Multiple outlets are reporting that legendary director David Lynch has died. This is a loss for cinema and American cinema in particular. I may not always have picked up what Lynch was putting down in his films, but his very fierce sort of artistic integrity is something we need more, not less of.
Plus, I have a friend who I can always quote this line with when presented with the appropriate beers (Dennis Hopper being NSFW, warning):
Open thread.
@mistermix.bsky.social
Yep, loved a few of his movies, and some were WTF? But he definitely had a vision.
I always loved that Blue Velvet was exactly 2 hours long because his contract with DeLaurentis specified that. I think he was better when he had constraints.
Old School
From his Facebook page:
Rose – your Guardian link goes to a different article. Here’s the link.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Bob Uecker died at 90.
Watch this classic commercial and note the actor who’s buying “Whitey Ford” a Miller Lite:
youtube.com/watch?v=5TeOCy0lA8M
Okay, this comment is connected, beer wise at least, to the clip in the post by Rose.
How many Lynch films have people actually sat thru? I’ve only watched ‘Dune’ and ‘The Elephant Man’, the latter in which John Hurt should have won Best Actor.
Matt McIrvin
Aw, man, he was one of the all-time great weirdos.
Rose Judson
@@mistermix.bsky.social: Most artists are better with constraints, honestly.
Betty Cracker
He was an original. Twin Peaks!
SpaceUnit
The only Lynch movie I’ve seen was Dune. I’d somehow never read the book, and the film struck me as a hot mess. Maybe that’s why I never watched his other stuff. RIP.
LeftCoastYankee
I should see Blue Velvet again. When I lived in Spokane in the 90’s, there was a local legend that Lynch wrote the screenplay hanging out at the local Denny’s overnight.
Spokane was plenty weird enough for inspiration even if not true.
Old School
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Quite a few of them. I haven’t seen them all, but I’ve enjoyed a lot of them. However, Inland Empire seemed like I was sitting through three movies.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Old School:
Heh heh, “football minutes” in terms of time length!
I think, per SpaceUnit, some of his more ‘notorious’ films and the reputation they created, probably scared a lot of people off from watching more of his work.
rikyrah
RIP
Twin Peaks is still a cult classic
Rose Judson
I enjoyed his pandemic weather reports.
Belafon
@SpaceUnit: What? You never watched Eraserhead?
MattF
I saw Eraserhead, years ago. Changed my mind about what you could do with a movie— a lady with clay cheeks in a radiator singing about heaven? Sure.
SpaceUnit
@Belafon:
No.
Is it worth watching?
Lacuna-Synecdoche
Sadly, not a big surprise. I remember reading a while ago that he had emphysema from smoking.
For some reason I thought I read that years ago, but Wikipedia says Lynch made the announcement in August, 2024. Seems like time moves slower whenever Trump is in the headlines (Some sort of time dilation effect from the overwhelming mass of media coverage Trump sucks in, maybe?)
Anyway. I loved Eraserhead, deeply appreciated Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive, and respected what Lynch tried to achieve with Dune, despite its flaws.
Rest in peace, David Lynch. He was a unique director and artist, utterly original, and he will be missed.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
An appropriate exchange from Twitter:
“Why did they take David Lynch, man? Why couldn’t it have been one of the racist Australian dudes?”
“IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN MEL GIBSON!!!!”
“I am ready for him to go somewhere else”
Reminds me of basically any exchange regarding somebody dying and Kissinger still being around.
Now I remember seeing ‘Mulholland’ Drive at the then-tiny hole-in-the-wall art house in Columbia MO.
TaMara
Sigh…even in his illness, he defied convention and fought to be David Lynch
Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive, Twin Peaks The list is long, mind-bending and thought-provoking. RIP to an unconventional genius.
And as a baseball fan from the highchair, RIP Bob Uecker
Miss Bianca
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I have seen Eraserhead, Dune, Blue Velvet, and probably something else, I forget – wait, didn’t he collaborate with David Byrne on something – American Stories, was it called?
Melancholy Jaques
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
I watched the original Twin Peaks more times than I can remember. I owned the series on VHS. The Twin Peaks Return on Showtime, at least twice all the way through, with re-watches of certain episodes (OMG Part 8, what the hell was that?).
I’ve seen all of his feature films except Elephant Man. I watched Wild at Heart, Lost Highway, and Mulholland Drive several times, especially Mulholland Drive.
I guess I’m a fan? But if someone asked me who my favorite directors are, I don’t think I’d name him.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Miss Bianca: I don’t believe that Lynch was involved in True Stories.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
David Lynch had a big impact across our culture.
Inspired indie bands like The Pixies.
Practiced and promoted Transcendental Meditation.
