Without David Lynch I would never have learned to love films so much

How ironic that I started the headline for my very first article in the Moviepilot editorial team in 2018 with the sentence “Arrived on the other side”. Below is a picture of David Lynch as Gordon Cole in his series revival Twin Peaks: The Return. Now the director has died at the age of 78. When I reopened my article from back then, the headline and article image together looked like a morbid joke from the master himself.

The Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive director is my absolute favorite filmmaker. A lot of time will have to pass before I can realize and finally accept his death. Until then, all I can do is keep remembering his distinctive public persona and the unique moments from his works that made my life better.

David Lynch opened up a new film world for me – somewhere between a dream and a nightmare

When David Lynch’s films first appeared in my life, I was a teenager and my young cinematic tastes were shaped by directors like Quentin Tarantino and the Coen brothers. When a film was told non-chronologically or with chapter interludes, that was an exciting departure from the norm for me.

Until one day I saw Lost Highway, which turned my idea of ​​cinema upside down. The beginning of the film, in which jazz saxophonist Fred Madison (Bill Pullman) and his wife Renée (Patricia Arquette) receive video footage showing the inside of their own house, makes you smile uncomfortable horror that can hardly be described.

Watch another trailer for Lost Highway here:

And that’s just the beginning of Lynch’s irritatingly convoluted hellish odyssey. Their path is paved with hammering industrial rock, dark, sparkling eroticism and snuff porn abysses, pale-faced men who are in two places at the same time and a split in identity that can hardly be explained.

Lynch’s darkly stirring Möbius loop of a film expressed to me the feeling caught between dream and nightmare to be. And that long before I got involved in analyzes and deeper discussions about his films and series.

It’s better to experience David Lynch’s work yourself rather than worrying about it. His films and series can be interpreted and explained, but they always radiate a magical secret that can never be fully deciphered. The fact that Lynch generally left questions about the meanings of his works unanswered says more than 100 texts about his final, perhaps most inscrutable feature film, Inland Empire from 2006.

He was the first director through whom I understood that cinema should not or cannot be understood. It’s much more exciting, what emerges when we Putting aside logic and understanding – and how, at the beginning of Blue Velvet, the camera gets to where pitch-black beetles are attacking each other under the green lawns of beautifully decorated suburban gardens.

David Lynch gave me scenes to last forever

David Lynch created so many moments that remain etched in my mind forever my love for films in pictures to express. There is the lady with the hamster cheeks (Laurel Near) who suddenly comes out from behind the radiator in Eraserhead and starts singing that everything is good in heaven. Or Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) from Twin Peaks, who can rave about a cup of black coffee like no one else.

Not to forget Naomi Watts in Mulholland Drive, who as aspiring actress Betty finds herself at the Club Silencio one night with the mysterious stranger Rita (Laura Harring). Here she sits next to the woman she has already fallen in love with and watches Rebekah Del Rio’s blood-curdling Llorando performance. When the singer collapses on stage and her singing can still be heard, Betty and Rita are already with their mouths open burst into tears, visibly stunned.

If I were to introduce someone to a David Lynch film and could only show one sequence, it would be this.

The master of surreal horror was frighteningly warm

Even though I was never able to get to know him personally, we know what kind of person he was warm-hearted person and what a good soul Lynch, among other things, was to his stars. Numerous posts after his death brought up touching memories of the director. Twin Peaks star Kyle MacLachlan wrote on Instagram that he owes his entire acting career to Lynch. He was also a friend for life.

When David Lynch comes to mind, the first thing I think of is his high, nasal voice. With it he uttered sentences that were confused or poetic or both at the same time. For example, one sounds like this:

Happy accidents are real gifts and can open the door to a future that never existed. Sometimes it’s nice to create something that encourages or allows for serendipity.

The videos that Lynch uploaded to his YouTube channel for years until 2022 were like little happy accidents. In it he always talked about the weather in his hometown of Los Angeles, just to keep you entertained afterwards little words of wisdom or motivational sayings to give along the way.

When he compared collecting ideas to catching fish or cooking quinoa for almost 20 minutes for a short film, David Lynch seemed like the oddball uncle or grandpa I would have liked to have had with me at family gatherings more often.

So now he himself has arrived at the other side that I wrote about in my introductory text for Moviepilot. I would love to watch one last film of his about what it looks like for him there now.

David Lynch will forever have a place in history as a modern master of surrealism. The most surreal moment He saved his life for January 16, 2025, when it simply came to an end.