fabelman) It's at the bottom.
LYNCH: (As John Ford) That's right. Walk over to this painting.
(SOUNDBITE OF FOOTSTEPS)
LYNCH: (As John Ford) Well?
LABELLE: (As Sammy Fabelman) Right, OK. So there are five cowboys. You know, they could be Indian...
LYNCH: (As John Ford) No, no, no, no, no. Where's the [expletive] horizon?
LABELLE: (As Sammy Fabelman) It's there.
LYNCH: (As John Ford) Where?
LABELLE: (As Sammy Fabelman) 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**t. Now, good luck to you and get the f**k out of my office.
BIANCULLI: 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, MacLachlan 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.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "TWIN PEAKS")
MICHAEL ONTKEAN: (As Harry S. Truman) Good morning, Pete. Harry.
JACK NANCE: (As Pete Martell) She's dead. Wrapped in plastic.
BIANCULLI: 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 MacLachlan'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.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "TWIN PEAKS")
KYLE MACLACHLAN: (As Dale Cooper) Harry. Lucy. It is an absolutely beautiful morning. Short stack of griddle cakes, melted butter, maple syrup, lightly heated, slice of ham. Nothing beats the taste sensation when maple syrup collides with ham.
JILL ENGELS: (As Trudy Chelgren) Griddle cakes, slice of ham.
ONTKEAN: (As Harry S. Truman) Who killed Laura Palmer?
MACLACHLAN: (As Dale Cooper) Harry, let me tell you about the dream I had last night.
BIANCULLI: 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 Badalamenti's music was a character of its own. And all those elements and actors and writers and other directors combined to make Twin Peaks a standout, a freak-out and a legend. As it turns out, the spirit of "Twin Peaks," a series often described as Lynchian, has been duplicated over the decades by only one man - the original article, David Lynch.
(SOUNDBITE OF ANGELO BADALAMENTI'S "AUDREY'S DANCE")
BIANCULLI: 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 head.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
TERRY GROSS: 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 (laughter). The story is a...
LYNCH: I don't know.
GROSS: What's that?
LYNCH: I don't know about that.
(LAUGHTER)
GROSS: 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's been having sex with the daughter.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ERASERHEAD")
JEANNE BATES: (As Mrs. X) Henry, I asked you if you and Mary had sexual intercourse.
NANCE: (As Henry Spencer) Well, I don't think that's any of your business. I...
BATES: (As Mrs. X) Henry.
NANCE: (As Henry Spencer) I'm sorry.
BATES: (As Mrs. X) You're in very bad trouble if you won't cooperate.
NANCE: (As Henry Spencer) Well, I - Mary?
CHARLOTTE STEWART: (As Mary X) Mother.
BATES: (As Mrs. X) Answer me.
NANCE: (As Henry Spencer) I'm too nervous.
BATES: (As Mrs. X) There's a baby. It's at the hospital.
STEWART: (As Mary X) Mom.
BATES: (As Mrs. X) And you're the father.
NANCE: (As Henry Spencer) But that's impossible. It's only been...
STEWART: (As Mary X) Mother, they're still not sure it is a baby.
BATES: (As Mrs. X) It's premature, but there's a baby.
GROSS: I think you were already a father when you made this movie. Was fatherhood disturbing to you?
LYNCH: Yes, it was.
GROSS: What was disturbing about it?
LYNCH: 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.
GROSS: 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.
LYNCH: 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.
GROSS: It sure is, and everybody interprets it differently. I mean, I've personally heard so many different interpretations...
LYNCH: Right.
GROSS: ...Of "Eraserhead." I can understand you wanting to leave it that way. Now...
LYNCH: I think, you know, when you make a film, inside, you - I don't always know 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 - 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.
GROSS: It sounds like you must work pretty intuitively.
LYNCH: That's the whole thing.
BIANCULLI: David Lynch, speaking with Terry Gross in 1994. More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.
This is FRESH AIR. Today, we're remembering filmmaker David Lynch, who died last week at the age of 78. Terry Gross spoke with him in 1994.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
GROSS: 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 "Eraserhead." But it's also, in a very different way, in the film "Elephant Man," which you directed, which is a beautiful film about, you know, the man who had tumors all over his body...
LYNCH: Right.
GROSS: ...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?
LYNCH: 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.
GROSS: Now, you know, in the Broadway version - 'cause 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, we - he has a shroud over his head, and then that shroud is lifted.
