TV & Film News

Mel Brooks and David Lynch honored

By Derek Hill June 14, 2012

The idea of filmmakers Mel Brooks and David Lynch hanging out is too bizarre to contemplate. It's what would happen in Bizarro Hollywood, not in real life. In his heyday of the 1960s and 1970s, Brooks was one of the shining lights of television comedy writing and, of course, his beloved feature work The Producers, Blazing Saddles, and Young Frankenstein. Much of Lynch's work is comedic too (albeit in an absurdist vein), but his films like Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, and Mulholland Dr. are known for their plunges into surrealism and absorbing atmospheres of full-on weirdness. You just don't think of the two men hanging out.

Brooks and Lynch, however, have known each other for decades and worked together on Lynch's second feature, The Elephant Man. Brooks, who produced that film, hired Lynch largely because of his work on Eraserhead. It was a bold, risky move perhaps, but it paid off.

The two reunited this week when they were both given honorary degrees by the American Film Institute. at this year's graduation ceremony. Lynch himself was a graduate of the AFI, class of 1970.

Although it's a long shot, it would be great if these guys got together again for a film.  

TAGS: absurdist, comedy, film, graduation, surrealism, weirdness,

Mel Brooks on David Lynch