The Short Films of David Lynch ( The Alphabet / The Grandmother / The Amputee / The Cowboy and the Frenchman / Six Men Getting Sick / Lumiere ) ( Les Français vus par (The Cowboy & the Frenchman) / Six Figures Getting Sick (6 Men Getting Sick) / Lumière and Company )

The Short Films of David Lynch (DVD) (*)

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Original Title: The Alphabet / The Grandmother / The Amputee / The Cowboy and the Frenchman / Six Men Getting Sick / Lumiere
Alternate Title: Les Français vus par (The Cowboy & the Frenchman) / Six Figures Getting Sick (6 Men Getting Sick) / Lumière and Company
Language Selections:
English ( Dolby Digital 2.0 )
English ( Mono )

Product Origin/Format:
United Kingdom ( PAL/Region 2 )

Running Time:
91 min

Aspect Ratio:
Fullscreen

Special Features:
Interactive Menu
Scene Access
Black & White

Movie filmed in 1967 - 1995 and produced in:
France ( France, Benelux )
United States ( USA, Canada )

Directed By:
David Lynch

Written By:
David Lynch

Actors:
Peggy Lynch ..... Girl
Richard White ..... Boy
Dorothy McGinnis ..... Grandmother
Virginia Maitland ..... Mother
Robert Chadwick ..... Father
Catherine E. Coulson ..... Woman with amputation to the legs
David Lynch ..... Unable and scared nurse
Harry Dean Stanton ..... Slim
Frederic Golchan ..... Pierre the Frenchman
Jack Nance ..... Pete
Tracey Walter ..... Dusty
Michael Horse ..... Broken Feather
Rick Guillory ..... Howdy
Patrick Houser ..... Gun Twirler
Marie Laurin ..... French Girl
Eddy Dixon ..... Rock-a-Billy Guy
Magali Alvarado ..... Beehive Western Gal
Ann Sophie ..... Beehive Western Gal
Robyn Sumners ..... Beehive Western Gal
Kathy Dean ..... Singer
Leslie Cook ..... Singer
Manette LaChance ..... Singer
Kelly ReDusch ..... Dancer
Michelle Rudy ..... Dancer
Debra Seitz ..... Dancer
Dominique Rojas ..... French Girl
Audrey Tom ..... French Girl
Amanda Hull ..... French Girl
Talisa Soto ..... French Girl
Jackie Old Coyote ..... French Girl
David Lynch
Jeffe Alperi ..... Policeman (segment "David Lynch")
Michele Carlyle ..... (segment "David Lynch")
Russ Pearlman ..... Child (segment "David Lynch")
Pam Pierrocish ..... Mother (segment "David Lynch")
Kathleen Raymond ..... (segment "David Lynch")
Joan Rudelstein ..... (segment "David Lynch")
Dawn Salcedo ..... (segment "David Lynch")
Clyde Small ..... Father (segment "David Lynch")
Mark Wood ..... Policeman (segment "David Lynch")

Synopsis:

6 films, all introduced by David Lynch
Set Comprises:
Six Men Getting Sick (1967): 1 minutes film projected on sculptured screen.
The Alphabet (1968): 16mm 4 minutes
The Grandmother (1970): 16mm 34 minutes
The Amputee (1973): Video - 2 versions 5 minutes / 4 minutes
The Cowboy And The Frenchmam (1988): 35mm 26 minutes
Lumiere (1995): 35mm 55 seconds using original Lumiere Brothere's camera.

The Alphabet (1967)
Against a backdrop of bizarre shapes and textures, a small organic figure gives birth to the letters of the alphabet while a mixture of children's voices and an operatic tune are singing out. The figure's head collapses causing blood to rain on a girl while she lays in her bed, resulting in the girl violently vomiting blood herself.

The Grandmother (1970)
A young boy plants some strange seeds and they grow into a grandmother. Short, surreal, and David Lynch's third film.

The Amputee (1973)
In this plotless 5 minute short, Catherine Coulson plays a legless double-amputee who, throughout the film, is going over a letter she is writing. She makes marks on the letter, and we hear a voice-over of her reading through it. The letter is a sort of mini soap opera; she writes about things happening among a group of her acquaintances, about feelings, about who said certain offensive or endearing things. Very quickly, the droning monotony of Coulson's letter becomes a background noise which gets lost in the actions of her nurse, played by David Lynch. Lynch enters after a minute or so in a nurse costume, his hair in a long ponytail flipped over one shoulder. He begins readying his instruments, then unwraps one of Coulson's stumps. He snips away at something in the wound, probably stitches, though it sounds like he's cutting thick wire. He uses a sort of syringe to flush the wound with water and has a rubber ball that works like a turkey baster to suck fluid out of the wound. Coulson continues with her letter, paying no attention to any of this. After a minute or so of absurdist tension, Lynch turns away to empty the rubber ball, and we hear the suddenly very funny, very organic, squish-and-suck sound of the ball expelling the liquid. The stump begins to bleed freely, and Lynch dabs it with a handful of cotton balls. One of the balls sticks to the stump as he turns away, pulls out a towel, then shoves the towel under the stump. Blood pours down, soaking the towel. Lynch works frantically, trying to stop the bleeding. Then blood begins to spurt straight out of the wound, Python-style. Lynch jumps up and disappears, as though he has gone for help. And Coulson continues with her letter, intent on making a very important point about a certain something that someone either did or did not do to her or, perhaps, to someone else entirely.

The Cowboy and the Frenchman (1988)
Little seen short film by David Lynch is set on a ranch in the turn-of-the-20th Century Wild West, USA is a collision of cultures where a grizzled, hard-of-hearing cowboy, Silm, and his two friends, Dusty and Pete, capture a mysterous, well-dressed Frenchman. Unable to understand each other, the fast-talking, slang-speaking cowboys and the non-English speaking Frenchman make the most of the situation while an Indian, named Broken Feather, joins the group and sets it into a perfect harmony with songs and dancing.

Six Men Getting Sick (1967)
Lynch's first film project, it is basically an endlessly repeating film of people vomiting with their heads on fire projected on to a special sculptured screen featuring twisted three-dimensional faces in various states of puking.

Lumiere (1995)
40 international directors were asked to make a short film using the original Cinematographe invented by the Lumière Brothers, working under conditions similar to those of 1895. There were three rules: (1) The film could be no longer than 52 seconds, (2) no synchronized sound was permitted, and (3) no more than three takes. The results run the gamut from Zhang Yimou's convention-thwarting joke to David Lynch's bizarre miniature epic.

This product was added to our catalog on Wednesday 25 May, 2011.