The question remains, how the pieces come together with you.
you always produce a whole. Sometimes it is frustrating that they do not come in the logical order, but the is just part of the process. That was my whole life so that the films are revealed to me piece by piece and I do not know what the whole is revealed before it is there. Usually I write a script and add the scenic ideas in it. In this case it was at first so that I had no idea what to do scenes together. But the more came, the more clearly I saw how it all fits together.
it happen, on average, or even on the set?
The second half is more developed in the traditional way, because I had this time together my ideas. If one looks at the editing table then the whole, the result is again a different process, eliminated because some things and others added.
it surprise you sometimes think that you are an outsider in Hollywood?
Not a bit. I started as a painter and film interests me for not. I was lucky because I see film as something very different than is usual in Hollywood. I love Hollywood as a place to live. I work but not in the system. I have never made a traditional studio film.
But you can feel your love for old movies.
I love Hollywood, I love the whole thing. The dream to make films that I love. I'm just not there.
Where does the number 47, the Inland Empire in a dark, magical significance has?
She was suddenly there. I see such things as I see a piece of film. Sometimes turns up something and your brain starts to work on to get behind the meaning of the things you meet on your way. For me, this number has a specific meaning, but I do not talk about it. As with the abstract ideas we have: they give each a different meaning.
A recurring theme in your movies, even in Inland Empire is the unfaithful wife. Infidelity is in your universe is a kind of capital crimes. Why is that?
not know. It must have what they have to do with me because I am besotted with the matter.
also houses play an important role in your movies. They are places of fear, weird encounters, the claustrophobia. On your drawings and paintings they cast dark shadows. Do you have a bad experience with houses?
This has nothing to do with me not really. I'm not afraid of my house. But I understand that one can be afraid in a house if you do not know what is at the end of the corridor. In the world there is still the same: We fear the unknown and yet are drawn to it.
The silence around the corner?
the unknown around the corner. The idea that there is something under the surface. Things you feel about it but nothing Accurate white. Just a feeling.
What instructions you give your actors?
Whatever it takes to get to them on the same wavelength as the initial idea to exist. The idea is there, the actors are there, and we rehearse. They have their own ideas, sometimes they are closer, sometimes farther away. If they are just beside it, one must try to communicate with words, what was wrong with their approach. And eventually they catch on something like what I expected, sometimes only for a single scene, sometimes for the whole roll. Then it takes only a few words: Remember thereto, remember.
in your movies There are no phones. Hate cell phones?
Well, I like just timeless furnishings. In "Eraserhead" there were no cars. This is not a conscious decision. It's just that one sees something and says, no, no, it is not. Moreover, technology is changing so fast that mobile phones will look old again soon.
What you want to Lodz?
Great architecture. Great atmosphere in the winter. Low clouds and winter light.
An atmosphere of timelessness?
For me it was brand new.
has changed the digital camera for your money making movies?
Very much. It has given me much more freedom to have more fun on twisting and felt much less pressure. I compare it with two kinds of life: one is a Thursday morning, you have not slept well, the alarm clock did not go off, no time for a proper breakfast, not even for a good cup of coffee, it's raining, you're stuck in traffic and have a super important meeting with a boss who has you on the Kieker. This kind of sinister terror makes a different life course, this is like a Saturday morning, the sun is shining, you wake up totally refreshed to, your favorite breakfast eats, have a whole weekend in front of you with time for everything you wanted to do all along. People say, of course, if you can find it all that great, David, then how can you tell such horrible stories?
And? How can you?
If you from start to finish only tells of the happiness, one would be bored to death. Life stories of contrasts. In the end, but it is also the fact that the artist himself must not suffer to show suffering. You have to understand the suffering and the stories that spring from it. This is called atma, the Self is an ocean of pure consciousness. It is said, know thyself, which is the field that's where everything comes from, including us, this is our home. It is here and enjoys it and understands more and more, and it is crazy and is already in the early morning with a head full of ideas, and anything that has a tortured until then, stands out like a weight from you.
But you must still have that dark side in himself. This woman with a screwdriver in the belly, that's not something you see when you're happy.
These thoughts make me happy, I swear to you. I love this story, I do not know why I love her so much, but it is. I love what makes the movie so, I love the trip that's going on.
Interview by Michael Althen and Andreas Kilb © 2007 THE TIME. At the request of Mr. Lynch that set out in TIME Attribution "Inland Empire" in the Inland Empire has been changed.