The Twin Peaks director who embraced the weird

David Lynch once said that he was inspired to become a film director when, while painting, he inexplicably heard a wind blow and saw the artwork moving on the canvas.

That moment defined his obsession with “seeing paintings move,” but it also defined his penchant for strange realities on small and large screens for nearly 40 years.

The 78-year-old American director, who died months after announcing his emphysema diagnosis, became the contemporary face of the strange and disturbing worlds often hidden in everyday society – from the TV series Twin Peaks to films such as Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire. .

A self-professed daydreamer, Lynch burst onto the scene via the midnight movie circuit with 1977's Eraserhead. The disorienting horror, a commentary on male paranoia, set the layered template that runs through his work.

Four decades later, he lived to see his style immortalized as an adjective in the Oxford Dictionary. Linxian, readingblurring “the surreal or sinister elements with the mundane” — a befitting accolade for the four-time Academy Award nominee turned lifelong achiever whose personality was as big as his films.

David Keith Lynch was born in Missoula, Montana on January 20, 1946. The son of a research scientist for the Department of Agriculture, he spent most of his early life moving from state to state with his brother and sister.

However, Lynch's parents encouraged his artistic ambitions from an early age. Speaking to Rolling Stone in 1990, he said his mother “saved him” by encouraging him to draw on scraps of paper rather than using coloring books, where “the whole idea is to stay between the lines.”

This spirit inspired his films, which were tinged with a rebellious streak that lasted from the ages of 14 to 30. “People are rebelling for a long time these days, because we were created to live longer,” he said.

Youthful frustration with the tranquility of suburban life left him longing for “something out of the ordinary” to challenge the superficiality of 1950s family ideals—a dark dream that his films and shows brought to life.

Lynch's first black-and-white film, Eraserhead, fulfilled this vision far more successfully than his years at art school, in which its central character descended into madness after giving birth to a terrifying child.

He left critics scratching their heads, but his late-night cinematic success sparked a breakthrough when an audience member recommended him to Mel Brooks, who asked him to lead Elephant Man.

Lynch co-wrote the film, and the film's cast of definitive screen icons, including John Hurt as Merrick and Anthony Hopkins, turned the story of stigma into an emotional and critical success, surpassing the original play.

This saw Lynch receive Academy Award nominations for Best Director and Adapted Screenplay, as part of the film's eight nominations that included Best Picture.

But if Hollywood thought it had found a new artist, Tinseltown quickly discovered that Lynch had no interest in playing a mainstream role in his 1984 adaptation of the sci-fi epic “Dune.”

Featuring questionable special effects, costumes and rock star Sting lathered in baby oil, The Guardian Charles Bramesco He wrote that Lynch's experiences left the franchise “radioactive for decades.” “I'm proud of everything but Dune,” Lynch later said in a YouTube Q&A, while elsewhere admitting that he “almost killed” his career.

However, the wounds began to heal when he returned to focusing on his signature style, and set his sights on America's dirty underbelly.

Blue Velvet, starring Dune's Kyle MacLachlan, follows a small-town boy trapped in the underworld after he discovers a severed ear. Brutal and partly violent, the film divided critics but earned Lynch a second Academy Award nomination for Best Director.

“This is the way America looks to me,” Lynch later described the film in his book “Lynch on Lynch.” “There is a very innocent and naive quality to life, and there is also horror and disease.”

He won the prestigious Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival for his 1990 romance Wild at Heart, starring Nicolas Cage, Laura Dern and Willem Dafoe.

But it was Lynch's belief that American beauty and horror were two sides of the same coin, perfected in his TV project Twin Peaks released the same year, that set him apart.

On paper, this disturbing drama dealt with the mysterious events taking place in an American logging town in the wake of the murder of teenage beauty queen Laura Palmer, brought to life by Sheryl Lee.

But viewers were truly mesmerized by what it put on screen: a dreamlike nightmare of distinctly cool characters, including FBI agent Dale Cooper, played once again by Kyle MacLachlan, in apparent comfort in their fenced-in America — cherry pie and coffee included — before… They pray without hesitation. In living rooms with their terrifying undercurrent of sexual assault and murder. It was one that had never previously had a place on American television.

