Six Men Getting Sick (1967)

Interesting facts

• Filmed in: Philadelphia

Six Men Getting Sick (Six Times) (sometimes known as Six Figures Getting Sick) is a 1967 experimental animated short film, directed by David Lynch. A student project that was developed over the course of a semester, it is Lynch's first film and was shot while he was attending the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The film consists of an animated painting, depicting six dysmorphic figures regurgitating in sequence with the sound of a siren loop. It is currently displayed on a recurring loop in the basement of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

Production

Lynch conceived the idea for Six Men Getting Sick in 1966, while attending his second semester at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In one of the school's art studios Lynch began painting a black landscape and a green garden, with "real dark green coming out of black." Adding a dysmorphic figure of a man to the center of the canvas, Lynch "hear[d] a little wind and [saw] a little movement", which led him to…

Lynch discussed the idea of creating an animated film with fellow student Bruce Samuelson. Samuelson was creating "real fleshy paintings" that Lynch admired, and Lynch himself was creating a series of "'mechanical women'—women who turned into typewriters"; the combination of these ideas was the basis for their film. Samuelson and Lynch's project fell through, although Lynch continued developing his original idea of seeing his paintings move.

Lynch constructed a sculptured screen measuring 6 ft×10 ft, on which the final film would be projected. In a downtown Philadelphia hotel owned by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Lynch began shooting Six Men Getting Sick with Jack Fisk, who subsequently became a frequent collaborator.

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