Heidi Bivens outfits INLAND EMPIRE

How does costume shape character? Stylist and costume designer Heidi Bivens was in charge of wardrobe on INLAND EMPIRE. It was one of her first jobs, and David Lynch’s final film. What did they both learn?

LADIES OF LYNCH explores the subversive female characters created by the late David Lynch, and the singular women who helped shape them. Season 9’s guests include celebrated actor and filmmaker Isabella Rossellini; Lynch’s daughter Jennifer Lynch; his producer of more than 30 years, Sabrina Sutherland; TWIN PEAKS co-creator Mark Frost; and the award-winning novelist Deborah Levy.

Written and guest hosted by culture writer Simran Hans, these conversations with actors, writers, producers and craftspeople who worked directly with Lynch reveal insights about the enigmatic and much-missed filmmaker, and the provocative women he put on screen.

TWIN PEAKS and TWIN PEAKS: A LIMITED EVENT SERIES are now streaming on MUBI in the US, UK, Ireland, Latin America, Germany, Turkey, Italy, Netherlands and India. 

INLAND EMPIRE is now streaming on MUBI in the UK, Ireland, Italy and Turkey. 

MUBI is a global streaming service, production company and film distributor dedicated to elevating great cinema. MUBI makes, acquires, curates, and champions extraordinary films, connecting them to audiences all over the world. A place to discover ambitious new films and singular voices, from iconic directors to emerging auteurs. Each carefully chosen by MUBI’s curators.

Transcript

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Heads up, this episode includes adult language and spoilers, but it doesn't include me, your regular host Rico Gagliano. For this season, I've temporarily ceded my hosting duties to UK film writer Simran Hans. You might have seen her work in <i>The Guardian, Sight and Sound,</i><i>The New York Times</i> and many more. She is a great guide through David Lynch's universe. Enjoy. We were shooting in the Valley and it was probably like 100 degrees, so there are some hilarious pictures of me in costume laying in an air conditioned tube. Like literally laying inside the tube because I thought I was going to faint. That's Heidi Bivens, costume designer, on David Lynch's 2007 film <i>Inland Empire</i>. Normally, working in the wardrobe department involves things like sourcing vintage hats. But that day, on set in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, Lynch had other plans for Heidi. Plans that involved wearing a bunny suit. Once, he decided he wanted to include rabbits within <i>Inland Empire</i>, and we were shooting out in the Valley. He tried to call Naomi to rope her in, but she was unavailable. That would be Naomi Watts, who'd apparently worked with Lynch enough to know to be strategically unavailable for this particular gig. But Heidi was new to the industry, so she gamely climbed into the suit, wiped the sweat off her brow, placed the mascot head over her blond hair, and wrapped a pink silk robe around her fur. Oh yeah, that's the robe I'm wearing. That's the pink rabbit robe. But what an amazing memory to have actually been able to be in a David Lynch film. Welcome back to the MUBI Podcast. MUBI is the global film company that champions great cinema. And on this show we tell you the stories behind great cinema. I'm your guest host, Simran Hans. And this is season nine. We're calling it 'Ladies of Lynch'. Conversations about the subversive female characters created by David Lynch and the singular women who helped shape them.

