RIP David Lynch (Update X2)

Well, crap. Thanks Matt, for letting us know.

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Angelo Badalamenti, who worked with David Lynch on several projects, including Twin Peaks, died a couple of years ago; in December 2022. 

Oh my, I hadn’t known that. Thank you for letting me know.

Julee Cruise, too, who provided vocals on Twin Peaks and some other Lynch endeavors.

Yes. I have one of her CDs. She had an interesting voice and delivery. I think one critic describe it as a breathy soprano backed up by foghorn saxophones. 

David used to report the LA weather daily:

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Bob Eucker also died today

They were both “just a bit outside.” 

I use that expression all the time when watching both baseball and hockey.

Uecker.

Aww…I remember Bob!  Less as a sportscaster (because I hadn’t yet re-discovered baseball) than as a ‘celebrity sportscaster’ who had broken through the sports genre and into his persona being used in advertising.

Just heard on radio. Couldn’t believe it. Such a heartbreak. 

David, thanks for all the beautiful weirdness.

My SO’s first comment when I called him about this

(as if it would be anything else)

He’s dead. Wrapped in plastic.

No doubt he won’t be the only person to say that today…

Radarlady

Matt Z:

Elizabeth Windsor (Queen Elizabeth II of the UK et.al.) blamed smoking for her beloved father’s death, when he’d only really been training her in Kingship for a year or so, not the aprentices entitled seven.

She vicerally hated smoking and aways praised finance ministers for raising the tabbacco tax.

It never bothered me, but I’m losing a brother, sister-in-law and have lost a Dad to it. I decided in 1963 not to smoke when I heard a snipet of the US Surgon General’s report. I knew I had work to do and that shit interfeared with it.

I had an uncle with emphysema. He survived quite a few years with it, but he was on oxygen and had to haul it around with him. I think it may also be what killed my aunt, but she died a little over a decade before him. That has to be absolute hell to live with.

Mulholland Drive is a work of genius. Twin Peaks was fun but overrated, though I say so based on what Lynch could do, not in comparison to the TV trash above which that show towered. Sadly, though, yet another “Whites Only” director like so many other “iconic” filmmakers, many of whom had plenty of opportunity to do better with their good luck, skill, and imaginations.

“Mulholland Drive” is okay.  “Eraserhead” is one of a kind.  I think “Blue Velvet” is great, “The Elephant Man” very good, and his “Dune” doesn’t work but it is a singular and curious film.

I probably viewed the original (Lynch’s) Dune 10 times on the big screen last century.(probably 10X on DVD/Blue Ray since then) 

Although I certainly appreciate the technology of the later Dune. The Dune (1984) by David Lynch with Kyle MacLachlan as Paul Atreides is the gold standard for me.

I love his movies, but your point about the lack of diversity is a good one. I also found him to be not great on women. When his plots got weird, he generally relied on a scantily clad hot lady to hold the audience’s attention through it. I wasn’t surprised when I found out that he was married to a 20 something woman while in his 70’s. 
 

I’d like to think that things are improving, but it seems like Trump is giving powerful white men permission to regress. 

He certainly was not afraid to break the mold!

A great artist, true visionary, always pushed boundaries even when we didn’t know they were there. The best of American filmmaking is gone. RIP, say hello the Log Lady.

His version of “Dune” was gorgeous.  

Though he seemed to have mellowed on it a bit in later years, perhaps mainly or only to be polite to questioners who expressed fondness for it, “Dune” (1984) is a helluva “worst” film to have pulled off, especially under the restraints he experienced. At least he learned from it to always have final cut.

I positively loved his film "Dune"!  I was so mesmerized by it that I had to know more, went to the bookstore and bought all of the books, including "The Dune Encyclopedia," and devoured them.  Still have them all today, loaned them out many times so they're kinda tattered, but well loved. The soundtrack by Toto was also great; my original copy was on cassette tape and I later burned it onto CD.  Oh yeah, those were the low hi-tech days!

