[HN Gopher] Commercials that David Lynch directed (2018)
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       Commercials that David Lynch directed (2018)
        
       Author : bookofjoe
       Score  : 157 points
       Date   : 2025-03-29 20:31 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.openculture.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.openculture.com)
        
       | toomuchtodo wrote:
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoCYbQBTmlY
        
       | danielktdoranie wrote:
       | 360p quality. I understand some of these videos were uploaded
       | from VHS and the quality has degraded over time with different
       | compression algorithms being applied but a lot of the later
       | commercials are out there in 1080p on YouTube. It is great to
       | have all his commercials in one place but it would be far better
       | to have the best quality video ripped and if it isn't up to
       | snuff, use AI video upscaling.
        
         | pimlottc wrote:
         | AI upscaling is a poor choice for a director who deliberately
         | made unexpected visual choices.
        
         | mattl wrote:
         | > use AI video upscaling
         | 
         | I want to see what he made, not what something trained on
         | stolen work thinks it might look like.
        
       | scyclow wrote:
       | That commercial for Dior is wild. It's like an outtake from
       | Inland Empire... but still very obviously a commercial for a
       | handbag.
        
       | rossant wrote:
       | What about the 1999 PlayStation 2 advertisement disguised as a
       | futuristic 2078 commercial for the PlayStation 9 [1]? I always
       | thought it was directed by David Lynch, but I don't see it in
       | this video.
       | 
       | [1]
       | https://www.reddit.com/r/RetroFuturism/comments/u1siyw/plays...
        
         | mpalmer wrote:
         | This doesn't look like anything Lynch would have made. Quick
         | cuts, tons of effects shots, straightforward narrative...
        
           | fredland wrote:
           | i recommend you see Lynch's The Straight Story
        
             | mpalmer wrote:
             | I have! A more conventional story, but it too bears
             | basically no resemblance to this ad whatsoever.
        
         | KwanEsq wrote:
         | Perhaps your memory had incorrectly conflated that with his
         | infamous "The Third Place" commercial for the PS2? I remember a
         | fuss being made about Lynch making that at the time, but I've
         | never heard any claim he directed the PS9 one.
        
           | bookofjoe wrote:
           | PS2 commercial:
           | https://youtu.be/hzn4WDe13mU?si=dbuofe9HtQ5vW8qq
        
             | KwanEsq wrote:
             | That isn't it. The Lynch PS2 commercial is in the video in
             | the original article, 16:14 through.
        
       | TechDebtDevin wrote:
       | Awesome
        
       | MrMcCall wrote:
       | "Why is poor taste ubiquitous?" --Eric Spieakermann in
       | "Helvetica"
       | 
       | Because we live in a world who live to be titilated with the
       | inane, lewd, and lascivious.
       | 
       | Like a brain-damanged Bower Bird's trashy monument to itself, he
       | created monuments to the vapid and wasteful.
       | 
       | "Buh-bye." --David Spade's flight attendent character on SNL
        
         | jjulius wrote:
         | >Obsessed with compassion and how to create happiness for
         | others...
         | 
         | "One of these things is not like the other..."
         | 
         | It's almost like you haven't even stopped to understand his
         | work. There's far more compassion in the films and television
         | he left behind than there is in your comment. It's a shame you
         | don't seem to want to find it. I hope you have a pleasant
         | weekend.
        
       | maxmcd wrote:
       | Anyone want to hazard a guess about the likelihood of us ever
       | getting high quality versions of these commercials? Are many of
       | these likely lost to time, or is it possible that high quality
       | copies exist somewhere?
        