Women like today's guest: 2:22

My name is Heidi Bivens, and I'm a costume designer, and I had the great pleasure of collaborating with David Lynch. You've seen Heidi's work in films like Harmony Korine's <i>Spring Breakers</i>, in which she dressed Disney stars Vanessa Hudgens and Selena Gomez in neon bikinis and balaclavas. She's also the author of <i>Euphoria Fashion</i>, a book about her work as costume designer on the HBO series <i>Euphoria</i>. One of Heidi's very first jobs was on Inland Empire, Lynch's final feature. If you've seen it, you'll know it's not a conventional film. We'll hear all about the unique education Heidi received on set. I feel like I came from the school of Lynch and that prepared me for anything. And her professional opinion on Lynch's femme fatales. Some might say it airs on fetishism. It was sort of like an early Hollywood idea of what was considered conventionally feminine and attractive. And I'm still partial to that. Heidi first met David Lynch right at the tail end of the 1990s. Well, the first time I met David was on <i>Mulholland Drive</i>. I was dating an actor who was in the film, and I was invited to come and hang out on set. It was in the early stages before it became a film, when they were shooting the pilot, for it to be a television show. Yeah, <i>Mulholland Drive</i> would eventually go on to become one of Lynch's most celebrated movies, but it began life as a TV show for ABC, the network that made his hit show <i>Twin Peaks</i>. The pilot was rejected, but Lynch, well, he knew he was onto something. I remember vividly him sitting at his director's chair with his bucket next to him for his cigarettes so he would have a fire bucket. I believe he probably had sand in it to put his cigarettes out because he wasn't I think, permitted to be smoking on the lot or wherever we were shooting. But he was very defiant about that. The smoking habit was something he protected, very vehemently. Heidi had studied filmmaking herself at Hunter College in New York City. She was fascinated watching Lynch direct for years after that visit. She worked as a stylist, but she was desperate to get a job that would get her back on a film set. And so when it was time to shoot<i>Inland Empire</i>, David's producer got in touch with me, Jeremy Alter, asking if I was available to help with the wardrobe because I had met him on<i>Mulholland Drive</i> and I was over the moon. I think that part of the reason why they reached out to me was because a couple reasons, I mean, it wasn't a huge budget, so it was something that I was game to do. Working non-union and, you know, in this very like, scrappy way, like fly by the seat of our pants kind of way. And I think was also primed for it because I didn't have this preconceived idea of how things should run or go. My lack of experience led me to be very malleable in the way that he approached shooting, which was experimental at times. I'm assuming that could be frustrating for, you know, some seasoned costume designers. Lynch started shooting<i>Inland Empire</i> in 2003. He made it in fits and starts over several years, filming on a Mini DV camera he could hold in one hand. He spent years battling delays and know it all studio execs. Now he wanted to make something on his own timeline and on his own terms. There were times in his career where he was frustrated by the studio system and by his lack of creative control. I mean, I think most people who are fans of his work are familiar with the story behind <i>Dune</i>, for example, which I think, you know, David didn't really even express any ownership over the final cut of <i>Dune</i> that everyone saw in theaters. And then with, you know, what happened with <i>Mulholland Drive</i>, with the studio deciding not to go forward with it, I think he just wanted to do things his own way and not have the constraints of what studio financing would mean to a film. It was clear to me on the set of<i>Inland Empire</i> that it gave him great joy to be able to pick up and shoot whenever he was inspired to. And he, you know, even would pick up the camera and shoot himself at times. So I think having that kind of control over his creative process was really important to him, which is one of the reasons why I think <i>Inland Empire</i> as a film is a testament to like his true artistry. The main thing you need to know about <i>Inland Empire</i> is that it is absolutely terrifying.<i>Excuse me, ma'am, telephone.</i> Laura Dern plays Nikki Grace, an actress whose mind is unraveling. The whole thing has the atmosphere of a nightmare.<i>It's your agent.</i><i>Greg?</i><i>Greg?</i><i>Greg!</i><i>Oh my God!