(mild spoilers)
This is unquestionably one of the worst documentaries I've ever seen. It's not even the horrible camera work and pretentious editing, it's how the film portrays Lynch. We're told he's a filmmaker, but we're never shown any excerpts from his films, not even stills. We're told he's a photographer, but only one photograph is shown, on a tiny computer screen, blurry. We're told he's a musician, but we learn nothing about his music. We can see he's a painter, but only one painting is shown in its entirety, for a brief moment, at the very end of the movie, a smallish image in the center of the screen.
And what *does* the film show? Well, it shows Lynch talking about popping dead cows, showing his teeth to the camera, shouting the same words over and over again for no apparent reason, congratulating the President of France, swearing, and, finally, admitting, in the midst of making a film, that he doesn't know what he's doing. In other words, the film paints Lynch as a loony. Sure, there's an eccentric side to the man, but there are many other aspects of his personality as well, and none are shown here. Since no work is shown, either, all that remains is eccentricity, shot from awkward camera angles, sometimes blurry, frequently in tiny images in the center of the screen, disjointed, etc. Content is sacrificed to form almost all the time (e.g. when Lynch is talking about a beautiful scene he witnessed and photographed, don't expect the (equally beautiful) photographs to be shown).
If you want a good documentary on Lynch, try to find "Pretty as a Picture: The Art of David Lynch." It was made in 1997 as a promotional piece for "Lost Highway", but has plenty of Lynch's paintings with good close-ups, Badalamenti and Lynch working on a song together, etc. I recommend only watching "Lynch (One)" if you've already seen "Pretty as a Picture", and if you're very, very, very interested in Lynch. Only giving it a 3 out of 10 because it has maybe 3-4 minutes of interesting footage.
This is unquestionably one of the worst documentaries I've ever seen. It's not even the horrible camera work and pretentious editing, it's how the film portrays Lynch. We're told he's a filmmaker, but we're never shown any excerpts from his films, not even stills. We're told he's a photographer, but only one photograph is shown, on a tiny computer screen, blurry. We're told he's a musician, but we learn nothing about his music. We can see he's a painter, but only one painting is shown in its entirety, for a brief moment, at the very end of the movie, a smallish image in the center of the screen.
And what *does* the film show? Well, it shows Lynch talking about popping dead cows, showing his teeth to the camera, shouting the same words over and over again for no apparent reason, congratulating the President of France, swearing, and, finally, admitting, in the midst of making a film, that he doesn't know what he's doing. In other words, the film paints Lynch as a loony. Sure, there's an eccentric side to the man, but there are many other aspects of his personality as well, and none are shown here. Since no work is shown, either, all that remains is eccentricity, shot from awkward camera angles, sometimes blurry, frequently in tiny images in the center of the screen, disjointed, etc. Content is sacrificed to form almost all the time (e.g. when Lynch is talking about a beautiful scene he witnessed and photographed, don't expect the (equally beautiful) photographs to be shown).
If you want a good documentary on Lynch, try to find "Pretty as a Picture: The Art of David Lynch." It was made in 1997 as a promotional piece for "Lost Highway", but has plenty of Lynch's paintings with good close-ups, Badalamenti and Lynch working on a song together, etc. I recommend only watching "Lynch (One)" if you've already seen "Pretty as a Picture", and if you're very, very, very interested in Lynch. Only giving it a 3 out of 10 because it has maybe 3-4 minutes of interesting footage.