You couldn’t help but feel for David Lynch during the press tour for 2006’s Inland Empire. Again and again he’s asked, “Mr Lynch, what does it all mean?” Which might as well translate as, “Mr Lynch, what have you been smoking?”
As far as the plot goes, the director says the film is simply about “a woman in trouble”. But let’s face it, you’re not expecting neat plot threads if you’re watching a David Lynch project. You’re stepping into his own beautifully warped universe. This is 179 minutes of nightmarish scenes, rabbits in suits, industrial noise and flashing strobes. It is arguably his most mind-boggling feature, one that makes Mulholland Drive look like a conventional popcorn movie straight from the multiplex. As the original New York Times review said, it “isn’t a film to love. It is a work to admire.”
But diehard Lynch fans would beg to differ. There’s a lot to love about this three-hour oddity. So, as the movie returns to UK cinemas this month, we’re taking it back to 2006 and digging up some fun tidbits that you probably didn’t know about Inland Empire.
David Lynch did a fittingly surreal publicity stunt involving a cow on Hollywood Boulevard
Because getting an ad in a trade mag is so damn expensive, Lynch wanted to drum up publicity for the film — and Laura Dern’s Oscar nom — another way. His plan was airtight: take a cow out onto Hollywood Boulevard and sit next to a placard saying, “without cheese there wouldn’t be an Inland Empire”. Lynch chain-smoked in his director’s chair, hanging out with the cow as bemused passersby filmed. While this stunt understandably drew more attention than a trade mag ever would, it didn’t result in Laura getting an Oscar nom. You can lead a horse to water, etc.
Those creepy rabbits were taken from a web series, also by Lynch
Rabbits is a 2002 web series that Lynch posted on his website. In it, actors in rabbit costumes appear as if in a strange 50s-style sitcom. They go about their mundane house chores, ironing clothes and sitting stiffly on a sofa. Inland Empire lifts lines directly from the series and its setup is much the same. One rabbit asks, “What time is it?” The unseen studio audience laughs for no reason. Another rabbit enters the room, the audience cheers for no reason. And so on. In the Lynch universe, the rabbits are as unnerving as the “Lady in the Radiator” from Eraserhead, or the “Man from Another Place” from Twin Peaks. It’s so disturbing, so unsettling, so Lynch.
Lynch vowed to never shoot on film again after discovering digital video
Inland Empire is the first Lynch movie to be completely shot on digital video. He loved it because, with this consumer-grade camera, he could do 40 minute takes, have a smaller crew, see the result without processing film, and of course, it was far cheaper. The camera’s auto-focus meant he ended up manning the equipment himself for much of the movie. “It was so fantastic for me and for the scenes that I could never go back to film,” he says. This probably upset a lot of his analogue fans, but the bigger upset came next. This would be his last ever movie. He has since gone on record, promising that the 2006 feature was the last film he’d ever make.
Lynch shot the film without even having a final screenplay
“On this particular film, I would get an idea, write it down, and then go shoot it,” the director explains, “then I get another idea and shoot that and I don’t know how one relates to the other, but it didn’t really bother me.” Not knowing how each scene might relate to its subsequent parts is unheard of in Hollywood, but it might not be surprising given the abstract nature of Inland Empire, which feels like it could be based on a screenplay that was put through a paper shredder, glued back together and filmed in its new fragmented sequence. The end result follows a non-linear narrative that Lynch refers to as “dream logic”.
Even the actors had no idea where the story was going
Justin Theroux, during a challenging press tour fielding questions about what it all means, said: “We shot scene by scene, not really knowing where the story was going but basically knowing what the structure of the scenes were.” Some actors would find this irritating, for obvious reasons, but Lynch’s cast showed up for work and enjoyed the freedoms of this bizarre set up, as Laura Dern explained: “The feeling of liberation you have when there is only the moment, there isn’t the before or after when you’re shooting scene by scene.”
Lynch sings two songs in the movie
Lynch is credited with two songs in the movie, “Ghost of Love” and “Walking on the Sky”, both of which he sings on. “I’m not a singer,” he said, “I use a lot of trick electronic things.” He’s referring to the Vocoder-infused vocals on “Ghost of Love”, which gifts us with his beautifully nasal singing. Following the film, Lynch self-released the soundtrack, and it turns out he’s so DIY that he actually had his own studio built so he could experiment with it. A one-man movie and music-making machine.
Lynch shot scenes of Laura Dern in a tank top during record low temperatures in Poland
When Lynch’s team flew to Poland to shoot some scenes, they chose an unseasonably cold January as a frosty front came in from Russia. “Laura needed to be out in this little-biddy outfit so it was kind of dangerous, honestly, because it was brutally cold,” Lynch explained. “I was just grateful for the opportunity to wear a tank top in -32 [degrees],” Laura laughed, “and David gave me lots of borscht to help me through.”
The film was an abstract experiment in giving people “room to dream”
In this behind the scenes clip, a glum Lynch says: “I’m so depressed I don’t know what I’m doing. I have not got a clue … It’s an experiment.” Inland Empire is arguably his most balls-to-the-wall surreal feature. People often forget that Lynch was an abstract painter before he was filmmaker, and that he approaches film in a similarly intuitive way. “Stories can hold abstractions, cinema can say abstraction, when it gets abstract there’s many, many interpretations,” he explained. “There’s a lot of films that are easy to understand, and that’s really good, and as soon as you do something that’s a hair more abstract, then you get into a thing. And some people really want to understand everything. And other people appreciate an abstraction and they like room to dream. And I love films that allow me room to dream.”
‘Inland Empire’ will return to UK cinemas on May 26.