And of course, his films! From bugfuck to sublime, he was an absolute artist as a film director.
I also found his acting cameos charming, especially as Gordon Cole, the character he played in Twin Peaks.
A true “American original”.
Lacuna-Synecdoche
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Well, I’ve seen:
Eraserhead
Blue Velvet
Dune
Wild at Heart
Mulholland Drive
Twin Peaks: S1 and most of S2
So, five movies and a good chunk of Twin Peaks.
On the to do list:
The Elephant Man
Hotel Room
Lost Highway
The Straight Story
Inland Empire
And the rest of Twin Peaks, including the movies.
Overall, it looks like I’ve seen about half, maybe a little less, of Lynch’s film & TV output, plus a couple/few non-video projects.
zhena gogolia
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: He was so cute! (Goodman, I mean. Uecker too, I guess)
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Melancholy Jaques:
I remember liking ‘Mulholland Drive’ thinking “this is a David Lynch movie?” because of his reputation.
Probably a good time to watch it again. When somebody famous like this dies, we go back and watch some things by them we hadn’t seen and revisit a couple of things. Did that recently with Donald Sutherland.
zhena gogolia
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Only “The Elephant Man” and a few episodes of Twin Peaks.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@zhena gogolia:
I remember that commercial, and several other of Ueck’s Miller Lite stuff, but damned if I remembered John Goodman being the guy in the bar.
Quaker in a Basement
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart. The latter was one of the most disturbing movies I’ve seen
EDIT: Oh, and Mulholland Drive. Until seeing your reply to another commenter above, I had forgotten that was Lynch.
Quinerly
Great movie clip! Loved that movie.
I have used that line when a delicate flower sitting next to me ordered a Heinken.
True Story.
Belafon
@SpaceUnit: If you want to watch a move that chews on your brain and then sticks it to the underside of a desk, watch Eraserhead.
Melancholy Jaques
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
That ad is from 1983. He wasn’t the John Goodman yet. The first time I recall noticing him was Raising Arizona.
Quinerly
Back to add…loved the old pics when he was with Isabella Rosselini back in the late 1980’s. Hot couple!
Ruviana
@Miss Bianca: You might be thinking of Jonathan Demme. True Stories.
Miss Bianca
@Ruviana:
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: I sit corrected!
Renie
My son was a huge fan of David Lynch. He had multiple essays published in books about Lynch and in various digital magazines. My sister met him through TM since he was a practitioner as are several members of my extended family. We use to listen to his Weather Report all the time. Very talented man.
Lacuna-Synecdoche
@Miss Bianca:
You might be confusing Lynch with Jonathan Demme? I don’t know if Demme was connected with Byrne’s True Stories, but they did several projects together – Stop Making Sense, of course, but Byrne also did the opening credit song for Something Wild, probably a few other things as well.
Edited to add: Oops, I see that Ruviana got there first.
artem1s
Twin Peaks absolutely changed what audiences expected from TV. You can draw a straight line from the Log Lady and Dale Cooper to Rose Aguineau, Bee Malee and Rust Cohle in True Detective. It wasn’t just odd characters, it was complete change in the way directors and writers visualized and developed a whole community and story before shooting a minute of film. It took a while but I credit Lynch with inspiring HBO and others to produce TV that is equal and/or better in quality to feature length films.
Blue Velvet should be part of every film 101 class because it introduced the idea of how twisted seemingly clean suburban life really is (Wild at Heart too). It was a dark mirror to the entire Reagan era and picture into the underbelly we’re seeing come out into the open over the last 5 decades and is in full view if we only dare to look at it.
I didn’t care for his vision of Dune. But I appreciated that he tried. He’s like Kubrick in that sometimes it takes a second or third viewing before you can really appreciate the nuances. Even if you don’t care for the whole package, there’s just something there under the surface that feels not quite right but just exactly right all at the same time.
p.a.
Saw Eraserhead, but not stoned, so meh.
The Elephant Man
Blue Velvet
Wild at Heart
T.P: Fire Walk With Me
Mulholland Drive
Twin Peaks & T.P. The Return
An original for sure. Wild at Heart was weird in a not-living-a-surreal-ranging-to-nightmare-world way as most of his other movies were.
Citizen Alan
One of the strangest things I’ve ever seen on television was On the Air, which was a David Lynch sitcom! It was an incredibly bizarre and surrealist half-hour sitcom about the goings-on behind the production of a live TV variety show in the early days of television. He did it right after Twin Peaks ended and it had several of the second tier actors from that show on it. Ian Buchanan was the pompous fading film star Lester Guy, who was the host of the variety show.
At the time, my teenaged self thought it was hilarious, but apparently most viewers disagreed, as it got cancelled after 5 or 6 episodes.
artem1s
@artem1s:
Totally forgot about Crumb. That’s fucking disturbing. Mostly because it’ a documentary.
Bill Arnold
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Three, that I recall.
Eraserhead, Dune, Mulholland Drive, in that order.
Gravenstone
@SpaceUnit: As someone who’s read the book multiple times, it was a travesty and affront to humankind. Was in my dorm common area shortly after it opened in theaters when a couple girls came back just gushing over having seen it. “His name is a killing word!” Excuse me, WTF!?!?! Over…
Finally forced myself to watch it out of morbid curiosity and the rampant shit acting was truly a sight to behold.
And don’t get me started on Blue Velvet. One of the guys in the dorm was just gushing over it so we decided to stay up one evening to catch it on cable. He was enthralled, but the rest of us were bored to tears. For the remainder of the year, any time we want to get a rise out of the guy one of us would break out into the opening line from the song; She wore blue velvet (Woah-woah)….
Did enjoy Twin Peaks, though. Lynch was definitely an auteur. Can’t say I vibed with his vision much of the time, though
ETA: Forgot about seeing The Elephant Man. That one I’ll give him. A powerful and affecting movie.
Old School
@Citizen Alan:
Only three of the seven episodes aired in the United States.
john b
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire
A friend was managing a movie theater that had Inland Empire and the print came with hand-written, detailed instructions on the sound settings for the theater and that a particular point in the film, you should expect things in the theater to rattle — that was the intention!
sab
@SpaceUnit: I read the books. My dad, who never had any interest in popular culture, did not read the books (or any other fiction.) I went to see Dune with him, and he loved it. We couldn’t follow the plot at all, but Dad loved the sandworms.
I also went to see Untouchables with Dad. He asked me who Sean Connery was. He liked him in the movie.
Kosh III
@SpaceUnit:never read the book,
Read it! So much better than the flawed movie. Then read the other 5 and skip the novels done by his hack of a son and Anderson.
IMHO God-Emperor is the best of the 6.
JML
I’m not exactly a Lynch fan, but I liked that there was space for a filmmaker like him. (I never really got the Twin Peaks thing?) I loved the fact that he could do something like Blue Velvet or Eraserhead, but also The Straight Story.
I swear his version of Dune was supposed to either be 4 hours or 2 movies and they ran out of money and threw together the last 20 minutes to wrap up the whole story. really wonder what he might have done with the same kind of money and room that Villanueve got? there were certainly things that were awesome about that movie.
Doug R
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
I liked the early one with Nick Cage and Laura Dern-Wild At Heart.
And Lynch told a straightforward story in-The Straight Story-based on a true story of a guy who drives his little tractor starring ex-stuntman Richard Farnsworth-he got nominated for Best Actor.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Kosh III:
There’s two of us, then, who think that!
Kosh III
I only saw Twin Peaks(superb) and Dune. Dune was deeply flawed because it was too short.
Chief Oshkosh
I’ve seen Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, Dune, Wild at Heart, Mulholland Drive, Twin Peaks, The Elephant Man. Enjoyed them all except Eraserhead and Dune. I suggest Eraserhead to people I don’t like in the hopes that I will then never see them again. So far, seems to work about 80% of the time. I suggest Dune to folks looking for insomnia cures. But the rest of Lynch? Love it
ETA: Thanks for reminding me, Doug R! The Straight Story is great, too!
Keith P.
I’m a Twin Peaks obsessive, and I LOVE all of his post-TP stuff (except for The Straight Story, which was too normal to really rate). Mulholland Drive was, until The Return, his masterwork, and Inland Empire is a roller coaster of an experience.
Doug R
He played John Ford in the Spielberg biofilm The Fabelmans:
youtube.com/watch?v=45tpBq_xHYU
Miss Bianca
@artem1s:
Oh, my Lord, did Lynch direct Crumb? If so, I’d forgotten that, and yeah, that would be another one of his I’ve seen.
Miss Bianca
@Gravenstone:
I’ll just never be able to get, “The woorrrmmm…the spiiiiiicccce….” out of my head, not till the day I die.
SpaceUnit
@Gravenstone: @sab: @Kosh III:
I actually enjoyed the more recent film adaptation of Dune. You can actually figure out what’s going on.
Clearly one of David Lynch’s mistakes with that movie (and there were many) was trying to pack so much elaborate narrative and plot into a very limited time frame.
SW
Traded his final ten years for cigarettes. My dad made the same bargain. A very uncomfortable way to go.
The Thin Black Duke
A tremendous loss to people who love cinema. In a Hollywood populated by fraudulent “visionairies”, Lynch was the real deal. Mulholland Drive is on my short list of favorite movies.
AWOL
@Miss Bianca: Crumb’s friend, Terry Zweigel, directed “Crumb.”
AWOL
@SpaceUnit: The film was cut in half for distribution. It was disowned by Lynch. It’s not a Lynch film.
AWOL
@Doug R: I saw the movie once—in previews at the Brill Building in NYC— when I was editing a film column.
“Wild at Heart” is his most problematic film, as it’s extraordinarily racist. The gang-scene ending is ludicrous.
He did best when filming his own dreams, not crap by Barry Gifford.
SpaceUnit
@AWOL:
Yes, I know. And I had to wait at least a year before I was able to watch the second part on a different streaming service. But all in all it was far better (IMO).
Keith P.
@AWOL: The trailer for “Wild at Heart” is what got me into David Lynch (I missed S1 of Twin Peaks on first air)…when “Wicked Game” kicked in, I felt like I was in another place. I got hooked on S2 of Twin Peaks after that and finally watched “Wild at Heart” and was totally baffled by it. I like it a lot more now…Cage and Dafoe were great, and Isabella Rossellini needed to be in it more (her character is INSANE in her dedicated book/movie)
AWOL
@SpaceUnit: From what I recall, the film bombed in the early 1980s. (I hate “Dune,” so I had minimal interest.) DeLaurentis made some $$$ back releasing an Alan Smithee version on syndicated TV about thirty years ago. There are no good Dunes, but if I had to rewatch one, it would be Lynch’s, as he was a bona fide genius.
People forget how old he is—“Eraserhead” wasn’t released until he was well into his 30’s, long-married and buried in spawn.
AWOL
@Keith P.: Season 1 of “Twin Peaks” remade television. It was brilliant.
Season 2 destroyed television by it’s general awfulness and disclosing the killer, rendering the show moot.
I stuck with him until the late 1990s, but I never forgave that betrayal.
Bobby Thomson
I have this ADHD tic where I blurt out that line whenever I see Heineken
Old School
@AWOL:
That being said, the “Who Killed Laura Palmer?” episode is one of the best episodes of any television show ever.
Hungry Joe
I never recovered from seeing “Eraserhead.” But I don’t think one is supposed to.
PaulWartenberg
Lynch should have won Best Director for The Straight Story. His signature styles throughout, with incredible scenery (should have won Best Cinematography too).
I’ve sat through several of his movies, I loved Twin Peaks for the quirky humor and heavy symbolism.
I think Dune suffered a lot from trying to cram too much plot and “time passing” into 2 1/2 hours, and I think one of Lynch’s weaknesses was staging large-scale fight scenes, something that Denis Villeneuve does better.
I worry that someone’s going to buy the film rights to Blue Velvet and refilm it as a road-trip buddy picture. /cries
BarcaChicago
David Lynch is one of my favorite filmakers/artists. I come from a family of cinephiles and disturbing art aficionados, so it was destined to be. My father would quote Blue Velvet for many years (quite a few people did at the time, as I recall) – I’ve seen all of his movies multiple times, some more than others, of course. Mullholland Drive is one of my favorites. And I like unbridled Lynch, hence my love for Inland Empire :-) I think he captures a kind of subconscious state like no one else – there is nothing to “figure out”, you just ride it. His work makes a kind of dream logic to me, which doesn’t correspond to intellectualizing – it’s his vision, unfiltered. I highly recommend the documentary “The Art Life” for those interested. Also, I sold him popcorn when he was living in Madison and I was working at the “art film” movie theater – I could identify him walking from the parking lot with his stellar hair and he was exactly as polite and unassuming as you might expect. Just no pretension at all. I imagine his dedication to transcendental meditation had a lot to do with his ability to create so freely. Thank you for everything, Mr. Lynch.
Elizabelle
Will catch up on the thread. But: David Lynch seems to have been very disciplined in making time for creativity.
I expect that he lived a life far beyond the expectations he had as a young artist.
Just saw Eraserhead for the first time on a big screen last year. Was a bit tedious sitting through it, in spots, but the images and strangeness stay with you.
Maybe we can look forward to having some of his films return to the theatres, in wake of his departure. There are worse ways to get through the first months of FOTUS’s coming Vichy occupation.
Craig
@Miss Bianca: Terry Zwigoff directed Crumb. Then made Art School Confidential, and Bad Santa. Quirky in his own way.
frosty
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I watched one. Eraserhead. I thought it would be scatalogical and funny like early John Waters; boy was I mistaken. Never watched, or wanted to watch, anything else he did.
columbusqueen
My favorite Lynch film is The Straight Story. A incredibly moving & perceptive slice of life with touches of the funny & odd. Farnsworth gave a gem of a performance.