At the time of the release I worked with a bunch of computer programmers (anyone remember COBOL?!) who were all thrilled that it was finally being made into a film, with much discussion and buzz that continued for a long time, some of which I didn't get.  I hadn't known a film had been proposed many years before, but a few years ago I watched the documentary "Jodorowsky's Dune" and understood what many  of them had been talking about.  While I have attempted to watch the newest Dune, it is visually beautiful, I find it very slow and rather boring and haven't finished it . . . yet.   Obviously, there are many opinions about both.

I think his film The Elephant Man is a masterpiece and John Hurt was magnificent.

Here is a quick pen & ink sketch of Naomi Watts and Laura Harring from Mulholland Drive.

Excellent

Camera-ready copy, and absolutely beautiful portraiture.

I envy you your gift, but it’s an admiring, noncompetitive envy.

Beautiful. 

Appreciate the reporting Matt Z. His movies are the cream of the crop — his mind was never near the box :)

Mulholland Drive takes quite a bit of deciphering, but once it’s done (with or without research), it’s quite something. Time for another viewing.

Naomi Watts gives one of the all-time great performances.

Ill never forget seeing that. Half the crowd saying “Genius” some asking for their money back and others visibly angry they sat through it. The movie as a whole to me was very good but this is might be my favorite 5 minutes of film making ever. 16 Reasons

He hated being asked to explain his work. He said much of his imagery came directly from dreams. More than any other filmmaker, he put the subconscious on screen.

I highly recommend the documentary “Oz/Lynch” on that subject.

He asked the viewer to make up their own minds about what they just saw. He gave US the power to tell what was happening and treated us like adults. That is the biggest thing I put into my work. 

I still remember seeing Blue Velvet at the York Square theater on the Yale Campus, when it first came out. That was quite a while ago. It made an impression on me.

Still think his Dune is vastly more entertaining than the ponderous slog that has recently been released. It may have been incoherent and messy, but watching Sting with orange hair ( when that was still cool ) in a blue metallic codpiece was a gas and always will be. And Brad Douriff’s death scene…..Kevin McMillan, whose liver was going already. There’s nothing like it and never will be. Imagine if he had not turned down George Lucas and did Jedi instead…..

The current “Dune”- the two films that were released in the past few years- are far better than Lynch’s.  I saw the 1984 “Dune” when it came out and found it inscrutable- and not in a good way.  I’ve also seen various versions of it- with the voiceovers, longer, shorter- and it still doesn’t work.  It’s a one-of-a-kind mess, a filmmaker like Lynch given a franchise and a huge budget because the producer misunderstood both the material and Lynch himself.  The art direction and photography are great, and I actually love the score (by Toto- go figure). But the movie is rather inert, especially compared to the latest version.

There are no official various versions. Only Lynch’s is the original, the others are Alan Smithee productions. The current Dune is just boring, which was the main problem with the book IMO. I went through a Lit program at Rutgers and professors would just recoil at the mention of Dune, as it was when the movie came out, and people were talking. I tried to reread it when the new movie came out, and it was just as much a slog as it was when I tried reading it in 1975. But Villanueve has made one great masterpiece of sci fi, Arrival, but his Blade Runner and now Dune are just huge disappointments. I can and do watch Lynch’s version whenever its on and I have some time to kill, but I won’t sit through the new Dune again. Plus, Timothy Chalamet, the most overrated young actor out there. his best role was in Hostiles, because his character was killed off early. It was one of the few roles where he was not playing the same brooding version of himself. I just can’t stand the guy. Daughter loves him though, but not for his acting. Lynch’s true masterpiece is IMO his first major production with Mel Brooks, the Elephant Man, which has been largely forgotten. Dino De Laurentis, by the way, did produce some good movies, but Dune wasn’t one of them. But people are still talking about it. The other sci fi movies of the era? Star Man? Enemy Mine? Cocoon? The Road Warrior? The only reason people talk about the latter is because of Furiosa ( which was what a real sci fi masterpiece looks like, and yet it flopped ).

The trick to understanding Lynch's Dune is to have half an understanding of the book, and then to approach the film not as a retelling of the book, but as a series of mnemonics that are placeholders for telling the story. To do it properly would require about 50 episodes. 

Besides we don’t agree on the “Dunes”, I can’t agree with some of the other stuff you said.

