I wasn't supposed to be writing this today.
No, today should have been one of the last posts of the Comics Challenge which started a year ago. It's this comic and then one more, and then that's all done. The Comics Challenge, which I started on the urgings of my friend Sean Dillon in exchange for getting the answer to a burning question. A question that became a bit of a meme between us, held over my head like a funny little tease. Why is The Straight Story the best Star Trek movie ever? Sean has an answer, a legitimate one, and their word count is ballooning. I should have had a post on this comic up yesterday, but I was delayed in running my errands. That's fine, I thought. I could put it off for one more day, it wouldn't hurt. So there I was, on Thursday afternoon, scrolling Bluesky, when I saw a funny thing. A little thing about David Lynch, the story about his Woody Woodpecker dolls. Cute story. Then I saw another David Lynch thing. I copied the link, about to send it to my pal Joe. My pal Joe, who watched Twin Peaks in near tandem with me, who bought me a copy of Mulholland Drive for us to watch together because he wanted to share one of his favorite films with me. A friend whom I bonded with over many things, but the works of David Lynch among them. It was there in those DMs that I saw the link, that I learned that such a sadness had occured.
It was there that I learned David Lynch was no longer with us.
What can you say about David Lynch? I have to say something, as I feel it's only right. Here is a man whose strange vision and esoteric filmography literally rewired my brain, shuffled me about and changed me for the better. Here is a man who was so good at imbuing his work with a specific surreal vibe that his own name has become a shorthand for other works of media which share that energy. There never was a filmmaker quite like David Lynch, and I fear there never may be one again. I can tell you all about my brushes with him in the past. I have spoken of the day my old neighbor gave away old books to me, and how I came across and read The Secret Diary Of Laura Palmer and was haunted by it. I can talk about taping the movie themed around that book off of TV, not engaging with it, and having that tape come back like a phoenix from the ashes once I had truly understood its source material. I can talk about the fall of 2005, the dying days of one phase of my life, and being in the city with the man who would become my roommate as he showed me a strange and bizarre adaptation of that sci-fi novel he turned me on to. I could talk about all these things and more, but I have one clear focus. One thing I need to thank David Lynch for, as I say farewell to him.
David Lynch helped me to open my eyes and see. His work challenged you to a different and deeper sense of understanding, where what happened was not as important as how it made you feel. Trying to explain the plot progression of something like Eraserhead, Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, or Inland Empire will leave you with something functional but lacking a certain totemic power. Explaining how it made you feel, the vibe you get from those films, is the key to that deeper understanding. It's fitting that the Comics Challenge had that essay in comic form called Unflattening, the book about perspective and understanding the relation between word and image that only comics can convey. David Lynch helped unflatten me and make me a better media critic. When I finished Twin Peaks, I wanted to cover it on the blog. I could have gone through every little weird thing which happens in that show, but I didn't. I went for the brevity. Instead of telling you what happened, I told you how it made me feel. It resulted in a fresh new lease on life for me and my writing, a new way to express myself. It made my words better. I lost the plot a little here and there in the intervening posts since, but I got it back. The Bocchi The Rock post was of that ilk. I talked about a few things that happened, yes, but only to give greater context to how that show made me feel, how it resonated with me. People I look up to praised it as some of the best writing I've ever done, and it truly humbles me. I could not have done it without David Lynch and his work, and now he's gone.
There's another moment I was proud of in my media analysis journey on this blog, and it was in 2023 again. It was during the Criterion Challenge, when I was covering the film Carnival Of Souls. I remember selecting it for that slot at the start of the year because of what a critic's list had to say about the way they understood that film, a different way of seeing which I wanted to learn for myself. By the time I finally got to watch Carnival Of Souls, I had seen most of David Lynch's filmography. I knew how to analyze those films, and so in watching Carnival Of Souls I realized that I had already taught myself this different way of seeing. It was gratifying and rewarding, and made me incredibly pleased with myself. The worlds David Lynch crafted, worlds full of the darkest things but also the blindingly beautiful light of empathy and kindness, will stick with me for years to come. I could gush about his films for ages, but in the spirit of brevity let me say a few things about what I've seen.
I love Eraserhead's use of grinding industrial noise mixed with the fervent cries of an infant which combine to form this oppressive soundscape that feels like what it must be to be awoken by your newborn child every night to care for them. I love The Elephant Man for how it takes that same industrial vibe and turns back the clock by a century to its own origins in Victoriana, and the way it shines that light of empathy and tragedy onto John Merrick. I love Dune for retaining that spark of strangeness and mystery, despite attempts by those that did not understand Lynch to sanitize it. I love Blue Velvet for being David Lynch's thesis statement on the heart of America, a beautiful candy shell with a festering darkness lurking at its core. I love Twin Peaks for being a dream, equal parts ethereal beauty and nightmarish id lurking within the subconscious. I love Wild At Heart for being a movie that burns with a fury and a passion, a raging fire of equal parts love and violence. I love Fire Walk With Me for perfectly balancing that and escalating both halves of the show, it being one of the most harrowing and haunting films I have ever watched but also one of the most beautiful and moving. I love Lost Highway for the way it reframes the act of seeing and perception, asking questions about who sees themselves as the hero of their own story. I love Mulholland Drive for taking that strangeness and duality and applying it to the world David Lynch knew, the world of Hollywood. I love Inland Empire for just how far Lynch pushes it, it looking and feeling utterly unique in the world of motion pictures with its offbeat storytelling and filmic style. I love Twin Peaks: The Return for truly interrogating what it means to be a legacy sequel, and what we expect of such a return.
That's David Lynch. The only film of his I have yet to see is The Straight Story. I was saving it until I finished the Comics Challenge. Sean even sent me a VHS copy of the movie for maximum aesthetic. I will watch it at some point, probably late in the month or early February. As I understand, the film is heartbreaking and moving on its own. Knowing it is the last motion picture from David Lynch I will ever see, and knowing that he is gone now, will only add to the heartbreak. I am not one to get choked up over famous people deaths. It's sad and tragic and I have empathy, yes, but I don't end up personally shedding tears over it. Not so with David Lynch. I have wept for the loss of this man, this artist, and even now as I write this I'm getting misty-eyed. I owe him so damn much, and seeing the outpouring of support and sadness from the community has shown me that David Lynch mattered to so many people who I call friends and colleagues. Not just the ones who I have discussed his work with, but others whom I never knew were Lynch fans have mourned his loss. I want to close this by sharing the one piece of tribute which did break me, which is breaking me right now thinking about it (I'll be okay, don't worry):
He just wanted us to have fun. I did have fun, David. I had a lot of fun watching your work, analyzing it, becoming better at critique and expressing myself. I have fun when I get to do that, and I enjoy working on my favorite projects. I enjoyed watching Bocchi The Rock and getting to tell everyone what that meant to me. I'm currently 1/3rd of the way through another show, one which has a dreamlike and ethereal vibe that resembles Lynch's work, but has its own quirks and whatnot. I'm excited to talk about that too. Then there are other Japanese cartoons I want to talk about, and who knows where 2025 will take me? It will take me to wondrous places, I'm sure, but they will be places in a world with one less genius auteur in it, and that's tragic. Still, I must move forward, but not without paying tribute to someone who inspired me so much, whose work truly helped me get better at getting my thoughts out on the page. I'd like to think I did that, and in keeping with the ways in which Lynch inspired me.
This is not a post about what happened to David Lynch. This is a post about how it made me feel.
Goodbye, David.
