David Lynch does a naturalist interview tour of America. It’s a 20 000 mile road trip, of 70 days, talking to people found on the road. The people telling their story. People. People. Tells David Lynch, discovering the wonder of oral history, that out there without a script the anonymous has a story, and knows how to tell it. The interviewers, Lynch’s wage laborers, ask a closed set of questions such as “What am I most proud of?” or “How would I like to be remembered?” The questions give the project some consistency, together with the editing of the clips, while the location on the map gives just enough context.
What comes out of these interviews however, besides a bit of life story, is the impossibility of questioning. The design that people’s lives can fit between the expectations of an early life that gets or doesn’t get realized, and the retrospective look (flashback, judgment day); fails. People have no emotions for these epic questions. They live life merely by living, never professing it.
