RIP David Lynch

David Lynch, the most famous “weird” American filmmaker, has died. He was probably the most commercially successful (or at least most famous) avant garde filmmaker of his era, in part because he regularly made movies (plus some TV) that weren’t very avant garde, or which contained avant garde elements buried within seemingly conventional narratives.

I grew up on Westerns and War movies. I watched tons of them. My coming of age as a film fan (and snob) began in my teens when I moved on from those genres. The three most important filmmakers in that early journey were Stanley Kubrick, the Coen brothers, and David Lynch.

Specifically, it was David Lynch’s film Lost Highway, which my friends and I rented from one of the local video stores which didn’t ID us. (So not Blockbuster.) I don’t remember how many times we rented Lost Highway, but we were so confused by it that we had to watch it a few times, to try to figure it out. To this day, if someone says “Don’t you remember?” I think of one of my favourite scenes in the history of film:

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Someone once said something that has become a cliche: David Lynch’s films follow the logic of dreams. And I think that’s true of much of his oeuvre. (Though it’s not always true Twin Peaks and it’s definitely not true of his most famous conventional film, The Straight Story.) I think that was one of the appeals of this film and, later, the other films of his I watched - they not only defied my expectations at a time when I was really looking for films that would defy my expectations, but they reminded me of my own dreams.

At some point, I grew out of him. It was around Inland Empire, which I remember being kind of bored by. I really haven’t followed his career since but I will probably never get over the sheer joy and confusion - and really the joy of confusion - that I first felt when encountering his movies. And I want to say that I think it’s also really important to remember that he could actually make normal movies when he wanted to. As both The Elephant Man and The Straight Story attest, he was a good filmmaker of conventional films. Not all of his films were Lynchian but the fact that he could make normal movies and made movies so weird we now say “Lynchian” is a great testament to his talent and his unique perspective.

I can’t find the quote right now for some reason, but he was once asked about his films, and whether or not we should be worried about someone who made such strange, occasionally horrifying, movies. His response was something like “It’s not me you need to be worried about. Everything scary in my head is on screen. It’s the people who make kids’ movies you need to be worried about.”

RIP

I’ve appended my “reviews” however every Lynch film I’ve ever seen I saw before I started trying to write decent reviews.

“Six Men Getting Sick” (1967)

My memory is this is exactly what it says it is. 6/10

“The Alphabet” (1969)

I can’t remember whether I watched this as an extra on one of his DVDs or got a disc of his short films. I gave it 8/10 so I must have liked it. Didn’t write a review, though.

The Grandmother” (1970)

“Lost my review but, according to my rating, this is the first really successful short from Lynch.” (I wrote having given the previous film an 8/10 as well.)

“The Amputee” (1974)

Seen as part of a compilation of his shorts. Didn’t write reviews. 7/10

Eraserhead (1977)

“I know I was drunk [in Australia] when I watched this. Essential anyway.”

Certainly the most iconic American avant garde feature of the 1970s.

The Elephant Man (1980)

“Seen as a teen in the beginning of my Lynch phase.” 9/10.

I’m sure I would have a different opinion now.

Dune (1984)

I saw this at the height of my Lynch phase, and I think I was likely charitable. I have never read the source material. 5/10.

Blue Velvet (1986)

I’m due for a revisit of this one. I rated it 10/10 shortly after first watching Lost Highway. It was, at the time, his most acclaimed Lynchian film. I had to rent it from the video store that didn’t ID teenagers. I only remember bits and pieces at this point. It made far less of an impression on me than some of his later films. (I also only ever watched it once, decades ago.)

“Les Français vus par: The Cowboy and the Frenchman,” (1988)

I have no memory of this.

Twin Peaks (1989)

Infamously, the quirkiest network TV of all time when it first aired. I watched the first two seasons, multiple times.

Why have I yet to watch the new season? The second season is rough. It’s a little reminiscent of The Prisoner in terms of how clear it is there was no plan once the initial episodes concluded. The second season is messy enough that I’ve been really reluctant to watch the third season. (And I thought it was messy when I loved David Lynch.)

Wild at Heart (1990)

“Seen during the heart - excuse me - the height of my Lynch phase, I have not seen in since. A crazy, nearly-terrible film? I don’t know in retrospect.”

Young twenty-something Riley gave this cartoonish movie an 8/10.

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992)

I actually saw this before I saw the show because I was too young to watch the show when it aired and because of Showcase, which had this movie on a bunch when I was a teenager. 5/10

Lost Highway (1997)

Though I haven’t watched it all the way through in probably decades now, I watched it at minimum 5 times between age 17 and age 17. Even though I think most Lynch fans would not put it among his top movies, it was so formative for me that I can’t think objectively about it. For me, it was the movie “mind-fuck” was invented for. (Of course Eraserhead, which is far more of a mind-fuck in some ways, predates it by 20 years.)

Maybe if I sat down and watched his whole oeuvre again I might decide this wasn’t my favourite Lynch film, but I will probably never do that in part because I want to retain my memories of the confusion, fear, sense of excitement and overall sense of discovery that I experienced with so many of Lynch’s films when I was young.

The Straight Story (1999)

The least Lynchian movie he ever made. 9/10.

Why did I rate it so highly? No idea. My best guess is I was so impressed with how unrecognizable it was - this is the feature he made after Lost Highway! - and how affecting it was. In my defense, everyone seems to like it.

Mulholland Drive (2001)

“I was very much in the depths of my Lynch obsession when I saw this. But I still believe that, as mind-fucks go, this is a pretty great one.” 9/10.

The critics’ favourite Lynch film, I suspect I rated it higher than I wanted to because literally everyone thought it was better than Lost Highway.

It does contain my favourite road rage incident in all of cinema.

Inland Empire (2006)

“This was strange, as expected. Maybe stranger than expected. It had some great moments, and some really boring stretches. And then it had a completely ill-suited (tonally) ending. The odd thing about that is that Lynch made it independently, so he wasn’t being pressured for a happy ending. Anyway, I didn’t get how that worked.”

I gave it a 7*/10 and I think the asterisk is because I clearly didn’t like it but gave it a higher rating because I felt I wanted to like it more.