</i> Even I, I think would perhaps, stumble trying to explain what the film is about. How was it described to you when you first signed up to the project? Well, David was notorious for not answering questions about story. There wasn't a lot of explanation. I often got pages the day before we'd shoot something, and I'd go to the costume house the morning before and then go to set and fit on set before we went to camera. Sometimes I would get a call like a week before, because I was in New York and I would be asked to come to LA. Jeremy Alter, producer, would call me and say, "We're going to shoot next week. Can you be here?" So it was very unorthodox in a way, and I think that sort of like energy amongst the crew created this exciting fervor of not knowing exactly what we were making, but trusting David. So yeah, I never received a hard script from like, front to back. If I find <i>Inland Empire</i> one of Lynch's most challenging films to describe. Well, it was easy for him. He said it was a movie about a woman in trouble. A woman in trouble, which, you know, it's a theme that he's visited time and time again. What was the brief for the costumes? Did you have a conversation before you got started? Beyond having to be reactive to the pages of the script that you would get? Well, in retrospect, it was kind of a mind meld. You know, I was so familiar with David's work. You know, I studied his work. His, aesthetic is consistent throughout his films. So for me, I didn't really need much direction. I think so much of it came from intuition and also collaborating with Laura Dern, who has become a dear friend since those days. And she's just one of the most bright and incredibly intelligent actresses I've ever met or worked with. So her insight into her character and what she understood of it from David really helped guide me. She always has ideas, so it was almost like she was part of the the costume department. Let's talk a little bit about Laura's character in the film, Nikki Grace. She plays two characters in the film. She also plays Susan Blu, who is the character played by the actress Nikki Grace. Who is she? Tell us about her. Well, it's really an interior story of Nikki's. So much of what you're experiencing as the audience is like a fragmented psychosis. So, you know, I think it's it's really hard to know at times like who is the real Nikki is. But the whole film in general, I think, is a window into her interior life, which is at odds with her reality. And what do we learn about her and her state of mind through what she's wearing and how you dressed her? David had a clear idea of what the costume would be when she's seemingly in her reality. It's not the dream that she's projecting, which is the Hollywood actress life and even the characters that she would play in a film. The real Nikki was down and out and struggling, and then anything glamorous we saw that represents like a Hollywood kind of lifestyle would be something that she's projecting. But that's my take on it. So like, if you asked David, I don't think he would explain it that way because he probably wouldn't give you any explanation. People have a right to analyze a thing and say what it is for them, and to criticize it one way or another. It's beautiful. That's Lynch in an interview with film critic David Stratton in 2015. But I really believe the film should stand on its own and there should be nothing added, nothing subtracted, and you work a long time to make it just so. And it's a very precious thing. Every film. I think so much of the reason why he wouldn't want to explain, and might even cringe at me trying, is because he really wants the audience to experience his films for themselves and to process it in their own way. I think like, that's, you know, a gift that he gives to the audience rather than explaining what you should feel and what your takeaway should be. Totally. And I think that's been the kind of fascinating tension of making this series of sort of wanting to hear all of the stories and hear what it was actually like in terms of the creative process of making these films, and also knowing that nobody wants to kind of step on the toes of David's legacy. A man who famously didn't trust words and felt every time he tried to explain something, it was sort of pinning these kind of alive, beautiful ideas to the wall in a way that was killing them. And I think there is actually a middle ground where everything that we're saying is valuable and interesting, but of course not definitive.- Right?- Yeah. Rewatching <i>Inland Empire</i>, I was blown away by Dern's performance. She is doing so many different things, often in the same scene. Like in this one, towards the end of the film. In it, Dern's character finds herself wandering the seedy Hollywood Boulevard at night, and seems to go from despair to total mania in the span of just a few seconds.<i>I'm a whore.</i><i>Where am I?</i><i>I'm afraid.</i> And Lynch thought Dern was pretty remarkable, too. When the film came out, he embarked on a For Your Consideration campaign to get it on Oscar voters radars.<i>Oh, my God, is that fucking David Lynch?</i> This is a YouTube video uploaded by two regular guys called Nate and Matt, who spotted something strange while driving around Hollywood one day back in 2006. And as you do, started filming.<i>What the fuck is David Lynch doing?</i><i>He's just sitting on the fucking corner of La Brea and Hollywood</i><i>with a fucking cow!</i><i>What the fuck is this?</i> Lynch didn't have a lot of money to promote the film, so he got creative. By plonking, a dairy cow and a director's chair underneath a billboard of Laura Dern's face.<i>If you want to see the greatest performance of 2006,</i><i>check out Laura Dern's performance in </i>Inland Empire. It's one of my favorite examples of how much he valued his actresses, and in particular, his collaboration with Dern. Lynch and Dern have made a lot of memorable work together, but Nikki Grace... She's one of their defining creations. How did Dern do it? Well, it started with the character's clothes. More on those after the break.