David Lynch

“Just beneath the surface there's another world, and still different worlds as you dig deeper. I knew it as a kid, but I couldn't find the proof.”

“Just beneath the surface there's another world, and still different worlds as you dig deeper. I knew it as a kid, but I couldn't find the proof. It was just a kind of feeling. There is goodness in blue skies and flowers, but another force—a wild pain and decay—also accompanies everything.” — David Lynch

I have loved the work of David Lynch since I was four years old. Wait—that statement makes no sense! David Lynch and I were born the same year, 1946, so when I was four he was also four—although it’s possible that even at four, he already knew he was an artist. When I was four years old, circumstances brought me face to face with existential dread. This is not, generally, a good thing to happen to a child. But my early experience with anxiety about the meaning of life prepared me for appreciation of the works of David Lynch on a deeply emotional and spiritual level.

My introduction to David Lynch was The Elephant Man. I’d never heard of David Lynch. I had not seen Eraserhead or Dune. But I was raised by a disabled mother and have always had close ties to the disabled community. So of course I went to a theater to see The Elephant Man, a tender, compassionate film that touched me deeply. I skipped Blue Velvet when it came out—it sounded angry.

Then Twin Peaks, in 1990, captured me and held me tight. I was in a lonely place and felt more real in the company of the characters and town of Twin Peaks than in my own life. I didn’t analyze its themes or style—or ask myself why I felt such a deep connection to it—I just stayed home on Thursday nights and surrendered to it.

Years later, I started using scenes from Twin Peaks season one in the acting classes I was teaching. Then in 2017 Season 3 arrived—my husband and I studied and discussed it every week; we read the blogs and watched each episode twice.

Finally, I watched a film I’d been resisting for almost 30 years, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. It was a watershed in my understanding of both art and life. I began to comprehend the monumentality of DL’s intention. The lengthy Twin Peaks saga, released sporadically over 25 years, reveals a brutal truth: that not all parents love and protect their children; that indeed some parents use and abuse their children and others ignore their children’s cries of pain and confusion because to do so is more convenient. The dreamy magic realism softens our sensibility; the off kilter references disturb our balance, all in service of bringing us toward the love and respect we will come to feel for Laura Palmer—until we are permitted, in Twin Peaks The Return, to witness Laura and Agent Cooper become each other’s salvation.

When Mulholland Drive first came out, in 2001, some derided it as “weird” and “predictably Lynchian.” Twenty-some years later, viewers have finally taken the time and effort to work through its dream logic. Mulholland Drive did not for a moment seem weird to me. David Lynch’s works are not about weirdness! They are about compassion. Compassion drives every David Lynch project—compassion for the lonely, the abandoned, the misunderstood; compassion for those who are targeted by forces of cruelty and greed. The fact that the settings of DL’s film and TV projects can seem “weird” is only because the world itself is weird—far more unpredictable and irrational than we want to believe: full of danger, cruelty, mystery, and—once in a while—moments of simple, redemptive kindness.

A client once told me she admired David Lynch above all filmmakers and hoped to make a film that might deserve to be described as “Lynchian.” At the time I advised her to find her own style and vision. But since then, I’ve wondered what might happen if I took a stab at deconstructing the David Lynch genre (he’s his own genre isn’t he?) Anyway, here are two elements I thought of:

   1) Every character has a secret but is otherwise completely transparent. So there isn’t subtext in the usual sense.

   2) Every scene is played as if it is a prayer.

Here’s a still from Twin Peaks The Return

And a scene from Mulholland Drive. Diane works as a waitress at Winkie’s Diner; the scene is a part of her dream.

Thanks for visiting! Keep keeping the faith and doing the work.

Faithfully,

Judith