 Welcome to the Red Room, where I am going to be taking you through this damn fine video damn fine cup of coffee about David Lynch's favorite books. Don't worry, I won't do what the Lynch community hates it. An intellectualized David Lynch. Say some a little bit about what inspired the film and the story. Eraserhead was inspired by the city of Philadelphia. But by looking at Lynch's inspiration. Would you please ask the lady with the log to speak up? We can find room for us as artists to grow with some of the same ideas that helped David Lynch evolve. Because a lot of these books, a lot of the texts were read by him when he was young even before Eraserhead and he has been inspired by these texts. They have inspired me and inspired millions around the world and they can inspire you. So let's hop in. Next on the list is The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. And I don't know if you guys know this, but David Lynch wrote a whole movie script for The Metamorphosis and has wanted to film it all the way up until 2017 when he said that this book is so prolific that I can't put this to film because the words are so great. The definite things but it seems so strange to you know to talk about it because it's again it's a story that millions of people have read and about a hundred thousand people have written about and each one has seen it from a slightly different angle. But it's just like rich with things. But there's a certain kind of dark humor that I love about Kafka and it is his stuff thrills me you know to my soul. It just completely perfect mood and story and characters. So I like pretty nearly everything about it. And if you guys have seen Twin Peaks The Return, no spoilers right now, but a lot of the in different scenes throughout the show there are portraits of Franz Kafka in different offices and places. The largest one is a big portrait behind Gordon Cole played by David Lynch in his office as an FBI agent. And if you actually look at Twin Peaks The Return, once again not really a spoiler, but a lot of the characters are actually not themselves. They are undergoing a metamorphosis. There they are Albert faces of stone and people have said allegedly that David talked of this how the metamorphosis by Franz Kafka kind of inspired Twin Peaks The Return and you know if you think about it in 2017 when it came out he also said I'm putting that script to rest and if he's putting it to rest maybe he got out some of that energy in Twin Peaks The Return. I see a lot of that that there are so many different dual identities happening throughout the show but I won't spoil anything there. What the hell? So I think that this is a once again a very subversive pick and this is considered one of the more I hate saying the word subversive but this book even though it was written in or short story but novella was written in the modernist period and of course because Franz Kafka was an unknown writer is very postmodern is very modern is a very deep and psychological text for its time even more so than a Marcel Proust or one of the big writers from back modernist writers from back then if we compare the metamorphosis in 1915 to the wasteland by TS Eliot coming out around a similar time it's like Franz Kafka is on a totally different level but because he's not TS Eliot he's not getting that recognition he deserves so I can see though if you look at in general if you look at the transformational abilities transformative stuff in Eraserhead the elephant man Mahal and Drive Inland Empire you see that there's kind of this theme and we have to remember that a lot of artists steal like an artist that David Lynch even though through his transcendental meditations catching the big fish idea that he has influences that he does things that's why there's an obvious portrait behind him and these axiomatic influences these groundbreaking authors such as Kafka have an impact on us and for someone like Lynch to come out in the 80s in the late 70s 80s and 90s and have that type of firepower he had that be standing on the shoulder of someone else that didn't just come from him it came from what he had read and what he had studied so this is another great Texas takes an hour to read at most I would recommend if you guys haven't didn't get if you were forced to read this in high school reread it if you've never read it read it and if you've already read it then you're good but I would recommend that everyone check this one out oh the first book on our list today is the art spirit by Robert Henry and everyone needs to go and buy this book you have the ability to change the world through art even if you don't believe that you are an artist because quote in every human being there is the artist and whatever his activity he has an equal chance with any to express the result of his growth and his contact with life I don't believe any real artist cares whether what he does is art or not who after all knows what art is so in our society where we are conformed into working being chasing security chasing the next paycheck chasing whatever we've been told in program to care about by the public education system our parents our peers the news whoever living the artist's life is hard it requires work and more so than ever because of the connection it requires a certain steadfastness because if we look at david lynch's wife life how many wives has he had three or four when he just had his recent child he told his wife I'm not going to be really be involved in this child's life I'm not going to be there no matter what really because I just care about the work if this is something you want I can give this to you haha but if this is a life as a life as an artist and everyone has a different interpretation but what robert henry gets at in the book the art spirit is that it is an art spirit and when you start to dive into art and into the work all you start to care about is the work everything else doesn't matter as much anymore and a lot of sad boys a lot of hipsters a lot of people have used this throughout time a lot of the mediocre