“The Elephant Man” has not been forgotten.  OK, I’m biased because I saw it the night it opened, but real film people know of it.  And they know that Anthony Hopkins performance in that film is what got Jonathan Demme interested in him for Hannibal Lecter in “Silence of the Lambs.”

”Starman” is remembered, in part because it was one of John Carpenter’s better films and in part because of Jeff Bridges’ performance.  “The Road Warrior” has been known for 40 years for the fine film it is, and not just because of last year’s “Furiosa” (which I liked).  “The Thing” (1982), “Blade Runner”, and even “Tron” (squabble if it’s sci fi if you like) are among the sci fi films remembered and still talked about from that era.

I agree entirely. The new ones are entirely banal. I couldn’t even make it through the second one even with numerous attempts. We’re in the small minority of people with superior taste in movies ;).   I just rewatched Pope of Greenwich village a few weeks ago. McMillan was stupendous in it.

One of the genuinely great American artists in any field of endeavor, and one of the most significant filmmakers of all time. His work was singular and iconoclastic. And most impressively, he was always true to his own vision, even after he managed to achieve mainstream success.

He even managed to make "surrealism" popular to some degree in American entertainment, which in itself is an amazing achievement. A huge loss to contemporary film and the arts in general. RIP to one of my own personal artistic heroes. :(

He was great, and unique. Certainly nothing like Eraserhead  was ever made before it. And yes, he smoked like a chimney.

That’s sad. I’ve enjoyed his work.

After seeing the picture of Trump and Epstein together somehow it always reminded me of Hopper and Stockwell in Blue Velvet. But I’m guessing trump and epstein would have less beer and more coke.

And lots more class.

I said on my F.B. page today, Lynch pulled back the Ozzie & Harriet mask America liked to wear, to reveal the Trumpian truth behind it; even before trump was a ‘thing’.

Another movie that does that as well is "Devil All The Time." It reminds me of the sordid lives behind trump supporters veneer of wholesomeness.

Sorry that he’s died, but I have to admit that I never thought his work was that great. 

Do you do this at funerals in real life too? Must be great for the bereaved.

Part of being an artist. If after I die some people aren’t like “You know, Gilda And Meek sucked, right?” I’d be disappointed. I want to leave SOME negative impression, you know? 

:-)

I hadn’t run across your Twin Peaks tribute comic. You’re a better artist than you think you are.

And I am up early waiting for a package that I had overnighted to me because I’ll be out during prime delivery hours, so I should get my breakfast! Later.

I have my moments. 

Also that specific issue took me 6 months to put to paper, the longest lag time between issues ever. The art probably looks good because I worked so hard on it. Hardest art issue for me ever. 

<Shrug> Don’t really give a shit about David Lynch. If it makes you feel better, I’m certain that he never gave a shit about me either.

As for funerals, what a silly thing to say. I only attend funerals for people I know. 
I still think his work was overrated.

One could say in a sense his work was apolitical, but in Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks — he captured the essence of the eternal truth that the supposed “normalcy” of small town life was a damnable lie and he understood that so much better than any of the legacy media reporters trolling rural Iowa diners to supposedly find out what MAGA thinks.  This is his great contribution.  BTW the amorality of The Horn Brothers in Twin Peaks foreshadowed the amorality of today’s Tech Bros.

Yet there was fundamental humanity in most of his movies. Most movies are not about anything at all. I mean there’s no takeaways from Mission Impossible.

Every movie is about something, but some of them are tapping into the less complex parts of your brain. You can’t say that about a David Lynch movie.

I think Lynch’s fundamental message, particularly in his ‘hard’ movies that resist quick analysis, is that the beauty and horror of life are commingled in deep and complex ways that only reveal themselves in certain singular moments.

Thanks. I was shooting for that but didn’t quite make it. That’s why I’m only an amateur film and music critic. 

My passion for offbeat movies is increased a hundredfold if the movie’s directed by David Lynch, Quentin Tarantino, or Wes Anderson.  If I have to pick one, it’d be Lynch, and if I had to pick one Lynch opus, it’d be “Wild At Heart,” which I think is his most underrated (in contrast to his most overrated, “Mulholland Drive.”  People put down Nicholas Cage, but he’s a better everman than John Travolta, Bruce Willis, and Richard Gere any day of the week.  The fact “Wild at Heart” had one scene with fat porn stars played by actual fat porn stars including Layla Anthony was just icing on that cake — that and Willem Dafoe with metal teeth as Cage’s bad influence.