<i>Okay.</i><i>- Stay out of trouble.- We'll try.</i><i>- See ya.- Take care.</i> All right, everybody, your regular host Rico Gagliano here taking just a moment to tell you about MUBI. It is the global film company that champions great cinema, bringing it to you wherever you are in as many ways as we possibly can. We stream movies, we produce them, we release them in theaters. Movies from any country, from legendary auteurs or brilliant first timers. We've always got something new for you to discover. And discoverable as we speak on MUBI is one of David Lynch's crowning pieces of work his groundbreaking TV series <i>Twin Peaks</i>, created with Mark Frost back in 1990. This is the show that blew the minds of a whole generation of viewers, teaching them the pleasure of a damn fine cup of coffee, how to tie a cherry stem in your mouth, and also how supernatural horror, deadpan comedy, crime procedurals, and soap operas make perfect sense, all mashed up together. But as I've been listening to other guests talking about the show in previous episodes this season, what has been most surprising to me is how seriously Lynch and his co-creator, Mark Frost, took the basic concept of the show: the mystery of a teenager's murder. As much as people remember the scares in the show, or the coolness, or the sexiness or the absurd awesomeness of agent Dale Cooper. Rewatching it now, I realized there's a ton of soul in it. Like, Lynch and his crew really care about this town and how it's affected by a tragedy. So maybe it's time for you to rewatch the series. Or you can watch it for the first time with soul in mind. Either way, we've got every episode of <i>Twin Peaks</i> for you, the original two seasons and 2017<i>Twin Peaks, A Limited Event Series</i>. Subscribe to MUBI at mubi.com and it's all yours. As usual, we have all the links you need in the show notes of this episode. Speaking of, let's get back to Simran, Heidi and the rest of this episode. So it was 2003. Production on <i>Inland Empire</i> had begun, and without a script to help her prepare, Heidi had her work cut out for her. On Inland Empire specifically, it was a very like fast and furious kind of prep for me where, you know, I would get the brief and I would, like I said, sometimes go there when they'd open at 8 AM in the morning, pull, arrive on set and do the fitting and then straight to camera, which is not normally how it would work. Usually we'd have a buffer of like hopefully like a week. So there could be notes and we could troubleshoot. And that's one of the reasons why it was so helpful to have the collaboration of the cast, like Laura and borrowing from people's closets, because, I mean, we were working on a tiny budget. What were some of the items from Laura Dern's own wardrobe that she pulled for the film?- Do you remember?- Yes. Specifically the blue dress that she wears at the end of the film and even the flats, the shoes that she's wearing with that look came from her. Let's talk about some of the specific outfits when we first meet Nikki, she's wearing a suit, sort of pencil skirt and a kind of 1950s style tailored jacket. Tell me about how you sourced that outfit and also what you wanted to say with it. I think it represents an aesthetic that David's audience is probably familiar with. I think because of when he was born and the kinds of films he grew up on. He always had a tendency to revert back to, like a more classic period of dress. Most of the costumes were rentals from costume house or vintage. And for anybody who isn't familiar with costume house and what that is, can you explain it, please? In Los Angeles specifically, where where we shot a lot of the film, besides the Poland sequences, there are... gigantic costume houses run by studios. So all the major studios have these huge warehouses full of clothing that people can rent for productions. They're not open to the public. But for anyone working in film and television or commercials, you can rent and it spans every decade. Warner Brothers, Sony, ABC they all have costume houses in Los Angeles. And then there's non-union ones too, like Palace, which is legendary. There's so many resources in Los Angeles and, you know, with a lot of filmmaking moving away from Los Angeles in the past decade, a lot of these costume houses are in need of support. But at the time, it was a very, very robust, healthy industry there. How are the costume houses organized? Is it by decade? It's by decade and and by gender. And it's like I mean, it must be like 20 plus foot ceiling warehouses with just aisles and aisles, like airplane hangar size costume houses. Tell me about the Diane von Furstenberg wrap dresses that we see Nikki wearing. The film came out in 2006, and I think that style of dress is, to me, a transporting to that era. But tell me about why she's wearing that kind of dress in the moments when she's kind of most herself, in a way, most holding it together. Well, that era of like the DVF wrap dress I think people remember fondly, which was brought back from a different era, you know, the 70s. So it does feel a bit retro in that way. And I think that keeps in tune with David's aesthetic in general. Oftentimes