DAVID LYNCH
JANUARY 20, 1946-JANAUARY 16, 2025
I feel compelled to begin with an admission: When I first saw it, I hated, absolutely
hated "Blue Velvet." (1986).David Lynch's suburban noir mystery psychodrama "Blue Velvet," which he wrote and directed, was released when I was 17 years old, and my memory of the critical reactions at the time were truly polarizing, all the way to my favorite critics the late Gene Siskel and the late Roger Ebert, who famously awarded the film with responses that ranged from being regarded as one of the best films of 1986 (Siskel) to possibly being one of the worst (Ebert). Being a controversial release was an understatement to say the least due to the disturbing content which consisted of varying levels of depraved, despairing behaviors and elements which included, but was not limited to, scenes of graphic violence, sadomasochism and sexual assault.
To give you a little background as to my cinematic tastes during this period of my film education, I had already seen, loved and was deeply obsessed and inspired by both Martin Scorsese's "After Hours" (1985) and Jonathan Demme's "Something Wild' (1986), darker, dangerous film stories told with high style and vision. I felt that with "Blue Velvet," David Lynch would take me to similar territories.
He took me further and farther than I could have anticipated.
While I distinctly being kind of with the film for its first 25 minutes or so, even as I was a bit put off by the sheer obviousness within the image of murderous ants toiling away underneath the pristine suburban setting that evoked a timeless hybrid of then present day small town 1980s with a 1950's aesthetic. "Yes, David Lynch, I get it!," I said to myself and the screen in that haughty teenage faux world weary tone as if I had seen all that there was to see...and of course, I certainly hadn't. But still, I continued to feel unusually annoyed. "There's dark stuff below the superficial toppings of perfection. No need to rub my face in it," I grumbled. But anyhow, I shrugged that off and kept watching.
Once college boy Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan), home from school to tend to a family tragedy, discovers a severed ear in a field near his home, he becomes enveloped in a pitch black mystery, which really gets underway once he hides in the closet of local lounge singer Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini) who is soon confronted by the psychotic Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper).
From this point to the end of the film, I just disconnected. Not that I was necessarily disturbed. I just found myself not grasping onto anything happening as it all felt to be so overwrought, so hyperbolic, so artificial in addition to being self-congratulatory. In fact, I vividly remember thinking the whole enterprise as being stupid and my reaction was indeed passionate to being angry.
Unlike what Scorsese and Demme delivered with their films, I could not reach David Lynch's vision. It is not as if I needed or wanted Lynch to take his film and have it hold my hand to walk through it together. I realize now after nearly 40 years that I was reaching but I could not find myself able to grab hands with it.
Dear readers, while it may seem odd to begin in this fashion, I guarantee that it will all connect. I promise you that the opening anecdote will grow into becoming a heartfelt tribute to filmmaker, artist, writer, sculptor, painter, musician, and most truthfully, humanist David Lynch, who passed away on January 16th, just four days from what would have been his 79th birthday. Again, by this point, I would not be surprised if some of you were questioning if I am really the right person to be offering words of tribute and appreciation for David Lynch if this is how I felt about one of his most widely praised films.
I did have that reaction towards "Blue Velvet." Honestly so. But, in addition, I also housed this feeling over the years after having seen that film...
David Lynch's "Blue Velvet" was indeed its own beast, existing in its own universe that might have existed somewhere beyond film. While I reacted so strongly, largely because of the feeling that the film did not make sense, I turn to the words from the man himself who once stated the following:
"I don't know why people expect art to make sense. They accept the fact that life doesn't make sense."
Exactly. Precisely. Absolutely. Definitely.
At 17 or 18, I did not understand this quality of the artist and the art they choose to create at all. I wasn't at a stage to receive the message quite yet that it is not the job of art to necessarily make sense. And it is unquestionably not the job of art to make the person receiving the work feel comfortable. Of course, we need art to entertain, to soothe and comfort, to provide joy, escape and release. But, art, by its inherent nature, is designed to challenge, to provoke, to disturb, and of course, to seriously question aspects of the life experience sometimes to uncomfortable degrees, for both the artist and the receiver. At its finest, art engages the cerebral as well as the instinctual and emotional planes of ourselves and as with all of the films that have made the greatest marks upon me, they are the ones that do provide some inexplicable transcendence, that out of body feeling where we are not passively watching but purely experiencing.
David Lynch's "Blue Velvet" is a work that was beholden to not terribly much that arrived before it, and aside from Lynch's filmography itself, there has been nothing quite like it since. Even if I hated it, I had to give it respect.
And believe me, after 40 years of movie going, and after just that one viewing, I have never forgotten it.
