American Express’ “Unstaged” performance series has given us some rather inspired band and filmmaker pairings thus far—The National and D.A. Pennebaker, Arcade Fire and Terry Gilliam—but somehow those pale in comparison to David Lynch and Duran Duran. The Lynch-helmed video of Duran Duran’s concert is the first film project we’ve heard of in a while from the increasingly music-minded director, and also one of the strangest given that Lynch’s tastes tend to run toward the less, um, Duran Duran-like. Still, keyboardist Nick Rhodes believes their respective styles are a perfect fit, saying, “He works completely outside of the system, and that's what we try to do.” The system said, “The definition of ‘reflex’ is an involuntary response to stimulus,” and Duran Duran was like, “No way, system. The reflex is an only child—he’s waiting in the park. The reflex is in charge of finding treasure in the dark.” It’s just that sort of status quo-bucking, unsettling surrealism that we expect Lynch will tease out of the band’s songs when it streams live from L.A.’s Mayan Theatre on March 23, when we'll also learn that "Girls On Film" is a metaphor for how movie stardom is a form of prostitution.
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