On Jan. 16, it was announced that filmmaker David Lynch passed away at the age of 78.
The first David Lynch movie I watched was “Mulholland Drive” in the winter of 2022. I watched it with my friends on a small TV in their basement even though we were aware Lynch preferred viewers to experience the immersion of a movie theater.
I was confident I would like Lynch’s films because I’m a sucker for any art that defies conventional standards; I knew that challenging traditional film was quintessential to Lynch’s legacy, but “Mulholland Drive” exceeded nearly every expectation I had.
The movie put me in a dream-like state I had never experienced before. The images flashing across the screen were oddly thrown together and loosely tied with a nearly indistinguishable plot. Although many may find a movie with such abstract structures infuriating, the enchantment I experienced is a feeling I’ve been chasing ever since.
It snowed in Philadelphia the day that Lynch died. He used this city as a muse for many years of his early career, enamored with its uneasy aura and ugliness. When I heard the news of his passing, I looked outside and the slight flurries that began in the early morning became a consistent barrage of flakes dancing through the air and covering the ground of Liacouras Walk.
At that moment, I imagined the snow was more than a winter storm brought on by the bitter cold of January. Instead, it was the spirit of Lynch returning to the city that brought him such innovative visions early on in his career.
Despite the weather, I went outside and sat on a bench near Mazur Hall, letting the snow coat the wool sleeves of my jacket as I pondered his loss.
In the last few years of his life, Lynch was diagnosed with emphysema, a consequence of his lifetime of smoking. Despite smoking being the cause of his illness, he’s openly said he never regrets it.
He said the habit brought him solace and comfort when the life of a budding artist was too stressful. It allowed him a sense of calm that few other things could.
His perspective on smoking is a central pillar of the Lynchian ethos: there’s salvageable love in the things that may kill us. The old saying goes, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” But to Lynch, maybe the things that cause us harm also make us stronger in their own strange way.
Lynch acknowledged the damage smoking did to his body but refused to view it as sorrowful because it helped him make the best of the moment. The uncertainties of the future don’t matter. Instead, it’s how we overcome our fears and find the beauty in the present, regardless of how we do it is considered conventionally healthy.
As I’ve gotten older, I often think I haven’t gained wisdom or solved the riddle of what my career path is going to look like. I’m clueless in nearly every sense and have far more questions than I know what to do with.
No matter how successful I may be, or the praise I get from my work, I always fear that my art is never good enough.
I’m always insecure that my ideas are irrelevant or that my process is too different from my peers. I write about things that I feel nobody cares about other than me. In the Lynchian universe, though, those inadequacies don’t exist.
Instead, Lynch’s philosophy on unapologetic creativity encouraged me to push forward with what I want to make. Because to him, all that mattered was pushing forward and crafting art that fulfilled his desires, regardless of what anyone else thought.
He was the light that guided me into the field I am now and was the constant reminder that I could be creative in whatever way satisfied me.
But as I mourn his loss, I realize that in many ways life is a Lynch film. It’s a juggernaut that hurls obscurities faster than you can volley them back. Living can feel like I’m constantly floating in a dream state, but all that matters is that I make it out on the other side.
Questions aren’t inherently evil things — they’re the force that guides us to the people and things we love. The pressure of the unknown can turn us into dust, but if we find pleasure in the pressure we still may not turn into diamonds. Instead, we may transform into a stranger, more complex yet equally beautiful thing. I suppose that is the most valuable advice Lynch has given me.
I don’t know how long it will take me to get over his passing, as he was the man who formed nearly every aspect of my creative life. He was an artist unlike any other and I hope history remembers him fondly.
As Lynch once said, “One day, the sadness will end, but I don’t think today is the day.”
I hope that day comes soon. It has to.
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