I am writing with reverence to everything David Lynch created, delivered and shared to the motion picture arts and sciences when I express to you whole heartedly that David Lynch was one of our cinematic giants, a true original, a visionary and one whose body of work achieved what so many attempt but is difficult to attain. To take all that came before him and invent his own cinematic language and genre unto himself. For when you say the name "David Lynch," and even if you have never seen a frame of his work, you instantly know what kind of an experience he will present, what it will look and sound like, and what it will feel like.
As for me, for nearly as long as I have been awakened to the power of the movies, I was always aware of him for David Lynch has always been there. And even now, after his passing, he has only grown in his tremendous presence and influence. But again, my relationship with David Lynch did not begin with any sense of reverence. In fact, I kept him a quite a safe distance...
PART ONE:
It feels significant to me that when David Lynch's debut feature, the surrealist nightmare "Eraserhead" (1977) was released in the exact same year as both George Lucas' "Star Wars" (1977) and Steven Spielberg's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (1977) as all three were landmark features that rewrote the rules and advanced entirely what the movies, and therefore, what going to the movies could actually be.
Where Lucas and Spielberg propelled populist features for the general public, Lynch's "Eraserhead" ventured towards the fringes of the independent midnight movie arena, where the cinematically adventurous, curious and darker spirited cinephiles could find inspiration as well as explore areas of themselves that mainstream movies typically did not venture. I was a child when "Eraserhead" was released and I don't believe that I ever really knew anything about it until reading science fiction film magazines like Starlog and perhaps that was the area where I first began to regard Lynch's name and the darkness his film reputation has originated based upon that one film. The strangeness of the film's title and the shock of the starkly black and white one sheet poster starring Jack Nance and his pillar of horror film, "Bride Of Frankenstein" hair was more than enough to keep me far away.
By the time of Lynch's second film, "The Elephant Man" (1980), I was 11 and beginning to view more challenging films and paying strict attention to the tutelage of the aforementioned Siskel & Ebert. Yet, despite that film's critical acclaim, a sign that would poke my curiosity and even prod me to try out something new, the grotesqueness of the titular character's appearance, which was only really hinted at on television in ads and film clips, was more than enough to frighten me on a primal level. Again, I stayed far away, further imprinting David Lynch's name onto material that felt to be far out of my safety zone.
Martin Scorsese once described movies as being dreams, a feeling to which I deeply agree. In the case of David Lynch, with both "Eraserhead" and "The Elephant Man," his films were no mere dreams. David Lynch's films were nightmares. Deep, unrelenting, grotesque nightmares. And why would I ever willingly choose to attend a nightmare?
PART TWO:
By the time I was 14, David Lynch's ill fated third feature film "Dune" (1984) was released. Despite his intimidating pedigree, the science fiction genre, as well as the PG rating, made me feel this to be a safer entry point. While critically derided and essentially disowned by Lynch himself due to the troubled production combined with not achieving final cut of his own work--proclaiming he "died a death" in a 2024 radio//podcast interview on "Wild Card" with NPR's Rachel Martin--I remember being utterly awed by the film.
Granted, David Lynch's "Dune" was a bizarre experience, itself worlds away from the visions Lucas and Spielberg had already conjured and arrested me with. Again, somehow, "Dune" was its own beast, conjuring images--notably, the most Lynch-ian moments i.e. the corpulent, boil faced Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Kenneth McMillan) rising into the air only to descend and wrathfully molest his minions, smearing his face with black blood--that have locked themselves inside of me ever since, even only having seen the film perhaps twice in my lifetime.
After seeing "Dune," and later "Blue Velvet," I began to admit to myself that while I may not have necessarily liked David Lynch as a filmmaker, I certainly appreciated him, his approach and what he was doing within film. David Lynch's specialized brand of cinema had already taken hold, whether I fully realized it or not. As I previously stated, he was always just right there, making his presence known, informing me that he was available should I wish to take that leap.
In fact, by my college years and subsequent adult life here in Madison, WI, it almost felt as if David Lynch could be anywhere and/or everywhere as he seemed to permeate the atmosphere. Not forcefully or demonstrably. But in his own patient yet unshakably purposeful fashion.
PART THREE:
In 1990, I was 21 years old.
I was a Junior in college at the University Of Wisconsin-Madison, well into my double major of Communication Arts and English. In the Summer before my Senior year, David Lynch 's "Wild At Heart" was released. While my desire to see the film was muted at best, and even possibly ushered by Roger Ebert's extremely negative review, I did end up seeing the film opening weekend with two friends with whom I had been enjoying a sort of belated teenage Summer--the kind of which I did not experience during my adolescence.
To my surprise, I absolutely loved the film! I honestly cold not explain to you exactly how a film that was so often repugnant, vile, overwrought, gratuitously violent, supremely disturbing (especially including one sequence of near sexual assault between a never more repellant Willem Dafoe and Lynch regular Laura Dern) and relentlessly profane was also a work that was undeniably mesmerizing and deliriously romantic--the usage of Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game," my introduction to that song, via a quiet sequence of a deep in the night lonely road drive, was just masterful. Movement and music working together blissfully in time indeed.