The ABC show won three Golden Globe Awards in 1991, including Best Television Series Drama and Best Actor in a Television Drama for MacLachlan.

“If it weren't for Twin Peaks and its massive expansion of television's possibilities, half your favorite shows wouldn't exist.” James Parker wrote for The Atlantic.

He continued that the show “effectively renegotiated its television contract with its audience.”

It was not important that the second season faltered after the killer was revealed. Television was no longer safe, but profoundly alive, as big-screen ideas and production values ​​somehow moved into living rooms in an era when the silver screen was still king.

In 1992, viewers were brought back to Twin Peaks with the feature film Fire Walk With Me, but nothing quite matched the original show.

When the nation asked “Who killed Laura Palmer?”, it was not just about solving the mystery, but about finding refuge from the corrupt truths that society would rather ignore. Lynch has found his darkness.

Eventually, he would shift his focus back to the big screen to attack Hollywood's diabolical tricks of fame, glamour, deceit, and loss of identity, in films informally known as the Los Angeles Trilogy.

This started with 1997's Lost Highway, before 2001's Mulholland Drive – which is probably the closest aesthetically to Twin Peaks.

The psychological drama received critical acclaim, resulting in Lynch receiving his third Academy Award nomination as Best Director and taking home the Best Director award at Cannes. In recent years, it has also been recognized for its outlandish themes, especially between the characters of Naomi Watt and Laura Haring, which challenged traditional Hollywood storytelling at the time.

The last came in 2006's Inland Empire, Lynch's final feature film, which proved as mind-melting as ever – mercilessly exposing Hollywood's star culture.

As Mike Munser told Inside Cinema at BBC Arts: “Lynch draws us in with the promise of familiar, conventional thrills and mysteries as a safety net, before that strangeness starts to creep in.

“At last, the mysterious box has been opened, revealing the darkest, most sinister story Lynch has been telling us all along.”

In his later years, Lynch enjoyed a respected cult status. In 2017, he directed Twin Peaks: The Return, a new series set 25 years after the events of the original show, with much of the same cast.

At the same time, the series' legacy continues to endure, inspiring dramas like True Detective and 2023's critically acclaimed PlayStation survival horror game Alan Wake II.

Away from the camera, Lynch admitted that he sometimes struggled to balance the “difficult task” of fatherhood with his career.

He had four children—Jennifer, Austin, Riley, and Lola—with his previous wives, Peggy Revie, Mary Fiske, and Mary Sweeney, and with his estranged wife, Emily Stoffley.

“I love all my children and we get along great, but in the early years, before you can have a relationship that talks to them, it's difficult.” He told the eagle. “Work is the main thing, and I know I caused suffering because of it. But at the same time I have a great love for children.”

Although Lynch never returned to directing feature films to give himself another shot at the elusive Oscar, he was given an honorary lifetime achievement statue by the Academy in 2019. He also appeared in Steven Spielberg's 2022 semi-autobiographical film ,The Fablemans. , plays director John Ford.

His artistic pursuits became increasingly diversified toward the end of his life, ranging from his original passion for painting to music. Just last year, he released the album Cellophone Memories with Chrystabell. This adds to his previous work producing music videos for artists such as Moby and Nine Inch Nails.

While discussing his emphysema diagnosis last summer, he said he was doing “excellent” and would “never retire.”

He added that the diagnosis was “the price he had to pay” for his smoking habit, although he did not regret the pleasure it gave him.

But his condition deteriorated within months. In a November interview with People magazine, Lynch said he needed oxygen to be able to walk.

However, his ideas are still as vivid and unique as the way he described thinking about them.

Speaking to musician Patti Smith for BBC Newsnight in 2014, he said: “I get ideas in pieces. It's like there's a puzzle in the other room – all the pieces together.

“But in my room, they only flip one piece at a time.”