US director David Lynch, the visionary mind behind Mulholland Drive, Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks and more, has died today aged 78.
Lynch’s family released a statement via his official Facebook page, saying: ‘It is with deep regret that we, his family, announce the passing of the man and the artist, David Lynch … There’s a big hole in the world now that he’s no longer with us. But, as he would say, “Keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole.” It’s a beautiful day with golden sunshine and blue skies all the way.’
While the exact cause of death was not specified, it is known that Lynch suffered from emphysema after decades of cigarette smoking, and in more recent years was confined to his house due to both his worsening condition and the prevalence of the coronavirus.
Lynch has long been considered a master of surrealist TV and filmmaking, contributing ten feature films, over 40 shorts, 30-plus commercials, 12 music videos and four television series to the American screen cannon, establishing a unique style – usually comprised of juxtaposing bizarre or sinister elements with mundane moments and imbuing images with a dreamlike quality – that came to be known as ‘Lynchian’.
More recently, he appeared as a fictionalised version of another great American director, John Ford, in Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans.
ScreenHub: The Fabelmans review: Steven Spielberg’s movies are dreams
He is survived by his wife, Emily Stofle, and four children: Jennifer, Austin Jack, Riley and Lula.
Goodbye, David Lynch: actors and filmmakers pay tribute
Tributes for the revolutionary director have poured in from all over the world this morning, with notable collaborators Kyle McLachlan and Naomi Watts sharing heartfelt words that speak to Lynch’s indelible impact.
‘What I saw in him was an enigmatic and intuitive man with a creative ocean bursting forth inside of him,’ McLachlan, who starred in Lynch’s Dune (1984), Blue Velvet, and Twin Peaks, wrote on his Instagram page. ‘He was in touch with something the rest of us wish we could get to.’
Watts, whose career breakthrough was Mulholland Drive, shared similar sentiments, mourning her ‘Buddy Dave’: ‘It wasn’t just his art that impacted me – his wisdom, humor, and love gave me a special sense of belief in myself I’d never accessed before.
‘I just cannot believe that he’s gone,’ she wrote.
Steven Spielberg also paid tribute, speaking to Variety: ‘The world is going to miss such an original and unique voice. His films have already stood the test of time and they always will.’
How Lynch inspired generations of filmmakers and film lovers all over the world
Kate Jinx, the programmer of the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF), told ScreenHub: ‘Like so very many, the work of David Lynch cracked open my way of seeing.
‘Lynch’s generous approach to creativity and life continue to enthrall and probe and challenge and entertain,’ Jinx continued. ‘How lucky we all have been to have that kind of artist in our midst.’
Australian screenwriter and editor Lee Zachariah, who recently went on a Twin Peaks-inspired pilgrimage to find every filming location from the series in the US, said that Lynch’s 1997 film Lost Highway changed his life: ‘As soon as the lights went down in the cinema, a chill took me over. I knew I was in for something I didn’t understand, and I spent the next two hours gripped in a fear I’d never felt before. I went back to see it every chance I got.’
Local cinephile and host of Umbrella Entertainment’s Sunburnt Screens podcast, Alexei Toliopoulos, said, ‘Lynch’s works of American surrealism have and will always serve as the gateway for audiences exploring cinema in search of greater depths, singular emotional resonance and questions that don’t require answers.’
Toliopoulos also cited Lynch’s book Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity as being instrumental in helping him understand ‘his work and finding greater imaginative inspiration in my own.’
Melbourne-based film critic Stephen A. Russell, a longtime fan of Lynch’s work, said ‘there are few storytellers of the surreally macabre who could lay claim to such mainstream appeal as the lovable oddball uncle energy Lynch can.
‘For this once young Scottish lad, crouching in the dark next to his bedroom telly with the sound way down after lights out, Twin Peaks was a revelation that spoke on another level. Something about the good folks of this out-of-time town will haunt me forever more,’ Russell told ScreenHub.
‘His Dune will always be the best,’ he added.
Sydney-based film critic Ian Barr said, ‘Lynch was both a gateway for me to more difficult, challenging art as well as the kingdom itself.
‘It’s hard to imagine that another filmmaker will come along to inspire such obsession and make starkly idiosyncratic art on such a large scale, but the outpouring of sadness at his loss should hopefully inspire some to try.’
ScreenHub: David Lynch: The Art Life review
Aunty Donna‘s Zachary Ruane, a movie lover who hosts regular screenings of underseen films at Melbourne’s Lido Cinemas, recalls seeing Mulholland Drive at only 12 years old. Despite his parents covering his eyes during the ‘rude bits’, and later proclaiming it as ‘weird’, Ruane loved it: ‘more than anything I had ever seen or ever would see again.
‘I’m so glad that I watched that film so young, while my brain and my taste were still forming, still so malleable and so plastic,’ he continued. ‘It made me realise that art and entertainment can be about more than just plot or story beats – it can be about trying to tap into something more primal and subconscious,’ he continued.
‘When you’re a strange little kid living in a time or a place where you don’t feel quite right, where normalcy feels vital but elusive – films like Mulholland Drive can feel like a message from another place. A message to say that no matter how it feels right now – there is actually no such thing as normal, that there is no correct way of being. The very act of existing can be awful and beautiful and funny and tragic and surreal, it doesn’t always make sense – and that’s okay.’
Lynch’s impact
Others have mentioned his impact in other ways, such as his championing of transcendental meditation, his weather updates on YouTube, his allyship for queer and trans folks, and insightful (often hilarious) social media updates.
For this writer, the first moment I really fell in love with David Lynch was when I read about his ‘rescue‘ of five Woody Woodpecker plush dolls that he found in a rural American petrol station. Here’s an excerpt of that interview from 1981:
‘I screech on the brakes, I do a U-turn, go back and I buy them and I save their lives. I named them Chucko, Buster, Pete, Bob and Dan and they were my boys and they were in my office. They were my dear friends for a while but certain traits started coming out and they became not so nice … They are not in my life anymore.’
This was when I realised that the great director was not some inscrutable, untouchable genius, but a real human being with proclivities not unlike my own. I write this as I stare at my collection of plush frogs, all named and imbued with personalities. They are all still my friends… for now.
Vale David Lynch.
