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Length: ~3hrs, 13 lessons

My rating: ★★☆☆☆ (2/5)

My one-liner takeaway: David Lynch is creative on a level few people will ever feel comfortable reaching for.

David Lynch has been described to me as a ‘filmmaker’s filmmaker’ and the adjective ‘Lynchian’ has become a part of our vernacular, rising to the same eponymous ranks as ‘Kafkaesque’ or ‘Proustian.’ All of this is a result of David’s unique style of storytelling that draws in adoring film buffs who float among us with an inflated sense of sophistication. From the start of the course, he swims in metaphors to try and articulate concepts and it is immediately clear that he thinks about the world very differently than the rest of us. In between sips of coffee and puffs cigarette smoke, he shares some practical advice for how he approaches a project (casting, lighting, sound) using examples from some of his iconic works like Eraserhead. However, most of his lessons is so abstracted that it’s almost useless. David is an intuitive creator and doesn’t articulate well how to replicate his creative process. It just happens.

He does provide a bonus chapter where he encourages the audience to practice transcendental meditation, which would allow us to experience unbounded intelligence and happiness' by allowing our mind to travel through states of matter. There are very real tortured genius vibes emanating from David Lynch, and if he wasn’t so successful we’d all dismiss him as a crazy person. I wasn’t sure what to make of him, but I found it all pretty fascinating. It seems like he’s speaking a language only he understands. I still remember the feeling I had after finishing Mulholland Drive, realizing that I had never seen a movie quite like it. David Lynch is a rare soul, and despite his obscure perspective he doesn’t come off in this class as the aloof and brooding type that you’d expect.

If you’d like to hear it directly from David, check out his course here. As of now there are over 100 instructors to learn from, with more being added every week!

This review is part of a larger series, where I try learning from every single course within the catalog. Find my full list here.