Mission Impossible is a “caper movie”, like “The Great Train Robbery” or “Fitzwilly” or “The Wrong Box”, or “Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels”. The “Oceans” series too, though I’ve never seen those.

Most movies just tell a story. Some tell it linearly, some with flashbacks, some tell it with plot twists, some tell it surreally, some ask you to guess what  the story even is…

We’ll all talk about the latest movie we’ve seen for a day or so afterwards. Obviously since I remembered those “caper movies” I list, they too impressed me for a lot longer than a day. But Lynch [and a few other giants] made movies that are talked about for decades on multiple levels, and, if we as a species get over ourselves and save the planet, might be talked about for centuries.

I guess this is the time for me to name-drop and mention the time I spent an hour driving David Lynch from the middle of Long Island back to NYC.

I was a PA (Production Assistant- i.e. gopher) in New York in October 1987.  I got a call to work on a reshoot of some film that was done in North Carolina.  (I would find out later the film was “Zelly And Me”)  They just needed to film a few shots in the middle of Long Island, doubling for North Carolina.  It was a 2 or 3 day job, mostly involving me picking up a rental car and then returning it.

That’s all I knew.  So imagine my surprise when I found out that one of the shots needed was of David Lynch, walking in front of a mansion.  It turns out that Lynch was acting in the film, which starred his then-girlfriend Isabella Rossellini.

I was a fan of Lynch’s work.  I found “Eraserhead” completely original, although not really entertaining.  I anticipated “The Elephant Man” so much I saw it opening night in high school.  I found “Dune” an interesting failure, but I loved “Blue Velvet.”

As soon as that shot was done, “someone” had to drive David back to Manhattan, and that someone was me.

I knew enough from working in the movie biz for a year that the last thing you do when you meet someone famous is to act like you’re in their fan club.  (Especially if you are)  The best thing to do is to treat them like anyone else.

We ended up talking the whole way back into the city, which was an hour long drive.  First things first- Lynch was a friendly guy that is exactly like you see him in interviews and publicity.  It’s no act.  He was genuinely nice and had no problem carrying on a conversation with an underling like myself.

For the bulk of the conversation I acted like I didn’t know his backstory and he acted like he was just some guy and not a well known film director.  He mentioned his fixation on industrial areas, especially since he found out I was from Pittsburgh.  He said that he knew that Pittsburgh had lost most of the steel plants and factories that made up its identity.  I told him that if he wanted to see an industrial landscape then he should have gone to Buffalo, NY (where I went to college) since it had an imposing, miles-long factory on the shores of Lake Erie that Dickens would envy (by this time it was gone, though).  He mentioned how much he hated Philadelphia, a “dirty, dirty city.”  Since I had family there and had been to those parts, I couldn’t argue.

At the time I was driving him he had given up smoking.  He was saying out it was a “filthy, dirty habit” and that you had to have all these props to be a smoker.  You had to have the cigarettes, of course, but the lighter, the matches, and the ashtray.  And he said everything smells like smoke.

Sadly, that moment was an aberration because I couldn’t help but notice in the following years that Lynch had gone back to smoking.  I went to see “The Straight Story” in 1999 at a screening where he appeared.  During his talk after the film he asked if he could smoke, which the audience applauded (?), and he did.

That mostly lifelong habit is apparently what killed him.  RIP.

I don’t think the purpose of Eraserhead was to be “entertaining.” It was a grueling and horrifying view of psychosis.  Smoking is not what killed him — he lived to 78, but rather that he was disabled for many years due to his breathing problems. Some people who knew him claim that cigarettes killed Jerry Garcia more than heroin. It’s bad stuff, I was addicted for years.

We don’t know what killed him because, unless it’s been updated, that wasn’t included in his family’s statement.

