Birthday: January 20th 1946 (age 68)
Education: School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Occupation: Film Director, Screenwriter, Producer, Painter, Musician
Does David Lynch stay within a particular genre?
David Lynch has directed a range of genres, including action sci-fi (such as Dune), biographical drama films (such as The Elephant Man and The Straight Story) but the main genre that he particularly sticks to is mystery psychological thrillers, as most of his works tend to be within this category (for example, Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, and Inland Empire).
What types of film has David Lynch directed?
Although he has directed a few other genres, his preferences include the psychological thriller genre or mystery neo-noir genre, or a particular combination of the two. This is because, as he has revealed through twitter and interviews, in these films he gets incorporate new ideas of his own to represent the world and humanity as a whole, however most of his films in this way contain much deeper hidden meanings which he expects the audience to interpret in their own way, and won't reveal his own interpretation. This creates a sense of mystery about his films, where the main theme that runs through a lot of his films is based on surrealism, with elements of dream/hallucination sequences in a non-linear fashion, and so on the surface all is not as it seems to the audience. This is also shown in the use of unusual cinematography, with many close-ups, hand-held cameras, a variety of lense types, and long editing speeds. This means that David isn't bothered about people actually liking the films, because he expects them to be successful just by being different and a lot of people talking about them and what they mean. This makes him a very different and contraversial type of Hollywood director to other directors who concentrate on big blockbuster, expensive films that aim to please an audience.
Lynch uses a mix of famous actors, and non-famous actors for his films, where he doesn't see a 'star' as important, but merely those who fit the roles perfectly, because he doesn't see star power as important, another controversial aspect of his directing career. Some of the big names he has used include Laura Dern, Anthony Hopkins, John Hurt, Sting, Nicholas Cage, Kyle MacLachlan, Naomi Watts, Justin Theroux and Laura Harring.
Does David Lynch's reputation establish a fan base?
Lynch's films do show to establish a fan-base simply because of the surreal and controversial nature of some of the films. As Lynch is very different from a lot of other Hollywood directors and creates some unusual films, those who enjoy these types of films will keep coming back to the work of Lynch as there aren't many others who do similar sorts of films. The actors aren't those who particularly establish a fan base because the films tend to focus on themes and underlying story-lines as opposed to the actors; also, the same actors are not necessarily used in all of the films. Lynch is a director who believes Hollywood exploits audiences for their own financial benefit, which is a theme he imposes onto his films and audience, and those who agree with this may also become part of his fan-base. He has 1.7 million followers on Twitter, which also shows how popular he is.
David Lynch and film posters
All of Lynch's films of his preferred and typical genre all feature his name on them, so that firstly the audience can easily identify who the film was made by, and so would search for his films again in the future, or on the other hand, for already-fans of his who are looking for his films, can easily identify which films are his. It is also a technique to get his name known and heard in order to gain popularity. All of his film posters also feature some sort of imagery if the main character(s) so that either the actors can be used as a way of advertising the film, or just used as a way to create mystery about what the film is about. On many of his film posters, the actors names aren't particularly mentioned, because it is his view that actors are not the main priority of the film, however the imagery is also used to show how the films revolve around these characters and what is going on in their minds. His film posters also tend to have a black background and fade-effects to connote the mystery and psychological element to the genre.
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