The Alphabet: Lynch got the inspiration for this film one night when Peggy's niece woke up from a nightmare where she was frantically repeating the alphabet. Filmed half live action and half animated, letters appear (a capital A even gives birth to a bunch of little lowercase a's). A girl (played by Peggy Lynch) writhes around in bloody sheets, reciting the alphabet, blood-red flows from her mouth and eyes in an otherwise completely monochromatic atmosphere. The soundtrack is mainly a male opera singer and wind sounds. Approximately 4 minutes long. Very gothic, very nightmarish.
After completing "The Alphabet", David Lynch had been "bitten by the movie-making bug" and immediately started putting together another project titled "The Grandmother".
The Grandmother: The script is very dense and very short, a trait that we soon learned came with most of David Lynch's movie scripts. Lynch was already in the process of making Eraserhead (almost a hobby, taking over five years to complete) for over a year at the time and the money had run out. So Lynch applied for a grant from the American Film Institute, not at all expecting to get it. The scripts for both movies were submitted and surprisingly, he got the grant which was eventually used for the shorter of the two films (Eraserhead was over 90 minutes and The Grandmother was only 23 minutes). The Grandmother was finished in 1970 and quickly gained notoriety and very much displayed what was to be known as David Lynch's gothic personal style. It begins with some stop-motion animation using photo cutouts. A man, woman, and child are "born" from the earth, and the man attacks the child, which is the opening to the film's theme in live-action. The story is told through imagery and has maybe a total of six words said throughout the entire film. Basically, a young boy that has very neglectful and abusive parents yearns for love and affection. After getting his ass whipped for peeing in his bed, the young boy pours dirt on his bed and plants a seed of some kind. He "waters" it daily and grows a disgusting-looking plant that "gives birth" to an old lady. She turns out to be a grandmother figure to the child. All is well, apparently, the grandmother has no problem with the kid wetting his bed (we see it colored yellow against a mostly monochromatic background). One day the grandmother starts to "malfunction" and goes flipping out all around the room. The kid goes to his parents for help but is met with abuse. The grandmother disappears. Next, we see the kid strolling through a cemetery and he runs into the grandmother there, they both scream, and the kid goes home... The End. What does it all mean? I don't even think David Lynch knows for sure.
The Amputee:
Filmed in 1973, The Amputee exists in two takes on two different types of film. The American Film Institute was looking into buying a large quantity of a particular kind of film tape and since there were two major brands being made at the time, both were tested using the exact same scene to see which looked better. Lynch asked if he could film whatever he wanted and was given permission to do so as long as both scenes were exactly the same. With the freedom to do what he wanted, he scripted a scene where a male nurse (played by Lynch) is cleaning and dressing the wounds of a woman who has recently had both of her legs amputated. The woman (played by Catherine Coulson which we all grew to love as "The Log Lady" from Twin Peaks) is busy writing a letter or novel of some kind and pays absolutely no attention to the nurse who is about to puke because oozy crap is flowing out of her wounds. The first take had better quality, but the second take is much funnier. Much more ooz than in the first one and the actress is clearly on the verge of laughing. Catherine Coulson plays the amputee and was married to Jack Nance at the time. We know Jack Nance mostly from his portrayal of Henry in Eraserhead. They were reunited several years later when both had major roles in the hit series Twin Peaks. Coulson played the Log Lady and Nance played the part of Pete Martell.
The Cowboy and the Frenchman:
After Blue Velvet was released, David Lynch took a vacation in Paris. While there, he was approached by an associate about a TV series about how Americans see the French. David originally declined because he didn't feel that it was something that could be done in what was becoming an ever-evolving personal film style of his, which was very artful, abstract, and gothic (everything this film wasn't supposed to be). Six different directors were chosen to make a short film that could possibly end up being the pilot of a new TV series. David Lynch went home and did some thinking about the offer and thought that maybe he could make a film with this theme. He should have stuck with his gut instinct because this film really sucks and is my least favorite of the entire collection. Basically, the story goes as such... Four ranch hands are sitting around chewin' "Tabaccee" and out of nowhere, a Frenchman comes staggering out of the forest carrying a suitcase with all the French essentials, such as wine, cheese, snails, perfume, etc. Eventually, the group is joined by three women, who only dance around and have no apparent purpose for being there. Also, a choir of three other women breaks in every now and then to sing only one verse and then back to the "story". When David Lynch presented his version of the pilot, he was greeted with the insult "Great, two cliches for the price of one". Needless to say, his version wasn't chosen. Can't say that I blame them, it really was bad and had a theme that I don't think Lynch could lower himself enough to even attempt to turn this kind of crap into a full TV series. I think he felt a need for a more artful kind of work and a little more freedom when it came to his artistic integrity. But hey, it was worth a try.
Lumiere:
In the late '90s, Lumiere Brothers Incorporated., a large producer of TV and movie cameras, was doing an experiment with an antique camera. The camera was made of wood and had a crank. This camera was passed around to a few different directors. Each individual director was to produce 55 seconds of footage with the camera. Also, there were some restrictions enforced: you could have no more than three takes, and once you got the crank turning, it couldn't be stopped until the film was over. In the short 55 seconds that David Lynch had, we see quick flashes of events such as... cops finding a dead body on the lawn, people crying, etc.
Six Figures Getting Sick Six Times: This is basically just a cut-and-paste sort of animation style where the background of six different faces remains motionless while different styles of vomit appear to come from each face. This happens six times with only the sound of a siren playing in the background. Out of all of them, this one is the simplest and for some reason is my favorite, probably because it's the most artistic overall.
There are several other short films on the DVD release, some are good, some are bad, most make no sense at all, some are just miscellaneous attempts to create other projects that never made it off the ground, etc. Even though it was an expensive collection to buy on DVD, the price wasn't worth it and many people regretted purchasing it. It's really only for the hardcore David Lynch collectors out there who must have everything that he ever made, even when he was young and didn't have much of a clue as to what he was doing. Some of the short films do give you a good glimpse into what David Lynch was to become when he finally became a well-known filmmaker.
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