Well, in that case, smoking certainly didn’t kill him; it may cause certain eventually fatal conditions but it is not a primary cause of death. Unless you consider dying in a fire caused by smoking in bed. But he suffered from a serious debility of the lung for years. And since you need to breathe to stay alive, and you need your lungs to breathe, I would say that it is closely correlated with his death. Unless you are a stickler and want to rule out a car accident or drug overdose before you would say his death was not related to his inability to breathe.

By that reasoning alcoholism never kills anyone either, it’s the cirrhosis or the esophageal varices or the delerium tremens…

Which, of course, are caused by the drinking. Just as emphysema is caused by smoking, or by a similar exposure to deeply inhaled particulates that contain irritants, which may be carcinogenic [black lung, asbestosis].

I lost multiple loved ones to diseases caused by smoking. It’s a scourge.

There’s a difference between smoking and alcoholism. Alcoholism is a disease in itself. It is far more acute in its effects than smoking. You can die from acute ingestion alcohol. 

He had emphysema, and it was bad enough that he was admitting publicly it was the reason he would likely never be able to direct another movie.  Unless he got hit by a truck it’s a pretty safe bet the cigarettes finally got him.

Yes, I’m aware of that. 

I’m well aware that “Eraserhead” was not meant to be “entertaining.”  I said that because there are films that I love because I never tire of watching them.  And then there are films that stand out as complete originals and singular visions- like “Eraserhead”- that I really don’t care to see that much.  Being a cinephile, it’s a notable distinction. 

I found it to be unnerving the first time I saw it, even tedious.  When I chose to write about Lynch for a film class, I had to watch Eraserhead a second time.  That’s when I discovered that it is a very darkly funny movie—but only once you’ve suffered through the initial hell of it.  The dark humor might be more instantly recognizable if one has seen all of his other work before, but back then I was fairly young, and Wild at Heart was the most recent film he had done, so not a big sample size.

Once you know that the film was crafted when Lynch was a young parent as well as a struggling artist, hating life in an industrial area of Philadelphia (which he hated), the film starts to make more “sense.”

It was grindingly tedious in its slow unwinding of the painful plot. I did miss the humor in it, but it is always interesting to rewatch a movie and find that I missed that it was highly comical or campy. I doubt I will rewatch Eraserhead. 

I know what you mean. There are whole lists of movies that you can only watch once, even though they may be brilliant. They are just too painful. Certainly I would never watch Eraserhead more than once. I may have watched Taxi Driver twice but never again, as brilliant as it is. On the other hand, I’ve watched Goodfellas at least a half dozen times. 

Evidently the tipping point was having to be evacuated during the wildfires in LA.  His body couldn’t take the stress. 

Lynch’s 2012 guest arc on the series LOUIE opposite Louis CK is classic, playing a slightly deranged network executive who’s been tasked with meeting with Louie to see if he has the comedic potential to replace Letterman. Apparently Lynch was only 66 at the time but he looked like 80. Tobacco claims another one. 

It wrinkles you up, it grays your hair, it stains your teeth and hands, and it gets its hooks into you more deeply than heroin.

What’s not to love? /s, savagely.

I lived in the Seattle area in the early 1980s. In 1990, I was transferred for work to the Midwest, where I was miserable. The culture and the racism my family — especially my children — encountered were terrible.

Then Twin Peaks began being broadcast. From the opening scenes I saw Snoqualmie Falls, where my wife and I had spent many pleasant days, and I was transported back out of the Midwest to the Northwest, which I loved. 

The show was uneven. Strange. Hilarious. And at times boring.

But it was good TV. And I loved seeing the Northwest from afar.

Fortunately, I was able to return there a couple of years later, thanks to a senior manager who valued me and offered me a transfer back to the Northwest as well as paying for the move. 

Blue Velvet was another interesting product of Mr. Lynch. Strange. Creepy. Exploitive. And fascinating. 

R.I.P. Bureau Chief Gordon Cole. R.I.P David Lynch. 

I’m really sorry about what you all, especially the kids, were forced to deal with where you were transferred. And glad someone with the ability to do so got you out of there.

Thank you. They were young enough it didn’t have lasting effects, as far as I know. But I was certain I didn’t want them growing up and maturing in that culture. 