         | bookofjoe wrote:
         | Upscaled to HD:
         | https://youtu.be/U5UVCuV6pzU?si=JxzJpD6wOqr3hUeG
         | 
         | 720p: https://youtu.be/wAgGoNjmohA?si=0Xe0Wvb4Sq06_X2u
        
         | diggan wrote:
         | In short, it depends on how it was shot. If using analog film,
         | then it's likely a higher quality scan can be made (assuming
         | you can find the footage), but if it's digital sensors that
         | were used, then the quality is what it is.
         | 
         | So for 35mm film which a lot of movies and high-end commercials
         | use, then you can most likely get a good 4K version from that.
         | So if you know how it was shot, you could try to figure out how
         | likely it is :)
        
       | roskelld wrote:
       | As a life long fan of Lynch, I took the trip last year to go
       | through his entire back catalog of content, from his student
       | films, shorts, commercials, TV shows including On The Air,
       | behind-the-scenes clips and of course main movies. Such a great
       | journey, everything he crafted carried something more than what
       | you saw and heard, there's always a thread or the power to make
       | it feel like there was a thread beyond the frame.
       | 
       | Outside of all the typical Lynch stuff, one thing I always
       | suggest people watch is The Straight Story. It's such a wonderful
       | movie, one I hoped at release would find a much bigger audience
       | as it really deserves to be seen and shows that Lynch wasn't a
       | guy who just made weird things, he made great things.
        
         | MrMcCall wrote:
         | > he made great things.
         | 
         | Read https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090756/parentalguide
         | 
         | Anyone who calls that great enjoys the perversion of mankind,
         | and it is nothing less than that.
         | 
         | It's a sickness, and lots of people have it, and they're so
         | sick they think they're just perfectly fine.
         | 
         | But everyone's choices are theirs to make, for good or ill, and
         | we are all running up a tab, and we all must pay our bill. Some
         | lucky few of us have a positive balance, because we embrace
         | compassion with the art of our lives.
         | 
         | There are people whose going is the only time they're going to
         | make the world a better place, for their simply no longer being
         | a persistent negative influence.
        
           | nothrabannosir wrote:
           | > Some lucky few of us have a positive balance, because we
           | embrace compassion with the art of our lives.
           | 
           | I assume you mean hypothetical "we" here because given your
           | comment you are unlikely to be in that group :)
           | 
           | Welcome to the rest of us! It's more fun here, anyway.
        
           | danbolt wrote:
           | I found the aforementioned elements of _Blue Velvet_ to be
           | very uncomfortable to watch, but I also don't think it was
           | necessarily a work of obscenity on Lynch's part. It always
           | struck me that the film's violence was intentionally framed
           | in suburban noir. Or, that way the audience might wonder
           | about the darker parts of 20th century Americana around them,
           | much like Lynch did as a child.
           | 
           | That said, I'm on the fence if whether or not the violence in
           | the movie felt earned to me or not.
        
             | MrMcCall wrote:
             | It's not obscene, IMO, it's _DEPRAVED_. It is disgusting,
             | it is unnecessary, and it was made to make money.
             | 
             | That it was written, directed, and produced by a huge
             | industry and then made available to be watched in a movie
             | theater is all one needs to know about the machine that is
             | Hollywood, the same machine that produced (no pun intended)
             | Harvey Weinstein.
             | 
             | That is no coincidence, my friend.
             | 
             | > Or, that way the audience might wonder about the darker
             | parts of 20th century Americana around them, much like
             | Lynch did as a child.
             | 
             | I can't stand anything about 1950s America, but 2020s
             | America makes it pale in comparison, and Lynch's America
             | was on that horrible descent from "does good for the world"
             | to "embraces totalitarians for profit".
             | 
             | How we make our money is a bellweather of the soul, as is
             | the art we produce and/or appreciate. The question is,
             | "Does it elevate humanity? Or not?"
             | 
             | Learning about evil is necessary on the path to wisdom, but
             | profiting off titillating the impressionable is foolish and
             | detrimental to society.
             | 
             | There are many ways to tell the story of Jeffry Dahlmer,
             | and the choices a writer and director makes in that regard
             | show those folks' character, or lack thereof.
        
