Dreaming in Black & White: My Personal Journey with the Works of David Lynch.
1/18/2025 9:53 PM CST
Dear Reader,
On Thursday, January 16th, 2025, I was
scrolling social media, and I found out one of my creative heroes had died. I
am not sure if it happened Thursday or not, but it was announced: infamously
strange director David Lynch was dead, likely due to complications with his
emphysema and the air quality because of the raging fires in the Palisades.
I see an enormous outpouring of love for the guy on
social media, especially Threads. I see a lot of people who seemingly have
never heard of David Lynch, suddenly having their awakening. I see a ton of
diehard Lynch fans like myself, both mourning but rejoicing that we have found
like minds in the process. This blog is for both those kinds of people. I don’t
claim to be a Lynch expert, but I love his work, and I want to talk about it. I
want to share all the great content others have made around his work.
No other celebrity death has ever hit me like this one,
except for Kurt Cobain's (I was young, and his suicide was devastating). When I
found out David Lynch was dead, I immediately turned on Pixies’ version of “In
Heaven.” Luckily, I had the office to myself and was able to blast the song
as I shed a few tears for the art David never finished. It is hard to stress
what his art and attitude towards art have done to inspire me, hell, to make me
feel less alone in the world. How can I explain David Lynch?
For those of you who already know him, just consider this
a memoir of how David Lynch’s work has always permeated my life in some way.
For those of you who don’t know his work, this could be an easy “in” for you to understand what he is about and what you might have in store
should you choose to delve into his work, and I think you should.
I am going to start by explaining Stephen King. King was
a force of nature I was majorly aware of from the time I was aware of damn near
anything. There were commercials to join King’s book clubs and receive one of
his novels every month. I feel like I saw those commercials every day, even in
those preconscious early fuzzy memories. I heard his name often and would
shudder at it because I already knew he was the “master of horror” before I
even knew what horror was. King was as real as school and the post office. Just
a part of life. I will probably go deep on King later, but we are here for
someone else today.
Much like Stephen King, David Lynch has always just been
a fact of life for me as well, but I didn’t always recognize it. Unlike King, I
didn’t know his name, but as far back as I have memories, Lynch’s influence was
always right there.
1/19/2025 7:13 AM CST
Dear Reader,
If you don’t already know, how can I explain what a
staple David Lynch is, even in your life? Even if you never
watched, observed, or listened to a single piece of work by the man, he has
likely influenced something you love.
Film nerds use the word “Lynchian” to describe art that
evokes the same feeling as his work does, basically, something akin to a
subgenre of film and TV literally named after him. (Kafkaesque is the only
other term I can think of that comes close in terms of describing an artistic
style named after one solitary modern visionary.) Again, as long as I have been
alive, he has been part of the fabric of American culture; I just didn’t know
it. How do I explain?
Even when I could barely talk, I remember adults using
the term Elephant Man to refer to someone they thought was ugly (body
shaming was common back then). I have vague visions of my mom explaining to me
that it was rude, because it was based on a movie about a guy with a deformity,
and that it wasn’t nice to make fun of people who were different than
ourselves, nor was it nice to use their condition as an insult.
I also cannot remember a time when I was not at least
vaguely aware of a movie called ERASERHEAD. I am talking about being
less than 10 years old and hearing about this mysterious movie in passing. I
had no idea what it was, what it was about, or what it even looked like, but I
heard talk of it enough that I had a vision of what it might be in my head.
Without knowing a single thing about the movie, I could sense it had this
reputation as the most fucked up, scary thing you could ever see. My young mind
went wild with the implications. When I was just a little older, I saw the
cover in a local video rental place, and I was so freaked out by Jack Nance’s
face and the freaky glowing font, I refused to look at it. (It was awesome to
see other people saying the same thing on Threads yesterday.)
But before I ever even saw the cover of ERASERHEAD, I
had a babysitter who loved showing me cool movies and reading me the best
books. She made a point of showing me Dune. I barely remember it; I am
guessing I was grossed out by the opening monster creature and ran away, but I
remember later, she read the same scene, or one similar, where the same
creature meets with someone. She explained DNA to me. She explained the creature
was once human and that he had his DNA scrambled, which caused him to look like
the monstrosity I had seen in the film. I was probably five years old or
younger. Don’t quote me on all of this. I am not a Dune guy, but
nonetheless, this exchange with my babysitter and that scene in the movie had a
lasting impression on me.
