David Lynch presented a uniquely innocent, yet penetrating, interpretation of the American Dream, a concept that could easily serve as the title for any of his films. He recognized the duality of the American aspiration, where the pursuit of security, prosperity, suburban life, and domestic tranquility coexisted with desires for escape, danger, adventure, sex, and mortality. These conflicting desires collided, creating profound fissures and collapses along the supposed path to happiness.
Lynch was a filmmaker who discovered and delved into portals to alternative realities, treating them as sources of profound existential exploration. He stood as a significant American surrealist, yet his vision was so distinct that he transcended the label, becoming a master storyteller, a champion of anti-narrative, whose storylines fractured and spiraled in illogical and recursive patterns. His uniqueness lay in his ability to integrate experimental techniques, reminiscent of Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid’s “Meshes of the Afternoon,” into mainstream cinema, blending them with elements of pulp noir, soap opera, camp comedy, erotic thriller, and supernatural horror.
Comparisons can be drawn between Lynch and figures like Luis Buñuel from the 1920s, Douglas Sirk from the 1940s, or Alejandro Jodorowsky from the 1970s. Similarly, visual artists like Edward Hopper, whose “Office at Night” possesses a distinct Lynchian quality, or Andrew Wyeth with his enigmatic “Christina’s World,” come to mind. However, “Lynchian” can also signify mainstream sensibilities, even conservatism, as evidenced by Lynch’s genuine pride in his Boy Scout past.
He was capable of directing conventionally structured, albeit generically unconventional, films such as “The Elephant Man,” featuring John Hurt as the exploited Victorian sideshow attraction, and his adaptation of Frank Herbert’s science fiction classic, “Dune.” He even created the emotionally tender “The Straight Story,” a film whose title acknowledges its atypical nature, based on the true account of an elderly man who drove his lawn tractor from Iowa to Wisconsin to visit his estranged brother. Lynch’s enduring passion for Americana was acknowledged when Steven Spielberg cast him as the iconic western director John Ford in “The Fabelmans.”
However, it was with films like his unnerving debut, “Eraserhead,” and his masterpiece, “Mulholland Drive,” a dark fantasy of Hollywood disillusionment, that he revealed the inherently erotic nature of challenging normalcy. This theme was accentuated by the pulsating and unsettling sound design and the inspired musical scores from his long-term collaborator, composer Angelo Badalamenti. The collective experience of witnessing the initial screening of “Mulholland Drive” at the Cannes film festival in 2001, left attendees in a state of disorientation and exhilaration, profoundly affected by its sensuality, strangeness, wit, and eroticism.
Lynch’s prescience is perhaps most evident in Twin Peaks, a project that predated and arguably paved the way for the prestige streaming television we know today. Even compared to shows like The Sopranos and Mad Men, Twin Peaks stands out as a uniquely auteur-driven television experience. The first two seasons, originally broadcast in the 90s, follow an earnest FBI agent (Kyle MacLachlan) as he investigates a violent murder entangled with metaphysical mysteries. Notably, the second season’s ending promised a continuation of the story 25 years later – a promise Lynch actually fulfilled. The show’s third season abandoned the bright, theatrical aesthetic common in 90s TV dramas, embracing the darker, more atmospheric style prevalent in 21st-century high-end television, all while retaining Lynch’s distinctive touch.
In Wild at Heart, Laura Dern’s distraught Lula cries, “This whole world’s wild at heart and weird on top!” while pregnant and anguished with the child of Sailor (Nicolas Cage), a Presley-esque convicted killer. However, this isn’t quite Lynch’s worldview. Blue Velvet (1986) suggests a different dynamic: a surface of normalcy concealing a hidden undercurrent of weirdness. This duality is exemplified when MacLachlan’s wholesome character, walking home in a seemingly idyllic suburban setting, discovers a severed ear – perhaps a symbol of Lynch’s heightened sensitivity to unseen disturbances and a hidden America. This discovery leads the man to an obsession with a nightclub singer, reflecting Lynch’s fascination with clandestine cabarets, occult rituals, and the allure of the red curtain, rippling with the mystery it conceals. While the image is Freudian, “Lynchian” might be the more fitting descriptor.
Lost Highway (1997) offered another of Lynch’s surreal, doppelganger-filled narratives, where Bill Pullman’s troubled saxophonist and Patricia Arquette are terrorized by an anonymous figure who leaves surveillance tapes of their house – an idea later echoed by Michael Haneke in Hidden.
Mulholland Drive is Lynch’s most accomplished work, a masterpiece of eroticism and despair that brilliantly explores how disillusionment becomes a toxic byproduct of Hollywood’s dream factory. The fraught relationship between Naomi Watts’s naive hopeful and Laura Harring’s enigmatic, troubled woman ranks among the most compelling friendships in modern American cinema.
