Bluesy Velvet

Just because the man makes the trippiest films on the planet, everybody thinks David Lynch is from Bizarroland. He's an artist, people, not a space alien or a drug-huffing lunatic. Well, unless you count nicotine and caffeine. He doses himself steadily throughout Lynch, an entrancing mood piece that captures the director's state of mind before and during the production of Inland Empire, his latest film and his first shot on digital video. The man from Montana is presented as a full-time, hands-on creative being, painting, writing, hammering on a set, immersing a sport coat into a bucket of green dye. He's not in constant frenzied motion, however; the benefits of transcendental meditation, which he mentions more than once, are self-evident. The film adamantly refuses to open a window onto Lynch's personal life, or to provide so much as a wisp of an interview with a friend or collaborator (though the glimpses of Laura Dern are a sweet treat). The only voice we hear, essentially, is Lynch's, which makes Lynch less a documentary than a guided meditation on the art of living a creative and satisfying life.
Jan. 17-21, 7:15 & 9:15 p.m., 2008