artists out there have used this to abuse people to neglect their family their friends their relationships and they were weak for getting themselves into it in the first place david lynch would admit that as much for him that if you are an artist you're going to dedicate your life to this don't leave a trail of destruction behind you get into the work love the work but change your life this comes back to rilke the modernist poet's idea that to change your art you must change your life that we have a world of especially right now of so many different people who went to film school when they know how to run photoshop or they've written a bunch of novels but they've never experienced life and if you look at david lynch's life he has a very big depth he lived so many different places risked so much studied so much has a huge knowledge of film and meditation and spirituality music all these different facets of his life that he draws upon in his works so if we are going to live the art life quote do whatever you do intensely the artist is the man who leaves the crowd and goes pioneering with him there is an idea which is his life cherish your own emotions and never undervalue them we are not here to do what has already been done david lynch did something that has never been done are you replaceable are you if you died right now someone probably could take your place no offense someone probably could take my place right now we need to become lynch pins the art spirit in 2022 looks different than it did for david lynch in today's world there's so much opportunity for art for artists that we as artists need to stand on the shoulders of david lynch and not get caught up though in this hipster mentality that a lot of david lynch fans have they have this mentality that oh i don't need anything else i just have to do my art and social media in the world none of that matters yes and no because now with the unlimited potential and different new forms of art coming out through technology and animation and all these different things we have an unlimited potential and social media and martial arts there's so many different things now that you can channel art through the world now can cater and support the artistic spirit but learning about robert hendry who was a great painter artist you know a classic artist learning his mentality shows you where lynch's mentality came from why he has his grind but this 100 focus on the art on the ideas making sure that he has the final cut except for doing on all of his films that's what it's about everybody and this book check this one out that's why i'm doing this one first because it is probably the most important book for you to transform your life escape your job create things that are going to be remembered for generations to come and feel fulfilled yourself and leave a legacy next on the list we have crime and punishment by fjordov dos payaski and i'm sorry if i messed his name up i've been messing his name up my whole life and i was given this book by my eighth grade teacher and this book changed my life so i love that lynch has this book on his list because when i was in eighth grade i had this great english teacher and he saw my potential and he first he gave me the stranger by camu and you know that book is great existentialist classic then sit hard to buy herman hessie and maybe a couple other books but then when i worked my way up and he was like you need to read this i don't know if you're gonna be able to read this as a 13 year old but you should try and i worked my way through it you know had the help of um there wasn't even booknotes or spark notes back then but on forms and stuff i pieced my way through it figured it out i looking back it was a really bad translation but it changed my life it really made me into a nihilist i know that fjordov didn't really want that especially at the end of his career that he had more of an optimistic view as opposed to like a niche or someone but it really sent me into atheism and nihilism for an existentialism for a good five years until i you know started going deep with psychedelics and this book is one of these subversions one of these classics that once again it seems like every single book on this list has a subversive quality to it if we look the art spirit it's a subversive quality to the normal life frank capra um the name above the title the subversiveness of hollywood and the director in the fall of the golden age of hollywood the metamorphosis obviously anonymous photographs in this book and it's very interesting looking at the selection and i would recommend everyone go check out this book and then check out some of fjordov's other books if you've never read uh dos avayeski book sorry i would recommend notes from the underground first then maybe crime or crime and punishment maybe the book called the possessed or demons i really like that one but crime and punishment if you are a strong reader is a very good place to start and you can see this in a lot of his films this is actually kind of if you look at the early lynch that elephant man and a racer head and lost highway a lot of that is informed has this dark kind of nihilistic feel even though that's not what lynch is about a lot of these characters a lot you know if you look at blue velvet a lot of the themes and characters have this more existentialist look and if you look at david lynch's general philosophy he has more of a he has a kind of a wonky you know with his transcendental spirituality and his meditation and the capturing of ideas but he has kind of this darkness to him that's what if we look at fjordov that's what he had he was i mean just a quick aside he had this very early success and he was a part of the bourgeoisie in russian culture and he was you know hanging out with the rich russian you know the rich rich russian elite then he had a major downfall got into gambling and got sent to an interment camp a russian concentration camp for i think what six to eight years and never really got recognized again for his works for the rest of his life even