The Alphabet, David Lynch

The Alphabet was made by David Lynch in 1968 and features as one of six films on the DVD collection The Short Films of David Lynch released in 2002. Whilst Lynch is best known as a feature filmmaker, Lynch started his career as a painter at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art and as this film demonstrates has also experimented with animation, or ‘moving paintings’ as he refers to them. The Alphabet is based on a real life incident where Lynch’s wife at the time, who stars as the girl, one night recited the alphabet whilst having a terrible dream. The film is as beautifully disturbing as you could expect from Lynch and mixes live action, animation, a children’s song and operatic singing to create a horrifying glimpse into the unconscious.