That being said, further viewings of the film burrowed under my skin to such a degree that any enjoyment I had was replaced by a larger sense of malevolent unease and even distaste, barring me from viewing it ever again since the early 90's. Expressing those changing feelings and views about the film to a friend, he responded top me with the following: "Yeah...that's true. But, when I think of that movie, all I really remember is Nicolas Cage running on top of all of those cars to get to Laura Dern and he grabs her and sings 'Love Me Tender.' That's what that movie is for me."
Within that very same year of 1990, but during the Spring, Lynch's foray into television was unveiled to the world in the form of the now iconic "Twin Peaks" (1990-1991), which ultimately ran for two seasons before making the leap to the cinema with the prequel "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me" (1992) and finally, an 18 hour episode re-appearance via Showtime with "Twin Peaks: The Return" (2017).
And it all passed me by...sort of...
"Twin Peaks" premiered on April 8, 1990, right at the end of my college Spring Break. I was more than intrigued with the concept of David Lynch somehow working within the confines of television but there was the issue that I did not own a television back on campus, so there was really no way for me to even see any of it, let alone try to keep up. So, I never, ever saw it.
Once again, it feels more than fitting that David Lynch's emergence upon the world's stage of cinema occurred with George Lucas and Steven Spielberg's full arrival in 1977 because it feels that "Twin Peaks" was essentially Lynch's "Star Wars," so to speak, as it has ascended through its subsequent prequel film and sequel revival series plus the devotion from the fan community worldwide, which has only continued to grow.
But in 1990, it cannot be overstated that "Twin Peaks" instantly punctured through absolutely everything regarding the pop cultural zeitgeist to the degree that for even people like me who never watched even one moment of the television program knew exactly what it was! The mystery of who killed Laura Palmer. Special Agent Dale Cooper. Damn fine cups of coffee and delicious pieces of cherry pie. Composer Angelo Badalamenti's iconic theme and score. It was EVERYWHERE!
"Twin Peaks," and therefore, David Lynch, had fully permeated the atmosphere. I vividly remember one English class lecture I had which occurred the day after the previous evening's episode premiered. My Professor at the time was unable to even begin thinking about his lecture concerning the class subject at hand until after he gushed in awe about what had aired on television the night before within "Twin Peaks." (It actually became so prevalent, that I actually ceased going to the main lectures altogether because I really didn't wish to hear him extol seemingly endlessly about this show when it had nothing to do with the class at hand. I primarily just attended the T.A. led sections.)
I also vividly remember a downright spooky or rather Lynch-ian night when I was sleeping over at my then girlfriend's (now wife) apartment and we were awakened by surprisingly loud music coming from elsewhere in the building. Roused from sleep, we each peeked through the doorway to find one of her roommates alone in their living room, bathed in blue light (from the television or the light of the moon through the window, I do not remember), and performing what I now know to be "Audrey's Dance"--the dreamlike swaying motions of the "Twin Peaks" high school character Audrey Horne as portrayed by Sherilyn Fenn--fully accompanied by the aforementioned score by Badalamenti from the soundtrack album. To be jarred from sleep by this sound and sight was more than a little unsettling and my girlfriend and I just silently gazed then walked backwards into our room and just went back to sleep, wordlessly remarking to each other the pure oddity of what we had seen.
After graduating in 1991, and beginning my adult life in Madison proper, the presence of David Lynch only continued to grow. for during that period, it was somehow known that Lynch was dating resident Madisonian Mary Sweeney, a filmmaker in her own write as well as one of Lynch's key collaborators as a Producer, Editor and even Screenwriter of Lynch's "The Straight Story" (1999), co-written with longtime Madison based writer/film-video-television Producer John Roach.
Lynch sightings around my city were often recounted with bemused awe...that he was actually here! I remember a friend who was employed at the now defunct Hilldale movie theater who told me with mouth agape that David Lynch was at the theater the night before to see Oliver Stone's "JFK" (1993).
My own proximity to a Lynch sighting was closer than I could have imagined when one day at the University Bookstore, where I was employed in the General Books department as a clerk, my co-workers/friends and I were shocked to hear from a co-worker who worked just one floor below us emerged in our department, literally shaking as he announced, "David Lynch was just here!!" And in his hands, was the credit card carbon displaying Lynch's signature as proof. I remember quickly heading downstairs one flight in disbelief and venturing to another friend who was also employed at the store and inquired if what we had all heard was true. "Yup," she said in an unimpressed matter of fact fashion. "He came and bought some art supplies. He actually comes here quite a bit. He's nice. A little odd but nice. He was wearing this little rope like a necktie. What's the big deal? He puts on his pants one leg at a time just like everybody else!"