               | mopsi wrote:
               | Which movies by David Lynch have you seen?
               | 
               | Lynch, by the way, was an outsider in Hollywood and in
               | the wider movie industry. He didn't make large budget
               | movies nor did his movies bring in a lot of money. When
               | he was promoting his last movie, he didn't even have
               | money for proper advertising and had to rely on publicity
               | stunts like sitting in a director's chair next to a live
               | cow in the middle of Los Angeles to draw attention:
               | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9gVoSiXup0
               | 
               | His struggles were largely due to his refusal to
               | trivialize violence or turn it into something easily
               | digestible. Many of his characters (such as Dale Cooper
               | in Twin Peaks) are highly moral and good-natured people
               | who encounter incredible evil. This evil is depicted in
               | an exceptionally disturbing way to amplify Lynch's
               | message about genuine love, compassion and human
               | connection. Lynch did not exploit or glorify violence. He
               | presented it as something deeply unsettling to highlight
               | its emotional and psychological impact instead of using
               | it for shock value or cheap entertainment.
               | 
               | It seems like you are very angry about something you
               | don't know much about.
        
           | bowsamic wrote:
           | Why is portraying perversion in art bad? I suppose you also
           | hate Dante's Inferno for similar reasons?
           | 
           | This just seems a little strange to me, even the Bible
           | portrays the dark aspects of humanity. What makes you think
           | that in Blue Velvet they are portrayed for our enjoyment
           | specifically?
           | 
           | You can't have a good philosophy, or as you say, have a "good
           | tab", without understanding the bad. David Lynch is more
           | ethical than you, I think, because he did not run away from
           | the depraved but wanted to understand it
        
             | MrMcCall wrote:
             | > I suppose you also hate Dante's Inferno for similar
             | reasons?
             | 
             | I don't hate anything or anyone, because hate and rage are
             | solely negative, but, I didn't bother reading that middle
             | ages tripe any more than I read "Wuthering Heights".
             | 
             | That said, reading it is just one dimension, seeing and
             | hearing it on a giant screen being portrayed by attractive
             | people is three or four dimensions.
             | 
             | > David Lynch is more ethical than you, I think, because he
             | did not run away from the depraved but wanted to understand
             | it
             | 
             | I've seen "The World at War". The "Genocide" episode is the
             | last time I wept, seeing a dumptruck full of bodies get
             | dumped into a trench.
             | 
             | I understand it better than you, my friend, because I also
             | know how to get to "Blessed are the pure of heart, for they
             | shall see God." I'm certainly not there yet, but I've made
             | some bit of progress, after much trial and error.
             | 
             | David Lynch and TM are literally the antithesis of that
             | attainment. He wrote and directed BV and profited off it. I
             | think Marc Maron once described a "comic" that took a shit
             | on stage; that ain't art, that's just disgusting.
             | 
             | "What a fool believes." --Michael McDonald
        
               | bowsamic wrote:
               | I'm not sold. I think I'll stick with my Godly ethics and
               | I'll leave you to your sin
        
         | rdtsc wrote:
         | > The Straight Story
         | 
         | That indeed was a nice movie. It stands out exactly as it's not
         | like any other Lynch movies.
         | 
         | I always wondered what that meeting with Walt Disney Pictures
         | looked like. "-Ok, David, please, just can you not do your
         | Lynch thing? -What do you mean, a Lynch thing? -Oh you know..."
        
           | pryce wrote:
           | A particularly memorable short review of "the Straight Story"
           | suggests that he did end in fact end up doing a Lynch thing,
           | however I suggest people don't read this review unless
           | they've seen the film first [1].
           | 
           | > Lynch lives in a very troubled world. His pictures are
           | characterized by being presented through the mind of the
           | protagonist. Here, the protagonist is a simple old man, who
           | thinks slowly and simply. So that's what we get. He has long
           | erotic meditations on fecundity on the path of life (14
           | kids!), so that is what we see.
           | 
           | > Lynch must be laughing into his gasmask at those who think
           | this is a Hallmark card. Consider these Lynchisms...
           | 
           | [1] https://www.imdb.com/review/rw0579859/?ref_=tturv_perm_18
        
             | rdtsc wrote:
             | I had no idea! Thanks for sharing. Those are definitely
             | more subtle. I had never caught on to those when viewing
             | the movie.
        
           | MrMcCall wrote:
           | He only directed it. He didn't write it. That's the
           | difference.
        
       | nuredini wrote:
       | David on directing commercials: https://youtu.be/GiP85kdyRLo.
        
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