For Jennifer Lynch, the daughter of David Lynch and his first wife, the painter Peggy Reavey, a life of telling stories through images might have seemed like a no-brainer. Lynch has played a small role in Eraserhead, had worked as a teenage production assistant on Blue Velvet, and had already written a Twin Peaks tie-in book before beginning work on her own first film as a writer-director: Boxing Helena (1993), a dark comedy about sexual obsession and self-loathing. It would have been strange if she’d been one of the few young filmmakers at that time who didn’t reflect her father’s influence. Still, Helena was met with angry charges of nepotism — for a start.
Helena was made in the shadow of a nasty lawsuit resulting from Kim Basinger’s pulling out of the lead role, and inspired media-fueled “controversy” regarding everything from its subject matter to its poster art and MPAA rating. It wound up being one of the most harshly reviewed movies ever given a major release. Critics usually show a certain amount of restraint when discussing the work of a twenty-five-year-old first-timer, but on this occasion, the gloves were off.
In the wake of that firestorm, Lynch’s follow-up project turned out to be her daughter, Sydney, who’s now thirteen. She also spent years conquering alcoholism and recovering from a major car accident that doctors originally thought would leave her permanently incapacitated. By the time she had the chance to direct her second film, Surveillance, no one could suggest that she hadn’t paid her dues.
Surveillance, which is set largely on a remote stretch of Nevada asphalt on a bright sunny day, began with a script by Kent Harper, which Lynch reworked to emphasize “the elements of desolation and the idea of people watching each other.” The cast includes Bill Pullman and Julia Ormond as the FBI agents trying to piece things together, as well as Pell James, French Stewart, Cheri Oteri, Michael Ironside, and the writer, Harper, as a highway cop who, like everyone else on the screen, knows something he’s not telling. It also features a remarkable performance by the now-eleven-year-old Ryan Simpkins as the most observant character, whose insights the adults around her shrug off at their peril. The film premiered at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival and more recently won the top prize at Spain’s Festival de Cine de Sitges. I spoke to Lynch about her return to directing. — Phil Nugent
It’s been more than fifteen years now since your first movie came out. A lot of people went after you like you’d kidnapped the Lindbergh baby.
They sure fucking did! [laughs]
Does that explain the long wait between Helena and Surveillance?
The world sort of forced me to take a while. And I made life decisions that forced me take a while. I decided to have a child and raise her by myself, and I figured that if you invite somebody into the world, you owe them your attention twenty-four hours a day. And I got sober, and I had three spinal-reconstruction surgeries. So I was in and out of hospitals, and getting the kid to and from school. I was still writing the whole time. But I wasn’t on a set.
But to have people react [to Helena] the way they did was kind of a blessing. It gave me the opportunity to turn it around and live a really quality life outside the business. But I still had this desire to tell stories. And when I went back to work, I felt that I really knew what I wanted to do. And now that my daughter can be on the set with me — she’s thirteen — I want to show her that she can do whatever she wants to do, whatever that is. I’m doing what I love, and that’s what I want for her.
How does Boxing Helena look to you now?
Precious. I’m glad I was able to make it when I made it. You know, everybody in it worked really hard, and really believed in me. If I made it today, it would be a different film. At the time, I thought it was this little film that was going to be maybe seen by three people, and two of them would like it. Now enough time has passed that I can forget about the criticisms and just enjoy the performances. I remember hearing it described as a horror movie, and I guess I feel sad that nobody saw it as the awful comedy that it is, about a sort of flaccid Prince Charming. I had been through enough dysfunctional relationships to know that you steal from each other when you shouldn’t be together, and that’s what it was about.
Surveillance is interesting as the work of a mother, because the little girl is practically the only sympathetic character. The whole message seems to be, “Listen to her,” and nobody does.
I got a lot of that from my daughter. And I was reminded, from my own childhood, of the way we tend to negate the wisdom of children, and the clarity that they have. They’re not distracted by the thoughts we have: “Did I get the job?” “Did he like me?” Blah, blah, blah. And I wanted to use that in a story.
You know, there were a few months there where my own daughter was mad that I wouldn’t let her play the part. But until I met Ryan and her mother, I didn’t think it was possible to be a child actor and still be healthy. Now I’ll admit I’m reconsidering that.
Is your daughter interested in filmmaking?
She is. She’s an amazing photographer. In fact, she just made more money than I did last month, selling a photo.[laughs] I don’t know what she’ll do with her life, but I just want her to be as happy in her work as I am in what I’m doing now.
Has she seen the movie?
Oh, yeah! She saw it with me at Cannes. In fact, I actually got a lot of flak for that; she’s the youngest person ever to see an R-rated movie at Cannes. But she was there every day during the shoot, she was there every day of the editing; she knows what’s real and what’s not real. And she knows who her mother is. When I was told that I would never walk again, I promised her that someday I’d walk to the end of the driveway. And here I got to walk the red carpet with her at Cannes. That’s what that was about for us.
The performances in Surveillance are really surprising. You mentioned that your cast on Boxing Helena was really up for working hard and trusting in you; was that the case here? You’ve got people here like Bill Pullman and Julia Ormond who really take chances. You’ve got them doing stuff that they haven’t done before.
And isn’t that the joy of it? The great thing about good actors is that they really want to try different things. In a certain way, they’re a lot better at being other people than they are at being themselves. In that way, they can be all of us. They feel good going home at night knowing they’ve done something that they might otherwise never have done. So Bill and Julia and French and Cheri Oteri and Pell James — all of them, I asked them to fulfill parts of themselves that they never would have, except in this make-believe world.
Now, your father is one of the most important directors in the country…
You mean people have heard of him?
Yes, I am boring you by telling you something you already know. But people can be so funny about their influences — I recently saw Moon, which was directed by Duncan Jones, who’s David Bowie’s son. And the press kit is kind of funny, because in it, he talks about wanting to pay homage to all the great sci-fi films of the 1970s, and he names just about every one of them you could think of except for The Man Who Fell to Earth…
You know, I can remember when I was teased for being his daughter. Growing up, I lived in a garage with him before it was hip to be his daughter. So I learned early on that it doesn’t matter what people think. I have always maintained that I am proud of my father. I try to look at his work and my work independently of each other, but there has never been a moment in life when I wanted to deny the influence of my father, whether it’s visual or spiritual or just the example of taking joy in what you’re doing.