I remember when Twin Peaks was on TV. I never saw it,
but there was so much hype around it at the time that I don’t think you could
really escape it. Once, I visited my aunt and uncle, and they were watching Northern
Exposure, and I remember them saying something like, “We like this because
it’s like Twin Peaks, but not so weird.”
I was really getting into alternative music when I hit my
early teen years, so by the time Lost Highway came out, with its
unbelievably influential soundtrack, I was super intrigued. If I remember
correctly, the Nine
Inch Nails song, “The Perfect Drug,” was released in advance of the film,
and to this day I still think it's one of NIN’s top 10 bangers. So, this song,
and its wild music video, represented the movie Lost Highway to me, and
my young mind was left to ponder what the movie could possibly be about. I knew
it had to be scary.
I read the Chicago Sun-Times’ Arts and Entertainment section
that came out every Friday. It was my way of keeping up with new movies and
bands. This was before the internet was super prevalent for anyone confused
about why a 14-year-old would be reading a newspaper. Ebert was not too keen on
Lost Highway, which I found disappointing. I also remember the review of
the movie confused me. I couldn’t really tell what the film was about by
reading someone else’s description.
There was a time my family was signed up for an off-brand CD
club that was not BMG or the other one I can’t remember (Columbia House). There
was a catalog with no pictures, and we would order music from it. We had paid
ahead of time for the CDs, and we only had to pay the shipping when we ordered.
I don’t remember how I convinced my mom or stepdad to order me the Lost
Highway soundtrack, but I did.
When I say that no other album of music has shaped the way I
think about cinematic horror the way the Lost Highway soundtrack did, I
mean it. I know that’s a weird thing to say, but I was listening to this
soundtrack before I ever even saw the movie. From what I understand now, these
were Lynch’s personal picks. I still didn’t even know the guy’s name yet (I am
sure I read it in Ebert’s review, but it hadn’t sunk in), but the guy’s
personal playlist was redefining the way I thought music could convey horror. The Lou Reed cover of
“This Magic Moment” was so scary to me; never mind Marilyn Manson’s cover of “I
Put a Spell on You.” It’s scary to say, but these musical renditions of
toxic obsession really resonated with me as a teenager.
The soundtrack was also my first exposure to the work of
Angelo Badalamenti, whose work with David Lynch seems to be the biggest
inspiration for an entire genre of music commonly referred to as “Doom Jazz” or
“Dark Jazz.” If you look Doom Jazz up on Spotify, you will find the darkest,
but most chill playlist you have ever heard. There is also a good
one on the tube. It seems nearly every artist in the genre is obsessed with
capturing the Lynchian vibe in dark, noir-style music. It is
amazing background music for writing and working.
Still, I had not seen Lost Highway, but the
soundtrack had dialogue from the movie, and the film already existed in my
imagination. I had told the story of the film to myself a hundred different
ways in my head already. In Lynchian terms, I had caught the fish; I just
didn’t know what it looked like yet.
There was a time when my stepdad hired my friend, we’ll call
him Tim, to help paint a garage. Tim and I were either best friends at the time
or on our way to being so, and we were talking up a storm while we painted. We
were talking about movies we liked and coming to the realization we both liked
horror movies. We were basically taking turns and telling each other about
different movies we had seen but the other hadn’t. Like free previews and plot
explanations. (I did this with a lot of friends, actually. We would spoil
movies for each other by verbally giving each other the cliff notes version.)
Come to find out, Tim had seen Lost Highway, and I
hadn’t. This was probably a year or two after it came out, and he had since
rented it. He told me the plot in long-winded detail, and I still could not
tell you what the movie was about. Not really. I knew strange stuff happened in
it, but I didn’t understand what it was.
Fucking Lost Highway. Just sitting here reminiscing
about it, it is so crazy. I had years of experiencing it secondhand before I
finally saw the thing. I was 18, and I had just read the Ebert review of Mulholland
Dr., and he was glowing about the movie if I remember correctly. That was
when it sunk in.
There was this guy, his name was David Lynch, and he was the
guy responsible for all these movies I knew about. He directed Lost Highway,
and Mulholland Dr. was his new one, and Ebert basically called it a
masterpiece. Lynch was the guy who had made ERASERHEAD, Dune, The Elephant
Man, and the one I was most interested in, Lost Highway.
