As Hollywood still mourns David Lynch’s passing, New York’s Metrograph Theater is honoring the late auteur.
IndieWire can announce the Metrograph will be hosting all-day David Lynch marathon tribute on February 19 with Lynch’s longtime collaborator cinematographer Frederick Elmes onsite.
Elmes will be participating in panels, and also is lending his personal 35mm print of “Wild at Heart” for the mini festival. Elmes was the cinematographer on a trio of Lynch films, “Eraserhead,” “Blue Velvet,” and “Wild at Heart.”
“It’s been such a privilege to be part of David’s unique vision, one that transports us to worlds that are familiar and mysterious, frightening and dark, beautiful and inspirational,” Elmes told IndieWire with the Metrograph announcement. “I’ll miss him dearly.”
Titled “In Dreams: A David Lynch Tribute,” the Metrograph marathon will begin at 1:00 p.m. ET with a screening of “Mulholland Drive.” The program also includes “Blue Velvet” (with a Q&A with Elmes), “Wild at Heart,” and Lynch’s final theatrical feature to-date, “Inland Empire.” Lynch served as his own cinematographer for the 2006 film.
The Metrograph will also have a special raffle for attendees who go to all four screenings. The all-day in memoriam marathon concludes at 1 a.m. ET.
“With the death of David Lynch at age 78 this January, one of the most singular, visionary voices in world cinema fell silent — but Lynch, as an inspirationally unselfconscious channeler of the darkest recesses of the creative id and eager innovator in film form, will never, ever cease to speak to lovers of film art,” a press statement reads. “A full day of terror, bliss, crackpot comedy, ominous whooshing… and collective celebration of a titan of American art.”
Elmes was previously honored with his own series at the theater, “Filmcraft: Frederick Elmes,” in April 2023. In addition to collaborating with Lynch, Elmes has also worked with Jim Jarmusch, Ang Lee, John Cassavetes, Charlie Kaufmann, and more auteurs. In television, Elmes shot “The Night Of” and “Olive Kitteridge.”
After Lynch’s death, Elmes told IndieWire that the director was the biggest influence on his career.
“He’s such an original filmmaker,” Elmes said of Lynch. “He’s allowed me to trust myself, to trust ideas that I have that seem out of the ordinary, that seem a little farfetched. He’s allowed me to trust that, yeah, maybe this is actually the way to solve this problem. This is the way to approach this scene visually. Why not take a chance with it? Why not go out on that limb and make it a little darker than you would’ve before? And I love that.”
Check out the full lineup, with language provided by Metrograph, below.
“Mulholland Drive”
dir. David Lynch, 2001, 147 mins, 35mm
“Mulholland Drive” began its life as an aborted TV pilot concerning blonde Betty Elms (Naomi Watts, transcendent) and an amnesiac brunette (Laura Harring), then transformed into something strange, sorrowful, and maddeningly mysterious as it was expanded into a film noir-inflected feature, following the sleuthing duo into the enigmatic night club Silencio, and outlining a series of unforgettable incidents and transformations. Heartbreaking, hilarious, and terrifying by turns, while always on the razor’s edge of the inexplicable.
Wednesday, February 19 at 1:00 p.m.
“Blue Velvet”
dir. David Lynch, 1986, 120 mins, 4K DCP
The chance discovery of a severed human ear lying in a field inspires Kyle MacLachlan’s wholesome, milk-fed Jeffrey Beaumont to try his hand at amateur sleuthing, and sets him off on a journey that will introduce him to bruised beauty Isabella Rossellini and her psychopathic captor Dennis Hopper, and reveal to him for the first time the diseased underbelly of the quaint North Carolina town where he was raised. Lynch had made great films before this one—and would make two more after it with muse Laura Dern, who lends wonderful depth to girl-next-door Sandy Williams, Jeffrey’s steady date and co-conspirator—but it’s “Blue Velvet,” with its juxtaposition of dreamy images of Norman Rockwell suburbia, scenes of nightmarish menace, and color photography, courtesy Frederick Elmes, as plushly lush as its title, was so unprecedented as to inspire a whole new adjective: “Lynchian.”
Wednesday, February 19 at 4:00 p.m. followed by a Q&A with Frederick Elmes
“Wild at Heart”
dir. David Lynch, 1990, 125 mins, 35mm, print courtesy of cinematographer Frederick Elmes
“This is a snakeskin jacket. And for me it’s a symbol of my individuality and my belief in personal freedom.” Laura Dern and Nicolas Cage are Sailor and Lula, hotpants lovers on the lam, in Lynch’s fever dream road trip through a sleazy South of stick-up men, heavy metal concerts, and pornos, Texas-style. The guiding influences are Elvis Aron Presley, who Cage channels throughout, and “The Wizard of Oz,” with Sheryl Lee’s Good Witch appearing at the end of a rough ride menaced by Diane Ladd’s mad matriarch and Willem Dafoe’s oleaginous, stub-toothed Bobby Peru.
Wednesday, February 19 at 7:00 p.m. with an introduction from Frederick Elmes
“Inland Empire”
dir. David Lynch, 2006, 180 mins, 4K DCP
A murky, miasmic, continent-hopping nightmare that’s a vehicle for longtime Lynch muse Laura Dern, playing Nikki Grace, a Hollywood starlet who’s sent into a spiraling identity crisis. Lynch acts as his own cinematographer on “Inland Empire,” his last theatrical feature to-date, shot over the course of three years on consumer-grade digital video. The result is an ominous death rattle for cinema as it was known through the 20th century, and a frightening funhouse maze without a center. “The color of night terrors… Despite its overwhelming gloom, ‘Inland Empire’ mesmerizes, its pull resulting from the thrills of watching [Dern]… transform, stretch herself into terrified, terrifying characters.” —Melissa Anderson
Wednesday, February 19 at 9:30 p.m.
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