David Lynch
I’m not sure if anyone could ever “get” one of his movies completely beyond the experience and the narrative. He always left so much unsaid and open to interpretation, just like life. They are movies designed to make the viewer feel a certain way, rather than literally what’s in the screen. He was one of the few directors that I thought of as making weird things that I would enjoy (most of the time), but how could anyone else?
“I like to remember things my own way. How I remembered them, not necessarily the way they happened.”
First video was May 11, 2020: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krIj6eLF4mU
Last video was December 16, 2022: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l21GFyOO8Ug
He also released a daily video in which he drew a bingo number. I can't really imagine any other major director doing something like that in their late 70s.
https://youtu.be/C0Cvtu2FfGw?si=1_wk8fPMeeHYLrxl
I love that DFW wrote an essay about Lost Highway and used the term “Lynchian” (something horrific sitting right next to something mundane in a scene).
Charlie Rose asked Lynch about the phrase and didn’t really know how to respond.
Rose then brings this up with DFW who kinda chuckles and implies that was what he would expect.
Two extremely talented and intelligent creatives, but where DFW cared quite a bit how he was perceived, I don’t think Lynch ever gave a shit.
Lynch was on another plane of creativity and I’m not sure he even really knew it. He just did what he wanted to do (except for the original Dune film…)and let people take away from it what they might.
I honestly cant say I “enjoy” Lynch films but I will be the first to admit there is heart and soul poured into them by a genius.
https://variety.com/2025/film/news/david-lynch-dead-director...
RIP.
"There's safety in thinking in a diner. You can have your coffee or your milk shake, and you can go off into strange dark areas, and always come back to the safety of the diner. "
"The light can make all the difference in a film, even in a character. I love seeing people come out of darkness."
What an interesting man. RIP.
In addition to his incredible film/television work, I'd like to give a shout-out to his other forms of artistic expression which often got less attention. His musical output captured the same unique vibe as his films, for example his album Crazy Clown Time is almost certainly best enjoyed in a smoky room with syncopated strobe lights and patterned flooring. His mixed-media paintings and sculpture were also impressively unsettling.
I'm not going to touch on his films, which are all special and definitely worth watching, but if anyone who didn't know him wants a primer on his complex, sometimes surreal, but I think ultimately endearing personality, then this is a nice introduction:
Perhaps we do and we just need to nurture it more.
Also the Mr Plow-ish of all playstation advertisements.
Dune is more fun to watch and seems to have emerged as my all-time favorite film. In spite of it's flaws and Lynch's own disdain for it, the orphaned film is no less visionary, and is as strikingly original as anything Lynch has made.
Like a zen koan, the unexplainably of it could consistently shock the viewer back into experiencing the entire breadth of human emotion and experience that is outside of rational understanding.
David Lynch's work was mind blowingly creative and original work in a sea of boring media made by committees trying to extract a little more profit from the same few banal formulas over and over.
I'm shocked and grateful he was able to fund and produce things that were so weird and fascinating. The owls are not what they seem.
Now I know why.
I'm happy I never met him, not in the sense of meeting your heros, but in the sense of, 'some things are better left unsaid'. I took that with me after blue velvet, I didn't get that movie when i first saw it, I didn't pretend to, but I took that experience with me..
I argue sometimes how some topics are unrelated to Tech (hn) that get a good ratio, but this one really is one that makes me appreciate the method of madness.
Rest in peace big man. I'm who I am thanks to your work.
Edit with appreciation " (I still don't 'get' his movies) They impact my thinking.
All his weirder movies were great experiences but my favorite ever Lynch movie is the Straight Story. such a perfect beautiful movie. I loved badalamenti music as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCzAetSFRC8&ab_channel=amast...
I always thought writing and directing a movie of pure kindness and making it interesting as a piece of great art was the real mark of genius.
“You’ve been seen associating with chickens Jack!”
Without David Lynch the world is just a little bit duller today. :(
No matter what he did, no matter what you think of his works, he never compromised on being himself.
Here's Lynch making quinoa https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSP-ewdJYJc&ab_channel=scayn...
https://x.com/JFrankensteiner/status/1480286294634909697
He wasn't just a great creator with all the stuff that made him famous but genuinely funny and creative as a person, sad day.
I was holding out hope he was actually immortal.
I know that sounds really weird, but that’s the sort of thing he inspired.
If anybody was going to live for ever it would be him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4mTxm9sQg0
RIP
Thanks you David to have shared with us your art life.
https://www.reddit.com/r/davidlynch/comments/1fg3npu/david_l...
_____
May everyone be happy. May everyone be free of disease. May auspiciousness be seen everywhere. May suffering belong to no-one. Peace. Jai guru dev __________
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RIP David Lynch, 20 January 1946 - 16 January 2025
The world is so much better for having been visited by DL.
His bit with the Cow on median in Hollywood is hilarious.
God speed you shinny diamond.
At 1:26 https://youtu.be/UwPprWxt9oo
His thoughts on it: https://youtu.be/fG18Na5PDTg?si=eC-DtnuEWwouhr07
I don't consider too many people to be personal heroes but I did think of David Lynch in this way.
Rest in peace. Thank you for your creative output and your mad-passion for film and meditation.
- David Lynch
This little video is such a great tribute to him. RIP David.
https://www.reddit.com/r/davidlynch/comments/1fg3npu/david_l...
___________
May everyone be happy. May everyone be free of disease. May auspiciousness be seen everywhere. May suffering belong to no-one. Peace. Jai guru dev
_______
RIP David Lynch, 20 January 1946 - 16 January 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbtUAlFN8po
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QJpY2VNP0E
rip
No words, just a feeling somewhere between waking and dreaming.
Among everything else, he made me discover one of my favourite bands, Au Revoir Simone
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* [Here's the CEO of the David Lynch Foundation receiving the thanks of the Herndon, Virginia police department for teaching them TM for free:](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikMi0xqS8fU)
* Here's David Lynch chatting with President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, about teaching Ukrainian 100,000 veterans TM to help them with their PTSD.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xf7-mErKWlc)
* [Here's David Lynch meditating with 5,000 kids that his Foundation taught TM for free to in Brazil.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJD-M2FpKNU)
* [Here's Smithsonian Magazine's take on the David LynchFoundation (they gave him an award as Innovator of the Year for the work of his Foundation)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iBaJ2K7JOo)
* [David Lynch discussing the work of his Foundation.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dxhkd_fZUTE)
* [Excerpts from the first David Lynch Foundation benefit concert (billed as "the Beatles Reunion concert by the press as it was headlined by Sir Paul and Sir Ringo)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJg5mKuCh7A)
* [Saving the disposable ones](https://www.cultureunplugged.com/documentary/watch-online/pl...) — a David Lynch Foundation. documentary about the work of Father Gabriel Mejia, a Roman Catholic priest whose Foundation has rescued 40,000 child prostitutes over the past 2 decades and taught them TM as therapy for PTSD.
* [Impacting Children’s Health Through Meditation Globally](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVCQJl1XVmg&t=230s) - the David Lynch Foundation's invited presentation at the Vatican about their work.
For more info, see: [The David Lynch Foundation](http://www.davidlynchfoundation.org) and [Fundación David Lynch de América Latina](https://fundaciondavidlynch.org)
RIP
Never tripped out harder than watching Blue Velvet one lonely night.
Also Twin Peaks, so trippy.
A true legend RIP