Director David Lynch Dies

[Pink Freud]

Wow...what a creative, surreal (weird?) talent. He definitely did it his way. I absolutely loved the first season of ABC's "Twin Peaks", even attending a hotel's "cuppa joe and cherry pie" viewing party for the 2nd season opener, but that season appeared to be made up as they went along, and I lost interest until the finale. While visiting Seattle and Mt. Rainier National Park we took a side drive to Snoqualmie, where so many scenes from "Twin Peaks" were shot, visiting the scenic waterfall behind "The Great Northern Lodge"; the train car where Laura Palmer and Ronna Polaski were attacked, and dropping in at the "Double-R Diner".

His movie "Mulholland Drive" I dismissed as 150 minutes I wish I had back...until I read Roger Ebert's extensive deconstruction of it, and gave it a second chance....and LOVED it. I since visited several of the eerie locations from the movie.

I recall an interview in which he said he did lunch every day, 7 days a week, for years at Bob's Big Boy in Burbank. Sadly, we didn't see him there the morning we went before taking the WB studio tour.

[Dicktar2023]

Multiple sources now reporting that Clark has been to LA.

[3dender]

RIP to a real one.

"I don’t know why people expect art to make sense. They accept the fact that life doesn’t make sense.”

[Pink Freud]

RIP to a real one.

"I don’t know why people expect art to make sense. They accept the fact that life doesn’t make sense.”

That is precisely why I initially hated, then loved, "Mulholland Drive". As Roger Ebert's symposium explained, "Don't wait for a tidy denouement tying up all the loose ends, because real life doesn't. Just enjoy the journey for what it is."

[Pink Freud]

Lynch cast "Twin Peaks" in 1990 with some of his favorite old movie/TV actors and characters:

--- Richard Beymer and Russ Tamblyn from "West Side Story"
--- Jack Nance from "Eraserhead"
--- Peggy Lipton from "Mod Squad"
--- Piper Laurie, Oscar nominee from "The Hustler", who was the deranged mother in "Carrie"
--- One episode from season one, involving a talkative parrot and a vet named Dr. Lassiter, was clearly a takeoff on the film noir classic "Laura"
--- There was a mysterious, recurring one-armed man (like "The Fugitive") who was a pure red herring
--- Lynch himself, as loud-talking FBI Agent Gordon, who was seriously hard of hearing

Those residents and denizens of the fictional town of Twin Peaks were serious characters:
--- Sheriff Harry Truman (Michael Ontkean), who had a dippy, trippy, spacy receptionist (Kimmy Robertson) and a deputy (Harry Boaz) who wept at death locations;
--- The Log Lady (Catherine Coulson), who always carried a short log, to which she often spoke;
--- High school sexpot/siren/spoiled brat Audrey Horne (Sherilyn Fenn), the daughter of the powerful Great Northern Lodge owner (Beymer), who proved on camera she could tie a cherry stem into a knot with her tongue ;
--- FBI Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle McLachlan), whose obsessions included great coffee and cherry pie, and who asked of one witness, Shelly Johnson, "Is that Johnson with a 'J' ?";
--- "Diane", the never-seen apparent secretary/confidante of Agent Cooper, to whom he frequently in early episodes recorded his every experience;
--- Eye-patched Wendy, crazed wife of Big Ed, owner of Big Ed's Gas Farm, who was obsessed with drapes and blinds, and developed superpowers in season two;
--- The Man From Another Place, an oddly dancing dwarf (Michael Anderson) who spoke in cryptic messages only to Agent Cooper in The Red Room. He sounded so weird because he read and recorded his original lines verbatim, then they were played backward, which Anderson vocalized, and then THAT was played backward, accounting for his strange syntax;
--- The Giant, a spectral vision alerting Agent Cooper that he was in the presence of evil, played by towering 3-D photographer Carel Struyken;
--- Laura Palmer's ever-grieving father Leland (Ray Wise), whose re-introduction in season two was suddenly, inexplicably, happily singing the 1944 nonsense song "Mairzy Dotes";
--- BOB, the murderous alter ego of one major character, who sees himself in the mirror when he feels it's time to kill;
--- Maddie, the lookalike cousin of murder victim Laura Palmer, who is living with Leland and his wife and triggering memories of Laura.

[edwin drood]

The Elephant Man was excellent. Nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (John Hurt) and is credited with the new Oscar for make-up after being snubbed. Probably Lynch's most straightforward and mainstream film.

The earlier Blue Velvet was passed on by several studios due to its sex and violence, but still earned Lynch his second Best Director nomination. With Kyle McLaughlin, Dennis Hopper, Laura Dern.

A talented and visionary film maker.

[DJ Davis]

This is one of those that really hits me. Actually makes me feel emotional.

RIP. Twin Peaks is one of the best shows ever, and his other work is exceptional as well.

[Pink Freud]

This is one of those that really hits me. Actually makes me feel emotional.

RIP. Twin Peaks is one of the best shows ever, and his other work is exceptional as well.

The NY Times TV critic agrees with you:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/16/arts ... peaks.html

[MikoTython]

Eraserhead was a bad acid trip of a film - very fundamentally disconcerting, a fairly unique experience :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WAzFWu2tVw

[Pink Freud]

The Elephant Man was excellent. Nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (John Hurt) and is credited with the new Oscar for make-up after being snubbed. Probably Lynch's most straightforward and mainstream film.

