David Lynch, who was announced to have died on Thursday at the age of 78, was one of the most distinctive voices in modern cinema. His work could not be easily categorized other than as his own. Therefore, the descriptor is “Lynchian”. He created a unique iconography both on-screen and off-screen. (The man loved cigarettes and milkshakes.) His movies, and his favorite TV series, Twin Peaks, are full of mysteries that he resisted explaining. To love Lynch is to try to decipher the woman in the radiator in “Eraserhead” and the woman in the log in “Twin Peaks.” Here’s how to dive into his world by streaming. (Please note that “Wild at Heart” and “Elephant Man” are currently unavailable.)
1977
“Eraser Head”
Stream on Max and Criterion Channels
Where were you the first time you heard about “Eraserhead” Baby? Anyone who loves movies will hear the word baby before they see Lynch’s first film. This black-and-white piece is about a man named Henry with sky-high hair who exists in a scary industrial area where everything creaks and makes eerie sounds. . The baby becomes a symbol of what Lynch is capable of. It’s about creating images that live in your mind and get under your skin. Filmed over several years in the early 1970s (numbers vary by account), “Eraserhead” features Lynch’s longtime collaborator Jack Nance telling the baby in the hospital that it’s his. He plays a nervous Henry. You won’t believe what that baby looks like until you see it.
Lynch once said in an interview that he was proud of all but Dune, the 1984 adaptation of Frank Herbert’s novel. Lynch’s version has its fans, but perhaps it wasn’t as bad as he thought, but it turns out he has a hard time working within the Hollywood establishment. (He had received acclaim and an Oscar nomination for 1980’s The Elephant Man, produced by the strange and wonderful ensemble of talents that was Mel Brooks.) Dune, starring Kyle MacLachlan as Paul Atreides. , you see the director’s instinct to explore the strangeness of Herbert’s work against the studio’s desire to make a blockbuster with mass appeal. He didn’t make the final selection, but that bothered him for years. He later said: why? Why would we do that? why? I died. It was all my fault for not knowing to include it in the contract. ”
1986
“Blue Velvet”
Stream with Max
If there’s one good thing about Dune, it’s the collaboration between the director and McLachlan. McLachlan would later star in the thoroughly Lynchian Blue Velvet. This theme tells the story of the disturbing world that lurks within the life of a small town, and this theme will resonate with people. Lynch again and again. McLachlan plays Geoffrey Beaumont, who returns home from college and discovers a severed ear. (That ear crawling with the ants is one of Lynch’s most indelible images in an ant-filled career.) The discovery leads the voyeur Jeffrey to the innocent Sandy (Lynch’s (Laura Dern, another regular player). ), singer Dorothy Valens (Isabella Rossellini), and violent Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper). In an interview with the Times, Lynch tried to explain how the ear inspired the story. Except that it needs to be an opening in a body part, a hole into something else, like a ticket to another world. The ears were on top of my head and went directly into my head, so they felt perfect. A psychiatrist might have something to say about that. ”
Even if you are not a movie fan, you probably got to know David Lynch through the world of “Twin Peaks.” In a strange turn of events these days, when a popular network television series was launched on ABC in 1990, an avant-garde filmmaker suddenly became the creator of the popular series. The show, co-created by Mark Frost, begins with the discovery of the blue face and plastic-encased body of teenage queen Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee). Ostensibly, “Twin Peaks” is a murder mystery. Eventually, McLachlan’s chipper FBI agent Dale Cooper arrives and marvels at the local coffee and pie. But what Cooper discovered was not a simple case. Rather, it’s a matter of human corruption and literal evil in the form of the nightmarish entity Bob (Frank Silva). “Twin Peaks” was canceled after a second season that disappointed many fans. The film ended on one of the most famous cliffhangers of all time, but that’s definitely not the end of Twin Peaks.
1992
“Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me”
Stream on Max or Criterion Channel
After Twin Peaks was canceled, Lynch couldn’t leave Laura Palmer for dead. Instead, he revived her in the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, which primarily depicts the last few weeks of Laura’s life. The deeply dark film was largely dismissed by critics when it was released, but is now revered, especially as the Twin Peaks mythos expands. Lynch has always had a love for Fire Walk with Me, telling the Guardian: If it sells like I did with Dune and it doesn’t do well, it really kills me. ”
1997
“Lost Highway”
Stream it on Criterion Channel
The phrase Lynch used to describe “Lost Highway” was “psychotic fugue.” Those were actually words he stole from a spokesperson for a unit that researched mental illness. “People who suffer from this disease create a whole new identity in their minds, new friends, new homes, new everything. They forget their past identities,” he told Filmmaker magazine. “It has echoes of ‘Lost Highway,’ and it’s also a musical term.” The movie follows saxophonist Fred, played by Bill Pullman, so music is important. In the first disturbing plot mechanism that Lynch throws in front of Fred, a series of videotapes appear outside the home he shares with his wife, Renee (Patricia Arquette in a Bettie Page wig). Eventually, at a party, she is greeted by an anonymous man (Robert Blake) with his face painted white. Lost Highway is a physically dark film, lacking the luster of the Los Angeles that Lynch later portrayed in Mulholland Drive.
