Lynch on Lynch

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Having watched all of his features and all seasons of Twin Peaks, I consider myself a fan. I am most fascinated by his artistic methodologies and the obsession with coding imagery and abstraction he employs, the organic vision he translates to moving pictures, which coalesces into emotional and moving scenes with unpredictable dialogue and striking visual composition. You get the super dark, visceral absurdist Eraserhead. A trip from beginning to end. Then the moody Elephantman - which is just a good film. Enough standard fare to fulfill most peoples' storytelling expectations. Then the impeccable and disturbing Blue Velvet (the best entry point into his work)—the beginning of the dichotomies. Lynch films often contain some of the best and worst acting, purposefully awkward scenes, and a glacially slow pace. Think of each frame as a painting, one containing many layers, and you will begin to appreciate the dedication he puts into the directing art. The reason I don’t actually feel sad for him is that he has made some choices that I don’t respect at all. In his pursuit of the art life and, ironically, “finding the transcendent within” and world peace through transcendental meditation, he has left behind three wives and one partner, and his current wife is not very connected to him anymore (when she wanted to have children, he told her, “Why do you want children? Am I not enough for you? Well, if you want a child, then that’s up to you, but don’t expect me to be very involved with any of it.” She had a child and, true to his word, he disappeared into his work and pulled far away from the family.). His exes seem extraordinarily gracious toward him (and since all of them after the first one were the woman he left the previous one for, they certainly had some idea what they were getting into), but that doesn’t change the fact—unstated in the book, of course—that Lynch is a self-centered, immature person.

David Lynch: Paintings and Drawings, Touko Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, January 12–27, 1991. (Catalogue) Despite loathing the spotlight and always operating on the outskirts of what we perceive to be the ‘Hollywood film industry’, Lynch has consistently remained ahead of his time. Fans expecting a quirkily weird ‘Twin Peaks’ movie experience were traumatised when ‘Fire Walk With Me’ (1992) turned out to be a shot of 100% Lynch straight to the limbic system. Reid, James D. Agency and Imagination in the Films of David Lynch: Philosophical Perspectives. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2020. Marilyn Manson and David Lynch: Genealogies of Pain, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, June 30–July 25, 2010. (Catalogue)

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David Lynch: Silence and Dynamism, Centre of Contemporay Art, Toruń, Poland, November 12, 2017–February 18, 2019.

Lynch briefly describes the benefits of Transcendental Meditation. Not only will it greatly enhance your creativity, but it will also greatly enhance your life. And there the lesson ends. If you meditate, greatly enhanced creativity just happens.

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Nikolopoulos, Thymios. “David Lynch: Two exhibitions in New York.” The Art Newspaper Greece, 10 October 2022. https://theartnewspaper.gr/eidhseis/david-lynch-dyo-ektheseis-sti-nea-yorki/