Conversations: David Lynch

In this week's Conversations podcast, Salon film critic Andrew O'Hehir talks to David Lynch about his latest film, "Inland Empire" (read a transcript of the interview here). It may be his most abstract work since "Eraserhead," but Lynch says he still hopes the movie will appeal to 14-year-old girls in America's heartland. Lynch also reveals his heartache over our obsession with DVD extras and talks about the best way to watch his films, his hope for the future of art house cinema and his new line of coffee.

With or without your help, you know people are going to devote tremendous energy to figuring it out and piecing it all together. On Salon, there was a ferocious discussion about "Mulholland Drive" between our readers and a couple of writers, trading theories and trying to figure out what was going on in that movie. Are you OK with that kind of thing?

Absolutely! You know, people -- we're all detectives. We all have intuition. We're all sensing more than what meets the eye, deciphering things, figuring things out. So beautiful for the human being. It's part of it, it's part of us. Some films can be great, they're entertaining, you love 'em, but that's it. You're on to the next thing. And others, you can roll 'em around, you can think about them, live with them. And if you like that world that you get to go into, that's a beautiful thing. You can visit that world again, and go in and, in a way, get lost, like Chet Baker -- "Let's Get Lost." You get lost in a dream, and there's indications of things, that you can put it all together. It's all there.

OK, that's a good, cryptic David Lynch answer. I'll run with that.

OK. [Laughter.] That was completely straight-ahead, man.
 

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