Industrial Symphony No. 1

Industrial Symphony No. 1: The Dream of the Broken Hearted is a short, avant-garde musical play directed by David Lynch, with music by Angelo Badalamenti and Julee Cruise.

Overview

When David Lynch studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia (PAFA), he made a series of complex mosaics in geometric shapes which he called Industrial Symphonies.

The play was originally presented (twice) on stage at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York City as part of the New Music America Festival on November 10, 1989. It was released on LaserDisc and VHS in 1990.

The show made its debut on DVD 18 November 2008 in the David Lynch: The Lime Green Set DVD collection.

Cast

• Nicolas Cage: Heartbreaker
• Laura Dern: Heartbroken Woman
• Julee Cruise: The Dreamself of the Heartbroken Woman
• Michael J. Anderson: Woodsman / Twin A

Track list

1. Up In Flames
2. I Float Alone
3. The Black Sea
4. Into the Night
5. I'm Hurt Bad
6. Pinky's Bubble Egg (The Twins Spoke)
7. The Dream Conversation
8. Rockin' Back Inside My Heart
9. The Final Battle
10. The World Spins

The show

The presentation opens with Cage and Dern engaging in a telephone conversation, the gist of which is that he is breaking up with her, to her great sorrow. Though they are never named as such, the two characters bear a striking resemblance to Sailor and Lula from Lynch's movie Wild at Heart. The rest of the play is a hallucinatory "dream" that the Heartbroken Woman has.

The show takes place on a stage, the main props being a tall metal girder-like structure, and an abandoned shell of a car, with flickering lights and cacophonous sounds used to disturbing, nightmarish effect. Much use is made of actors suspended from ropes, flying and falling, as well as dancers.

Julee Cruise sings on tracks 1, 2, 4, 8 and 10. These songs are all from her 1989 debut album, Floating into the Night, apart from track 1, which is from her 1993 album, Voice of Love. They are the normal, studio recordings - the songs are mimed. Her voice can also be heard in track 6, in which she gets pushed into the boot of the car. In track 8, the boot opens and she sings from it, her face superimposed on a TV-screen. One recording, "Rockin' Back Inside My Heart", is also featured in Twin Peaks (for which Cruise recorded a vocal version of the theme).

Michael J. Anderson (known for his role as the small, dancing Man From Another Place on Twin Peaks) is featured on track 3, patiently sawing a log of wood to Badalamenti's discordant music. He is also part of the stage ensemble on track 5 (instrumental), along with a tall, demonic reindeer-like figure. Finally, on track 6, he reiterates the opening dialogue between Cage and Dern, accompanied by a clarinet-player and a non-speaking actress playing Dern's part.

Track 9 is wholly instrumental, with a background of dolls being lowered from the roof on strings.

Motifs

Lynch frequently makes allusions to specific trademarks that recur throughout his films. This film features the motif of lumber, when Michael J. Anderson's character saws a log. This motif is also prominent in Twin Peaks, where the title sequence features saws cutting wood, as well as the sawmill that appears as a setting in the series. Another trademark is the motif of flashing lights, repeatedly used throughout the film. Flashing lights usually signify change, more specifically used in the feature films Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire.

Versions

VHS: Warner Music Vision (ASIN 6302374065) ; 1990
Laser Disc: Warner Reprise (38179-6) ; 1991

References

• Rotten Tomatoes review
• The City of Absurdity
• DavidLynch.de

External links

• Industrial Symphony No. 1 at the Internet Movie Database
• Industrial Symphony No. 1 at AllMovie