I have never seen a single one of his movies but I love watching interviews with him, he had an amazing presence and so much energy.
Actually, his influence on how surrealist fiction is presented throughout all media cannot be understated. I was surprised to read even the original Zelda has him as an influence. Majora's Mask does feel particularly Lynchian.
It would not surprise me if the Souls games and at least the later Berserks (late 90s/early 2000s forward) were either directly or 1-step indirectly influenced by Lynch.
https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2019/12/feature_how_david_...
The original Zelda was released way before Lynch's Twin Peaks, which was a hit in Japan, was even in production. The look of the protagonist of Zelda was inspired by Disney's Peter Pan. The pig villain was inspired by a pig man in Journey to the West.
https://www.reddit.com/r/bloodborne/comments/xgu21c/eraserhe...
I wouldn't call it his best work, but it is Lynch at his most singular and uncompromising.
It was the last thing he made for TV/cinema and for me feels like the culmination of everything he did before it.
More so than "Eraserhead"?
There's just something in it that made me viscerally hate it, and I'm usually fond of surreal movies.
And when they dance together at the end with "Mysteries of Love" playing - wow.
I had to watch Mulholland Drive at least 5 times to get a sense of what it's even about, and I think I must have been the audience for which he made that film, if it wasn't indeed just art to make himself happy (which is the BEST kind).
Anyway, it kind of endears another person to you when you connect with their work. So this one hit kind of hard.
I lost a fellow weirdo, and he'll be missed!
After that Mullholland Drive is absolutely brilliant and has that unforgettable masterpiece diner scene: https://youtu.be/UozhOo0Dt4o?si=GedzAdMh0KIXoHz4
If you didn't know it was by Lynch you would never suspect it.
For Eraserhead, I understand the metaphor of how parenting can be larger-than-life and terrifying and I see how Eraserhead was trying to embody that but I very much didn't appreciate the highly pessimistic ending. It's an early movie that would have benefited immensely from an alternate ending on its DVD.
Watch a few interviews where he is asked what a film of his means. A smirk comes on his face and he repeats his mantra.
He never let on.
Unless you are a narcissist (probable billionare) who feels the need to go back and explain every detail about the wizarding world you created a few decades later and reveal what kind of piece of crap you are.
These days you'll have to be more specific.
Lynch: "Believe it or not, Eraserhead is my most spiritual film."
Lean: "Elaborate on that?"
Lynch: "No, I wont. No one sees it."
It isn't the elusive puzzle that many cinephiles value in his work, but it is clearly a Lynch film, even if it's not a stereotypical one.
And his style of surrealism has been so influential that it has its own term: Lynchian!
I spent the whole time trying to work out what was different between the "two".
I mean, it’s exactly the sort of thing he would do and I still loved it.
Magic!
I liked the season after a rewatch but the Dougie stuff is still tedious.
When people say "surreal" they mean "real", it's just most of your life is not very real, just repetition and routine. - Norm MacdonaldThere is nothing worse than getting excited to see a famous director's debut film, thinking you're going to have a good time, and then getting Eraserhead.
It is a film explicitly designed to be unpleasant. This may be artistically interesting, but it's certainly no going to appeal to most people.
First two seasons of Twin Peaks are his masterpiece IMO and his most watchable.
Those are some of the best characters of any film/tv show ever.
From there I would go to Lost Highway next for a stronger dose of the more out there stuff.
it's not like i'm not used to watching long movies and i would call myself some form of cinephile, but for some reason Twin Peaks felt unbelievably slow.
For me, the second step would either be The Elephant Man or Mulholland Dr. -- many of his works tackle very dark subject matter and include sexualized violence that can be downright disturbing to watch, but those two omit those elements. The Straight Story is much lighter, but largely lacks the surrealism Lynch is known for.
(Sorry — it appears to be 360p, not very hi-res. Other higher res versions can be found but with subtitles or dubbed in... maybe Farsi?)
https://youtu.be/F4wh_mc8hRE?si=SJwtz31ZEWuW9rk7
(Has swearing off that matters for your use!) Rest in peace.
Family sexual abuse survivors in particular have lauded the movie. It's really DL's most serious treatment of an issue (but makes it harder to watch too).