LYNCH: It'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 no matter what he looked like, people fell in love with him. And that's the story. There are other people that look fantastic, and once you get to know them, they're - what's shining forth from inside is not so pleasing.
GROSS: "Eraserhead" was your first theatrical-released movie, and it became a midnight movie classic. Did you know anything about how to market a film? Did you know how to, like, represent yourself to the film industry?
LYNCH: No, I knew nothing about - I - 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 Barenholtz, 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 a 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, you know, come and go, when something's allowed to only, you know, work or fail in one week's time. And so you'd see on the marquee "Eraserhead" year after year, and eventually, you'd want to go see it.
GROSS: What was that point like for you, when "Eraserhead" started to catch on and you started to get offers to do other movies?
LYNCH: 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."
GROSS: 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."
LYNCH: Yeah.
GROSS: You know, it's almost hard for me to imagine him relating to that, yeah, pretty avant-garde eeriness and alienation in "Eraserhead."
LYNCH: Yeah. I was sweating bullets when Mel was in the screening room, looking at "Eraserhead." And my...
GROSS: He went in just to scout you?
LYNCH: 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 that screening. So I said, Jonathan, there's no way Mel's going to, 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.
(LAUGHTER)
LYNCH: So - but Mel is an extremely complex, interesting fellow.
BIANCULLI: 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 Nicholas Cage, who co-starred opposite Laura Dern in Lynch's "Wild At Heart." I'm David Bianculli, and this is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BLUE VELVET")
ISABELLA ROSSELLINI: (As Dorothy Vallens, singing) She wore blue velvet. Bluer than velvet was the night. Softer than satin was the light from the stars.
BIANCULLI: This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli, professor of television studies at Rowan University. 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.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
GROSS: 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.
LYNCH: Right.
GROSS: In "Eraserhead," 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?
LYNCH: 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. You know, I grew up there till - I didn't move to the East Coast till I was 15. And when you come from some place like that and see a place like Philadelphia or, you know, 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.
GROSS: 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.
LYNCH: Right.
GROSS: And could you talk a little bit about what kind of effect you wanted the city to have in "Elephant Man" - what kind of visceral effect you wanted it to have on the viewers?
LYNCH: 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 since I'm fascinated with smoke and fire and industry and - that Mount St. Helens eruption, when the - 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.
GROSS: Now, I have to ask you a couple of questions about "Blue Velvet."
LYNCH: OK.
GROSS: Was there something in particular that inspired the story?
LYNCH: Not really. I - the first 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. And the song "Blue Velvet," Bobby Vinton's version, influenced it a lot.
GROSS: I've always wondered how you managed to take a Bobby Vinton record and turn it into a song about sexual fetishism (laughter).
LYNCH: Well, it's all in the lyrics there.
GROSS: You think?
LYNCH: Oh, yeah.
GROSS: Yeah, I guess. Yeah. Did you hear it that way when you were young?
LYNCH: 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.
GROSS: I just have one other body kind of question for you.
LYNCH: OK.
GROSS: And this is about the ear in "Blue Velvet" - in your film "Blue Velvet." The plot is set in motion when Kyle MacLachlan 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 you - how that image came to you?
LYNCH: Well, I don't know exactly how it came, but it - Jeffrey - the ear is like a canal. It's like an opening, a little egress into 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 would have been the end of it. But the fascination with this, once found, drew him into something that he needed to discover and work through.
GROSS: Well, I want to thank you so much for talking with us about your work.
LYNCH: Well, thank you for talking to me.
BIANCULLI: 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.
GROSS: I want to ask you about "Blue Velvet." You are so wonderful in that film.
ROSSELLINI: Thank you.
GROSS: You played a nightclub singer who's exotic and mesmerizing but is in a weird and abusive relationship with a psycho played by Dennis Hopper.
ROSSELLINI: Yes.
GROSS: How did you get the part and what interested you in this part?
ROSSELLINI: To me, it was the only time that I could - portrayed 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 it was - and feels - and does anything to please the person who's torturing them. And it's an absolute strange twist that our mind gives us. And, you know, it is a recognized syndrome of kidnapped people or raped victims.
And 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. But we know that the reality is often, you know, we just have to - it just happens to us, and then we don't know what to do with it, and what to make of it (laughter).
