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Obituary: R.I.P David Lynch

In his 1992 film  Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, the cinematic sequel to the television series Twin Peaks, writer/director David Lynch ends the film with both Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) and Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) now in the show’s Black Lodge. Palmer, having just died, either cries because of the nightmare of her life or laughing that’s she escaped it. It’s hard to distinguish her emotions. Cooper lays his hand on her in an effort to comfort her as blue lights strobe around them. The scene is simultaneously transcendent and nightmarish. 

Agent Dale Cooper stands next Laura Palmer in the Waiting Room of the Black Lodge
Kyle MacLachlan as Special Agent Dale Cooper and Sheryl Lee as Laura Palmer in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me

That was the speciality of Lynch; making contradictory images and ideas exist beside each other. Lynch, the 78 year old artist who in films like Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet, and Mulholland Drive explored the darkness in the American dream, died January 15 per his family. He was an artist with a body of work so singular, that his last name came to be a word in the dictionary; lynchian. This body of work extended into painting, photography, and music. He lived what he called in a documentary of the same name, “the art life”. It was his work in film and television though that brought him into the wider consciousness of the public.

Consciousness is the best word to use in association with Lynch. His work spoke in the language of dreams and bridged the grounded with the surreal. Sometimes this meant portraying on screen people believing in our best from Garland Briggs in Twin Peaks vision that his troubled son would come back to him or Sandy Williams hopeful final speech in Blue Velvet. Moments like these conveyed in a sincerity that now seems like a lost language. Occasionally it might be briefs moments of silliness like Jack Nance talking about fish in percolators in Twin Peaks or Mark Pellegrino’s goofy hitman in Mulholland Drive. 

Dennis Hopper huffing nitrous as he reaches for Isabella RosselliniDennis Hopper huffing nitrous as he reaches for Isabella Rossellini
Dennis Hopper and Isabella Rossellini in Blue Velvet

But it’s the moments of darkness that viewers remember the most. He could put demonic entities into very human bodies from Dennis Hopper’s Frank Booth in Blue Velvet, Willem DaFoe’s Bobby Peru in Wild at Heart, to Kenneth McMillan’s Baron Harkonnen in Dune. Images of people driving down dark desolate roads or women unleashing primal screams of pain to a world that ignored them never failed to unnerve no matter how many times he returned to them. Lights that always blinked in discomforting ways. Lynch knew how to create a scenes where strangeness confronted us in unforgettable ways.

Understanding that duality in Lynch’s film and tv work is to also know his life. Few artists could bring their He frequently described himself as “Eagle Scout. Missoula, Montana”. He attended JFK’s inauguration with his scout troop and his father’s government job saw him move around the country providing an almost idyllic view of the country. Yet, this was also a man who as a child witnessed a nude woman wander around his neighbohood in shock and who as an adult lived in a Philadelphia that seemingly provided him with dark scenes of violence daily. Seeing an America as a beacon on a hill and an absolute nightmare so early in life provided inspiration in works like Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, and Twin Peaks.

Sherilyn Fenn as Audrey Horne and Kyle MacLachlan as Special Agent Dale Cooper in Twin PeaksSherilyn Fenn as Audrey Horne and Kyle MacLachlan as Special Agent Dale Cooper in Twin Peaks
Sherilyn Fenn as Audrey Horne and Kyle MacLachlan as Special Agent Dale Cooper in Twin Peaks

And Twin Peaks, created with Mark Frost and what maybe his greatest contribution to pop culture, is where this all collided so beautifully. As much a police procedural, soap opera, and stomach turning horror, Twin Peaks redefined what television could be. There were goofy moments (“The Norwegians are leaving!”), moments of tenderness (any time Ed and Norma got together) and there were nightmarish ones (Frank Silva’s BOB crawling over the couch to kill Maddy Ferguson). It brought Lynch and his sensibilities to a wider audience. When a third season finally arrived in 2017, titled The Return, it truly felt like a moment and again Lynch and Frost seemed to redefine what TV could be. 

Lynch and Laura Dern sitting in a dinerLynch and Laura Dern sitting in a diner
David Lynch and frequent collaborator Laura Dern on the set of Blue Velvet

And Lynch wasn’t just a filmmaker. This was a man who constantly worked. He trained as a painter and painted daily. When funding for movies became more difficult, he started to release music more frequently with his most recent album Cellophane Memories, made in collaboration with Twin Peaks; The Return actress Chrysta Bell, released last year. He also was a cartoonist, creating the strip The Angriest Dog in the World which ran for a decade in alternative newspaper LA Reader and also saw publication in the Dark Horse comics anthology series Cheval Noir. The strip consisted of the same four panels with dialogue changing in a precursor to works like Ryan North’s Dinosaur Comics. Creating art came as easily to him as breathing.

To say that he was an icon of art and culture since the release of his debut film Eraserhead, somehow feels like he’s being undersold. Yet it’s hard to think of another artist of his stature that seemed so omnipresent. An artist who seemingly interacted or inspired such a cross section of other artists. Stanley Kubrick considered Eraserhead one of the greatest films ever made. Stephen King asked for filmmaking advice from him while he shot Maximum Overdrive and Lynch shot Blue Velvet nearby. He frequently cast musicians in films ranging from David Bowie to Sting. And there’s entire essays on how influential Lynch was on video games.

He had in recent months disclosed that he had lived with emphysema for the last two years and could no longer direct films. The director That said he also stated that he wasn’t retired and would find some way to continue to work. Last week, he was evacuated due to the current fires in the Los Angeles area. No cause of death was disclosed at time of press.

David Lynch as John Ford sitting in his office.David Lynch as John Ford sitting in his office.
David Lynch in The Fabelmans

Lynch’s final appearance on screen was as John Ford in Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans. It’s a short scene that takes place at the end of the movie. Lynch as Ford is a cantankerous man. He yells at the stand in for Spielberg. But in that moment, he teaches Sammy Fabelman how to really consider an image.  To look at something in a different way. The casting feels inspired. One influential director  brought into portray another. But the scene also feels emblematic of Lynch. He was a man who showed audiences how to look at things in new ways even if he made us uncomfortable doing so.


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