Author: Patricia Reaney
LOS ANGELES/NEW YORK (Reuters) – David Lynch, the American director, writer and artist who was nominated for the best director Oscar for “Blue Velvet”, “The Elephant Man” and “Mulholland Drive” and co-created the groundbreaking TV series “Twin Peaks” , has died at the age of 78, his family announced on Thursday.
“It is with deep regret that we, his family, announce the passing of the man and artist David Lynch,” said a statement on Lynch’s Facebook page (NASDAQ: ). “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, not the hole.'”
The cause of death has not been released. Lynch revealed in August 2024 that he had been diagnosed with emphysema, a lung disease caused by long-term smoking.
With his visually stunning, disturbing and inscrutable works full of dream sequences and bizarre imagery, Lynch was considered a master of surrealism and one of the most innovative filmmakers of his generation.
He received an honorary Academy Award in 2019 for lifetime achievement.
The enigmatic artist and devotee of Transcendental Meditation preferred not to explain his complex, confusing films, which included “Wild at Heart,” the 1990 Palme d’Or winner at the Cannes Film Festival, the 1977 horror “Eraserhead” and the 1997 mystery “Lost highway”.
“A film or a picture, each thing is a special kind of language and it’s not right to try to say the same thing with words. The words are not there,” he told The Guardian newspaper in an interview in 2018.
His shooting style gave rise to the term Lynchian, described by Vanity Fair as strange, eerie and slow. In his films, Lynch inserted the eerie and disturbing into the ordinary and everyday and enhanced the impression with music.
Lynch said that he was interested not only in the story, but also in the mood of the film, set by common visual elements and sound.
“His eye for absurd details that throw a scene into shocking relief and his taste for risky, often grotesque material have made him perhaps Hollywood’s most revered eccentric, a kind of psychopathic Norman Rockwell.” The New York Times (NYSE: ) said in 1990.
After his death on Thursday, several directors said Lynch inspired them. Actor and director Ron Howard, writing about Xu, called Lynch “a kind man and fearless artist who followed his heart and soul and proved that radical experimentation can yield unforgettable cinema.”
ICON OF COUNTERCULTURE
Lynch, a former Eagle Scout once described by producer Mel Brooks as “Jimmy Stewart from Mars,” has grown into a counterculture icon, but his roots are firmly planted in wholesome, small-town America.
David Keith Lynch was born on January 20, 1946 in Missoula, Montana, the eldest of three children. His father worked for the US Department of Agriculture and the family moved frequently. Lynch once described his childhood as “very beautiful, a kind of perfect world”.
But as an art student at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in the 1960s, he encountered the darker side of America while living in a crime-ridden, seedy area of Philadelphia with his wife and young daughter. He described the city as the biggest influence on his life.
That experience inspired “Eraserhead,” his disturbing, hallucinatory debut film that became a midnight cult hit. After seeing the film, Brooks, the producer of “The Elephant Man,” hired Lynch to direct it.
“The Elephant Man,” about a severely deformed man in Victorian London, was nominated for eight Oscars in 1981. Although it failed to win an Oscar, it launched Lynch into the mainstream. But his next film, the 1984 sci-fi epic Dune, bombed at the box office.
Two years later, Lynch was back on top with “Blue Velvet,” which delved into the mysterious underworld of a small North Carolina town. Some critics considered it his masterpiece and the best film of the decade.
“‘Blue Velvet’ represents something that has never been seen before and probably never will be seen again: an underground film made with Hollywood means and Hollywood skill. It’s the midnight mainstream,” wrote Dave Kehr of The Chicago Tribune in his 1986 review. .
Lynch moved to the small screen in 1990 when he created the ABC crime mystery series “Twin Peaks” with Mark Frost. The Emmy-winning series became a cultural phenomenon and was revived in 2017.
“Mulholland Drive,” Lynch’s 2001 Hollywood mystery, began as a TV pilot but was rejected by a network to eventually make it to the big screen. It was named the best film of the 21st century so far in a 2016 BBC poll of 177 critics around the world.
In his later years, Lynch, a true renaissance man, devoted himself to making documentaries, short films, painting and a YouTube channel. He has released albums, music videos, soundtracks, and books, including his 2018 memoir, “Room to Dream.”
The acclaimed director was married four times and was the father of four children.
“I love what I do and I get to work on the things I want to work on. I wish everyone had that opportunity,” he told Vulture.com in a 2018 interview.
