THE KING OF DREAMS: David Lynch’s Step into Eternity
David Keith Lynch (January 20, 1946 – January 15, 2025) was an American filmmaker, visual artist, musician, and actor. Lynch was regarded as one of the most outstanding directors of his era, often hailed as a visionary and celebrated for his films, which were frequently marked by surrealism and a penchant for experimentation / instagram.com
Teaching us through his films to dive headfirst into the beyond, into our subconscious, where dreams are indistinguishable from reality, and there is no way out alive, David Lynch himself has now taken a step straight into eternity. He departed, leaving behind a legacy of great films and sacred knowledge for us all.
For instance, he taught us that the reality surrounding us is merely a dream that has escaped the confines of its realm; that horror is embedded in the very nature of cinema — an ever-shifting entity woven from illusion; and that creativity requires clarity of vision to capture ideas; that ideas, especially the great ones, dwell in the depths, like fish.
And now, all of this belongs solely to us.
LYNCH BEFORE LYNCH: FROM STICKY AVANT-GARDE TO BIG HOLLYWOO
The most avant-garde of mainstream directors and the most mainstream avant-garde filmmakers, David Lynch, found himself in cinema almost by accident. A trained painter, he unexpectedly discovered that through film, he could quite literally bring his artwork to life. In doing so, he became a true master of dreams.
His films were stripped of any overt social or existential messages, speaking directly to the ordinary subconscious, from which he unearthed vast reserves of mystical dread. He first gained fame in 1977 with his completely experimental, expressionist horror Eraserhead, in which a reclusive inhabitant of an industrial wasteland is trapped in a sticky nightmare upon receiving the sudden news of his child’s birth.
Yet, no matter how hard he tries, he cannot determine the baby’s name or even its gender. But he does understand that, as a responsible man, he must marry his former girlfriend — who, incidentally, is also the mother of this alien-like creature lurking behind the radiator. To this day, it remains a mystery what Lynch used to create his eerie on-screen infant. When asked in interviews, «How did you make it?» he always responded with polite silence, admitting only that the story was deeply personal to him.
It’s important to note that three years before filming, Lynch had a daughter, only to be abandoned by his wife soon after. It seems logical that the director transmuted his own hidden fears — including the fear of fatherhood — into a film that captivates with its surreal carnival, its extraordinary sound design, and its thick, twilight atmosphere. (Eraserhead was shot entirely at night under artificial lighting to save both money and time.) This signature aesthetic would later become Lynch’s hallmark.
That same year, in 1977, young George Lucas took notice of the emerging director and invited him to direct Return of the Jedi. Lynch declined. Instead, he was tempted by Mel Brooks’ offer to direct The Elephant Man — his most politically correct film, which, three years later, would earn him eight Academy Award nominations and the admiration of Stanley Kubrick. In fact, Kubrick later drew inspiration from Lynch’s masterpiece while working on The Shining.
Over time, this black-and-white meditation on a tender human soul suffering under a body deemed grotesque by society — what Lynch himself described as «a dream of dark and troubling things» — acquired countless interpretations. Yet, according to the director, no one ever truly grasped its real meaning.
Then came Dune (1984) — a multimillion-dollar, hypnotic sci-fi disaster from which Lynch distanced himself for the rest of his life. It was this «failed» Dune that Denis Villeneuve would later reference when crafting his own adaptation of Frank Herbert’s novel.
IN THE EMBRACE OF BLUE VELVE
The true Lynch began in 1986: when Blue Velvet hit the screens, it crystallized all the hallmarks of his signature style — fatal beauties (here embodied by the sultry singer Dorothy, played by Isabella Rossellini), infernal villains (like Dennis Hopper’s psychopathic Frank), red curtains, melancholic, aching songs (with the hypnotic motif of the slow-burning hit Blue Velvet threading through the film), and pitch-black humor.
This was a goldmine that Lynch struck and spent years refining. Here, he captured his essence: a signature tone and an atmosphere of nightmare-laced, intoxicating delirium, where the ordinary mutates into the uncanny. It was also in Blue Velvet that the haunting, bittersweet music of Angelo Badalamenti first flowed from the screen — the beginning of an inseparable creative partnership.
Blue Velvet was born out of a sensory impression: a red mouth, green eyes, piercing light, something reminiscent of Edward Hopper (the famed American painter and chronicler of urban solitude), as Lynch later recalled.
The story of the inquisitive young Jeffrey (played by a youthful Kyle MacLachlan — future Agent Cooper), whose curiosity about a severed human ear found in the grass outside his home leads him into a waking hell, remains a mystery to this day. «I don’t know why people think art has to have meaning», Lynch would say. «After all, everyone seems to have accepted that life has no meaning».