So near and yet so far, and really, I couldn't help my excitement for why would someone of his stature be anywhere close to where I was? And still, even with my building fascination, I remained far away from exploring Lynch's films, most likely with the bad taste of "Wild At Heart" lingering and the grim reviews of "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me" being un-encouraging.
I wouldn't truly connect with Lynch for roughly another 10 years.
As the years passed, David Lynch continued to release films and I would continue to not attend, despite compelling pushes from the stunning soundtrack of "Lost Highway" (1997), which featured selections from The Smashing Pumpkins, Nine Inch Nails, and David Bowie all of whom I revered, and the universal critical praise for "The Straight Story."
Yet, once "Mulholland Drive" (2001) was released, for reasons I cannot remember, I took the plunge...and this time, the experience was a direct hit!
David Lynch's "Mulholland Drive" was a powerfully intoxicating film which served up a simultaneous love letter to the Hollywood dream factory and a starkly nightmarish warning of the same Hollywood but as an unrepentant machine that has undoubtedly ruined many who dared to enter in pursuit of reaching their highest fantasies and wishes. Overflowing with a sinister 1940's film noir aesthetic, luscious surrealism that delivered a narrative that was both linear and non-linear, confounding side streets and blind alleys, and fueled by an absolutely sensational leading performance (or performances?) by Naomi Watts, I felt the film functioned as Lynch's conceptual masterpiece as well as being his most deeply empathetic film--especially during its shattering climax.
It was a cinematic puzzle that I loved losing myself within, so much so, that this was the first Lynch film that I had ventured out to see in the theaters--and several times, at that--before regarding it again on home video formats. After all of these years since first seeing the film, I don't know if I would suggest it to Lynch novices as the proper entry point to his oeuvre. I did certainly think that "Mulholland Drive" felt as if all of his trademarks and proclivities were existing in a perfect balance with each other resulting in the complete experience delivered. To that end, I guess I think of this film as one that Lynch, as the artist, and myself, as the receiver, both needed to evolve towards at that specific time. It is difficult for me to think of him creating "Mulholland Drive" without having had created all that came before it. Much like how I do not think I could have received the work as grandly as I did without having seen all of the films I had seen up to that point, and living the life experience I had before the film and I officially met. It was crucially the right film at the right time.
Of course, there was my wife's reaction to the film when I excitedly brought it home after having renting it from our local video store. "What did you think???" I asked, hoping that she and I would engage in a discussion about what we had each regarded. She responded, "I think that David Lynch is at home right now having a big laugh at people like you who thought that was about absolutely anything at all! That was ridiculous!"
Somehow, I think that Lynch would have happily howled at that response as much as I think he would have appreciated the praise and affection for it. I had to give it to him and applaud his sensibilities to existing as an artist so steadfast against offering even a morsel of his intentions conceptually and his refusal to reveal ay sense of meaning behind his storytelling to audiences. It made me think that Lynch possessed deep respect for himself as an artist and for us as an audience, in that he may have mused that we were intelligent enough to meet his work where we felt able and derive whatever we wished from it. He didn't need to hold our hands and clearly, had he no interest in doing so. My respect for him deepened, even as I still did not see his then future work or his past efforts. I was happy he existed. That he was out there, somewhere, just doing his thing his way...and how the world needed artists like him.
PART FIVE
On June 13, 2024, I was 55 years old and David Lynch was 78 years old. That date is significant to me because I really feel that this was the date on which I first "met" David Lynch, the salutation arriving via the aforementioned "Wild Card" podcast hosted by NPR's Rachel Martin. When the episode dropped, I was instantly fascinated because I realized that even after all of this time of having his name feature within my consciousness, I honestly did not know anything about the man. I didn't even know what he sounded like (his nasally bark clearly a key feature about him)!
What I received from his interview was an individual who was inspiring, strikingly warm and filled with a stream of consciousness style of storytelling and speaking that appealed to me greatly as it felt so recognizable. For don't we all share individual stories in this fashion: where we begin one place, find ourselves going down a tangent or several, and arriving in a completely different place yet somehow revolving back to our original points?
There was a playfulness to David Lynch throughout the interview. A devotion to being interested in the human condition without judgement, which I could see made him such an empathetic storyteller, stylist and visionary. Lynch's recollections about his upbringing, his artistic process and especially, his tales of his obsessive compartmentalization of the different areas of his life (home, school, art) felt perfectly relatable. Yet, it was within his descriptions of his spiritual life through his 40 year, twice a day practice with Transcendental Meditation, where I felt that I could see who this inscrutable figure was as a human being.
