Seeing some really sick art today.

The posts on here minimizing the artistry of Lynch's writing call to mind Paul Schrader's story of being asked by De Laurentiis to rewrite Lynch's then-unfilmed BLUE VELVET script & replying it was "one of the best scripts I’d ever read... there was no way I could improve it."

Also, Lynch only read Kafka in translation; i.e., another writer’s reinterpretation of every word. Of an unfinished work, to boot. And it still deeply affected him! Who knows how many a published Lynch script might deeply move, even absent his sui generis audiovisual language.

Note that Lynch identified *a writer* as the single person that he felt could be his artistic brother. Not someone who worked w/ visuals or sounds. Also, the screenplay for UNRECORDED NIGHT was completed, & it's the people who knew him best that are making a publication decision.

Kafka in 1924, dying, asked Max Brod to burn his uncompleted works, like The Trial. Yet Brod published them. David Lynch, 62 yrs later: "The one artist that I feel could be my brother... is Franz Kafka.... I'd like to direct a movie of The Trial." Uncompleted works have merit.

Jen Lynch recently affirmed that UNRECORDED NIGHT's scripts "are likely to be published by myself and my siblings as a way to offer what could not be realized, to those who would have loved it.... we are great fans of our father’s work, and wish to see it shared and celebrated."

First reported by Boston Hassle (see https://t.co/DcbxEv9tso). Sabrina has also said Lynch wrote NIGHT by going "through all of his old writing... he took things that had already been written and kind of combined them, while also writing new stuff" (per https://t.co/5iIPZeJLuF).

David Lynch's producer Sabrina Sutherland has revealed that his final work, the 20-25 episode UNRECORDED NIGHT, was set to star Toby Jones, son of his longtime collaborator Freddie Jones. Lynch passed away shortly before he was set to meet w/ Netflix about resuming pre-production

Hopefully the script will still be published one day, as Lynch's daughter Jennifer last year suggested they were looking into doing: https://t.co/DNag0hRRJJ

From The Standard: https://t.co/42MDEFlZHS. It was publicly known in 2020 that Lynch had copyrighted 13 "episodes" of UNRECORDED NIGHT, but this is the first indication of its expected length. 20-25 hrs exceeds the runtime of every other project solo-scripted by him, combined.

In new interview looking back 1yr after David Lynch's death, Sabrina Sutherland adds a bit more info about his final (unproduced) project, UNRECORDED NIGHT: he expected it to be "maybe 20-25 hours" in length, and was "very close" to trying to move forward with it when he passed.

FWIW, I've heard from someone who is in a position to know that this up-for-auction 1971 VOLUNTEERS screenplay was definitely not written by David Lynch, famous filmmaker and artist. (It may have been written by A David Lynch in 1971, just not him.)

FWIW, they're also selling another copy of Lynch's (to-date publicly unreleased) screenplay THE DREAM OF THE BOVINE, from the estate of Harry Dean Stanton. They include a sample page of the screenplay, the first ever publicly released excerpt from it AFAIK. Dumb wordplay galore!

I don't think someone would make up something this specific. And it seems quite a coincidence if a totally different David Lynch were responsible for writing this, and it's all a big mix-up... and yet! That's what I lean towards: two David Lynches. A David doppelgänger. Thoughts?

They claim Lynch sent the script to an independent producer (and Georgetown prof.) in '71 while seeking to stir up interest in it. They include Lynch's purported cover letter; they acknowledge the signature is not his handwriting, but speculate someone secretarial helped with it.

If true, it'd seemingly be Lynch's first full-length completed script, done between his short THE GRANDMOTHER and the start of his work on ERASERHEAD. I've never heard of Lynch having worked on anything remotely like this, so AFAIK it'd be breaking news... https://t.co/MWl7Lg5UdI

Julien's is auctioning a script titled VOLUNTEERS it claims David Lynch wrote in '71; it's purportedly "a military satire" that "follows a group of young men who have been drafted to go to Vietnam" & engage in "various hijinks" to get out of it. I don't know if I believe them...

Fwiw: THE LEGEND OF THE HAPPY WORKER (dir. by Twin Peaks editor Duwayne Dunham, exec produced by David Lynch, from a screenplay (by others) Lynch placed in Dunham’s hands after BLUE VELVET) is finally being released, after wrapping filming in 2018. Co-stars Amy Shiels (Candie)…

Who that voice is on the other side of Mr. C’s call is one of The Return’s thornier questions, and certainly isn’t getting resolved in this thread (indeed, its ambiguity is part of the point), but it’s nonetheless interesting to be getting new information about it 8 years later…

That angle is particularly relevant to The Return given its oneiric throughlines. In Hurley’s case, the fact that he was the Sound/Music Supervisor is of additional salience, given the seemingly critical (if nebulous) role “sounds” play in The Return’s web of meaning.