A Brief Requiescat in Pace from Drag City Raceway
It is with a heavy heart that I impart the news that my favorite living filmmaker is…no longer living. Most will have heard of this by now, but it hit me hard when, around noon on Thursday January 16th, while sitting at my desk at work, the news came across the wire that David Lynch had succumbed to complications related to emphysema. With this, the struggling jalopy that “Hollywood” has become is that much poorer for losing one of its few remaining great artists.
Details are still scant at this point, but from what I understand, Lynch had been mostly home-bound for the last year due to failing health. Since that home he was confined to was in the Hollywood Hills, he had recently been forced to evacuate due the extreme fires consuming most of Los Angeles, and it appears the strain of this emergency measure proved too much for him in his fragile condition. There is a lot I could say here about the sick joke that California has turned into, but I will restrain those impulses, as this is not the time.
I have been a fan of Lynch’s work since my teenage years. I was never big on The Elephant Man, the movie that broke him in 1980. I recognized its artistic merit, but the subject matter wasn’t my bag. I knew the stark black and white direction was riveting, but his name passed from my memory by my early teens. All that changed when I saw first saw Blue Velvet in 1988 at the age of 17. That gut-punch of a film etched a mark in me a mile wide, and from then on, I was hooked for life on his product! That film, released in 1986, was the opening shot of a series of masterful works including Wild At Heart (1990), Lost Highway (1997), and the movie I consider to be his “Magnum Opus,” the neo-noir thriller Mulholland Drive (2001). This last one shares the pedistal in my mind with the original Raiders of the Lost Ark bearing the title of “My Favorite Movie Of All Time!”
The groundbreaking 1990 TV Series “Twin Peaks,” for which he is best known, was the last serialized television series I watched with any regularity before tuning out television in my 20’s. Now that time has given us some perspective, I think its quite evident that that show, with its cinema-quality production values and deep-dish atmospherics, changed American television forever. His style was so unique that his name is frequently used as an adjective, when a movie or circumstance is described as “Lynchian.”
“An academic definition of Lynchian, might be that the term “refers to a particular kind of irony where the very macabre and the very mundane combine in such a way as to reveal the former’s perpetual containment within the latter.” But like postmodern or pornographic, Lynchian is one of those Potter Stewart-type words that’s definable only ostensively – i.e. we know it when we see it.”
I mentioned some of my admiration for Lynch’s body of work in a post I wrote back in September about my first time finally seeing Chris Isaak in concert, as the two men-both of whom I have admired since my formative years-had both a creative partnership and a personal friendship. The sad fact is that as we get older, we are losing the great creatives that have made our lives so enjoyable, and this is the latest example: there will be others.
Thursday night was a quiet night at home after work, watching some of his greatest material. Lynch’s aesthetic was certainly not to everyone’s taste; his films are often shockingly violent and filled with disturbing imagery, and for these reasons, he was always controversial. Anyone unfamiliar with the art of David Lynch may do well to avoid an introduction to his work with with his first ever film, the startling drama Eraserhead, which he labored on for 5 years while still a young man. This is a deeply unsettling film that should not be taken lightly, as its “creep factor” will stay with you for years, if not forever. A better place for the uninitiated to start would probably be Wild At Heart; with its linear story line and hyper-sexualized ode to the classic “Road Movie,” it may his most “accessible” film. Even so, for the right kind of person, I would recommend screening everything he ever made, even his animated shorts, for there is no other experience like seeing inside Lynch’s brain…even if the experience is not always pleasant, it is unforgettable!
The American film industry has been undergoing a long decline for decades now, as the lowest common denominator rules and the studios continue to crank out remakes, superhero movies, and “woke” garbage: a radical muse like Lynch would probably be unable to gain a foothold in the industry today. Throughout his career, he remained remarkably himself and held fast to his own intensely personal vision as an artist. Thankfully, he got his start in the days when things were better, but his loss is another nail in the coffin of a great era that has run its course.
A very fitting tribute to him and a man that touched a lot of us, especially those appreciate the non normal fare that he created. He could set a mood and capture a moment like very few. I’ve heard the term “unflinching camera” applied to him and that has always stuck in my mind and one of the truest assessments. Beyond his ability to compose a scene, taste in actors, and fearless scripts, his taste in music was really second to none. The songs and scoring that he used in his various works remain some of my favorite pieces to this day. Rest in Peace and thank you for everything!