A REQUIEM FOR DAVID LYNCH

Due to an incredibly busy schedule which will be easing soon (Information provided on my next post), I have been unable to mourn one of my favorite creatives, the innovative and unique film director David Lynch, who died four days before his 79th birthday in January. With his signature combed back 50s rockabilly hair and distinct directorial aesthetic, the loss of Lynch is a tragedy for the film making world. With the current state of the independent film industry, there will likely never be another filmmaker like him.

Becoming a massive fan of the Generation X filmmaking world that rose out of the 90s like a Phoenix during my high school days, I discovered Lynch as a junior in high school in 1990. The high school and college years are wonderful times of your life as your artistic tastes are first developed by the media, your cultural environment, and social peer pressure. A close friend of mine in high school, Chris, requested I spend the night, and we rented a few movies at THE WAREHOUSE. One of these was Lynch’s WILD AT HEART, his mixing of Southern Gothic stories and themes from the WIZARD OF OZ. The movie’s story is based off a novel written by Barry Gifford, but the film has its own unique artistic statement. Probably the one Lynch film that has a defined narrative (THE STRAIGHT STORY being the other), it revolves around the love story of Sailor played by Nicolas Cage and Lula played by Laura Dern, young, rebellious lovers looking to escape her domineering mother. The movie turns into a road trip film that ends in a burst of shocking violence. For me, I wasn’t sure what the hell I was watching. But it fascinated me. I also understood that a movie with these themes and imagery would never be played in my Catholic household as my parents were very sensitive to sexual and violent content in the media when I was a child. Then, the car accident scene occurs where our lovers come across Sherilyn Fenn, who has “survived” a car accident, and happens to be picking the large hole in her skull as she dies. The intensity and unintentional hilarity of it is shocking and quite emotional. Plus, this movie introduced me to another lifelong love, Chris Isaak, whose megahit WICKED GAME was first heard in this film before becoming a massive hit. The video linked above was the original that MTV played back in 1990. The later video with Chris wrestling with a stunning woman on the beach came later. Then there was the ending. Willem Dafoe’s Bobby Peru roping Sailor into a bank heist where his head met its unfortunate end with a shotgun. What the hell was I watching? And who is this, David Lynch?

After this, I went back and watched some of his earlier work including the incredibly underrated original 1984 version of DUNE and BLUE VELVET, often called his magnum opus starring one of my favorite longtime actors known for playing crazy roles, Dennis Hopper. BLUE VELVET specifically is voyeuristic, erotic, and very disturbing. With so many serious themes going on, the movie has no problem embracing the weird as Hopper’s Frank Booth forces Dean Stockwell’s Ben to lip sync IN DREAMS by Ray Orbison after Kyle Maclachlan and Isabella Rossellini’s characters are kidnapped. The scene has Hopper lip syncing and intensely glaring at Stockwell as he performs, and the scene would not be complete without a dancing man holding a snake in the background. After this film which should have won Best Picture in 1986, I was a David Lynch fan. But nothing could have prepared me for what came next.

TWIN PEAKS is often credited with changing television back in 1990 when it first aired on network TV. MANY, MANY articles have been written about this groundbreaking show. The show for about a year was equivalent to an internet viral phenomenon. From 1990 to 1991, “Who killed Laura Palmer?” was everywhere in the entertainment zeitgeist. The show was discussed by adults at bowling Mondays or kids on lunch break at high school. For me, I did not discover it until later. Mainly because I was not much of a television watcher as a teenager (I focused on films). TWIN PEAKS did not come onto my radar until Lynch’s accompanying film, TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME was released in 1992. One of my favorite films of all-time, FIRE WALK WITH ME is the prequel to the TV show that chronicles the last week of Laura Palmer’s life. Still to this day, this movie blows me away with its innovation, its inherent darkness, its representation of supernatural evil, and outright frank depictions of nudity. Sheryl Lee, who starred in this movie, deserved an Oscar nomination as this remains one of my favorite acting performances of all-time. So many iconic characters came out of this amazing television show and film including The Log Lady and The Little Man from Another Place. TWIN PEAKS was so massive that two books were released later, both of which I bought, just to analyze and understand the incredible world that Lynch and Mark Frost created. Laura Palmer’s murder scene at the hands of her possessed father (It is complicated) still disturbs me to this day. It is one of the most intense scenes ever put onto film. Than there is the murder scene in TWIN PEAKS that mirrors Laura’s in intensity where Lynch ends the next episode with the recognition of her death at a bar set to Julee Cruise’s haunting voice which has an incredible emotional impact, Then, there is the opening theme and credits which is just musical perfection written by Lynch’s longtime composer Angelo Badalamenti. And this was on network TV in 1990.

After TWIN PEAKS, I would be forever in on David Lynch even if his movies never reached the intensity of that genius work of art. LOST HIGHWAY, THE STRAIGHT STORY and his best post-TWIN PEAKS work MULHOLLAND DRIVE followed. I even went back and completed his filmography watching his incredible first film ERASERHEAD and his last movie, INLAND EMPIRE, starring the wonderful Laura Dern. After 2006, Lynch would never make another feature film again. But he never left the cultural zeitgeist. Younger generations started discovering him. Lynch began doing Weather Reports on YouTube. Even Netflix hired him to direct a short film where he interrogates a monkey about a murder in WHAT DID JACK DO?. Lynch released two albums and created a comic strip in the 1980s, THE ANGRIEST DOG IN THE WORLD. He was involved in directing dozens of music videos. The best final moment of David Lynch’s career is when SHOWTIME decided to reboot TWIN PEAKS for one final season which aired in 2017. These 18 glorious episodes were a wonderful career summary of everything Lynch has done and a glorious send off. Twin Peaks ends with a cliff hanger that was intense and will never be resolved, the David Lynch way. And props for creating a character like Dougie or turning what was a dying David Bowie’s character Philip Jeffries into a talking tea kettle. The man was endlessly creative. Because of the silencing of this voice and the inevitability of death, the world feels like a darker force without Lynch inside of it. Rest in peace, you unique genius.