There are countless interpretations of this bizarre tale. One suggests that everything unfolding on screen is merely the hallucination of a character reeling from the shock of his father’s stroke. But where does imagination end? And does it end at all?
«Cinema speaks more than plot or dialogue ever could», Lynch mused. «That’s how I once experienced Fellini’s 8½. I believe audiences have always been capable of perceiving abstract structures. Every time I finish a film, the first reaction I hear is: ‘This is a disaster!’ That happened with Blue Velvet, even with The Elephant Man. The studios hated them, wanted to cut them apart, but then, somehow, the films found their fiercest supporters, and everything fell into place».
Like a seasoned illusionist, Lynch expertly erases clues and eliminates traces that might allow anyone to interpret his artistic message definitively.
THE TOWN WHERE PINES HIDE SECRETS
Equally self-contained and stylistically impeccable, Twin Peaks became a cult phenomenon that forever transformed the perception of television series — elevating them beyond endless soap operas through its haunting atmosphere and polyphony of meanings, which intertwined and reflected endlessly upon one another.
The cursed question «Who killed Laura Palmer?» obsessed everyone — from housewives and schoolchildren to intellectuals and politicians. Mikhail Gorbachev, having fallen under Twin Peaks’ spell, reportedly attempted to uncover the answer through George H.W. Bush. According to legend, the U.S. president even called David Lynch personally, only to be met with the same enigmatic resistance as the rest of the world. «Imagine dealing with a book whose author has died — there’s simply no one left to ask. Consider me nonexistent».
Twin Peaks even disrupted Paul McCartney’s performance for the Queen. For a special birthday celebration at Buckingham Palace, Sir Paul had composed a forty-minute set. But just as he was about to take the stage, Queen Elizabeth II politely excused herself — because «Episode Six of Twin Peaks» was about to air.
Having found his voice in Blue Velvet, Lynch fully spread his wings with Twin Peaks, stretching its hypnotic mysticism, pop-culture delirium, childlike belief in miracles, and unbearable refinement of depravity across decades.
The quaint little town, once lined with manicured green lawns, became even more sinister. By night, it was ruled by forces of pathological, infernal evil, and the owls were not what they seemed. The stark, glowing divide of the road cutting through the darkness would later lead straight to Lost Highway (1997), while a certain mystical nightclub would find its echoes in Mulholland Drive (2001).
LYNCHO SAPIENS
In Lynch’s universe, a new kind of modern human first emerged — one who, uncertain of their true identity, eventually stepped into reality itself. Having passed through an era of distrust toward the world, people suddenly became terrified that they themselves were not who they seemed to be (and you thought the owls were mysterious!). Lynch pushed this aesthetic of self-doubt to its absolute limit. His characters constantly don different masks, yet it’s impossible to say whether any of them conceal their true face.
This is articulated most vividly in Mulholland Drive. Naomi Watts’ sweet, wide-eyed blonde, arriving in Hollywood with dreams of stardom, drifts between dream and reality. In one version, she helps a brunette who has lost her memory after a criminal entanglement; in another, she is a struggling actress, tormented by a painful breakup with her lover — who, in a cruel twist, looks exactly like that same mysterious brunette.
Lynch’s protagonists suffer from a cinematic form of dissociative disorder, where one personality replaces another. Mulholland Drive is also a love letter to Los Angeles, a city Lynch adored beyond measure. Three of his films are set there, and two are dedicated specifically to Hollywood itself.
A poet of old-fashioned, strong, and innocent America — untouched by psychoanalysis and self-reflection — Lynch professes his deep love for the City of Angels in his book Catching the Big Fish:
«I came to Los Angeles from Philadelphia. I arrived at night. And only in the morning, stepping outside my tiny apartment on San Vicente Boulevard, did I see this light. My soul sang. I felt absolutely happy — I could live with this light. I love Los Angeles. The atmosphere of the golden age of cinema is still alive here, hiding in the jasmine-scented night air and the beautiful weather. And the light — it excites and energizes. Even when the smog hangs heavy, the light never becomes harsh; it remains clear and calm, filling me with the sensation that I am all-powerful…»
THE KING AT THE THRESHOLD OF ETERNITY
In his final decade, he lived as a true recluse in Los Angeles, immersing himself in his many passions — painting, making music, singing, photographing, and crafting furniture. After the premiere of the new Twin Peaks (2017), his only cinematic experiments were his Los Angeles weather reports, recorded for social media. Wearing dark sunglasses and leaning like the Tower of Pisa, Lynch delivered these forecasts with an enigmatic presence. Yet his devoted followers across the world watched them with bated breath, searching for hidden meta-messages.
He departed just days before his 79th birthday, leaving us alone with his films and the intoxicating haze of his dreamlike world — where the ordinary mutates into the extraordinary, and escape is impossible. He left only to remain with us forever.