We had an account at a local video rental chain, and I drove
down the block to rent two movies: a porno and Lost Highway. I was 18,
and I finally could rent whatever I wanted. I popped Lost Highway into
the TV/VCR combo I had in my bedroom and focused in like a dog with a bone.
By the time the film was over, after finally seeing it… I
still couldn’t fucking tell you what the fuck it was about. I knew events, I
knew characters, and I had some strange sense of how it all related. More than
anything, I knew what the film meant because I felt it. I just couldn’t
really explain it. I didn’t even know if I liked it or disliked it. I had
wanted something from the movie, and it had not given me what I had expected.
The movie had given me something else.
I had always perceived Lost Highway to be some kind
of horror movie. I didn’t know what I expected, but even after people explained
it to me, I still thought it would have traditional horror movie stuff, like a
monster or a villain, people fighting to survive a dark force. Those things are
there, but not how you would expect.
Here is the thing: Lynch’s work is often described as
dreamlike, and that couldn’t be truer, but his work is often lumped in with
horror because it is kind of the only genre that makes sense, seeing as the
dreams he shares with us are often absolute fucking nightmares. They follow a
logic, it's true, but it is not a logic Lynch was ever interested in expressly
sharing with you.
Let me reiterate and emphasize: Lynch didn’t make horror
films; he made goddamn nightmares.
So, I am sitting there in my room, having just watched Lost
Highway, 18 years old, and my mind is blown. What do I do? I rewind the
film and take out a notebook and pen and watch it a second time while taking
furious notes.
After the second viewing and note taking, I was more
confused than when I had started. Honestly. I was baffled. I felt strong
feelings with the movie. Desire. Jealousy. Rage. Impotence. Disdain. But the
main thing I felt was mystery. I don’t know how to explain the emotion of
mystery, but it was uncomfortable for me. I was mad at Lynch for not giving me
closure or concrete answers.
I ended up watching Lost Highway a third time before
returning it and never did get around to the porno.
Intrigued, I decided to rent Mulholland Dr. not long
after it came out on VHS. I didn’t know if I even liked Lost Highway or
not; it was in no way satisfying the same way a traditional movie was, but I
was intrigued enough that I wanted to see more. Besides, Ebert didn’t like Lost
Highway and thought Mulholland Dr. was a masterpiece, so maybe I had
just started with the wrong film.
I shit you not, I rented Mulholland Dr. from the same
video store, I popped it in the same TV/VCR combo, and although Mulholland
Dr. is probably tamer in every way when compared to Lost Highway, I
didn’t make it past The
Diner Scene.
If you have seen the movie, you know what scene I am talking
about. Man, it shouldn’t even be scary. The scene literally telegraphs every
single thing that is going to happen and then delivers exactly what they told
you. It shouldn’t work. It should be self-defeating and cheesy, and to be
honest, it is totally cheesy, and yet it is one of the scariest scenes
ever put to film.
If you haven’t seen Mulholland Dr., I dare you to go
to a dark room right now, click the link where it says, “The Diner Scene,” just
above here. Do it. I fucking dare you. I double dog dare you. You can talk shit
about me later when you come back and say the scene had no effect on you.
The point is, I saw THE DINER SCENE, and I am not joking
when I say I nearly fucking threw up. I turned the movie off and was not
interested in any more of that absolute nightmare. I did not rewind it and
returned it the next day. If that scene had been so early in the film, I could
not fathom what fucking shenanigans Lynch had in store for me for the rest of
the movie, and frankly I wasn’t brave enough to find out. Dear Readers, I was
“shooketh.”
I didn’t watch Mulholland Dr. again until my ex-wife
was pregnant with our child, and she agreed to watch it with me because I was
too scared to watch it alone. It was funny when it turned out that most of the
movie was nothing like The Diner Scene, and was fairly tame, if not totally
unsettling. I was fine until the end of the movie, which I will not link here.
It was not as scary as The Diner Scene, but those old folks… Dear Readers, help
me; they gave me the creeps.
After I had braved Mulholland Dr., much like how I
felt after Lost Highway, I was confused. I could sort of feel
what the movie was about, but I couldn’t really explain it to you. I wasn’t
sure if I liked it or not. I did recognize some of Lynch’s stylistic choices
and noticed that both movies dealt heavily with the concept of identity. I had
mixed feelings about both movies but had some strong suspicion they were both
brilliant and perhaps, in the very nature of their construction, transcended
the labels of “good” or “bad.” They were simply pieces of art that existed,
unapologetically, and they were effective in so much as they were going to have
an effect on you.