though he wrote all of his best stuff at the end and you know there's this kind of craziness to fjordov and his work because he has the talent he has the darkness like oh my god living in a concentration camp for ten for you know a bunch of years and he has this positivity to it and i would recommend checking out any of his works and i think it's once again really cool that david picks pick this so the next book on our list is the face in the lens anonymous photographs by robert flinn johnson and i think lynch picked this book for a couple different reasons the obvious one is that most film directors also have an interest in photography but lynch is a multi-talented artist who takes it very seriously as we were talking about before and during different shoots like on a razor head or the elephant man lynch would go out a couple months before and take photographs of all the different sets and scenes that he wanted to use and also some of his museum and art exhibitions he uses has photographs or photography and photography is kind of like the bastard stepchild of the fine art community but there's so much passion in this so if you guys don't know what anonymous photographs are here's a quote from mark twain and from the book mark twain wrote you can't depend on your eyes if your imagination is out of focus the evaluation study and appreciation of anonymous photographs of the human being is an often intriguing and meaningful activity the experience enhances both our clarity of vision in seeing others and in knowing ourselves so lynch has an interest of course in the modernist period in the golden age of hollywood but he also subverts that a lot of his work is great because of the subversion of that just like most post-modernist not to put lynch in that label and anonymous photographs really capture this because in this book of anonymous photographs that i'm displaying on the screen right now there are so many different things that caused me that caused emotional turmoil in the in the text for instance seeing kids the first chapter is immaturity and there's all these photos of kids who are now dead who've now most of them are now deceased and there is beautiful pictures with kids and their dogs and with their cats and their cats and dogs being so loving and so affectionate and that hurts my soul because the cats and dogs died probably before those kids even be you know graduated from high school or entered into adulthood and cats and dogs you know that's another part you know of these anonymous photographs and kids lives and potentials are lost we don't in this book we don't know what any of these photographs are these have been found these are anonymous we don't know who these people are what they were doing except what is in the photograph and this is a part of the lynchee and model also the hemmingway iceberg model that you are it's open to interpretation and when you really connect to the ether and to the flow with your creativity that's what kind of art is created isn't directed isn't literally you're not trying to force a message but what you get is this kind of eerie mystical piece these mystical pieces of work that the audiences love because there are so many different interpretations and that's what i think makes this book very lynchee and and very weird and why he would pick this because i'm sure he appreciates the art and the act of not just the history but the contemplation of death because this book is also very dark knowing that everyone dies and one day maybe our photographs this video are just going to be a relic lost on the internet a great book on this is cloud atlas by david mitchell everyone will check out that movie in that book it does all different forms of media or um transmissions of messages one day are going to be out of date you know already letters and the vhs tape and the cassette player are gone may youtube all these things are going to fall video uh we're moving into artificial reality a lot of these things are relics what we're doing right now one day will be a relic and maybe we'll be lost forever maybe when a really long time for now people won't even people could watch this video right now and not even understand the context or what it's happening i could just be an anonymous figure and eating cat and ax life could just be lost in history so that shows us the important things in life man david thinks david lynch thinks that it's the work right the the work of the artist other people view it as family you know a lot of the best things in life are free and that's how we have to live focusing on the superficial things don't get us anywhere and when you look at these photographs and you look at how insignificant our lives are in these lives that are lost it's beautiful so i would recommend this book i know a lot of people aren't going to check this out but just flipping through this it's available on archive.org go check it out go rent it for an hour it's free flip through it there is that i'm displaying some of the photos on the screen right now but i would 100 recommend this text a book that was written by a seven-time academy award-winning director a man who helped us win world war two a man who helped change hollywood forever a man a director who is now forgotten in 2022 and that is frank copra because today with special effects with teams of writers that know how to emotionally manipulate audiences with short form video with netflix movies from the 20s 30s 40s and 50s almost seem irrelevant but we are making the lessons and mistakes of coppers life relevant today in 2022 and beyond to you the writer the artist the thinker the human being who can change the world so quick biographical sketch of copra he is an immigrant from indole comes to america lives in the slums of la gets a degree in chemical engineering after living in impoverished adolescence doesn't like engineering though drifts along drifts around a little bit eventually finds his way onto some movie sets work some odd jobs and starts helping write silent films he gains a reputation as a good writer