The earlier Blue Velvet was passed on by several studios due to its sex and violence, but still earned Lynch his second Best Director nomination. With Kyle McLaughlin, Dennis Hopper, Laura Dern.

A talented and visionary film maker.

Good call, but his most straightforward and mainstream film might be "The Straight Story", with farmer Richard Farnsworth driving his tractor 200+ miles to visit his estranged, stricken brother. Extremely un-Lynchian.

I always thought Kyle MacLachlan would eventually play Clark Kent/Superman. Hearing Dennis Hopper's heavy-breathing Frank Booth in "Blue Velvet" comes to mind every time I strap on my C-PAP mask.

Lynch started chain-smoking at age 8, and in "Wild at Heart" there must have been at least 5 cuts of a lighter igniting a cigarette in the dark. With 3 packs a day and 20 daily cups of coffee, we're fortunate we had him this long.

[Pink Freud]

The elegies and tributes are coming from all corners of the TV/movieverse. Here's a very sweet memory from Glenn Whipp, the lead movie writer for the L. A. Times, proving that while his movies could sometimes be seriously weird and disturbing, Lynch himself was very often just a normal guy:

Long live Lynch
The man at the hotel bar slid off his stool and turned, offering his hand.

“I’m David Lynch. Pleased to meet you.”

We were close enough that I could smell the pomade coming off that immaculate pompadour. Lavender? Nah. Can’t be ... can it? You’d figure Lynch to be old school when it comes to grooming products.

I’d just finished having lunch with Richard Farnsworth, the unlikely star of the most unlikely David Lynch movie, “The Straight Story,” a G-rated gem about an old-timer who, after hearing that his estranged brother is dying, hops on a tractor lawnmower to see him one last time. It was released by Disney, an implausible partner for a filmmaker known for haunting, surrealistic and often deeply disturbing movies. No one ever thought of Mickey Mouse when hearing the cinematic classification “Lynchian.”

“Human beings are capable of doing many types of things, so I don’t think this is surprising at all,” Lynch told me as we started talking about the film.

Lynch, whose family announced his death at age 78 on Thursday, lived that ethos. Whenever I spoke with him, he was unfailingly polite, the embodiment of a Boy Scout upbringing that he’d sometimes embrace, maybe to mess with people, maybe not. When promoting his 1990 movie “Wild at Heart,” his bio simply read: “Eagle Scout. Missoula, Montana.” This was the man who went to the Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank every afternoon for years, ordering a chocolate milkshake and coffee, hoping that the caffeine and sugar cocktail would inspire an idea or two.

After news broke about Lynch’s passing, I remembered the occasions I had to meet him and talk a bit. His reticence was a work of art in itself. Times film critic Amy Nicholson wrote an appreciation with the headline: “Long live the wizard David Lynch,” taking in the ways his movies shaped us. I’ll be watching those films for the rest of my life.

Here's the Amy Nicholson tribute: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-a ... 20Envelope

[Pink Freud]

Laura Dern's heartfelt posthumous birthday letter for David Lynch:
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-a ... and-empire

[Pink Freud]

Here's the shrine Lynch fans erected outside Bob's Big Boy in Burbank, where David ate every day for several years: https://www.latimes.com/food/newsletter ... ting-notes

Now I finally know why my wife and I missed him when we ate breakfast there before touring Warner Bros.; we were too early, since his daily lunch time was 2:30.

St. Louisans around my age who lived in Ferguson or Dellwood in the late 60s/early 70s might recall Tote's Big Boy, part of that chain with the same red & white-checked Big Boy out front on W. Florissant in Ferguson, next to Costello-Kunze Ford, across from Jason's Pancake House.

That Tote's location was also Jacks or Better (with peanut shells on the floor); H. Salt Fish & Chips; and god knows how many other short-lived eateries.

[GelatinousEndive]

The Elephant Man was excellent. Nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (John Hurt) and is credited with the new Oscar for make-up after being snubbed. Probably Lynch's most straightforward and mainstream film.

The earlier Blue Velvet was passed on by several studios due to its sex and violence, but still earned Lynch his second Best Director nomination. With Kyle McLaughlin, Dennis Hopper, Laura Dern.

A talented and visionary film maker.

Good call, but his most straightforward and mainstream film might be "The Straight Story", with farmer Richard Farnsworth driving his tractor 200+ miles to visit his estranged, stricken brother. Extremely un-Lynchian.

I always thought Kyle MacLachlan would eventually play Clark Kent/Superman. Hearing Dennis Hopper's heavy-breathing Frank Booth in "Blue Velvet" comes to mind every time I strap on my C-PAP mask.

Lynch started chain-smoking at age 8, and in "Wild at Heart" there must have been at least 5 cuts of a lighter igniting a cigarette in the dark. With 3 packs a day and 20 daily cups of coffee, we're fortunate we had him this long.

Once in 5,000 posts you provide relevant information for me, Clark.

I had no idea Lynch made that nice, slow moving entirely un-Lynchian film “The Straight .story.”

DH and I are from the flatlands of Iowa and we made an effort to see that film. We liked it a lot.