David Lynch premieres long-awaited film collaboration with Poznań composer Marek Żebrowski
A new film by David Lynch with music by Poznań composer Marek Żebrowski has premiered on YouTube.
The 10-minute short film Fire (Pożar) is an ambiguous and symbolic black and white animation drawn and directed by the Twin Peaks creator with Żebrowski’s hauntingly jagged score performed by the Penderecki String Quartet providing the soundtrack.
As always with Lynch’s creations, interpretation is left to the viewer.
The eagerly-awaited film is both ambiguous and symbolic.
Although the film has screened in the past, the May 20 YouTube debut marks the first time the short film has been widely available to stream.
The 74-year-old filmmaker said: “The whole point of our experiment was that I would say nothing about my intentions and Marek would interpret the visuals in his own way.
“So I say it was a great successful experiment and I loved the composition Marek wrote for the Penderecki String Quartet.”
Lynch and Żebrowski began working on the project in 2015.
The two began collaborating on the project in 2015, having previously worked together on the 2007 album Polish Night Music and for the shooting of the 2006 film Inland Empire, where Żebrowski was Lynch’s translator.
During a 2015 discussion at the USC Thornton School of Music, where the authors spoke about their new Fire project, Żebrowski said: “I thought it was a very melancholic film in a certain sense and also very poetic.
“Without trying to be too explicit, I tried to illustrate further what David was doing.
The two had previously worked together when the Poznań composer was Lynch’s translator for the 2006 film Inland Empire starring Laura Dern.
“For example, there is something that looks like a hailstorm and I used a lot of pizzicato, but I also used a soaring melodic line to add a lyrical element to it.”
Poznań-born Marek Żebrowski is based in LA. Apart from being a composer and a pianist, he’s also the programme director of the Polish Music Centre and lecturer at several American Universities, including USC Thornton School of Music.
‘Fire’s’ YouTube premiere, announced by Lynch on Twitter on May 18th, was a long-awaited treat for the director’s devotees who have now flooded social media with comments.
‘Fire’s’ YouTube premiere, announced by Lynch on Twitter on May 18th, was a long-awaited treat for the director’s devotees who have now flooded social media with comments.
One called Mitya Berg wrote: “Turns out I can stop blinking for 10 minutes.”
Jowhar Shareef added: “David Lynch starting a YouTube channel is the best thing to happen this quarantine.”
In addition to being a composer and a pianist, Żebrowska is also the programme director of the Polish Music Centre and lecturer at several American Universities, including USC Thornton School of Music.
The filmmaker launched his channel David Lynch Theatre on May 11th.
Since then, he’s been posting a series titled Weather Report, which surprisingly contains exactly that – legendary David Lynch talking about the weather forecast.
Describing the music, Lynch said: The whole point of our experiment was that I would say nothing about my intentions and Marek would interpret the visuals in his own way.”
The filmmaker released another short in January – the 2017 ‘What Did Jack Do?’, which is available on Netflix.
Full video can be seen here.