eventually when columbia picture columbia pictures opens up yes that columbia picture they start giving him some small jobs you know low budget films he does a good job on that and eventually he starts making bigger films win seven academy awards then world war two happens he also was involved in world war one world war two happens and he directs the why we fight series which was commissioned by the president and george marshall those videos are considered propaganda goal if you go and watch those they will blow your mind about how they rile people up they told him your job is to motivate untrained fighters guys who know nothing about the military who were just going to be sending in there basically to die and he put his whole heart and soul into these movies because he really believed in america he was the american dream personified the rugged individual who rose up from the ashes the man the immigrant from the streets who was unemployed for years into his late 20s who then found a break and started utilizing his talents however in the 50s and 60s his career started to decline to the point where for the last 30 years of his life he didn't film me film or direct any more movies and we'll get into why that happened in a second so for those who are going to read the name above the title a quick warning capra takes a very self-congratulatory tone during the book but if you think about it having that rugged american individualism rising up from nothing going through the grind and then at the very end not being appreciated at all and being forgotten there's a lot of resentment there there's a lot of triumph and having to deal with that psychologically decades down the line when you are forgotten and unappreciated can probably probably create a little bit of resentment and this is a big book this is i didn't know this book was going to be this big i heard about this because i'm making another book um another video go check that out right now on david lynch's favorite favorite books and i got this uh i got an ebook version and i was reading it and then i realized along the way that this was this was 550 pages this was like 250 000 words so you get the whole scope of frank capra's life so if you weren't down for that stay tuned for a couple more minutes and i will just condense all of the lessons and everything that really happens for you so lesson number one is done is better than perfect if we look at the early part of copra's filmmaking career he was making low budget films even sometimes when he started for no money at all just has a budget spends it all and just gets a little bit of accolades not making any money bouncing house from house but he if you want to become a pro artist filmmaker writer whatever you want to do a billionaire you have to go through that grind period and sometimes people don't have to do this but 99 percent of the time you have to go through this period and it is hard and you have to create you have to give the gift for almost nothing and you have to realize though that if capra along the way was like oh man this doesn't have the budget we don't have the effects we don't have the sound it's not going to be enough and you have to be an innovator too that capra and one of the cool things about the book is that he really brought audio and really was one of the forefront leaders of sound in hollywood films because when sound came along for the first time they hollywood thought it was a fad that it was just a fad and silent films were just going to rain forever and that silent films were the thing but when the jazz singer came out which you guys have ever seen and when you heard a man singing for the first time and it was actually him it wasn't a soundtrack it wasn't a voiceover it blew people's minds and capra because he was a chemical engineer helped front the movie because he was smart enough he understood about problems and what it takes to solve them so his films even though they were low budget were actually very innovative at the time so whatever you're going to do if you're going to be a lynchpin in the market whatever you're trying to do you have to be in the struggle you have to be finishing and completing and shipping your creative work no matter if it's you know beautiful or not if it's pivotal or if it's what you want and continue and keep moving forward because eventually you are going to have the fan base you're going to have the publishing deal you're going to have the backing and like i said if you think about it as a writer man eventually you will have a fan base and then you will have enough money to buy an editor or if you get a publishing deal you will have a hired editor and you'll have a team around you and test readers and a book cover designer you have all these different things one day but at the start all you have is a budget all you have maybe is the money of your own pocket to get a decent book cover and you have to figure out how to do adobe in design or something or if you're a filmmaker you know you buy to eventually resolve for three hundred dollars you buy a two thousand dollar camera and you're off you get some of your friends to act you know you have to go through this period and if you don't you never will get to the end only a few people actually are lucky enough to skip this stage this number two is that your family your values and where you came from are important if we look at capris filmmaking a lot of his themes and identity are reflections of himself that he was from the slums of la and i was i keep wanting to say east of life for some reason but he was uh in lincoln living in what is now called lincoln heights but if you are going to make this ascension you are going to leave some people behind if you become educated and a big wig writer and director if everyone all your old friends and family and colleagues around you don't do that there's going to be this kind of weird separation but that doesn't matter because at the end of the day we are all human you have to remember that and capra in his films has a sense of optimism the reason that