The Short Films of David Lynch

The Short Films of David Lynch (2002) is a DVD collection of the early student and commissioned film work of American filmmaker David Lynch. As such, the collection does not include Lynch's later short works, which are listed in the filmography.

The films are listed in chronological order, with brief descriptions of each film. The DVD contains introductions by Lynch to each film, which can be viewed individually or in sequence to each other.

Six Men Getting Sick (Six Times) (1966). Originally untitled, "Six Men Getting Sick" is a one-minute color animated film that consists of six loops shown on a sculptured screen of three human-shaped figures (based on casts of Lynch's own head as done by Jack Fisk) that intentionally distorted the film. Lynch's animation depicted six people getting sick: their stomachs grew and their heads would catch fire.

Lynch made this film during his second year at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art. The school held an experimental painting and sculpture exhibit every year and Lynch entered his work in the Spring of 1966. The animated film was shown on "an Erector-set rig on top of the projector so that it would take the finished film through the projector, way up to the ceiling and then back down, so the film would keep going continuously in a loop. And then I hung the sculptured screen and moved the projector back till just what I wanted was on the screen and the rest fell back far enough to disappear" (Chris Rodley, editor of Lynch on Lynch). Lynch showed the whole thing with the sound of a siren as accompaniment. The film cost $200 and was not intended to have any successors. It was merely an experiment on Lynch's part because he wanted to see his paintings move.

The Alphabet (1968) combines animation and live action and goes for four minutes. It has a simple narrative structure relating a symbolically rendered expression of a fear of learning. The idea for The Alphabet came from Lynch's wife, Kingsley Karrot, a painter whose niece, according to Lynch in Chris Rodley's Lynch on Lynch book, "was having a bad dream one night and was saying the alphabet in her sleep in a tormented way. So that's sort of what started The Alphabet going." Based on the merits of this short film, Lynch was awarded an American Film Institute production grant and became a minor celebrity.

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