David Lynch was born on January 20 1946 in Missoula, Montana. His father worked for the Department of Agriculture as a research scientist. His mother was a teacher. Because of his father's work, David Lynch's family moved frequently. He was only two months old when the family moved to Sandpoint, Idaho. During David Lynch's childhood, the family moved to Spokane, Washington, Durham, North Carolina, Boise, Idaho, and Alexandra, Virginia. Having decided he wanted to study painting, David Lynch attended the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design in Washington, DC and then the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
In 1966 David Lynch was working as a printmaker and an artist when he made his first film, the short "Six Men Getting Sick (Six Times)." In the coming years he directed several more shorts, including "Absurd Encounter with Fear" (1967), "Fictitious Anacin Commercial" (1967), "Sailing with Bushnell Keeler" (1967), and "The Alphabet" (1969). He received a grant for his next short, "The Grandmother" (1970), from the newly formed American Film Institute (AFI). It was in 1970 that he began studying at the AFI Conservatory.
It would take several years for David Lynch to complete his first feature film, Eraserhead (1977). Upon its initial release Eraserhead proved divisive with critics, but proved to be popular as a midnight movie with a cult following. Producer Stuart Cornfield saw Eraserhead and was impressed by it. It would lead to Stuart Cornfield and David Lynch working together on The Elephant Man (1980). The Elephant Man (1980) was critically acclaimed and was nominated for eight Academy Awards.
In the Eighties David Lynch directed Dune (1984), an adaptation of the sci-fi novel of the same name, Blue Velvet (1986), and Wild at Heart (1990). It was at the end of the decade that the television series Twin Peaks debuted. Created by Mark Frost and David Lynch, the show initially received a positive response from critics and proved to be something of a cultural phenomenon. Unfortunately, its ratings would soon falter.
In the Nineties David Lynch created two more television shows, On the Air with Mark Frost and Hotel Room with Monty Montgomery. He also directed the films Lost Highway (1997) and The Straight Story (1999). In the Naughts he directed Mulholland Drive (2001) and Inland Empire (2006).
Over the years David Lynch also directed several shorts, including "The Amputee" (1974), "The Cowboy and the Frenchman" (1988), "Premonition Following an Evil Deed" (1995), "Darkened Room" (2002), "Absurda" (2005), "Boat" (2007), "Bug Crawls" (2007). "Lady Blue Shanghai" (2010), "What Did Jack Do?" (2017), and yet others. He also directed several music videos, including "Wicked Game" by Chris Isaak, "Shot in the Back of the Head" by Moby, "Came Back Haunted" by Nine Inch Nails, and "I Am the Shaman," among others.
David Lynch was also a composer and released three studio albums in addition to soundtrack albums related to his work. Having initially trained as a painter, David Lynch continued to paint even after his film career had begun. He also wrote the book Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity.
I can safely say that many of my fellow film buffs regard David Lynch as one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. He not only possessed considerable talent with regards to directing, but he was truly one of a kind. In many ways David Lynch was the cinematic equivalent of Franz Kafka, which should come as no surprise as David Lynch had expressed admiration for the author his entire life. At the same time David Lynch's movie demonstrate the influence of Billy Wilder (Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, and The Apartment numbered among his favourite films). David Lynch's movies often blended film noir, surrealism, and horror in setting where an Arcadian veneer hides something much darker. His films were often dreamlike and often hard to decipher.
This is not to say that there was not variety in David Lynch's work. The Elephant Man was a biopic. Dune was a science fiction epic. Blue Velvet, Lost Highway, and Mulholland Drive were neo-noir. The Straight Story was a G-rated biographical movie. And often David Lynch's movies could be many things at once, blending comedy, film noir, romance, and horror all in once package. In the hands of any other director, this might result in wildly uneven work. In the hands of David Lynch, his resulted in works that were sublime.
Beyond being a visionary artist, David Lynch was also an extraordinary human being. I have friends who had the honour to meet Mr. Lynch and all of them have said the same thing, that he was one of the nicest people one could hope to meet. He was well-loved by many, and there are tributes to Mr.Lynch from everyone from Kyle MacLachlan to Steven Spielberg. In 2005 David Lynch began doing daily weather reports and continued to do them until 2010. He brought them back in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, and they continued until 2022. It was through these weather reports that many around the world grew to love him. For all that his work is known for being dark, in his weather reports David Lynch stood revealed as a polite, mild-mannered Midwesterner who truly cares about people. David Lynch was remarkable well beyond being a talented artist.
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