The three movies David Lynch calls “perfect”
Countless directors and art students across the world would be quick to call the movies of David Lynch perfect, and for good reason, with his idiosyncratic style of filmmaking inspiring creativity and innovation in everyone who sets their eyes on his creations. Making such beloved movies as Mulholland Drive, Wild at Heart, and Blue Velvet alongside such regular collaborators as Naomi Watts, Kyle MacLachlan and Harry Dean Stanton.
A student of the cinematic form as well as one of its greatest all-time contributors, Lynch has often discussed his love for the moving image, naming the likes of Stanley Kubrick, Federico Fellini and Billy Wilder on his list of his five favourite directors. Elsewhere, Lynch also cited Alfred Hitchcock and the great French filmmaker and actor Jaques Tati, whose ceaseless ingenuity undoubtedly had a great influence on the Blue Velvet director.
Yet, despite his love for the spectrum of cinema, there are only three movies he would dare call utterly “perfect”, with the director once handing these accolades out during an interview in the 2006 book Catching the Big Fish.
The first masterpiece he hands this esteemed accolade to is the 1963 Federico Fellini film, 8½. Regularly called one of the greatest movies of all time, Fellini’s work tells the story of a director stuck in a creative rut who reflects on his life in an attempt to kick himself into gear. “The first would be 8½, for the way Fellini manages to accomplish with film what mostly abstract painters do,” the director begins, “namely, to communicate an emotion without ever saying or showing anything in a direct manner, without ever explaining anything, just by a sort of sheer magic”.
Elsewhere, Lynch keeps in mind his list of favourite filmmakers, picking out Jacques Tati’s comedy, which follows a clumsy man causing chaos at a coastal hotel, Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday. Speaking about the movie, Lynch states, “I would show Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday for the amazing point of view that Jacques Tati casts at society through it…When you watch his films, you realise how much he knows about — and loved — human nature and it can only be an inspiration to do the same”.
The final film Lynch chooses is yet another product from his list of favourite directors, Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 thriller Rear Window, starring James Stewart. Remade countless times, Hitchcock’s movie is a timeless lesson in pacing and tension, with Lynch explaining, “James Stewart never leaves his wheelchair during the film, and yet, through his point of view, we follow a very complex murder scheme. In the film, Hitchcock manages to take something huge and condense it into something really small. And he achieves that through a complete control of filmmaking technique”.
Take a look at Lynch’s full list of “perfect” movies below.
Three movies David Lynch calls “perfect”
- 8½ (Federico Fellini, 1963)
- Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday (Jacques Tati, 1953)
- Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954)