A year or so later, I was a new dad, and I was married to my
child’s mother. I happened to stop in to a Best Buy (this was when they had a
killer CD and DVD selection), and what do I see staring back at me from the
shelf but ERASERHEAD? It was only $20, and I snatched it up without a
second thought. Even though I wasn’t sure yet if I liked David Lynch’s
work, I was sure that I respected it, and I knew you never knew what you were
going to get. Besides, it was time to face down the legendary ERASERHEAD.
I was dumb, because when I got home, the wife and the kids
were hanging out, and I just went ahead and put the movie on in the living room
anyway. My ex-wife was working on the computer in the corner, and the kid was
running around playing while I had my first exposure to ERASERHEAD. Even
the aesthetic of the DVD menu was so stark and unforgiving that I was
immediately intrigued. Then the DVD insisted on giving you a color-matching
screen so you could get the levels perfect for the experience. Every moment
just felt so hyped up, and pretty much from the first frame onward, I was into
it. Each and every image was mesmerizing to me. The uncanny valley of it all
was hypnotizing.
When we got to the scene where they first take the baby
home, my ex-wife chimed in and was like, “You have to turn that off now. You
are watching ERASERHEAD in front of our toddler? What is wrong with
you?” like she had finally just clocked what was happening in her house.
I remember being like, “What? I have never seen it. What’s
the big deal? He is too little to understand.”
She was like, “ABSOLUTELY NOT,” and it was one of the few
times she ever made a demand like that, so I totally backed down, but the
effect was, now I had to see this movie the first chance I got. My ex-wife made
it clear she had seen it before and had no interest in watching it again, which
gave me the impression it was as disturbing as its reputation would have you
believe.
I am not sure when it finally happened, but there were a few
hours I had the house to myself, so I finally watched it in our bedroom with
the lights off. Again, I couldn’t fully explain the movie, but this time it was
a little different because there was absolutely no doubt in my mind what the
movie was about. I felt every last thing in the film as clear as day. I also
knew that I loved it, and that it was possibly my favorite movie of all time.
In hindsight, it may have been a case of good timing because
of the very fact I was a new dad. I am not going to tell you what ERASERHEAD
means, and neither would David Lynch, but for the first time I fucking knew.
I watched it several times from that DVD copy, but only when
the wife was not around. There was one time, though, when I asked if she was
comfortable with me watching the extra features, and she said that she might
even find it interesting. We watched some of the stuff, and it was fun learning
that no one knows how they made the famous ERASERHEAD baby, and anybody
who does know isn’t telling.
The last extra feature on the DVD was an interview with
David Lynch himself. The thing that shocked me when he showed up on screen was
that I recognized him. I thought I was going to be seeing him for the first
time when I turned on the interview footage, but he was all too familiar. Who
knows where I saw him? Like I said at the beginning of all of this, Lynch is
woven into the fabric of America, and maybe you just don’t know it yet.
Anyway, I sat and watched the whole interview. I don’t know
how long it really was, but it was 9 hours if it was a minute. David talked
about the history and making of the movie for so long, you started to feel like
you had been there. He has this fascinating way of speaking that just sort of
lulls you in. My ex-wife checked out pretty early and went to do something
else, but I promise you she made it clear she was annoyed I was still watching
the stupid interview, but I couldn’t pull myself away.
I also found it hilarious: the savage number of cigarettes I
was watching the guy smoke in real time as he talked about the making of what
might have been my new favorite movie.
Flash forward a couple more years. I haven’t thought much
about David Lynch or his movies. My marriage has fallen apart, and I find
myself on the other side of the country. I meet a beautiful woman who declares
she is a big fan and wants to know what I think of Twin Peaks and Blue
Velvet. I have to admit that even though I am pretty sure I am a big Lynch
fan myself, I haven’t seen either of those pieces.
Flash forward a couple of months, and I am living in that
same woman’s tiny apartment. We are going halfsies on rent. After a tussle in
our nest of sheets and blankets we kept on her bedroom floor, she insisted that
she was not going to have sex with me ever again if I didn’t watch Blue
Velvet. She pulled a copy up on her laptop, turned the lights out, and went
to the other room to read a book, leaving me alone to watch Blue Velvet
by myself.
