A Few Words on David Lynch (1946-2025)

 

Something important happened just two weeks ago. Something that changed cinema just that little bit more for the worst.

Director David Lynch died at the age of 78.

From the very beginning, Lynch’s output was something special and more than just a little unique – and God knows that’s something that we just can’t afford to lose in today’s cinema, clogged up as it is with unwanted and unasked-for remakes and endless superhero dreck.

I first became aware of Lynch in 1990 with the arrival of the first season of Twin Peaks, his groundbreaking television series which was a ratings winner in many countries. Indeed it was a source of much topic of conversation between myself and my friends in that first year of college. So this was the first time I noticed Lynch as a director.

Although, that’s not quite true.

No. If I’m truthful, the very first time I was aware of Lynch’s work was some time in the mid-80s, when Lynch’s, The Elephant Man, was shown on late night television. It was the director’s second feature (although his first for a studio), and it is one of those films I remember vivid when growing up because it always affected me deeply. I remember it didn’t really affect my brother in the same way (he’s 3 years old than me), as I recall he was fascinated with it, and always looked forward to it when it was shown. The film upset me, though. It didn’t make me cry, it just filled me with a deep melancholy, which I found difficult to shake for a good many days. I own the film now in a beautiful 4K release, and it still fills me with melancholy whenever I watch it, but I’m now able to appreciate the beauty and construction of the piece too.

After the first season of Twin Peaks had aired, one of my friends (also a film lover) went to a small arthouse cinema in the city to watch a screening of Lynch’s 1986 motion picture Blue Velvet. For a while, my friend and I became a little obsessed with it – finding it both fascinatingly beautiful and shockingly brutal. It gave me a greater appreciation of Lynch’s cinema work, and introduced me to his films beyond that of The Elephant Man.

No wait. Again, that’s not quite the truth.

Some time in the late 1980s, before Twin Peaks arrived on TV in the UK, I became a huge fan of his adaptation of Frank Herbert’s SF classic Dune.*¹  I had the film recorded on a VHS tape for a few years, and watched it often*²   Eventually upgrading to the 2-disc DVD, then finally the beautiful 4K release from Arrow Video.

I will confess, here and now, that it took me a little while to fully appreciate the brilliance that is Eraserhead (his first full length feature). The same friend I went to the arthouse cinema with to see Blue Velvet had a copy of Eraserhead on VHS, and we watched it some time in the early 1990s. He loved it, but I was unconvinced. It’s not that I hated it, it just took a little time to grow on me. OK, so flash forward 25 years, and my wife buys it for me on Criterion Collection blu-ray as a birthday present. After 25 years and umpteen viewings, I finally understand it beauty and brilliance, and it is now one of my favourite of Lynch’s movies.

I'm not the type of person who joins in with this practice of the current 2020s culture of using ridiculously overblown words, or being overly sentimental about something that is essentially trivial and unimportant. I hardly ever use the word 'Masterpiece'. Very few films are masterpieces*³, despite how many times that word is thrown about these days. I never, ever, refer to my friends as 'Legends'. For me a holiday is just a holiday not an 'Adventure'. And I meet up with friends and family for a chat, I'm not 'Making Memories'.

But I will say this...

As a director, Lynch is irreplaceable. Yes, his films are often too quirky and unfathomable to be considered true masterpieces, but a few of them came awfully close. Lynch only made 11 feature length films*⁴  throughout his 48 year career, but all of them made an impact, one way or another. All of them were important and original and beautiful and brutal and honest and had something to say worth listening to. And who can say that about most of the films nowadays?

I urge you to go and have yourself a David Lynch season as a tribute to this unique and irreplaceable master of modern cinema. you owe it to yourself to watch something decent for a change. It doesn’t matter which one of his films you choose, each one is a vital and important piece of cinema history. I'm just sorry we've now been robbed of the opportunity of having more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NOTES:

1 – Yep, you heard it correctly – I’m a huge fan of David Lynch’s Dune. Remember hearing that there was someone out there that loved that film? Well, it’s me. I’ve always considered it a flawed masterpiece.

2 – Substitute ‘Watched it often’ for ‘Played it to death’.

3 – There are a few films I consider to be masterpieces. I'll write a blog entry about them very soon.

4 - If you count Northwest Passage, the pilot episode of Twin Peaks. Which I do. That opening 94 minute television movie is as breathtaking and as important as anything he produced for the cinema. If you don’t believe me, go back and watch that first episode. Not the European Cinema cut, that’s not as good, I’m talking about the original TV broadcast cut. It is no exaggeration to say that those 94 minutes are greatly responsible for changing the face of television, both in the US and worldwide, for good. Yes, he also directed the 90 minute-long Episode 1 of Season 2, but that's arguably just a double length TV episode and not in the same class as Northwest Passage.