GROSS: I'd like to play an excerpt of a scene that you had with a young man played by Kyle MacLachlan. And then 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.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BLUE VELVET")
ROSSELLINI: (As Dorothy Vallens) Do you like the way I feel?
MACLACHLAN: (As Jeffrey Beaumont) Yes.
ROSSELLINI: (As Dorothy Vallens) Feel me. Hit me.
MACLACHLAN: (As Jeffrey Beaumont) Dorothy, no. Stop it.
ROSSELLINI: (As Dorothy Vallens) Hit me. Hit me. Hit me.
GROSS: Isabella Rossellini, did you understand why this character asks to be hit?
ROSSELLINI: Yes, I do, because I once was beaten. And when - and I remembered when I played that part, and I had to say that line, beat me, beat me, I say, 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.
It was just - I just was bewildered, a strange feeling. And I thought that this woman, who had so many torment in her mind, became the victim of the abuse that she - because 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 the star, and her tormented thoughts could stop. And that's why she asked to be beaten.
GROSS: Oh, what an interesting way of looking at it. Who beat you?
ROSSELLINI: I don't want to give the details of all that. I don't want to start, you know being, like, poor me, poor me. It happened, but I'm fine now.
GROSS: Fine. OK. OK.
ROSSELLINI: (Laughter).
GROSS: 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.
ROSSELLINI: No, not at all. I mean, it's a - not at all. I - 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. It 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 Ut that I remembered. And it was a photo of a young girl in Vietnam. She has been a victim of napalm attack and her clothes have been completely torn off her body and she has skin hanging. And she's completely naked, and she walks in the street 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 didn't - I wanted to be like raw meat. You know, my nudity, it was like raw meat, like a butcher, like walking in a butcher and see a cow hanging - you know, a quarter of a cow hanging. That was the thing that I wanted to convey.
GROSS: Seems to me you really have a very analytical approach to acting.
ROSSELLINI: (Laughter).
GROSS: No. I - really, I mean, that you really kind of think it through on many levels.
ROSSELLINI: Well, I do, you know. I don't know. I can't tell, but this is the way I do it.
GROSS: (Laughter).
ROSSELLINI: I don't know if it is more or less analytical than others.
BIANCULLI: Isabella Rossellini spoke to Terry Gross in 1994. Coming up, we hear from Nicholas Cage, who starred opposite Laura Dern in David Lynch's film "Wild at Heart." This is FRESH AIR.
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.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
GROSS: 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?
NICOLAS CAGE: Oh, I don't know. I know that he likes "Raising Arizona" and he likes the Cohen brothers. I don't know if 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 & Frank's Bar and Grill. And he said, Nic. And I turned around, and there was David Lynch, and I thought he was Jimmy Stewart.
GROSS: (Laughter).
CAGE: And it was - he looks a hell of a lot like Jimmy Stewart. And after that, you know, just 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.
GROSS: 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?
CAGE: Well, you know, I think 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, kind of dream state.
So it's a very liberating thing to be able to work in that kind of a format. The problem with it, though, is that there are very few movies which allow for that kind of behavior, to basically let go and try new things. So, you know, you have to sort of go back to your roots or naturalism, if you will.
GROSS: Can you give us a sense of some of the more adventurous things that you tried in your role as Sailor?
CAGE: Well, you know, the biggest adventure for me was that I had to sing, and I'm not a singer. And I only sang once before, and that was in "Peggy Sue Got Married." And 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 is - sounds like a barking dog...
GROSS: (Laughter).
CAGE: ...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 him.
GROSS: One of the songs is "Love Me Tender," right?
CAGE: Right.
GROSS: So...
CAGE: And the other one is "Love Me."
GROSS: So how do you do it? Do you - are you supposed to be impersonating Elvis or...
CAGE: 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 chancey 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 just an idea, a mood. And so I went ahead and sort of adopted some of Elvis Presley's mannerisms and vocal intonations.
GROSS: Which mannerisms did you pick up on?
CAGE: Well, you know, kind of like all that, (impersonating Elvis) how you doing, baby? Keep them white panties on.
GROSS: (Laughter). "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'm 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.
CAGE: 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 spawn out of such a kind of a jolly time.
GROSS: What's one of those moments?
CAGE: Well, there's a moment in the movie where Harry Dean Stanton gets his head blown off. That is - it just smells like black magic and ritual and it's pretty scary.
BIANCULLI: Nicolas 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. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