The last thing she said before leaving the room was, “This
movie is the reason I have a Pabst Blue Ribbon tattoo.”
Aside from Mulholland Dr., Blue Velvet is
probably Lynch’s most lauded and well-known work. Which is confusing to say
about a guy who directed The Elephant Man, but Blue Velvet
defined a certain kind of David Lynch style that was not nearly as unhinged as ERASERHEAD but
was still darker and more daring than any mainstream thriller at the time. Blue
Velvet introduced David’s habit of exposing the grotesque violence that lay
just beneath the veneer of our idyllic suburban American façade.
But enough of all of that. Many have said smarter things
about Lynch’s work, especially Blue Velvet, than I. What I want to
share with you is how it made me feel. While sitting there in my underwear,
just having watched one of the weirdest psychosexual films I had ever seen, I
felt grossed out, titillated, and weirdly hopeful. Some parts had been funny;
some parts had felt illegal to have witnessed. It was uncanny and unsettling.
Blue Velvet was the most straightforward Lynch film I
had seen yet. I could finally give you a relatively straightforward plot
description (this is a little bit of a lie because I still can’t exactly
remember how one action leads to the other, but I know what starts it and where
it goes), but I was still left with that feeling of unease and uncertainty.
When the woman came back to the room, she asked me if I was
ready for Twin Peaks, and I said, “Sure,” but then she clarified,
“Actually, I just need you to watch Fire Walk with Me, the Twin Peaks
movie, to understand me. It’s my story, basically. I am Laura Palmer.” (To
anyone who has seen either the show or the movie, you know how sad that is.)
I didn’t know what that meant, but she assured me you didn’t
need to watch the show to understand the movie, put Fire Walk with Me
on, and left the room again.
By the time Fire Walk with Me was over, I was sure of
two things. I was a David Lynch fan for life, and I was terrified for this
woman. The movie was such an unrelenting and bleak portrayal of a young woman
in trouble, living a double life, and dealing with awful abuse that I simply
cried with her after watching it.
Flash forward a couple of months. I am homeless. I am in the
Eugene Library using the free computers to browse the internet and stay warm. I
see something called Rabbits
by David Lynch on YouTube, so I watch it. I had heard of it before from
the beautiful woman when she told me it was part of a bigger Lynch movie called
Inland Empire. I asked her if it was good and what was it about? She
told me she couldn’t explain, but she didn’t care for it all that much (this is
what I remember, anyway).
I watched Rabbits in the library and thought to
myself, Alright, David, you’ve finally lost me. I mean, I loved the
feeling of dread that it evoked, but it was an exercise in tedium at the same
time. Purposefully scrambled dialogue, long shots where nothing happens, and an
indecipherable “story.” I knew there was a story because you got a sense certain
things might be happening: a jealous visitor, infidelity, the threat of
violence, perhaps, but it was all implications. I felt empty and scared when it
was over. I didn’t get it, and I couldn’t explain it.
Flash forward, I am still homeless. It is a couple of years
later. I am in a coastal southern California town, Saint Something or Other,
and someone has just stolen my phone. I left it on the table to charge while I
used the bathroom at a café, and when I came back, the phone was not there. I
went down to the boardwalk and made some money. I bought myself a cheap new
phone from RadioShack (yes, this town still had a RadioShack after 2012), and
as a treat I obtained a copy of Inland Empire over the Wi-Fi of the same
coffee shop the first phone was stolen from.
That night, while drinking 24 oz cans of fruity high-gravity
beer, I watched Inland Empire under the back deck of a hair salon while
it poured buckets of rain outside. The deck had a roof, so I was dry and comfy
under my deck. I had a pair of headphones in and I watched Inland Empire
on my phone, laying on my pack like a couch, sipping strawberry beer. One of
the single most satisfying cinematic experiences of my life. David Lynch would
probably be rolling in his grave to know that, but I think he would
understand. (A few days later I watched The Holy Mountain on the same
phone under the boardwalk, and that was almost as good as my Inland Empire
experience, almost.)
