Watch this nine-minute video of David Lynch and Patti Smith interviewing each other about Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet, Pussy Riot and artistic inspiration.
Back in 2014, in a segment for BBC Two Newsnight‘s Encounters series, in which notable figures interview each other, David Lynch and Patti Smith sat down together to have a chat.
In nine minutes, the two wonderful, eccentric minds veer between topics, discussing everything from Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet to Pussy Riot and artistic inspiration.
At the start, Smith explains her song Grateful arrived fully-formed in her head. Lynch on the other hand, explains that ideas don’t come quite so easily.
“I get ideas in fragments… it’s as if in the other room, there’s a puzzle… and the first piece I get is just a fragment of the whole puzzle, but I fall in love with this fragment, and it holds a promise for more,” he says.
Chatting about Pussy Riot, Smith says:
“This is something that goes back to biblical times. This kind of oppression and this kind of misunderstanding, taking young girls who have families and have hopes and dreams and putting them in prison for issuing a teenage prayer, really.”
Of her interaction with Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina, she says: “One of the things they were saying to me was ‘Everyone wants us to speak to them but what are we supposed to say?’ And I said, ‘You should say that we are all you because of our beliefs, our belief http://getzonedup.com system or trying to say something new, to speak out against our governments or even our churches, or corporations. We are all potentially in danger. Speak to a younger generation to think for themselves.’
“These girls did something absolutely original. As even a mother or a grandmother, they are in my prayers.”
It’s an inspiring, intelligent conversation between two of the most intriguing creative minds of the last half-century. Watch below:
