There are few giants of cinema here today as there are filmmakers that people will name as an influence. John Ford. Stanley Kubrick. Orson Welles. Ingmar Bergman. Agnes Varda. Federico Fellini. Akira Kurosawa. There are certain names that redefine what cinema is as cinephiles would often have collections of these filmmakers because of the kind of films they have made. They were more than just filmmakers. They were artists. David Lynch is one of them as he is the most original American filmmaker cinema has had since the likes of Ford, Kubrick, and Welles. What set him apart was his approach to surrealism and how he views something that can be considered ordinary. Yet, there was nothing ordinary in what David Lynch did as there was an element of darkness and danger about him that entranced audiences whether it was through film or television or even music.
I first heard of David Lynch in the early 1990s though I had no clue who he was as all I have ever heard was, he was this guy who made weird movies. I heard of things like Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks, but this was before I understood what cinema is as I did not know what this guy was about or what his films were about. Then in 1997 as I was starting to get an idea that movies were not these high-budget blockbusters, or these laugh-out comedies. I realized there was so much more through indie films but also late-night softcore porn films, but David Lynch was still this weird anomaly that I was unsure about. At the same time, I was a few years into my obsession for Nine Inch Nails and heard there is a new song from them as it is for a film by David Lynch called Lost Highway. I bought the soundtrack when it came out since it was curated by Trent Reznor and there is this famous Rolling Stone magazine cover featuring both Lynch and Reznor that I never got but it was cool as fuck. I saw commercials for the film as I wanted to see it, but it wasn’t playing at a movie theater near me as the one place I knew that was playing there was a movie theater between the areas of Buckhead and Buford Highway as my parents didn’t want me to go there. Not surprisingly, the theater is gone as it is an area I rarely go to although I have not been there in a long time. I ended up waiting a year to see Lost Highway when it arrived on HBO as I saw it late one night and thought it was a cool movie even though I had no idea what it was about. Even though I just got the film on Blu-Ray more than a year ago from Criterion, I still do not have an idea of what the whole film was trying to say but that did not matter because it was an awesome film.
I would watch a few more of Lynch’s films around this time such as Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, Dune, and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me as I did like the first two films, but I didn’t like the other two though Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me did grow on me. This was all before Mulholland Dr. came out as I waited a year to see it when it arrived on TV through Starz! That would end up being my all-time favorite film of his as it is one of those films that I fell in love with, and it made me a fan of his work though there was so much of his that I have not seen. By the late 2000s, I had seen all his feature films, but I felt like I had barely scratched the surface knowing that he also made a lot of short films and TV projects with Twin Peaks being the one thing of his that I wanted to see but I heard there wasn’t a proper release of the series on DVD until years later. After leaving Epinions.com in 2010 and going on my own, I would refine myself more as a writer and doing the Auteurs series. The specter of Lynch still loomed as I knew he was a subject I wanted to cover but I waited till I could get access to every short and TV series that was available at the time.
He was the perfect choice to be my 50th subject where I did a lot to cover his body of work up till that point while I was also awaiting for the return of Twin Peaks. I had subscribed to his YouTube channel while I also learned he also acted in Seth McFarlane’s animated spin-off of The Family Guy in the much-more superior The Cleveland Show as Gus the Bartender.
It is one of the things about Lynch that is always surprising as he often does the unexpected and have fun with it. His music is not for everyone, but it is awesome that he can do something for his own enjoyment, and he has an audience to share in that enjoyment. He is also a damn good actor as one of the last things he did recently, that is the coolest cameo ever is him playing John Ford in the ending of Steven Spielberg’s The Fablemans. That is meta in a way where you have a legendary filmmaker playing a highly-revered legendary filmmaker in a film about the early life of a legendary filmmaker who is telling his own story. Lynch as John Ford is perfect casting he is the only person that could do Ford justice.
Given that today is a sad day as we also lost another revered figure in Mr. Baseball himself in Bob Uecker, nothing will loom as large as what David Lynch has done for cinema and television. He made it okay for the weirdos to make art that not everyone will get. He made it okay for those who live in an ordinary world to be weird. He was also someone that did not take himself seriously while also allowing us to be raptured by darkness. There is never going to be another David Lynch as there will be a hole in cinema that will never be filled. Still, he left an incredible legacy that will continuously be unmatched as there is always going to be an audience that will see these tremendous films, shorts, TV projects, and other things that he did that gave them something. To Mr. David Lynch. Thank you for all the things you gave us. We will miss you.
R.I.P. David Keith Lynch (January 20, 1946-January 16, 2025)
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