Flash forward, I am travelling the country, living outside
with my girlfriend and our two dogs. We have been train-hopping and
hitchhiking, and we found ourselves in Podunk nowhere, Colorado, right as a
blizzard was starting. We were blessed with lots of food and some money at a
McDonald's by a highway offramp. I used the McD’s Wi-Fi to obtain a copy of Mulholland
Dr. because my girlfriend had never seen a David Lynch film. We watched it
in a tent off in a small woods just off the highway while we were getting
buried in snow. (Again, we watched it on that same phone. Sorry, David.)
She was terrified at The Diner Scene and was clearly
invested in the mystery, but when the movie was over, she said, “Well, that was
stupid.” I totally understood where she was coming from, and I started telling
her what I thought the movie might mean and why I thought it was good. What was
interesting about that was that although she claimed the movie was stupid, she
passionately disagreed with my interpretation and felt quite strongly the film
had meant something else. That is how Lynch gets you. You think you don’t know
what it means, but you do. It meant something to you, and it becomes more
obvious when you hear someone say it meant something that doesn’t jive with
you.
Flash forward again. I am no longer homeless. My mom helped
me out, and I am living in her house while I work a job and get through
college. I become obsessed with Twin Peaks analysis videos. I have never
seen the show. I have only seen the movie, and I am watching hours upon hours
of YouTube content attempting to explain what Twin Peaks means. I
couldn’t get enough, but for some reason I was not ready to dive in. Suddenly,
25 years after the original series, I hear there is going to be a third season
on ShowTime called The Return. Now I was twice as intimidated to get
started on the series. I even tried a few times while it was still in the net
that has flicks, but I just couldn’t make myself commit.
I was having a mirror experience to that of my Lost
Highway experience, where a piece of work Lynch had made had such a strong
effect on culture, as to live in my imagination rent-free before I had even
seen it. I was sort of scared to break the spell I had put on myself. I would
watch these videos, and they would explain weird stuff, and I was left
pondering what those scenes were really like or what they might really mean. I
just kept holding off until The Return was finished so I could watch it
all at once.
Then when I was ready, Twin Peaks was no longer
available on any platform I had access to. I asked my sister to buy me the
complete boxed set for Christmas the year before last. Starting the day after
Christmas, I watched Twin Peaks and only Twin Peaks until the
whole thing was done.
The original Twin Peaks, while creepy and mysterious,
left me feeling mostly a lot of warm, fuzzy emotions as we watched all these
characters and how they were affected by Laura Palmer’s death. Sure, it was a
creepy show with lots of dark undertones, but there was a lot of heart and
humor. I fell in love with all the different characters. I love Twin Peaks,
but I was chomping at the bit for The Return because I had a sneaking
suspicion that it was going to be Lynch in top-tier surrealist form, and I was
not disappointed.
This has been said before, but Twin Peaks: The Return
is the best 18-hour art film disguised as a TV show that exists, and it’s a
miracle it was a major television event. By the time it was done, I felt
exactly how I wanted to feel, full of awe and mystery. Again, that feeling of
mystery. I was no longer upset about the open threads and the unanswered
questions; I relished them. Those questions live on, and they are why I keep
thinking about Lynch’s work. The Return is sublime, and I can’t wait to
go through Twin Peaks again so I can have that experience one more time.
We are getting close to the end of my personal Lynch
journey, and at this point I don’t think I need to beat the dead horse too much
more. You are probably starting to get the gist. David Lynch’s work is
enigmatic, confounding, and profoundly intriguing.
I won’t belabor the point as we reach the end of this
journey, and this also mirrors how it starts to feel once you become used to
his work. You know it is going to be weird. You know it is going to challenge
you, but you are no longer shocked the way you once were. Now you are weirdly
comforted by the strangeness instead. You know you are going to feel something
and that you don’t have to understand it. You know that you are going to feel
more full from his works than you do from a lot of mainstream media.
My most recent watches were Wild at Heart and Twin
Peaks: The Missing Pieces. Both were baffling, unflinching pieces of art.
You get it yet?
Ok. So, if you have made it this far as a David Lynch
newbie, you still might be saying to yourself, “I have not heard of a single
one of these movies. Matthew, you told me that Lynch was a part of the fabric
of American entertainment culture, but I am completely unconvinced. I have
never heard of any of these movies. I have never seen Twin Peaks. Who
really cares?”
Just the creative minds behind practically everything you
love, that’s who. You may not have ever seen a David Lynch film, but I am
willing to bet he has inspired something you have watched and enjoyed.
