Wild at Heart and Weird on Top: What Made David Lynch Different

David Lynch was not a hitmaker. Most of his films barely recuperated their budget. The only true hit film of his career was The Elephant Man, which was way back in the early 1980s.

(Eraserhead ultimately went on to turn a tidy little profit on its micro-budget, but that took years of midnight showings.)

But just because Lynch wasn’t constantly selling millions of movie tickets didn’t stop his fans from adoring what he created.

It’s a testament to the power of making something truly singular: you might not be at the top of the box office (or the bestseller list), but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t resonate with an audience.  

Also, in his entire career, David Lynch only produced ten feature films. That’s it.

Of course, he also created Twin Peaks, which ran for three seasons over the course of twenty-five-plus years, along with his little seen TV series, On the Air, and two episodes of HBO’s Hotel Room.

But for someone who was working in the entertainment industry for nearly fifty years, it’s not a prolific output.

Why is this important? Because in our ultra capitalistic hustle culture, where you’re only worth as much as your last project (and your last project better have been released last week, or you’re treated like yesterday’s news), it’s important to remember that there are creators out there carving their own paths.

We don’t have to produce constantly and have an endless string of hits for our work to matter. Now more than ever, that’s a vital lesson, and David Lynch’s career exemplifies it so incredibly well. 

David Lynch was an American filmmaker in every sense of the word. His work is about America: its nuances, its nostalgia, and its horror.

Lynch didn’t hate America—not by a long shot—but he also didn’t idealize it. Or if he did idealize it in one shot, he would show the rotting underbelly in the next

No scene in his entire filmography encapsulates this dichotomy as well as the opening sequence from Blue Velvet. There’s an image of a literal white picket fence with a row of beautiful red roses.

We’re then shown a fire truck, some lovely houses, and children placidly crossing the street, all of it suburbia incarnate. But then Lynch’s camera pans down and reveals the writhing bugs lurking just beneath the surface.

It’s an iconic shot and rightfully so: there might not be a better encapsulation of the so-called American Dream than that.   

Let’s face it: there’s too much celebration revolving around the artist’s suffering. But David Lynch didn’t buy into any of that.

Not only was he hugely devoted to Transcendental Meditation, but he also spoke at length about how a suffering person will struggle to create art at all.

A great compilation of his opinions on the subject can be found here but suffice it to say, Lynch didn’t want anyone to experience mental health crises, least of all as a so-called reason to create.

Depression shouldn’t be celebrated as the alleged price an artist has to pay. We all deserve to be healthy and happy while creating the things we love, and Lynch’s work and life are a celebration of that fact.  

This one probably goes without saying, but it bears repeating: David Lynch’s worlds were one-of-a-kind. And they’re so instantly recognizable, sticking with you long after the credits roll.

For example, I can tell you the first and last names of dozens of Twin Peaks characters. I can conjure the images of the couples in Blue Velvet, Lost Highway, and Mulholland Drive any time of day.

Every shot in Eraserhead has been seared into my brain for more than twenty years since I first saw it.

And I will never stop being partial to his version of Dune. Denis Villeneuve, eat your heart out, but there’s nothing quite like seeing that extensive cast wrangling sandworms in a barren desert.

Plus, I will always love the inexplicable rat-cat in Lynch’s Dune. So bizarre, so gratuitous, so totally Lynchian.  

In the wake of his death, one of the things that so many Lynch fans have discussed was how his films and television made us feel like we belonged.

That’s because David Lynch never tried to be normal. In his work, in his life, and in his interviews, he was always as strange and wonderful as ever.

There was something about watching a Lynch film that helped you realize how much all those odd thoughts roaming around your mind not only were completely fine, but could also be fodder for some of the most striking and transcendent art.

Despite the existential dread embedded in Lynch’s work, there was also something deeply comforting about such unusual stories being produced for television and cinema in the first place. Lynch truly made anything feel possible.  

So even as we’re still grieving David Lynch’s passing, it’s a comfort to know how he’s made our lives so much better and so much weirder.

And to that, I’ll raise my coffee cup and a slice of pie, and say thank you from the bottom of my eccentric horror heart. 

Featured photo: Wikimedia Commons; Additional photos: Wikimedia Commons