david lynch shares a memory in the documentary THE ART LIFE:
“one night, i kinda have the feeling it was in the fall. and it was pretty late. usually my father would go outside and yell, “john! david!” and that would bring us home. but this night, it must have been, i don’t know, close to that time. it seemed to be pretty late.
i don’t know what we were doing, but from across shoshone avenue, out of the darkness comes this, like, kinda like a strangest dream, because i’d never seen an adult woman naked. and she had beautiful pale white skin. and she was completely naked. and I think her mouth was bloodied. and she kinda came strangely, walking strangely across shoshone, and came into park circle drive. and it seemed like she was sort of like a giant.
and she came closer and closer, and my brother started to cry. something was bad wrong with her. and I don’t know what happened, but I think she sat down on a curb, crying. but it was very mysterious, like we were seeing something otherworldly. and I wanted to do something for her, but I was little, I didn’t know what to do. and I don’t remember any more than that.”
this is stuck in lynch’s memory, and you can tell it haunts him. he creates numerous films/projects with a “woman in trouble”: blue velvet, twin peaks, mulholland drive. does he save the woman in his projects? i don’t think so, rather he explores the stories behind the suffering of women–destructive men and their desires. frankly, it’s not enough for lynch to be preoccupied with a “woman in trouble”, and use her as a theme throughout his career. it just isn’t. this preoccupation turned the “woman in trouble” into an erotic object.
and why didn’t he help the original woman? i know he was a child and didn’t know what to do, but why didn’t he help her? children know how to help one another, they do it all the time. it was a traumatic experience for lynch, but nonetheless.
she was in serious trouble.