1999
“Straight Story”
Stream on Disney+
The Straight Story is perhaps David Lynch’s most un-Lynch film, but it still reflects his artistic sensibilities quietly and beautifully. The all-studio Disney drama is based on the true story of Alvin Straight (Richard Farnsworth), a 73-year-old Iowan who rode a lawnmower more than 320 miles to see his sick brother. are. There’s an inherent strangeness to the concept of a man devoted to this mode of transportation, but Lynch depicts his journey with complete seriousness. The director loved exploring the macabre aspects of American society, and Straight Story is about the sense of community Alvin found along his journey and the small blessings extended to him.
If there’s one Lynch film that is most often considered his best work, it’s Mulholland Drive, which was voted the best film of the 21st century in the 2016 BBC Critics Poll. “Mulholland Drive” is his interpretation of Hollywood, a world he both admires and fears. An easy way to describe Mulholland Drive is that it begins with the story of Betty (Naomi Watts in her breakout role), a bubbly young woman who comes to Los Angeles with dreams of becoming a star. At the apartment where she plans to stay, Betty meets Rita (Laura Harring), who doesn’t remember who she is. Together they pursue Rita’s true identity. It’s an exploration that ultimately influences the story of another woman, Diane Selwyn, also played by Watts. But just explaining what’s going on in “Mulholland Drive” feels too stupid. Lynch scholars and obsessives have spent decades trying to unravel the sensations evoked by this work, which asks questions about what dreams are and what reality is.
2006
“Inland Empire”
Stream on Max and Criterion Channels
Lynching is often difficult to explain. That’s the characteristic of his films. But perhaps none is more difficult to shine a light on than Inland Empire, in which his muse Laura Dern played an actress named Nikki Grace. In fact, the production began as an experiment between Dern and Lynch, with a monologue to her that he intended to post on his website. It evolved over three years of sporadic filming. “Inland Empire” is particularly notable as the first film in the Lynch canon to be shot on digital video rather than celluloid, a choice that antagonized some audiences. But Lynch remained resolute. When he finally received the production money, he told the film company two things: “I don’t know what I’m doing, I’m shooting in DV.” There’s also a rabbit.
The very existence of “Twin Peaks” in the first place was an anomaly, but its return more than 25 years later in the form of “Twin Peaks: The Return” on Showtime was equally miraculous. Yes, reboots of classic TV shows were all the rage when the network gave director Lynch the green light after much negotiation, but the director had no intention of making the third season that everyone was expecting. In fact, The Return offers little resolution to Laura Palmer and Dale Cooper’s story, introducing entirely new characters and presenting a vision of a largely unrecognizable Washington state setting. Most disturbingly, Cooper is not himself, but his body being used by his doppelgänger as a powerhouse of evil. He then takes on the goofy, empty-headed form of Dougie Jones. “The Return” was Lynch’s last full-length feature, ending with Laura Palmer, or some version of her, screaming into the night. This is a disturbing final statement from an incomparable artist.
2020
“What did Jack do?”
Stream on Netflix
In early 2020, a new David Lynch short story suddenly appeared on Netflix. The film had premiered at previous film festivals, but most audiences didn’t know what to expect. What did they get? For about 15 minutes, Lynch plays a detective who interrogates a monkey. It’s a reminder that while Lynch’s work was capable of delving into the depths of the human psyche, he also had a genuine sense of playfulness.
Steven Spielberg cast Lynch in the semi-autobiographical film The Fabelmans to play another legendary director, John Ford, giving Lynch the sendoff he deserved on screen. Lynch smokes a cigar and plays the man who created “The Searchers” with gruff enthusiasm. Near the end of the film, Spielberg’s stand-in Sammy Fabelman has an audience with Lynch’s Ford. “People tell me they want to be a painter,” says Lynch. “Why? This business will tear you apart.” He then gives Sammy some genius advice and tells him to get out of the office. A conversation between three of the all-time greats: Spielberg, Ford, and Lynch.
