To me, this is one of Lynch’s best films. When it came out a mate of mine, Dave Scott, a great musician in Newcastle, said, half-jokingly, ‘Is it not like sanitised Lynch? A much more palatable form?’ And on the surface of it, it is, but it’s such a strange film. It’s one of his strangest films, I think. It gets to the essence of what Lynch is about. I saw it four times at the cinema when it came out. I just found it magic. Richard Farnsworth and Sissy Spacek are incredible in it together, and learning afterwards that he was very poorly when he was playing this role, that he knew it would be his last, is quite something. And then it’s got the best one scene performance of all time, right at the end, with Harry Dean Stanton. I have my feelings about Lynch’s later work from Mulholland Drive onwards. I know that one came top of the Sight And Sound best films of this century poll, which to me is just crazy as I think it repeats a lot of stuff from his other films and it’s not as good as any of the films that came before. To me, this film is perfect.