when I will need to dress someone and I don't have a lot of time between fitting and shoot, it's an easy go to because it's an easy fit. It's also a style that looks great on Laura. In the scenes where Laura is Nikki is Susan... There are these really kind of like quite harrowing but sometimes funny scenes where she's trapped in this very horrible house. The outfits that we see her wearing, where she's in this place where she does not want to be, are a striped tank top and also a dressing gown, a robe that is, sort of dirty and light pink and it's sort of seen better days. How did you land on those two outfits for that, sort of, specific space? So much of those two looks came from her instincts about what would work for those scenes. The robe being shabby and kind of a throwback, you know, that's almost like a 1950s style robe. And then also the tank top having the kind of like tan outline ribbing. Like it's not just like a colorful stripe. It's got this like dull, kind of muddy brown piping around it that I think really helped tell the story just in that one detail. You've got the colorful stripe there, which could seemingly look happier on camera, but just that kind of like dingy brown detail to it really made it feel like Nikki, her darker reality. Yeah, and in a way like the stripe could be seen as very youthful, but there's something about the contrast of her wearing it where it's weirdly aging on her.- In like, quite a sad way, I think.- Yeah. And I think, you know, when you look at the wardrobe for the ladies of the night, it's similar in that way. Heidi is talking about a sequence in which Susan is trapped in what appears to be her house. Still, at least she's got some company. A group of young women who are later revealed to be sex workers offer their wise counsel. They also perform a dance routine. You know a lot of what they wear almost looks like junior. Not like something like adult women would wear. And I think that's part of it. Just that, like, sort of stunted emotional aspect to their interior. As Heidi mentioned earlier, this was her first job on a David Lynch set, but she'd been paying attention to his character since she was a teenager. Back then something about his films struck a chord. I have an older sister who is a cinephile, and she's three years older than me, and I can remember when <i>Blue Velvet</i> and <i>Wild at Heart</i> came out she had the film posters on her bedroom wall. And when <i>Twin Peaks</i> came out and aired on television, you know, I had few friends my age at the time who were watching the show, but my sister was obsessed. And also, having been raised by a mother who has a very strong faith in God and religious, I think I from, you know, super young age, I was like aware of this idea of like the forces, like good and evil. And then I think, you know, it just really inspired me that David would often explore what I would call, like this gray area of the human psyche, just the projects that he gravitated towards, you know, <i>Wild at Heart</i>, that Barry Gifford novel I found incredibly magical and romantic and, like, spooky and and dark, but also beautiful and bright in so many ways. It was just such a stark contrast, like the good versus the evil. I just always love the way that he explored that in sort of a almost like romanticized way, and that his visuals were always really charged and that so much of what was important to him as a storyteller had to do with atmosphere and mood, and which is really what I've always been interested in. When you think about how wardrobe and costumes are used in David's earlier films and also in <i>Twin Peaks</i>, what looks come to mind.<i>Wild at Heart</i> is a big one for me. Nicolas Cage's python jacket. When you think about, Willem Dafoe's look in, that film is piercingly unforgettable. Isabella Rossellini's character Perdita Durango, and Laura's character in that film wearing lingerie as daywear. I mean, that was major. I know there's a story about them going lingerie shopping together and coming up with that look. The teddys over the tights. So simple, so genius. And then the girl's school looks in <i>Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me</i>. I think these are looks that are referenced time and time again, from fashion designers to other costume designers for new characters for Halloween. Like, whatever it is, they're iconic and stand the test of time. And so much of of what was done was with such simplicity using color and silhouette. You know, earlier you you mentioned that the 1950s style suit that Nikki wears in the beginning of <i>Inland Empire</i> was in line with David's taste and his aesthetic. Can you talk a little bit more about what that aesthetic looks like and what the reference points are for it? I think so much comes out of what he was into during his youth, like his taste in music and films and his memory. Time and time again, I find that directors are referencing aspects of themselves in the characters they portray. When you look at the catalog of what was sold at his auction, you know Julien's auction house did an auction of his belongings. It was David's wish to do that for his kids. And when you look at all the lots of what was in his personal collection, from records to magazines, books and ephemera or clothing, it's all very