| What Did Jack do? | |
| Director: | David Lynch |
| Producer: | Sabrina S. Sutherland |
| Starring: | David Lynch |
| Cinematography: | Scott Ressler |
| Distributor: | Netflix |
| Editing: | David Lynch |
| Production Companies: | --> |
| Runtime: | 17 minutes |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
What Did Jack Do? is a 2017 American black-and-white short film written and directed by David Lynch. It premiered on November 8, 2017, at the Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain in Paris.[1] [2] [3] It was later released to Netflix on January 20, 2020. In the film, a detective (played by Lynch) interrogates a capuchin monkey who possibly committed a murder.[4]
The film's synopsis reads "In a locked down train station, a homicide detective conducts an interview with a tormented monkey."[5]
Lynch first mentioned the project in December 2014, in an interview about his upcoming work recorded during his "Naming" exhibition at the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art:[7] "Right now I'm mostly writing [''[[Twin Peaks (season 3)|Twin Peaks]]], I've got a painting going and I'm building a chair. I love to build things and this is for a monkey film. I'm working with a monkey named Jack and that'll come out sometime. It is not a chimpanzee, the monkey came from South America."[8]
The film was eventually shot in 2016,[2] and premiered on November 8, 2017, at the Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain in Paris,[1] [2] as part of the launch of Lynch's Nudes photo book published by the Fondation.[9] Lynch had talked about the premiere during an interview with the Cahiers du cinéma recorded on October 30, 2017, and published in December: "I will be in Paris for the release of this book. I will sign copies at the Paris Photo fair. And then I will show my "monkey film" at the Fondation Cartier. It's a strange film of 17 minutes".[10] On May 20, 2018, the short had its U.S. premiere during Lynch's "Festival of Disruption" in New York.[11] [12] On January 20, 2020, the date of Lynch's 74th birthday, the short was made available for streaming to Netflix.[13]
In his write-up of the film, Bloody Disgusting's John Squires called What Did Jack Do? an "oddball gem".[14] Writing for IndieWire Tambay Obensen referred to the film as "bizarre and unsettling" while at the same time calling it "very funny" whether that was the director's intention or not.[13] On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 93% based on 14 reviews, with an average score of 7.8/10.