Filmmaker David Lynch carefully and thoughtfully explains his vision behind “Interview Project“.  A series of interviews with ordinary Americans living on the fringes of society in small towns filmed during a 70-day, 20,000-mile road trip managed by Austin Lynch (David Lynch’s son), and a friend, Interview Project is nothing short of ambitious and its results, so far, are haunting.

In the clip below, Lynch discusses Interview Project (@interviewproj).  Set against an all-black background and looking deadpan into the camera, Lynch says without emotion and not even the slightest hint of a sales-pitch:

“People should watch interview project because they’re going to meet hundreds of people… The team found the people driving along roads, going into bars, different locations and there they were.  The people told their stories.  It’s so fascinating to look and listen to people.  It’s something that’s human and you can’t stay away from it.”

Watching David Lynche’s interviews (filmed documentary-style) with ordinary Americans who are happy in their anonymity and modest (yet courageous in how they’ve lived their lives) you get the feeling that something is being documented here that is dying off — a part of our culture and history as a nation that we are forgeting, letting go of, moving away from but that needs to be captured in as a beacon of light for us to see our way through the future (especially as we struggle to define it in these uncertain times).

New individual interviews will be posted at Lynche’s site every three days for one year.  But we will also be uploading the footage here and sharing it as often as we can.

In a day and age where any and everyone with a camera can upload footage of themselves talking into the camera about whatever moves them (from the meaningful to the minutea) , it is refreshing to see a master of film arts reclaim the art of the interview by featuring people with fascinating stories who reveal themselves and their lives to us in their brief interviews in a way that brings storytelling and emotion back to the interview process.  This is, at its core, the art of talk.

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