Remembering David Lynch: the eerie, the romantic and the surreal

David Lynch died yesterday at age 78. The legendary filmmaker is known for his eerie yet dreamlike movies and TV shows, such as Mulholland Drive, Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks.

Today on Commotion, film critics Rad Simonpillai, Kristy Puchko and Hanna Flint join Elamin Abdelmahmoud to discuss the legacy of Lynch's work on cinema.

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, including the panel's reviews of both The Last Showgirl and Better Man, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player.

Elamin: David Lynch received four Oscar nominations over his career: three as a director, one as a screenplay writer. He takes home an honorary Academy Award in 2019 for his filmmaking, [his] entire career. Rad, when you think about David Lynch's career, how do you begin to describe him as a filmmaker? 

Rad: Him and his work, they're so indescribable. And that's what makes him so fascinating and singular and hard to parse. I feel like I have to go into this in terms of how I experience him. And my way into David Lynch's world was with Blue Velvet, which I watched as a teen. And I understand, Kristy, you just watched it this morning. That's a movie where it's kind of familiar because it's this noirish thriller and you're like, "Ooh, it's just as seductive and beautiful as all of them." But at the same time, it's really strange and nightmarish. And you go in just like the Kyle MacLachlan character, where you find this rotting ear lurking beneath this lovely playing grass and this space that you thought you knew. And that is essentially the experience of a David Lynch movie. 

I think what's wild is how he was embraced by the public? How was he embraced by Hollywood? When you think of David Lynch as this guy who was in some ways standing so in opposition to Hollywood…. And his movies are dreamlike, they're avant-garde, they're very Luis Buñuel-inspired. But how is he able to make these movies? And it's because his movies have this affection for the movies. His movies are made up in the language of the Hollywood genre.

Elamin: David Lynch's work is a mood. It's like you get to descend into a space, or you're like, "I just get to feel strange and a little bit surreal, a little bit sort of outside reality while experiencing this movie." And yes, there's a plot, but really it's the strangeness of all these movies. Hanna, when you think about David Lynch's work, what are some of your favorite David Lynch movies? 

Hanna: It's not about what it's telling you, it's how does it make you feel? And for me, that's the biggest thing as a film critic that I look for, just feeling myriad emotions.

I'd previously seen this documentary called Lynch/Oz, which was directed by Alexandre O. Philippe, and that was about how much The Wizard of Oz is referenced in so much of Lynch's work. So when you talk about the weird, [the] strange, there's also a whimsy in his work. And Wild at Heart is probably one of the most romantic films of his. And it kind of has this campish, kind of eccentricity to it, which I quite adore. And yes, it's got the dark themes, but ultimately it's about love being worth it. And I think, ultimately, David Lynch was a romantic. He loved love, and love comes with pain and darkness.

Elamin: That description of David Lynch as a romantic rings true for me, from the work that I've seen of David Lynch. Because there is something about the way that movies tend to cover love, and then there's something about how David Lynch talks about it as this weird pursuit of the weird parts of you, and being willing to expose the parts that you have a very difficult time making vulnerable — and he did. And he made them stranger and stranger and stranger, all in the pursuit of the same kind of romance. And there's something really compelling about the way that he frames that. 

Kristy: What I was so struck by watching Blue Velvet this morning is that it's actually a very sweet story about this young man who finds this ear and then wants a little taste of adventure and uncovers a side of his town that he didn't realize existed. As dark as that movie gets, there's still an inherent sweetness in his [Kyle MacLachlan's] relationship with Laura Dern. And that persists in all of these things, where there's always a core of, no matter how dark they get, David Lynch believing in love and believing in an authenticity. I think that's part of why he's so influential. I think he told a lot of people in various ways, like, "Let your freak flag fly, find your people." What I thought was really affecting is seeing the same clips getting shared again and again, the same quotes of "Focus on the donut, not the hole," which you can parse however you want. But I feel like that's something about focusing on the thing that feeds you versus the thing that might detract from you.

But then also, "Fix your heart," I'm seeing all over, I'm on very queer spaces online. For those who don't know, he's [David Lynch in an episode of Twin Peaks] talking to a trans character and saying like, "I know your your co-workers may be giving you a hard time about this, and I told them, 'Fix your heart or die.'" Not just to have a character say that, but to have his character say that, was a really powerful way of saying that opening your heart is essential to living. That's it. Period. And I think that that's what's so fascinating is we talk about [the] Lynchian and it's like, it's slippery, it's surreal, it's kind of twisted. But there's such a sweetness in it. Like, there's such a radiant sweetness at the core of all these psychosexual things. 

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Panel produced by Jane van Koeverden.