Wild at Heart

One of the subjects in the Interview Project, an on-the-fly Web documentary series hosted by surrealist filmmaker David Lynch, is a round-faced man named Clinton, who shares an experience he had years ago at a Stevie Nicks concert. Her singing, he says, opened up a "sixth sense" in him. When his mother died years later, he had planned to commit suicide, but it was Nicks's songs that saved him. The story would be a laugh if it weren't so wrenching. He believes in his tale of -ecstatic salvation.

The project's interviews, each a glancing few minutes and filmed during a 70-day, 20,000-mile road trip led by Lynch's son, Austin and a friend, largely feature Americans living on the margins. The elder Lynch introduces them in his halting, deadpan way, and his site will post a new clip every three days for a year. Depression, confusion and abuse are recurring themes. A woman named Lynn, abused as a child, calls herself "broken." But viewed as a whole, the project is a tale of endurance. Lynch has long been transfixed by the underbelly of small towns, and through his son, he takes us the closest he's ever come to the real thing.

© 2009