David Lynch (1946-2025)

[Guy Rowland]

Now we'll never know how Twin Peaks ends.

Ironically, perhaps David Lynch's most lasting legacy, as one of cinema's great visionaries and auteurs, is changing television. I remember the shock of hearing that the man who had created Blue Velvet and Wild At Heart was going to be doing a primetime TV series. Twin Peaks changed forever how we thought of the small (and getting bigger with each passing year) screen. If Lynch was doing it, it didn't have to be the poor relation anymore.

I loved that show, and the follow up movie Fire Walk With Me which I found unbearably tragic. And the return series was always fascinating. Mulholland Drive never leaves you. I love his humour - he was by a mile the finest thing in Speilberg's The Fabelmans). I loved that although he was known for surreality, darkness and sometimes brutality, he had a huge warmth for people and gave the world the sublime The Straight Story. I loved his use of sound (such a key ingredient to the unsettling nature to so much of his work) and his don't-give-a-shit attitude to the industry. I loved is collaboration with the always-evocative Angelo Badalamenti. He was a true artist but also a true humanitarian I think.

The world is just less interesting, less rich without him.

[Lawrence]

I had never seen anything quite like Blue Velvet and I was awed by it. I will always be grateful to DL for teaching me the dark art of Roy Orbison and the haunting orchestral “In Dreams.” R.I.P.

[tack]

Wild at Heart left an impression on me when I was in my teens. (Several of its scenes formed the basis of in-jokes I had with a close friend.) Love it or hate it, the mark Twin Peaks made on our culture can't be disputed -- even if all you do is consider the parodies fueled by it.

And Dune. Well, ok, let's not talk about Dune. (Or about Sting's codpiece.)

RIP DL.

[wst3]

He was an individual, true to his vision, even if the rest of us did not immediately catch on.

Blue Velvet was my intro to DL. It was also the first time I understood what a great soundtrack can do to an audience.

Twin Peaks was absolutely brilliant (to me anyway) and showed what could be done with a TV series. Which was a lot!

Walk With Me - I wasn't prepared for that!

[Ashermusic]

I wasn't a fan of his work generally, but I did think "Mullholland Drive" was a fascinating film.

[GR Baumann]

George Lucas asked him to direct the Return of the Jedi. They went to place where only salad would be served, and David also disliked a lot the way George drove his Ferrari.

I should take many years until the whole story came out.

I was asked by George to come up to see him about directing what would be the third Star Wars. And I had next door to zero interest.

When GL showed him artwork of Wookies, he knew that he would reject the offer.

Even before I got home, I kind of crawled into a phone booth, and I called my agent and said, ‘There’s no way! There is no way I can do this!

Later on, DL took the job to direct Frank Herbert’s Dune for Dino De Laurentiis.