Today is January 20th. I have just participated in a worldwide meditation for the late great David Lynch's birthday. Today, he would have been 78, but tragically, he passed last week on January 16th, 2025. Lynch had always been one to promote the use of transcendental meditation, so it’s very appropriate for them to host something like this. The instruction was to reflect and put positive energy out into the world.

As I now turn my attention back to this article while I enjoy some black coffee and cherry pie (a Dale Cooper of Twin Peaks fame favourite, and a surprisingly fantastic pairing that I must recommend), I try to put the words together to articulate how much this man's work meant to me.

David Lynch started his feature film career with the film Eraserhead. He spent five exhausting years running out and procuring funding to eventually complete the film. For anyone considering starting an artistic career late in life, Lynch's first film was released when he was 31 years old. From there, he began his rollercoaster of a career, so don’t feel down and out if you are in your late 20s or early 30s and wanting to get into this business.

From there, he made The Elephant Man, which garnered him a Best Picture nomination at the 53rd Academy Awards. Famously, he tells the story of how, although it was not originally specified in the contract to have the final cut, he was given it by legendary filmmaker Mel Brooks, who was producing the film at the time. The results of the faith Mel Brooks had in him ended up demonstrating Lynch’s talents far more effectively than Eraserhead, which, while it became an incredible cult classic, did not garner much mainstream appeal.

His work on The Elephant Man made him a known figure in Hollywood, and he was apparently even approached by George Lucas to direct Return of the Jedi. The story of this I will not completely relate here, but I’d recommend searching it up on YouTube; his description of the night is quite entertaining and also gives you an idea of the headspace of a lot of Hollywood producers following his success.

During this period of time, he was picked to write and direct a film version of Dune (yes, the same book that Denis Villeneuve recently adapted). This time Lynch was refused final cut, and to quote Lynch, “it hurt it.” He has mentioned that he had filmed quite a bit more footage than what was seen in the theatrical cut of Dune. But in the interest of getting an extra screening per day to accrue money back for the sizable budget, the result was a mess of a film that received no accolades and a poor box office return. Lynch was devastated.

But he learned a valuable lesson: moving forward, he would not take movie contracts where he did not receive final cut. This new approach was the true start of Lynch's career, in my opinion, as it emboldened him to get out and make another film—maybe in some ways to clear his name from the poor reception of Dune—which led to the release of Blue Velvet.

Blue Velvet introduced a theme that would appear as a standard across Lynch's work moving forward: the theme of duality. For example, in the opening scene of Blue Velvet, we see a picturesque suburban neighbourhood—the school, the firemen, the flowers. But as we look deeper and move further down, we begin to see a large swarm of black beetles thriving under the surface—a rather on-the-nose personification of the neighbourhood itself.

Blue Velvet then became a source of inspiration for Lynch’s next project, Twin Peaks. Twin Peaks is truly something special. It spans two seasons that were produced in the early 90s, a feature film prequel that followed shortly after in 1992, and finally a 2017 “return series” that wrapped the story up. Twin Peaks dives much deeper into this theme of duality, taking heavy inspiration from soap operas of the time and the backstabbing and other tomfoolery inherent to that kind of show. The characters of Twin Peaks lived double lives: cheating married men and women, characters with dark secret lives. He showed the bad things they do when nobody is looking and what happens when they cast a light into the shadow within.

Maybe when I finish my current rewatch of Twin Peaks, I’ll do a full review for an upcoming issue. In between the Twin Peaks show and movie, he made a film called Wild at Heart that delved into the duality of love by looking at the good and bad that can come from loving someone.

Following Wild at Heart, he concluded his time in Twin Peaks for a while with the feature film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. His next project after that was a film titled Lost Highway, a very cerebral film with many twists and turns—like being lost on a highway almost (I see what he did there). This film really keeps you guessing, trying to unravel the mystery of the film and what is really going on, and plays on the duality of reality vs illusion.

Following Lost Highway, his next project was titled Mulholland Drive, which is easily my favourite film of his. You can find my review on our website if you’d like to read me go deeper into why I love the film. I won’t say what this film delves into the duality of—I’d recommend watching it and delving into the themes yourself, as I feel they make the film something incredibly special.

Lynch’s last feature film was titled Inland Empire, filmed entirely on the new digital cameras being rolled out to consumers at the time. Inland Empire is, by many, considered pure David Lynch. Apparently, he even admitted that the film started as him experimenting with these cameras and finding a through-line to bring all the footage together into a story. What was produced could only be described as a fever dream.

This, fortunately, wasn’t the last time we saw a project from Lynch, however. In 2017, he was greenlit by Showtime to make 18 episodes of a TV show simply titled Twin Peaks: The Return. This series certainly divided some fans. It is pretty esoteric in places and deep with symbolism rather than concrete storytelling conventions—more than any of his other work outside of Inland Empire. I personally feel it’s a true culmination of Lynch’s work up to this point. While the previous series in the 90s had him direct a fair bit of episodes, he didn’t direct nearly all of them. This series, however, is a solid 18 hours of pure Lynch.

Almost every actor he ever worked with was a part of this series as well, which really adds to the idea that it was the culmination of his life's work. With it being the last large project he was involved with, that sentiment makes even more sense now that he’s passed. All the actors that are still alive that he was a strong collaborator with have come out to speak about him. Many say that Lynch saw something in them they didn’t see in themselves and that he helped fashion them into something that made them eventually see what he saw in them for themselves.

Which goes to show that Lynch’s legacy doesn’t just lie on film. Over the years, he has had many interviews where he conveyed such heartfelt advice. You can tell that he really believed in people and wanted them to express their artistic side. Go on any social media in the past week, and you’ll see clips of Lynch’s speeches and his work. His work demonstrated both heartfelt and tragic moments, just like in life.

One of my favourite quotes from him, I feel, was in response to people saying his movies don’t make sense, to which he responded:

“I don't know why people expect art to make sense. They accept the fact that life doesn’t make sense.”

And he’s right. Films give us a way to probe for some meaning in our existence, and that meaning doesn’t always have to make sense. He used to talk about how thoughts came to him like fish in a lake. Sure, there were some fish at the top in the shallows—where Lynch felt most people operated—but he encouraged everyone to delve deeper, find those big fish, those big ideas, and make them something real. Whether a film, a painting, a book—whatever it may be—he didn’t want anyone to give up on their dreams. I know I will take his sentiment with me for the rest of my life.

And so I leave you with this quote: