The great American surrealist: A Tribute to David Lynch

On the 15^th of January 2025, director David Lynch passed away at the age of 79. One of the greatest visionaries of our time, he cemented himself as a true artist and one of the most important filmmakers in the history of cinema. With his critically acclaimed TV show Twin Peaks, and films such as Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive pulling his surrealist style into the spotlight, Lynch dedicated his life to making the world a more interesting place. Here, we look back at his life’s work.

Having dropped out of both the Corcoran School of Arts and Design in Washington and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Lynch settled on the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and it was here he made his first film. Six Men Getting Sick (Six Times) was made on a 16mm camera for $150, with Lynch describing it as “57 seconds of growth and fire, and three seconds of vomit”. From here he went on to make The Alphabet, which he used to apply for a grant from the newly founded American Film Institute. Dropping out of both the Pennsylvania Academy and the AFI Conservatory, Lynch set out on an entirely new project – Eraserhead.

Believing that no reviewer understood it as he meant them to, Eraserhead was incredibly successful as a midnight movie and on the underground circuit. The Elephant Man followed this, and earned eight Academy Award nominations, catapulting him into international success. The years following were filled with Lynchian mastery, with his adaptation of Dune and the film Blue Velvet earning him further critical success. He won the Palme d’Or at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival for his film Wild At Heart – and received a round of booing from the audience in response.

The effect David Lynch has had on the generations that have encountered him has been immense. During lockdown, I watched Blue Velvet for the first time. As a sixteen-year-old living through one of the most surreal periods of current history, I was looking for somewhere to escape to, something to distract me from the incomprehensible madness of the world. Lynch’s mad surrealist world provided just this and profoundly affected my understanding and appreciation of not just art, but the world as a whole.

Pauline Kael wrote that “Lynch might turn out to be the first populist surrealist - a Frank Capra of dream logic" and it was this quality that made him such a ground-breaking and uniquely creative director. His ability to reach beyond the ordinary and pull the weird, sometimes unsettling, but always fascinating aspects out into the light. He shared the gift of seeing the world through a completely different lens with us, and it fundamentally changed filmmaking as we know it today. A man certain never to be forgotten, whose art will endure and continue to inspire.

“Music, painting, cinema – this is the art of life.”