David Lynch
-
From Shadows: What It Means to Love David Lynch
With David Lynch’s passing comes a reminder that, in the words of Thomas Aquinas, the “things that we love tell us what we are.” How simple, how direct, how naturally right this sounds on its face—yet scratch the surface and, whoa, you may find a huddle of rapacious black beetles tearing the hell out of each other. Explain that as a “thing that you love” to your grandmother—which I did, or tried to, during the summer break of my junior year at college, and would have had she not said almost to herself, during the Frank-ritualistically-raping-Dorothy scene, “I don’t know […]
by Nicholas Rombes on Mar 18, 2025 -
Out Ahead: The Anti-Convention of David Lynch’s Screenwriting
When I’ve taught screenwriting workshops I’ve been fond of reminding beginning screenwriters that Warner Brothers put David Lynch’s screenplay for Blue Velvet into turnaround in a day by with the terse comment, “The worst script ever submitted to us.” Presumably, the script was read by professionals. What had so offended them? What was so insufferable? Well, I tell my students, according to Robert McKee’s rules about a “well-made” object, the reader’s report was correct: The script is incompetent if you evaluate a script on how carefully and cleverly it adheres to how people expect stories to be told, or how much it adheres to the laudable values of plausibility, recognizability and […]
by Larry Gross on Mar 18, 2025 -
City of Moods: David Lynch and Los Angeles
My initial encounter with David Lynch was in the form of Maxell T-120 videocassettes, hand-labeled with my mother’s impeccable penmanship to indicate which episodes of Twin Peaks were contained. I was five when the pilot of Lynch’s series premiered on ABC, and it was canceled before I finished first grade. I never had the nerve to pop one of those tapes in the VCR, and so, filed in faux woodgrain VHS cabinets next to other recorded-from-television fare, these tapes remained untouched. I grew up in the long shadow cast by downtown Los Angeles, and trips into the city were infrequent: […]
by K.J. Relth-Miller on Mar 18, 2025 -
Black Smoke: David Lynch, L. Frank Baum and California
On day two of January’s Los Angeles fires, I took a picture looking east from the hills where I live. The zoomed-in, abstracted shape in the frame resembles a reverse hourglass; the dark plume rising from the center, Altadena, seems drawn up from the ashen ground to fully conceal the sky. The color of that central plume isn’t the rusty brown of wildfire smoke but an artificial black, like burning tires or the “SURRENDER DOROTHY” message the Wicked Witch writes across the sky with her broom—one of the great practical effects in The Wizard of Oz. I’ve read that David […]
by Courtney Stephens on Mar 18, 2025 -
Stepping Inside: How David Lynch Tapped Into the Unconscious
David Lynch’s death was a big personal loss of a friend, confidant and mentor, but it’s been astonishing to me how many people who knew him only through his art have been affected. He got inside our heads so effectively; like Kafka, he had remarkable access to his unconscious. He seemed as though he could dream while awake, and being on a set with him, not only were you entering his dream, but everybody there was having a collective dream. I saw Eraserhead when I was in high school; friends took me to a midnight showing at the University of […]
by Scott Coffey on Mar 18, 2025 -
Passing Through the Black Lodge: David Lynch and Native Culture
There’s an episode in David Lynch’s memoir Room to Dream that I think of often, from his cross-country journey from Philadelphia to Los Angeles to begin his time as a student at the American Film Institute, where he would go on to create Eraserhead. At the end of the drive’s second day, David, his brother John and future collaborator Jack Fisk pulled over to the side of the road in the New Mexican desert: It was a moonless night and we went down into these bushes to sleep. It was real quiet, then suddenly there was a whooshing sound and […]
by Adam Piron on Mar 18, 2025 -
Remembering David Lynch, 1946 – 2025
Director David Lynch, whose works plumbed the dream life of the American unconscious, revealing both joy and the deepest of horrors within, died today at the age of 78. “It is with deep regret that we, his family, announce the passing of the man and the artist, David Lynch. We would appreciate some privacy at this time,” his family posted on Facebook. “There’s a big hole in the world now that he’s no longer with us. But, as he would say, ‘Keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole.’ It’s a beautiful day with golden sunshine and […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 16, 2025 -
David Lynch on (Just) Making the Day
“Did you make the day?” That’s the first question financiers and production execs will ask after a first day — or, really, any day — of shooting. “Making the day” means completing all the scenes on the call sheet so that the production isn’t falling behind, something that can led to dropped scenes, budget overruns and more. But beyond the “making the day” question lies a deeper one: how is a production making the day? Rushed scenes, abandoned coverage and quickly made decisions can result in an on-time shooting schedule but diminished artistic results. That’s why this behind-the-scenes video of […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 17, 2024 -
Editor Duwayne Dunham on Collaborating with David Lynch on Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart and Twin Peaks
Five years after the Music Box Theatre’s previous David Lynch retrospective coincided with the television premiere of the highly anticipated Twin Peaks: The Return, the Chicago-based arthouse now presents David Lynch: A Complete Retrospective – The Return, a week-long celebration of Lynch’s work that also pays tribute to his many collaborators, friends and, in one particular instance, offspring. Running through April 14th, the retrospective also includes several in-person appearances, one being from Duwayne Dunham, Lynch’s editor on Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, Twin Peaks and Twin Peaks: The Return. An industry veteran who has continued to work extensively for both Lynch and […]
by Erik Luers on Apr 12, 2022 -
“There’s So Much Darkness, So Much Room to Dream”: David Lynch on Lost Highway
The following interview with David Lynch appeared in Filmmaker‘s Winter, 1997 issue, and is being reposted online today as a newly restored Lost Highway opens at New York’s IFC Center before the release of a 4K UHD edition from Criterion in October. An audacious return to feature filmmaking after his underrated Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, Lost Highway is pure Lynch. Alternately seductive, mysterious, and terrifying, the film’s narrative unfolds with the chaos of a waking nightmare. Bill Pullman plays an avant-jazz musician whose fear of intimacy with his wife, Patricia Arquette, propels him into a series of schizophrenic states. Or […]
by Stuart Swezey on Jul 22, 2021