I honestly loved what I heard. He seemed to be a generally good man. Cantankerous...but one who harbored the deepest appreciation of beauty wherever he could find it, and certainly when he could tap into that beauty internally. Even so, it all felt so antithetical to the fury, pain, disillusionment, confusion, rage, wrath, viscera, unrelenting physical and psychological violence displayed throughout his work. It was difficult for me to reconcile the man I was hearing with his films. I was having difficulty fastening the two sides together.
After his passing in January, I felt that inexplicable compulsion to at long last make discoveries which I had avoided.
First, I re-listened to his NPR interview and found myself again enchanted. I then watched the exquisite documentary "David Lynch: The Art Life" (2016) as directed by Rick Barnes, Olivia Neergard-Holm and Jon Nguyen. Next, I re-acquainted myself with "Blue Velvet" which I hadn't seen in nearly 40 years and curious with how I would respond to it now deep into adulthood. While I can say my opinion of the film has changed, for I honestly liked it considerably more than I did in 1986, there were still elements to which I found a bit off, most notably Dennis Hopper's performance, which to me still felt to be so wildly over the top that I don't think the intended reaction of terror was fully reached.
Then, I found myself ready to take deeper dives as I finally watched...
1. "Eraserhead" (absolutely masterful--from the stunning Black and White cinematography, the stunning sound design and the overall control of mood and tension, I was amazed that this was his debut feature as it felt to be the work of a fully formed artist immediately...there was nothing tentative about it)
2. "Lost Highway" (an intoxicating fever dream so voluptuously filmed and realized--the Mobius strip narrative and constant menace--so terrific with the late Robert Blake's "Mystery Man" character--was so enveloping)
3. "The Straight Story" (a gorgeous experience showcasing humanity without surrealist touches while being so open to presenting a reality of aging, aloneness, determination, and the desire to attain a sense of peace--the final scene broke me--the late Richard Farnsworth was golden)
Although I had not watched "The Elephant Man" and "Wild At Heart" as they are not currently streaming, and I have not yet traveled to "Inland Empire" (2006), what I had discovered so far was the following regarding David Lynch's filmography...
That Lynch had amassed a cinematic universe so complete and filled end to end with his own cinematic language that what originally felt to be impenetrable now felt to be more than inviting. It was now without question that if his output meant anything at all, it is one that exists as a blindingly bright beacon of light, hope and possibility in an otherwise distraught cinematic world where the completely idiosyncratic is more underrepresented, undervalued and quite possibly, more unwanted than ever in this time of rampant nostalgia and recycled efforts.
As disturbing as Lynch's films are, one thing they are not are dishonest. Perhaps cinema was a way for David Lynch to explore not only his creativity, fascinations and interests but also more explicitly to process his own dreams and nightmares. I have enjoyed taking notice of his motifs, which are now considered to be "Lynch-ian."
Characters wandering or driving into or emerging from pitch back darkness being juxtaposed with being bathed in white light. Slow zooms into and inside of circular shaped objects. transitional dissolves, a predilection for lounge singers red curtains and zig zag patterns. The surreal and spiritual presence of electricity and the inner sounds, lives and worlds contained within physical spaces and industrialized objects. The repetition of names for differing people. The nature of obsession, repression, depression and how they relate to voyeurism, sexuality and eroticism, and most pointedly, explorations of misogyny and abuse towards women. Elements of body horror, most often as depicted through varying degrees of injuries to the head or brain ranging from painful migraines and amnesia all the way to bludgeonings, point blank gunshot brain emptying deaths and decapitations, whether real or imagined. And of course, all manner of memories, dreams, intuition and nightmares recounted by or experienced by characters who may be experiencing levels of psychological duality, shifting personalities, identities, realities and concepts of time.
All of the newfound knowledge prepared me to take the deepest dive of all, one that I really was not certain that I wished to undertake due to its volume. Without question, I am talking about the world of "Twin Peaks."
Before taking the journey to the pacific Northwest, friends who were already familiar and fans of the series and prequel film advised me to watch in the order of Season 1 in full, the premiere and conclusion of Season 2 only (a number of people warned me that the bulk of Season 2 is "a mess" due to Lynch's non-involvement), then watch "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me" and finally, "Twin Peaks: The Return."
Created by David Lynch and Mark Frost, "Twin Peaks" felt like a deliberate return to the aesthetic of "Blue Velvet," an idyllic landscape removed from larger society set in present day yet filtered through 1940's film noir, 1950's melodrama and 1970's-1980's day and night time soap opera theatrics and now including science fiction, horror, supernatural, spiritual and cosmic elements.