from an era that is continually referenced because it's classic. How would you describe the Lynch femme fatale in terms of her aesthetic? Vamp. It's very vampy. In the best way. I mean, when you think about,<i>Lost Highway</i>, I think that is the quintessential Lynch woman. Patricia Arquette's character. His personal taste in women, from what I know, just sort of veers in that direction aesthetically, which I think is incredibly beautiful and sexy and attractive. You know, like hourglass figure. You think of, like, Jessica Rabbit kind of figure, a strong woman, very strong red lips, high heels. You know, some might say it airs on fetishism, but I think when you go back to this reference from a bygone era. You know, it was sort of like an early Hollywood idea of what was considered conventionally feminine and attractive. And I'm still partial to that. So I'm on board. Heidi and Lynch kept in touch after <i>Inland Empire</i>. Around the end of last year she dropped him a note. Yeah, I had written to him right before the holidays and he wrote back to me right away. That's the kind of guy he was. And I sent him a picture of... my friend Anna Skarbek and I, we had gone out to dinner, she was visiting me in Washington, D.C., where I was visiting my mom. And Anna was very important to David, and she oversees his archive and was on <i>Inland Empire</i> and worked in his office and is very close with everyone there. So we were out at dinner and we took a selfie and we emailed it to him and he wrote me back and I told him I was coming to LA to work on a film and that I wanted to see him. And I knew that he wasn't really receiving visitors, but I was hoping that I was going to get a chance to see him. And then the fires happened. And then just how poetic it all was in the end. But I know he's with us all still, like, even more now than ever. You have gone on to have a pretty incredible career in costume design. You've worked with Harmony Korine on <i>Spring Breakers</i> and <i>The Beach Bum</i>, you've worked with Adrian Lyne, you've worked with Jonah Hill, you've been working with Benny Safdie, and that's just a little bit of your CV. What have you taken from this early experience of working with David Lynch into the rest of your career? Well, I mean, I'm going to get a little choked up, but I just I think a lot about him and how I just want him to be proud of me. And I think he is. I don't think he watched a lot of other directors work except for like, the early greats. So I don't know that he was like even really aware of of a lot of what I was up to. Although I did send him my A24<i>Euphoria</i> fashion book when it came out. So I think about"What would David do?" a lot. And then also just this idea of process. You know, I think it's important to have patience with artists who choose to be directors. Maybe it's not fun or it could even be frustrating. But the patience of getting through the process and to the other side, I would say every time for me is where the beauty happens. I've really tried to have a career based on this idea of collaborating with auteurs. That's what really interests me to be able to work with directors who have a clear vision and who worldbuild and who don't edit themselves. It's like solidified within me that once I sign up for a project, I'm here for the director. But sometimes I have a vision and it's different from what other people want to do. And I think that's one of the reasons why I'm really inspired to direct. You know, that's something that I would really love to do to be able to have that opportunity. You know, like David had throughout his career, to have a singular vision and to have the support, to put it out there and to see, you know, how people react. There's something so specific about the way David Lynch made his work. He was eccentric, he was creative and he didn't seem bothered about following the rules. I feel like I came from the school of Lynch and that prepared me for anything. And that's the MUBI Podcast for this week. Follow us to hear more about the Ladies of Lynch. Next week, we'll be hearing from someone who spent a lot of time with Patricia Arquette on the set of <i>Lost Highway</i>. I think she one time called David the devil or something. Like it was on set, she was like,"You're the devil!" you know, jokingly. And David just laughed because of how uncomfortable she was. Our guest is makeup and prosthetics designer Debbie Zoller. Make sure you follow us so you don't miss it. Meanwhile, if you love the show, leave a five star review wherever you listen. And if you've got questions, comments, or a giant rabbit's head I can borrow our email is podcast@mubi.com And now let's roll credits. This show is written and hosted by me, Simran Hans. Ciara McEniff is our producer with help from assistant producer Kat Kowalczyk. Christian Coons is our editor. Our booking producer is Ollie Charles. Martin Austwick composed our original music and he recorded Heidi in Vancouver. Special thanks to Honey Artists, and to Paul Smith for recording me. This show is executive produced by Efe Çakarel, Rico Gagliano, Michael Tacca and Daniel Kasman. And finally, to watch the best in cinema, subscribe to mubi.com Thanks for listening. And in case you're wondering, it's a story that happened yesterday, but I know it's tomorrow.