TV shows like Lost, The X-Files, Supernatural,
The Sopranos, The Gilmore Girls, Fargo, Mad Men, Atlanta,
True Detective, Stranger Things, and even Breaking Bad all
would not have been the same shows without Lynch’s influence. These are just
the shows I can name off the top of my head that have Lynch’s fingerprints all
over them. Who knows all the ones I don’t know about!
Stanley Kubrick cited ERASERHEAD as his favorite
movie and even showed it to the crew of The Shining to set the mood he
wanted to create in his own film. Can you imagine Jack Nicholson and Shelley
DuVall sitting in some room with Stanley Kubrick watching ERASERHEAD?
Now you must imagine Kubrick is doing that thing where when you show someone a
movie you love, you don’t watch the movie, but instead you watch your friends’
reactions to it to make sure they are appreciating it as hard as they should
be. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Even with just horror movies released in 2024, I can point
out movies that feel Lynchian. Cuckoo, Longlegs, Heretic, I
Saw the TV Glow, and In a Violent Nature are all horror movies
released this year that felt inspired either directly or indirectly by David
Lynch. That was just this last year.
Do you like Silent Hill or Alan Wake? Both of
those video games are heavily influenced by the work of David Lynch. Deadly
Premonition is basically Twin Peaks, the game.
One artist who he has had a profound effect on is myself.
Several years ago, I started writing horror fiction, and I would say that I
wear my inspiration from him and King on my sleeve. My first novel, SPECIAL
DELIVERY (coming very soon), would not have existed if not for his
inspiration.
To be honest, I have been writing about Lynch all day, and I
am starting to burn out.
To be honest, it might be easier to list out the works that don’t have
Lynch’s influence.
To be honest, I know I talked a big game at the beginning of this blog, but I
am starting to realize that I am no Lynch expert, just a devoted fan.
For those of you looking for a place to start, if you
couldn’t tell, every piece of Lynch’s work is challenging in some way. There
isn’t exactly an easy in. Just start with whatever tickles your curiosity. The
chances are, by the time you are done, you are probably going to be a little
confused, and you might not even like what you just watched, but I can
guarantee you will feel something.
So, for you new initiates, just take the plunge.
For you diehard Lynch fans, I want to share a few creators
who make top-tier Lynch content.
This video by Twin
Perfect is controversial among fans, but I still love it, and the creator has
many opinions on Lynch’s work that others like to fight about.
There is this video and this video by Maggie Mae
Fish, Lynchian works of art in and of themselves, that are not only perfect
answers to the above video but also amazing standalone analyses. (Maggie Mae
Fish is awesome, and if you are not already subscribed to her, what are you
even doing with your life?)
There’s this video about Lynch’s
wide-ranging influence.
Then you have the channel, Corn Pone Flicks, that has this
whole Twin
Peaks: All Questions Answered playlist. This might secretly be my favorite
of all Lynch video essay content.
Then there is this video, a 3-hour
meditation on the spiritual beliefs espoused by Lynch and the films themselves.
Then there is this other channel, Malmrose Projects, that
has another great
playlist of Lynch video essays.
Honestly, I could keep going. There is so much wonderful
Lynch content out there, most of all his work itself. I haven’t even mentioned
the fact that he is a painter and musician.
I still have to see The Straight Story. I still have
to finish watching Dumbland. I have to read Catching the Big Fish.
My personal journey with the works of David Lynch is far from over, and I hope
yours is far from over too. Because that’s the thing about David Lynch: he is
notoriously cagey about the meaning of his work for a reason. He wants you to
feel it for yourself. There is no experience of a David Lynch work that isn’t
deeply personal.
I don’t know how to finish this today. It is 5:43 pm, and I
have written about Lynch all day. I have to edit and get this thing out while
it is still Sunday. (Note: it is 9 pm, and I am still editing.) All I can say
is I love David Lynch’s work, and it has been worth it to stick it out with
him, even when I was confused, because I have gotten more out of his work in
the long run than I have from most other artists combined.
I am going to end with this. One of David’s late-in-life
projects was doing a daily weather report from Los Angeles. Considering how
dark many of us feel the current times are, I want to close out on this
paraphrase from the master of light and dark himself during one of those broadcasts:
“I am wearing dark glasses today because I’m seeing the
future, and it’s looking very bright.”
– David Lynch (1946–2025)
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