My brother Howard just alerted me to the death of David Lynch, age 78. Were both big fans from way back in the 80s. My favorite Lynch movie is Mulholland Drive, what I see as his masterpiece. Howard's favorite is The Straight Story, maybe the most un-Lynch movie he ever did - - very warm, touching, and straightforward. His movies are usually opaque bordering on confounding. Actually, they deliberately cross that border.
My first exposure to Lynch was Blue Velvet. I was in college and went to the see the University Theatre production of A Doll's House with my friends Sarah and Karen. I didn't know any better, I thought it was OK. The lights went up at intermission and Sarah said, "This is the worst desecration of Ibsen I've ever seen. We're getting out of here." Karen looked at her watch and said, "If we hurry we can catch the 8:30 showing of Blue Velvet." I think Lynch would have loved that.
Here's a favorite moment in Mulholland Drive. I have a thing for smoking in movies and Justin Theroux's smoke ring at the start of this clip is pretty marvo. And the end of the scene has all of the unexplained tension and longing that we've come to expect from Lynch.
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