The Reel Less Traveled

If you ever wanted to know what it’s like to hang out with David Lynch, the 2007 documentary “Lynch” gives us an elliptical peek into his often dark artistic vision. Directed by the pseudonymous blackANDwhite, the film is appropriately unconventional and artsy without straining to feel like a film by Lynch.

Even to say it’s about Lynch is a stretch, as the film studiously avoids traditional bio-doc tropes – aside from a title card telling us where and when he was born and a few cryptic anecdotes about the allegedly influential time he spent in Philadelphia at art school. A film of Lynch would be a more accurate description, as the cameras observe the filmmaker working in his home studio, addressing the membership of his website, taking photographs and making his 2006 movie “Inland Empire.”

Nattily dressed with his shock of gray hair cropped close on the sides, an omnipresent cigarette dangling from his mouth or poised in his hand, Lynch waxes poetic about transcendental meditation, pure creativity and the liberating process of going digital. There’s a “genius at work” reverence to the documentary’s hushed tone, but there are many unguarded moments that make it strangely satisfying.

It screens at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday in a Lynch retrospective at LACMA.

– Kevin.Crust

@latimes.com