Instead of the remains of a dismembered ear, the "Twin Peaks" saga derives entirely from the murder of the 17 year old high school homecoming queen Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee), washed ashore and wrapped in plastic, and FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) who arrives in town to solve the mystery. While I enjoyed Season 1, I wasn't in love with it. Perhaps some of the show's unapologetically goofier elements and tonality didn't quite reach me as other elements, the existential, mystical, and more horrific sections. The climax of Season 2 was what really grabbed me, Cooper's imprisonment in the purgatorial Red Room while his evil doppelganger escapes into the real world with the spirit of Laura Palmer intoning in that backwards voice that the two--who never met in real life-- will meet again in 25 years.
"Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me," detailing the final seven days of Laura Palmer's life was as traumatic as I had imagined but it was also deeply captivating, immersive and what I feel is one of Lynch's finest films and defiantly, his most empathetic as it is unquestionably a powerful exploration of the trauma of sexual abuse, cycles of self protective disassociation, self destructive behaviors, familial complicities, societal willful ignorance and ultimately sacrifice and salvation. Sheryl Lee's harrowing performance was a volcanic swan dive into Hell, one of unabashed fearless commitment and a sheer lack of vanity. Seeing it now in 2025, I am stunned it was a not performance that garnered industry attention whether through awards or a heightened profile leading to even more significant roles for she truly deserved any accolades she could have received. For Lynch, the film, was a supremely notable achievement by taking what was already beloved within pop culture and then deepening the narrative in ways that were singular to himself as an artist fan service be damned.
"Twin Peaks: The Return," arriving essentially 25 years after the original series, unfurls the sprawling odyssey of Dale Cooper from the Red Room to beyond starring a cavalcade of characters both familiar and new in a dense, dizzying, demanding narrative that I feel is David Lynch's magnum opus.
It it more than fitting that this 18 part series, which I am thinking of as an 18 hour film, was Lynch's final cinematic statement as it is a work that is designed to be experienced on several levels. One could view it literally, just take it as a story face value and leave it right there. One could take it literally as well as figuratively, the work functioning as a metaphor for the human experience in 21st century America. And one could experience it literally, figuratively and as a work of self-reflexive commentary of the show and its relationship with its creator, actors and fan base, the battle between artistic and fan expectations in the age of nostalgia.
From a sheer storytelling standpoint, "The Return" is an exercise in patience and measuring one's own sense of expectation. Having 18 hours to tell his story, Lynch's pacing is deliberate to the point of being somnambulant. At times, it feels like he is trolling the audience in his slowness but in most situations, he is meditative, fully embracing sequences that meander.
From the curious opening sequence of Dr. Jacoby (Russ Tamblyn) receiving a collection of shovels, to the grace notes of trailer park caretaker Carl Rodd (the late Harry Dean Stanton) regarding nature or just quietly playing his guitar, to a lengthy sequence of a man sweeping the floor of The Roadhouse at the end of another busy night, to everything involving the near catatonic Dougie Jones, the human shell in which Dale Cooper finds himself trapped within, there are many times in which the series feels as if it is not going anywhere. I am curious if this was a purposeful move on the part of Lynch for we, as a society, have been conditioned to receiving information with lightning speed, the process of waiting all but eliminated. Even the Greek Chorus of al of the musical sequences at The Roadhouse force us to pause, to "listen to the sounds" and allow the moods and lyrics to guide our journey. Lynch is all the while setting the table, so to speak, forcing us all to re-learn how to wait. For when the parts click together, the narrative intensifies and solidifies hugely and I know I found myself emotionally upended time and again for how involved I was with these characters and the stories they were all involved with. By it's full conclusion, I was shattered.
Regarding the full cast of characters within the entirety of "Twin Peaks," I certainly did not possess the same sense of attachment as longtime fans who had been waiting 25 years for a reunion. But, I certainly understand the passion as again, I reference what George Lucas created with "Star Wars," because I desired to just return to that world again, to recapture that feeling "Star Wars" first gave to me at the age of 8.
Yet, what does this mean to those of us who never held those "Twin Peaks" memories and are now in the position of being able to regard the entire work all at once? With "Twin Peaks: The Return," and even not having had a quarter century alongside these characters, I was still deeply affected with seeing them as Lynch has presented a work that is about the passage of time, how it moves and how it fractures. For example, two podcasts that I have thoroughly enjoyed listening to--"The Detective and the Log Lady" and "Twin Peaks: The Return-A Season Three Podcast"--have each remarked how time does not quite match up from scene to scene or even within one sequence, suggesting that perhaps "The Return" was edited with a narrative or thematic intent and decidedly not a chronological one. Additionally, found it quite apt that the time span of "The Return" occurs during the fall as itis an autumnal series as it evokes a season of change, transformation, the vibrancy of Summer fading into new colors before the dormancy of Winter.
For me, even as a "Twin Peaks" novice, to see these characters, and as well these actors, with 25 more years affixed to them, added such resonant emotional power and stakes to "The Return," something that I did not anticipate to affect me as deeply as it did.