Twin Peaks singlehandedly introduced weirdness to American television--making way for a whole slew of challenging TV series in its wake. It utterly changed the template for what a TV series can be.

Lost.

Six Feet Under.

Northern Exposure.

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Agreed. Though, I’ve not seen those other series. I notice Lost is on Netflix now. Worth the time, in your opinion?

The problem with his smoking is not that he died, it’s inevitable and he lived a long life. But rather that he was an incapacitated for many years and was limited in his work due to his breathing problems.

I am a huge fan; I believe Elephant Man and Mulholland Drive to be some of the finest films ever. Most of his films are about something, and that’s why I believe Blue Velvet is superior to Pulp Fiction, which I find to be an exploitation movie with all its “edginess.”  Eraserhead is also one of the most terrifying movies. A grim picture of psychosis. A nurse where I worked was shown it when she started work in a psych ward. I even got a kick out of Dune. I liked it better than the new ones. 

The French as Seen by…, sponsored by the newspaper Le Figaro is a hilarious short with Harry Dean Stanton, although I believe it is not available anywhere, even as a DVD on Amazon.

I'm a psychiatrist of 40 years, and have to agree that Eraserhead is certainly the best representation of morbid psychosis I've ever seen. It's amazing how one film can be simultaneously alienating, sympathetic, funny, horrifying, beautiful, ugly, and ultimately amazing. 

What an opening salvo for one artist to introduce himself to the world!

Agreed about Pulp Fiction.   Quentin Tarantino comes across as a sniggering little boy who is way too clever for his own good, plus there is a really ugly streak of misogyny throughout his works.   David Lynch’s films were mega-weird but they were clearly the work of an adult, not a twelve year old who lassoed flies and giggled about it. 

I loved "Lost Highway." The phone calling scene with Robert Blake still manages to freak me out.

So many people told me they couldn’t figure Lost Highway out, but Lynch put the key right in the script:  “I hate video because it shows how things really are.”  The entire movie is an hallucination, except for the sequences on videotape.  When you watch it with that in mind it makes perfect sense.  And yeah, the guy did kill his wife.

Big fan of his film works... 

I once took a date to a midnight showing of "Eraserhead" at the Times Cinema in Milwaukee... Let's just say there was no 2nd date…

On the side, Lynch also helped write lyrics for a wonderful singer, Juliee Cruise, with musical production by Angelo Badalamenti... Anyone who likes the musical score work from Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, etc., should look it up... So awesome…

I still have my copy of Laura Palmer's diary...

Back in the days when I still used to go to the cinema, one of my brothers and I went to a screening of Eraserhead; maybe about 5 years or so after it’d been released. I no longer go to the cinema but Eraserhead was the one and only film I’ve ever been to where the audience walked out after NOT saying a word. My brother and I were chuckling about what a mind-fuck it’d been, but everybody else looked like they’d just been told their whole family had been killed in a car crash.

Yeah, my date & I had a quiet, awkward hourlong drive home... That movie was cinematic birth control...

If he’d never made another film after Eraserhead, he’d still be a giant in my estimation. His later films weren’t always great, but the often used words individual and unique did truly apply to him. I’ll be re-watching Eraserhead for sure this weekend.

Here is David playing John Ford in the Fablemans.

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As I get older I see these things happen more often and I’m trying harder to make sure I do the best I can here with my meager talents before my random collection date.  Jagjug say, “David Lynch…. GOOD!” 

“ . . . now it’s dark.”

If you take the dare to watch “Twin Peaks, the Return” you will come across a scene somewhere in the middle, a prolonged vision of a nuclear blast. It is one of the most beautiful and absolutely horrific and evil things that you will ever see, it goes on for minutes I think. No one else would ever have had the gut passion to put anything like that into a movie. Seemed to me to declare that THIS evil changed everything. Everything.

When I saw “Gotta Light?” for the first time, I was like, “This was actually aired on television.” It was amazing. 

I’ve seen all three adaptations of Dune, and I still think Lynch’s was the best.  The costumes were stunning, the visual design was genuinely alien, and Kyle MacLachlan was terrific as Paul Atreides.  I wish he’d been given more money and a chance to do Dune Messiah.