#189 - Lynchian Tributes

David Lynch was terrified of the violence that he depicted.

But he depicted it anyway. And there's something deeply human in that. It's probably why the horror stays, even with no viscera.

The first time I watched Twin Peaks I got really annoyed.

For years everyone had been posting gifs of Audrey dreamily dancing in the diner, talking to me about "damn fine cups of coffee", and bemoaning the middle of the second season.

No one ever mentioned that Twin Peaks is about domestic abuse–and what it means to live with the knowledge intimate violence, let alone experiencing it. How generational trauma is passed down, how those that know us best sometimes don't know us at all because of what we're able to suppress.

The most harrowing scene ever shown on network television is Leland Palmer beating Maddie to death. They show the whole thing. They cut away from it and back to it to the point of egregiousness.

Because all violence is egregious and unnecessary.

Violence is the most emotional expression we have, but somehow we've detached those two things (because only one of them is culturally acceptable for men to express and therefore they cannot be linked at all).

Violence isn't logical. Therefore, it is emotional.

David Lynch's work is pure emotion.

And he really cared about women and what they went through and how their suffering within societal structures was the root of all evil.

For a long time I didn't "get" David Lynch. Living in Portland got me closer to understanding the eerie isolation of the Pacific Northwest that he captured. The man loved Los Angeles, a city I've never been to. But when they said fires were ripping up Mullholland Drive last week, I could picture it. I know where that is and I know what it feels like to drive that road.

Last year, I got really into the Blank Check podcast.

(It's a podcast about filmographies of directors who have massive success and are hen given a blank check to make whatever crazy passion projects they want and sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce, babeeey!)

They hold a fan March Madness competition to choose one director a year to cover. Last year, David Lynch won.

So last year, I watched all of David Lynch's movies by myself for the first time.

(My ex was really into Lynch but didn't care for my analysis because well, Lost Highway just doesn't do it for me and I kept saying that he was clearly inspired by Soap Operas re: Twin Peaks so I've seen most of his films before but always with someone/a group that the movies meant a lot to already which is honestly kind of great atmosphere-wise but terrible when it comes to forming your own thoughts. Also it was so fun to get to watch them again because I always think a second or third watch is when you start to form actual opinions instead of just reactions. How can you tell somethings foreshadowing on the first viewing?)

And then I would listen to 3+ hours of discussion about the work and the director and how the work influenced entire worlds of people to move in ways they had never considered before.

David Lynch never won an Oscar.

It doesn't matter.

His legacy is so deeply entrenched in American Film & Television beyond just the works he produced – by realizing his creative visions so thoroughly he broke open new pathways of thinking about art. And love. And life and mystery and the dark undercurrent of Americana.

The outpouring of love and admiration the past few days has felt singular.

Probably because Lynch is one of the greats who never had a dark side revealed. He was not abusive on set, he worked with his beloved actors across multiple projects, and as far as we know was a champion of women and their art rather than using his proximity and power to them for the nefarious purposes so many men in Hollywood do.

His art is complicated, but he as a figure is not.

He gave us weather reports in a booming midwest accent. He told us all that he called Kyle MacLachlan "Kale" all the time. He talked about his love of Big Boy burgers and Cheetoh's and classic Coca-Cola and how he had to put guardrails around his eating habits because otherwise he overindulged. (Which meant Cheetoh's were relegated to an on-set-only food and became his sole request for his trailer on The Fablemans.)

He made music and movies and changed how television was made/watched/thought about. He was Bob Iger's first mistake, a harbinger of the lack of artistic understanding the suit guys who ran TV would continue to exhibit over and over again.

We got to love him, so we get to miss him.

His art remains, his spirit sticks around, and what gifts he gave us while we shared the world with him.