Remembering David Lynch: A Singular Visionary of Fear and Love

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David Lynch © Shutterstock
David Lynch © Shutterstock

Walking into class one morning, it was revealed that a student had died the previous night. She wasn’t a friend, yet the grief that rippled through the school was physiological, an intense numbness in the stomach and on fingertips.

It was when rewatching the pilot of Twin Peaks (1990) months later that this feeling bubbled up again. With the discovery of Laura Palmer’s (Sheryl Lee) body, “dead, wrapped in plastic” reports a shaken Pete (Jack Nance), a normal day of learning at the high school situated in the Americana postcard town of Twin Peaks crumbles. The register is taken but the piercing scream of an anonymous student, seen running past a classroom window, marks the arrival of an overwhelming sadness, soon to reduce Laura’s friend Donna (Lara Flynn Boyle), the principal and more to blubbering wrecks. That intense sadness is abnormally genuine in this scene and across all of the works of artist David Lynch, relived again with the recent news of his passing at 78.

For many cineastes, Lynch is foundational. His sincere, charming, terrifying dreams have even made it into the mainstream, despite his famously impenetrable films. This is the magnitude of his artistry, one which coloured countless responses across the spectrum of art and humanities. Although his scarier spectres are most immediate—the testosterone junkie Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper) in Blue Velvet (1986) or the rotting Bum (Bonnie Aarons) in Mulholland Drive (2001)—Lynch’s work has always been about love. It’s an unabashed, saccharine love, drowning out accusations of sentimentality with indescribable profundity. Love is an elemental power in Lynch’s films, albeit one that may not be enough.

Twin Peaks (1990) © Lynch/Frost Productions

Think of Major Brigg’s (Don S. Davis) speech to his delinquent son Bobby (Dana Ashbrook) in Twin Peaks. Briggs sees Bobby in a dream, relaying the experience amidst the clatter of the Double R Diner’s crockery. In it the two embrace, “a warm and loving embrace, nothing withheld,” as he describes. It should be sappy but then the tears start streaming, outpacing logic. The edges of the screen fade away and reality is flooded with Lynch’s uncannily alluring worlds. “Sublime eternal love is a possibility for human beings,” said Lynch, “and every human being should know that—it exists within each of us.”

But every doughnut has a dark hole, and Lynch’s grasp of the dark has led to some of cinema’s most chilling nightmares. His last feature Inland Empire (2006)quadruple-shot Lynch compared to decaf Blue Velvet—spirals as soon as Lynch regular Laura Dern probes a gloomy corner, inciting a cacophony of screams and cries. From humanoid rabbits to Lost Highway’s (1997) calcium-complexioned Mystery Man (Robert Blake), Lynch had the extraordinary ability to manifest uncanny creations from the hinterlands of human consciousness, partly thanks to his practice in transcendental meditation.

Eraserhead (1977) © American Film Institute

Objects were another source of terror for Lynch, as seen in his art and design work. Furniture like Violet Lamp demonstrates Lynch’s polymath scope, able to pervert, contort or make strange from any material, whether that’s a ceiling fan in Twin Peaks or a radiator in Eraserhead (1977). This first feature, a well-documented arduous production, kickstarted Lynch’s sonic style, where the groundbreaking drones and rumbles in his dystopic response to parenthood sprouted musical collaborations with artists such as Karen O, Julee Cruise and Chrysta Bell, the latter two appearing in Twin Peaks.

It’s hard to elucidate just how widespread Lynch’s influence is; the temptation is to endlessly list memorable characters, scenes, or even meme-able quotes from the titanium-haired man himself, as a means to describe the magnitude of his artistry. Better to save time for engaging with his work rather than reading about it. Those distilled emotions, the fear and love, will do enough to summarise his almighty back catalogue. The damn fine worldview of Lynch, the Eagle Scout-cum-sorcerer of dreams, will never be replicated; but responses from fans and his collaborators, brimming with fear and love, will remain, as real as the memories that define us. 

Words by Barney Nuttall


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