American filmmaker David Lynch died at the age of 78 from complications due to emphysema Jan. 15, which has been met with an outcry of mourning and remembrance across both artists and audiences alike.
As a filmmaker, Lynch was hard to define. His style, which always touched on romantic ideas of 20th century Americana, was both comforting and horrifying.
Lynch’s fascination with dreams and worlds beyond the physical one also radiated across his filmography.
Lynch’s first feature film, “Eraserhead” (1977), would dive audiences headfirst into his abstract, surreal style.
Filmed in black and white, Eraserhead’s strange imagery and macabre sequences depicted parenthood and the impending dread it comes with.
Commercially, Lynch would break through in the 1980s.
His second feature, “Elephant Man” (1980), fared well both critically and commercially–establishing his name in the upper echelon of filmmakers for the upcoming decade.
Lynch was approached by George Lucas to direct “Star Wars: Return of the Jedi,” but instead chose a lesser-known, though much more Lynchian science fiction project: “Dune”.
The fever dream-esque and often incomprehensible nature of Lynch’s “Dune” (1984) would quickly spell doom for both his box office success and chances at larger, more studio-driven films.
Though, he would quickly return to form with the 1986 neo-noir “Blue Velvet” which further demonstrated that Lynch’s work existed in a different reality, far different from that of other films.
In 1990, Lynch’s fifth feature, “Wild at Heart,” would achieve moderate success. But, it was his television series “Twin Peaks” that would help define him best.
“Twin Peaks,” the surreal story of a prom queen’s murder and a quirky FBI agent’s quest for the killer, redefined elements of TV with its abstract imagery and genre-blending, constantly leaving audiences guessing whether the show was a soap opera, police procedural or horror show.
While studio complications led to Lynch leaving the show during its second season, he would direct the season finale and later the sequel series, “Twin Peaks: The Return,” in 2017.
The 1990s and early 2000s would prove to be Lynch at the peak of his artistic brilliance.
In 1992, he directed “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me,” the series prequel that shed the show’s lighthearted elements for a more harrowing story.
His 1997 film “Lost Highway,” a deconstruction of the concept of film itself, signaled his return to more non-conventional forms of storytelling, while 1999’s “The Straight Story” displayed his mastery of lighthearted, romanticized Americana.
Lynch began the new century with his magnum opus, “Mulholland Drive” (2001), a story about the glamorized image of old Hollywood and the reality of its seedy underbelly.
Lynch continued his analysis of Hollywood with “Inland Empire” (2006), which would turn out to be his last feature film.
Outside of his filmmaking, Lynch was a prolific painter. His art, like his films, was often unconventional, but not inaccessible.
Lynch also had a deep interest in music. He composed music for several of his films, including “Wild at Heart” and “Mulholland Drive.” Lynch was fascinated with how music creates mood and tells stories in films.
As an artist, Lynch seemed often more interested in the audience experiencing a film than understanding it.
To Lynch, the audience would remember more about how a film made them feel than what actually happened in it.
He was never one to explain his work and had to dodge countless questions from fans and interviewers alike.
Lynch often said his films are more about the audience doing their own artistic analysis — creating their own interpretations — than being told how to perceive it.
Nothing was ever heavy-handed with Lynch. The viewer always needed to do some digging to get something meaningful out of it.
During his career, Lynch worked with actors such as Laura Dern, Kyle MacLachlan, Nicholas Cage and Naomi Watts.
Among his fellow filmmakers, Lynch has received admiration from predecessors like Stanley Kubrick, cohorts like Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola and current filmmakers like James Gunn and Judd Apatow.
Lynch’s death marks the loss of one of the great minds in the history of film.
Though, as Lynch would say to those in mourning, “Focus on the donut, not the hole.”