movies have movies and music from the 50s 60s 70s 40s 30s have a little bit more depth is because the directors had the final cut and that moves me on to point number three that capra believed in the final cut that directors and he worked as the president of the skill a screen guild writers association and i think another big organization i can't remember right now and his main motion was that directors should have all the power not all the power but basically all the power that they get the script they work with the writer but they are the ones directing the actors the producers they shouldn't have a say in this but we see that now that actors and producers and the studio company and political correctness they have an influence on the films and what that does is that and and then with the marketing right and what does the market want but really it's what the director wants because directors and artists in general tap into the creative ether when you tap into the creative ether if you know how to do it right you are going to deliver something to the world that they want maybe everyone isn't going to agree with it maybe it's not going to break the box office but there will be enough people to you know go over the allotted budget if you look at movie studios today sometimes scripts have 10 or 20 writers working on the script and they send it from studio to studio and get revised over and over and over again and producers are on the neck of the director and the overlords of the company on the are on the neck of the producers it never ends but back in the day especially in music we look at mccartney and lennon and the rolling stones there was freedom and that's why when people are given freedom most of the time they produce optimistic positive sometimes subversive art but when things start getting controlled when people start thinking too deep that's what's starting to happen today with movies that we know how to emotionally manipulate audiences we throw in the boom the action the sex the whatever and people respond in a certain way but if we are going to evolve as artists we have to go back to the optimism and this is not just at some level that even in the worst stories there is a sense of light if you look at the wizard of Oz and gone with the wind those movies came out when capper was filmmaking those type of movies and that's what these movies are considered the golden age of hollywood because there was a sense of freedom and new opportunity why don't we have that today because these films are in a lockdown is the same reason if you look at facebook we know through big data what audiences want with test groups and with scripts we know what's going to flop and we know what's not going to flop and we know what's going to rise and there can be no risks anymore we aren't giving david lynch type directors opportunities to take risks because what if it fails at the box office what if nobody likes it that's the last thing we want so we're going to try to manufacture and produce things they're just going to flow to spy this is the same thing happening in the publishing world and capra was vehemently against us and the reason that his career ended because is because the actor the famous actor glenn ford was a total dick to him a pocket full of miracles and glenn ford was being a dick on set and causing a bunch of problems and putting pressure on capra because he was helping finance the film and capra was so dissuaded by this attitude and what was happening and the pressure and not having the freedom they'd quit movies forever he made a couple scientific educational films for schools that's it can you imagine but that's what happens now that there is so much pressure on artists and directors and these people who are functioning at this level to be a certain way that people crack people don't want to be a part of this anymore people don't want to be a part of cancel culture or diversity culture or or whatever is happening now they want the freedom to express themselves but they want a budget but the problem is is that money and the people who are involved in money and big money they want results they want control they want their name stamped on this they have an idea too but the director is the leader of the film and if you have you have to have trust in your leader it is a rank and file system and you can't put pressure on them at that level you can give critiques and talk to them but going to that level and not trusting the director is such a bad time and that's what is happening in almost every single film today unless you're a quintin tarantino or David Lynch or you know a director with a lot of sway you are getting talked down to and putting getting put pressure and having pressure put on you because these actors are not the best actors for the role they are actors who the public likes who they want to see there's not a meritocracy happening anymore in the system and that is a huge problem and the lesson here is that once again that we have to have the final cut that is the problem I have especially with the publishing industry and all these different things if you are a writer you give your rights away you they can edit it and put the cover on it and market it in any way that they want to and if you trust the company that's cool and it's almost like being a screenwriter and giving it away to some other director but now with self-publishing and marketing we have an opportunity to take back total control of our work and I think that that is the way that is the way to create a golden age of Hollywood again in our time so I really enjoyed this book what if you're not really interested in Hollywood you can learn a lot of this online if you aren't interested in the golden age a couple things I would recommend zeroville by Steve Erickson a great book that gets into all of this I think Capra is even in the book it's about a guy with a tattoo on the side of his head who is trying to get into Hollywood and be a director and he turns out it's a really wild book James Franco made a movie that really sucked on it