The evolutions of Bobby Briggs (Dana Ashbrook) and Nadine Hurley (Wendy Robie), for instance, lifted me upwards while the sense of stagnation in the emotional lives of James Hurley (James Marshall), Shelley Johnson (Madchen Amick), and the staff of the Twin Peaks Police Department spoke to the reality of small towns and its inhabitants who were born, grow up, live and will undoubtedly die in the only location they may have ever known. We feel the weight of time, seen despairingly in the solemn heartbroken face of Ed Hurley (Everett McGill), the absence of Sheriff Harry S. Truman (Michael Ontkean who declined participation due to his retirement from acting) or in the form of Benjamin Horne (Richard Beymer), eternally stationed to his desk and office in the Great Northern, and whose beautiful monologue about a cherished bicycle his Father gave to him as a child, was so loaded with unspoken regret for the Father he never became himself.
And then, there are all of the actors who passed away either before, during or shortly after the production or airing of the series, with special mention must be delivered to Catherine E. Coulson who portrayed the eccentric Margaret Lanterman, known through Twin Peaks as "The Log Lady." Her appearances within "The Return" contain some of the most poignant, aching moments as Coulson's terminal illness was written into the character, and the actress passed away several days after filming her scenes. Again, regarding "The Return" after Lynch's passing, is feels more than evident that we are also gaining not only a sense of how he was engaging with the world at the time of filming but also it serves as a retrospective of his entire filmography as moments, images and characters feel to double end upon themselves all the way back to "Eraserhead."
Lynch also details what happens when trauma and time combine, most notably in the terrifying form of Sarah Palmer (Grace Zabriskie) and undeniably within Dale Cooper himself as he has essentially experienced a full 25 year trauma in limbo, spending the entirety of "The Return" attempting to find himself again.
Kyle MacLachlan's performance(s) as the varying iterations of Dale Cooper are nothing short of revelatory as he inhabits three or even four versions of himself. The sheer physicality, the way he alters his voice, the overall completeness of each incarnation are sights to behold, again making me wonder why this man was not awarded copiously for the breadth and depth of his work. And still, Lynch forces us to readjust our own senses of expectations, desires with regards to potentially seeing the Dale Cooper that we know and love again, if at all.
This is most evident within the Las Vegas sequences where are are given the essentially vegetated Dougie Jones and plot threads that are revealed at an extremely slow pace. Yes, here is where Lynch is employing his unusual brand of what I guess I would identify as "reverse slapstick" and many of the set ups and windows into his family life with wife Janey-E (Naomi Watts) and child Sonny Jim (Pierce Gagnon) feel like a funhouse mirror version of "Father Knows Best" (1954-1960). However, what I felt was an existential sadness for Cooper as he was trapped inside a body that he instinctively knew was not his own but had no idea of how to become himself. The tear he sheds during a moment in which he looks over at a sad Sonny Jim broke my heart and watching this piece of his journey while hoping Cooper at long last wakes up while unknowingly turning around the fortunes of all he encounters made me feel as if Lynch was referencing Frank Capra's "It's A Wonderful Life" (1946) and Hal Ashby's "Being There" (1979) by way of The Who's rock opera "Tommy" (released May 19, 1969).
If we all just take a moment and regard our lives, how many selves do we all possess in a single day between our home, work, play, private, light, dark and more? How many times in or lives have we said or thought phrases such as "I'm not myself today," or "That's not me"? For as bonkers as the Dale Cooper odyssey is, I think we can easily view this as a story of how the compartmentalization of our different inner lives can produce their own sense of trauma, especially if we are unable to find our way back to ourselves...whomever our truest self might happen to be.
"Twin Peaks: The Return" is also David Lynch's dissertation about the nature of good and evil, as evidenced in the series' showstopping, one of a kind experience which arrived in Part 8 as Lynch took us directly inside a nuclear bomb mushroom cloud and beyond, rivaling the Star Gate sequence in Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968). It is here where Lynch's suggests that the greatest evil of evils as created by humankind for the sole purpose of ending humankind clearly disrupted the fabric of existence and allowed a greater evil to spring forth, take seed and infiltrate the world, metaphorically as the rapacious BOB and the ultimate negative spirit of Judy as they endlessly feed upon our pain and sorrow.
Watching "The Return" is an often despairing experience as well as a shockingly prescient one. While filmed before the Trump era, David Lynch could clearly see where we were heading as a society and now that we can regard the series now bookended by two Trump eras with a global pandemic right in the middle, it all begins to make sickening sense as to how far we have fallen...and it is all there in Lynch's grim vision.
