By Lindsay Traves | Film | January 20, 2025 |
Fans across the globe felt the gut punch of the loss of a favorite artist last week when news traveled that David Lynch had passed. The master of weird and twisted cinema was beloved by many as evidenced by an internet flooded with people sharing their personal experience with Lynch’s work. To eulogize a celebrity is never something I commit to taking on, but as a purveyor of love for all things “weird,” I felt compelled to reflect on the career of a man who seemed to know the exact way to not give a rat’s a**.
The choice memes shared of Lynch are rarely of his poetic musings or of him extrapolating on his projects. They’re of his refusal to do so, of his oddball methods, of his ideally jovial attempts to avoid explaining himself in a way perhaps only matched by Ridley Scott. “I don’t know why people expect art to make sense,” he told the LA Times in 1989. “Okay, let’s try that again, but this time good.” (Which seems to be an internet creation and not something Lynch actually said). “Believe it or not, Eraserhead is my most spiritual film.” “Elaborate on that.” “No.” (from a 2007 BAFTA lecture series). What might seem passive or even dismissive is a man who has presented his art and let it out into the world, wanted to do it his way with his vision, and doesn’t choose interviews as a choice medium to discuss it.
Another often memed moment is of Lynch describing this distaste for discussing his work. “As soon as you finish a film, *wince* people want you to talk about it.” It might seem a dismissive musing from a quirky auteur, but a more fulsome version of a similar quote in an interview reads, “When you finish anything, people want you to then talk about it. And I think it’s almost like a crime. […] A film or a painting — each thing is its own sort of language and it’s not right to try to say the same thing in words. The words are not there. The language of film, cinema, is the language it was put into, and the English language — it’s not going to translate. It’s going to lose.”
“Who gives a f***ing sh** how long a scene is?” is another moment often turned into a shareable graphic, this time from the set of Twin Peaks: The Return. The oft-shared clip shows a frustrated director barking at a suit while he works to craft his last major work. In an industry of metrics, data, timelines, and budgets, David Lynch dared to make a show with an entire episode dedicated to music-timed abstract visuals. And he does not give a **** how long a scene should be.
Because his NGAF energy was about the art itself. Offbeat cinema has its audience, or we wouldn’t have (on top of the aforementioned flood of reactions to his death), the constant citations and references to how his work changed people. Without it, there’d be no neo-noir psychological horror film like Blue Velvet, a dreamlike “dark valentine” to Hollywood by way of Mullholland Drive, and of course, Twin Peaks. There’s the lasting verve of Laura Dern, Naomi Watts, and Kyle McLaughlan, a legacy of surreal movies and video games, and pop culture references at every turn. And the reason for this is that Lynch didn’t compromise his own vision, though he was never afraid to alter it.
Before we lived in a world of cinematic universes, five-season shows with plotted endings, continuity error tracking websites, and decades-long phased plans, Twin Peaks seemed to make it up as it went along. It was a mystery with a simple question: “Who killed Laura Palmer?” Three seasons and a movie mostly answered that question. (Spoilers in this paragraph only for Twin Peaks. If you’ve recently been inspired to catch up on this show, don’t let this bit stop you!) For a bit, it was Bob. The impetus of Bob is the proto-typical example of Lynch not giving a f***. When shooting the pilot of the show, a set dresser named Frank Silva was accidentally trapped in a set and caught on camera. Building on it, Lynch captured a shot of Silva looking through the end of Laura’s bed as if he was trapped behind it. Building further on this shot, and the accidental capture of Bob in the shot later used for Laura’s mother’s vision, Lynch adapted his story to make Bob the true killer. Years later, when making The Return, we learned even more about Bob, the Black Lodge entity, his early creation, and his attachment to Laura Palmer. Because why not, right? Because Renault wasn’t the end, and because a spooky-looking long-haired guy captured in a shot was pretty cool, so forget plotted continuity and go for it.
I can only imagine that as a person, David Lynch absolutely gave a f***, the man garnering gorgeous reactions from those who knew him and worked with him. The truth is, and the paradox of it all is, that he really did give a darn. As an artist, he took the massive swings of a man doing whatever he wanted to do and left us all with art that’s impossible to cleanly break down. He really cared about making his kind of art and as a result, generations of fans were gifted with inspiring and beautiful media that changed us in countless ways, and an undying love for quirky weather reports, and two cookies and a coke. Phenomenal.