David Lynch

In the archive David Lynch's name works as a unit of measurement, and the share can be counted: it appears on fourteen pages and on twelve of them the subject is somebody else's film, with critics placing a new work by reference to him. Ryan Gilbey does it openly, writing that a Russian director learned from Lynch that sound can disturb as much as image, and then finding the film short of that measure. Among his own films The Straight Story is an expectation left unmet. Kevin Jackson writes that the viewer keeps waiting for severed ears and dwarves talking in the language of Atlantis, and that none of it ever arrives. Jackson's formula builds two Lynches: the man who shot this is the former Eagle Scout from Missoula, Montana, not the inspired sicko behind Blue Velvet and Eraserhead. The film pays for it, by his account, running the risk of never getting beyond good-heartedness.