David Lynch Wants to Introduce You to His New Friends

ivu_project.jpg

After disavowing traditional filmmaking several years ago with his grainy, ghastly digital epic Inland Empire, David Lynch today takes a big step toward outsourcing his work altogether: His long-awaited Interview Project went live this morning, featuring the first of a years' worth of short interviews with strangers encountered around the United States.

You can't necessarily blame the filmmaker for dispatching his son Austin and partner Jason S. to lead the Interview squad; in a lot of ways it beats traveling to Needles, Calif., yourself. But there's something intriguing about Jess, the bedraggled subject whom the filmmakers found roadside for Episode 1. If you're not given to hair-trigger accusations of exploitation, condescension or both (and with episode descriptions like "His rugged delivery and appearance soon gave way to a gentle man who was just looking for some peace in his life," Interview Project will get plenty of those in the year ahead), it's a compact and compelling little exchange.

There's more where this came from -- several times a week, in fact, as Lynch's crew files from the road. But really, the movie I can't wait to see down the line is the viral video cobbled together from 150 introductions by the leaning, smoking Lynch himself. Is anyone working on that yet? It's got to be an improvement over Inland Empire.

· Interview Project -- Jess [DavidLynch.com]