In this reported feature, editorial assistant Skyli Alvarez talks to seven young creatives about the late David Lynch, and the impact the film auteur and musician had on their work and their worldviews.
When the Surrealists declared their search for total artistic freedom a century ago, few could’ve thought their successor would be a Montana native who prided himself on his early years as a Boy Scout. Now, 100 years later, it’s hard to imagine anyone other than David Lynch who has done surrealism so successfully.
On the morning of January 16, Lynch’s family announced his passing via Facebook, just four days shy of what would have been his 79th birthday. Best recognized for his hypnagogic, almost-soapy dramas such as Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet, the director-artist’s career spanned six decades, leaving no medium untouched in the process. From short and feature-length film and television to music, painting, and even a bit of meteorology, the Lynch universe is a vast web of velvet curtains, small towns, and prophetic owls. He placed the spotlight on the mundane, the perverse, and the perversely mundane, and he is widely credited with sweeping surrealism into mainstream media, far beyond just cinema.
I came across Twin Peaks as a 14-year-old during a weekend in which I was bedridden by a terrible cold with not much else to do. The series was the furthest cry from other shows I was watching at the time, like Stranger Things and Scream Queens. Then, and still now, Lynch challenged my understanding of what film should look like. Though far from easily digestible, his work gives his multigenerational audience permission to bend the constraints of logic, to fold them inside out and outside in, to let them fall apart. Above all, he shows us a new way of seeing the world. And maybe it’s his very rejection of pragmatism that other young people have found comforting, because, sometimes, real life doesn’t make sense. Often, it’s much stranger than fiction.
It is tough to forget your first encounter with Lynchian-ism. Below, we spoke to a handful of young creatives and self-proclaimed Lynchheads on their earliest memories of the director’s work and how he’s shaped the way they approach storytelling across mediums.
Sarah Kendric, 24, Art Director
Sarah Kendric: I have plenty of friends who love David Lynch and understood “Lynchian” as an adjective before ever seeing a film of his. My first was Mulholland Drive, which felt like homework to put on — I didn’t go to film school. It turned out to be a marker for measuring how my understanding of his work has grown over time. On first watch, I was intrigued by the idea that a film could be a puzzle. When I last saw it a few months ago, I felt like I could speak his language.
SK: I was sitting at my desk at work. A friend texted: “refresh Twitter.”
SK: Lynch’s style is singular, but I find his creative philosophy to be very universal. We shared the same belief that ideas come to us from the beyond, and it’s our job as artists to bring them to life without judgement. His approach taught me that creation can be predicated on questions instead of answers.
SK: So many! Whenever he refuses to answer a question.
SK: Americana. Talking backwards. Surrealism. Cigarettes. The Wizard of Oz. Fire. Mystery. Red lipstick. Red curtains. Donuts. Curiosity. Symbology. Especially, a tremendous amount of heart.
Jon MacGregor, 26, Artist
Jon MacGregor: I rented Blue Velvet from my [local] library when I was 15 and was starstruck by its glamour and grotesque qualities. Up to that point, I had never seen a film that explored themes with such a genuine search for authenticity.
JM: I was sitting at my easel in my little studio. A friend had messaged me and I immediately was brought back, all those years of loving him. Through the walks within Twin Peaks, through the tragic story of Laura Palmer, I was brought back to being that young artist.
JM: Often with a bittersweet feeling, Lynch taught me how to express my thoughts with passion. He never hid his face from the bizarreness, he wore it bravely and with such openness.
Lucila Safdie, 27, Fashion Designer
Lucila Safdie: A boy I liked when I was around 14 talked to me about Mulholland Drive. I pretended I knew what he was talking about, so I went to my dad and asked him about it. He said I would actually love David Lynch, and we watched it that night, followed immediately by Blue Velvet. I think that moment changed my brain chemistry forever.
LS: I was at the airport, and one of my best friends texted me about it. I cried a lot and listened to “Song to the Siren” (from Lost Highway) on the plane and cried more.
LS: Starting to watch his work during my teens really felt like opening up to the idea that there are a million ways to express a story. He talks a lot about preferring to narrate with questions rather than answers. I think that’s genius, and I like the idea of approaching my way of working like that.
Pate Duncan, 25, Film Studies PhD Student
Pate Duncan: I was maybe a freshman in high school when I stumbled upon Twin Peaks. Its tone could change from campy humor, uncanny horror, aching melodrama, and a kind of sincere moral sentiment in seconds, yet keeping each of those elements distinct. Twin Peaks showed me how I could have an encounter with something truly artful in its medium.
PD: I had just parked to get groceries. I had a bunch of texts from my undergraduate film club friends immediately checking in on me. I got my groceries in a daze, got back in my car, and wept before heading home. Not since SOPHIE’s death have I been so affected by an artist’s passing.
PD: Lynch’s uncanniness is in part what makes his work appealing to queer audiences. He understands our subjective experience is rarely cleanly separable when making sense of them in language. Lynch can wring strangeness out of the most rigid, calcified things. Suddenly, you look at them differently and realize that the very strangeness was there all along.
PD: I can’t ever exhaust his films by analyzing them: they will always have an element of mystery. But I think the challenge he gives every viewer — and it’s a very generous challenge — is to approach that mystery as best as you can and with all you have to offer.
Margaret Sadegh, 22, Musician
Margaret Sadegh: My first impression of Lynch was through his album The Big Dream. I found it searching through music rabbit holes and it instantly captivated me. I then watched Rabbits at age 14 and felt so entranced.
MS: I was on a walk and got a text saying “Rest in Peace David Lynch” and “Here’s to your f*ck, Frank,” the latter being a quote from Blue Velvet.
MS: I am comforted by its unnerving qualities because they feel real to my understanding of the world. The music he chooses feels so important because of how it carries us through a place we do not know, but feels familiar. His art sounds, looks, and feels like a recurring dream.
MS: He is acutely in touch with the depths of personhood. He weaves together stories, people, and places that feel both detached and nostalgic. His art serves as a memory trigger.
Mollie Robertson, 23, Personal Assistant
Mollie Robertson: I had heard Lynch’s name get thrown around since high school, but I didn’t really start paying attention to him until I started taking my film studies classes in college. My first film was Eraserhead, and its absurdist imagery and narrative left a profound impact on me.
MR: I was with my boyfriend when my friend texted me the news. My boyfriend immediately responded by purchasing a Blue Velvet VHS.
MR: As someone who grew up in the suburbs, it is so easy to be trapped in your own bubble, completely closed off from the happenings of the outside world. It can feel isolating and lonely, and I resonate with how Lynch takes these emotions and uses them to show the fragility of the “American Dream.”
Lex McMenamin, 29, News & Politics Editor
Lex McMenamin: I first got into David Lynch watching the original Twin Peaks, which I marathoned back in 2017, the month after I graduated from undergrad, in advance of Twin Peaks: The Return. My best friend and I were living together at the time and she'd long been telling me to watch. I was immediately obsessed, and it changed my brain chemistry.
LM: His depiction of violence against women. In some ways, despite being written and engineered by a cishet white guy, his works are the most empathetic and world-shattering portrayals of PTSD caused by sexual and family violence. There are characters that in any other form of media would be the “heroes” — handsome white men, cops and detectives, family patriarchs — who in Lynch's hands are revealed to be the source of intergenerational trauma.
LM: I was on Slack. Something lovely and painful about his passing is that truly countless people reached out to me. One bestie recalled our visit to Snoqualmie, Washington to see key locations where Twin Peaks was filmed, others just shared in my grief. His work brought people together in many ways.
