The movie that made Renate Reinsve fall in love with cinema: “It hit me in places I didn’t know I had”
In my own creative world, when I think about the first things that made me want to be a writer, I think about hearing Joni Mitchell’s Blue for the first time, specially hearing the lyrics of ‘Case of You’ and that simple but endlessly meaningful central: “I could drink a case of you and I’d still be on my feet”.
As a young kid, I barely even knew what the line even meant, but I knew it meant something, and I knew it had moved me deeply, and I knew it made me want to write something that would feel that way. In the vast industry of culture, stories like this are shared constantly, and people are fascinated by finding out the genesis of their favourite artists, or what song, album, or film led to the making of a new star who would go on to make more art to inspire more people.
It’s all an endless cycle, but there is always a starting point for every artist, such as for Paul Mescal, it was watching Blue Valentine at university, for Helena Bonham Carter, it was after seeing My Brilliant Career that she knew she wanted to be an actor, it was watching Elvis Presley that made Paul McCartney realise he wanted to make music like that, and Saoirse Ronan talks about watching Taxi Driver for the first time and suddenly feeling like a new future had opened up.
Different people find that initial spark in different places, but for Norwegian actor Renate Reinsve, it was the dark, mysterious and admittedly confusing world of David Lynch.
When asked by Variety about the first films that touched and moved her, one came to her mind instantly, as she said, “I think the first one that really got to me was David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive“, adding, “It was just so mysterious, and it hit me in places I didn’t know that I had”.
That idea of discovering places you didn’t know you had is perhaps the best way anyone has ever summed up how this all feels. To find something that sparks and intrigues a creativity in you that had gone previously unexplored, it feels like finding a secret room in your house, or suddenly discovering you have a whole new limb.
For Reinsve, it was the complete mystery of the movie that got her as she watched Lynch’s most enigmatic masterpiece for the first time when she was admittedly a bit too young to understand it at all.
“I think I watched it also too early, but I read about it online. and I saw some people had gone crazy trying to understand it, and then I was even more intrigued, like the power that is in a movie,” she said.
For the first time, she was witnessing art that had her gripped but also had her completely and utterly confused. That’s not a feeling you get from kids’ films or teen movies; this was something new, and she wanted more, noting, “I went down that path of seeing dark, strange movies, and I was so into that kind of perspective for a long time”.
For Lynch to be Reinsve’s initial spark seems to make perfect sense, not that her career is all that Lynchian or weird, but from the projects she’s been part of so far, it’s clear that the actor likes a film that leaves you with questions and refuses to provide all the answers.