In Twin Peaks, the once bustling mill has closed, therefore spiking unemployment, increasing situations where the poorest have to sell their blood in order to attain money to survive. Explosive rage via toxic masculinity has boiled over into rampant acts of physical, psychological and sexual violence against women. Cycles of abuse continue to repeat. Depression and isolation is higher. The sex trafficking of old is more prevalent as is the drug trade, in which the product is more severe and devastating, all of which destroys families and desecrates the youth. Our spiritual core is dying. This is essentially David Lynch's version of The Coen Brothers' "No Country For Old Men" (2007)-with a helping of Tarantino-esque sadism courtesy of characters portrayed by Tim Roth and Jennifer Jason Leigh----an elderly man staring out at an America he does not recognize anymore.
21st century America is a living horror show. "The Return" is a depiction of that horror and how we co-exist with it, even as we try to avert our eyes. Just like everyone in the insurance company straining to ignore the obvious debilitated state of Dougie Jones, to the scene in the crowded Roadhouse where a woman crawling on the floor screaming in rage attracts no attention. To the inexcusable abuse suffered by Laura Palmer.
Lynch's plea for us to find grace, and even salvation, where it can be found. The warmth of the Double R Restaurant, for instance. Signs of new romances and full vindications of long gestating ones (I was a sobbing mess at that one). The caretaker figures like Norma (the late Peggy Lipton), Andy (Harry Goaz), Lucy (Kimmy Robertson), Hawk (Michael Horse), Sheriff Frank Truman (the late Robert Forster) and The Log Lady among even more.
Lynch understood that everything within our existence is symbiotic and if one strand if plucked away, the entire fabric is irrevocably altered. In the case of "Twin Peaks," and as The Log Lady intoned, "Laura Palmer is the one."
The murder of Laura Palmer is what sets everything in the story in motion and nothing can occur without her tragedy, for which the entire community is complicit in one way or another. While her origin, as depicted in Part 8 may lend itself to a savior/martyr narrative, I wish to just see Laura Palmer as the essence of goodness, a regular teenage girl who was deplorably thrust into a nightmare of incestual sexual abuse, sex trafficking and drug abuse from the age of 12 until her murder and still, in her final moments on Earth, found it within herself to think of another human being to save her life while sacrificing her own.
Dale Cooper is another symbol of goodness which is tested through the vivisection of his identities merged with his own sense of justice tinged with hubris as he tries, fails and tries again to save what cannot be saved, to undo a trauma that cannot be undone and his salvation can only be found in acceptance and letting go or be doomed to spend existence in a Karmic loop a la Harold Ramis' "Groundhog Day" (1993) trying over and again until the lesson is learned, releasing him into transcendence.
David Lynch's "Twin Peaks: The Return" was a distressing series to behold and yet, it was something by series end, I did not wish to leave behind. In fact, once I finished, I opened up Part 1 again with the intent to see how this whole thing had begun because I had forgotten. Before I knew it, I was taking the entire 18 hour journey all over again, leaving me with the awe filled reaction of what had been created. Frankly, I feel it to being one of the finest films of the 21 century without question. No, not every moment works. There are questionable elements regarding the levels of graphic violence shown and not suggested. Not every performance is stellar (no offense to Chrysta Bell as Special Agent Tammy Preston--but I did warm to her statuesque oddball presence). Not every visual effect is great. And yet, all of that is OK for when the seams are deliberately showing, I feel we are receiving the fulness of Lynch as a creative. Watching this, you can see David Lynch's fingerprints upon every frame and in this world, again, of faceless reboots, re-imaginings, and the like, seeing something as organic as this--as if it has emerged directly from Lynch's brain--is in itself a minor miracle.
MEANWHILE...
David Lynch was, and remains, ephemeral, as the years have proven that he has contributed to the arts to such a degree that we will never truly know how many people he has influenced and inspired, from other filmmakers, to writers, to musicians and composers, to painters, to costume designers, to sound engineers, to sculptors, to anyone who dares to imagine and dream.
His passing contains such sadness for me not simply for a life now gone, but also for an art form that currently exists in a frighteningly precarious state to the exuberant lack of originality, creative risk or boldly original voices Yes, we still have the likes of Quentin Tarantino, Wes Anderson and Christopher Nolan who can still command cinematic attention on the sheer power of their names. The incredible success of Ryan Coogler's "Sinners" has proven that audiences and hungering for original, diverse cinematic voices. But, essentially, it feels like those days are gone and David Lynch's death feels like yet another sad reminder of what we are losing when it comes to what the art and artistry of the movies can actually be.
In the aforementioned NPR interview with Rachel Martin, Lynch was asked if he felt that if there is anything about us as humans that continues onwards after we die. Lynch replied with an enthusiastic "Are you kidding me?! SURE!!!! Consciousness lives on!!"
Yes, David Lynch is gone. But, much like his films and characters which exist upon differing or concurrent planes of existence, I believe that David Lynch is still here.
He is with me right now. Thank you, sir. Rest peacefully, we can take over the dreaming now.
