Cult director: specialist for aberrations – director David Lynch has died

When David Lynch picked up his film camera, his camera, or his paint and brushes, nothing nice or uplifting rarely came out of it. Hollywood’s specialist in the strange preferred strange worlds to the mainstream. He usually looked for bizarre depths, dark places of violence and perversion.

Now the director of dark masterpieces like “Eraserhead” and “Mulholland Drive” has died at the age of 78. His family announced the filmmaker’s death on Facebook and Instagram. His death left a “big hole in the world,” the relatives said in a statement. “But as he would say, ‘Keep your eye on the donut and not the hole,'” the family wrote.

Lynch suffered from lung disease

Lynch announced in August 2024 that he had suffered from pulmonary emphysema as a long-time smoker. Despite the serious lung disease, he did not want to say goodbye to the film business. He said on the X platform that he really enjoyed smoking, but now he is paying the price for it. He had stopped smoking two years earlier. Aside from the emphysema diagnosis, he is in “excellent shape.” Lynch said at the time that he was happy and would “never” retire.

His death sparked sadness in Hollywood, and colleagues praised Lynch’s achievements. “I loved David’s films,” Oscar winner Steven Spielberg, in whose film “The Fablemans” (2022) Lynch had a small role, paid tribute in a statement to “Variety”. “Blue Velvet,” “Mulholland Drive” and “The Elephant Man” defined Lynch as a “unique, visionary dreamer,” Spielberg wrote. He was one of his heroes.

Actor Kyle MacLachlan (65), who starred in “The Desert Planet” (1984), “Blue Velvet” (1986) and “Twin Peaks”, posted several photos of him and Lynch. He wrote: “While the world has lost a remarkable artist, I have lost a dear friend…”.

Actress Naomi Watts (56) wrote on Instagram: “My heart is broken. My buddy Dave… The world won’t be the same without him.” Watts starred in Mulholland Drive (2001). “His wisdom, humor and love gave me a special sense of belief in myself,” Watts continued.

The musicians Billy Corgan (57) and Sting (73) also spoke up: “David was a modern giant of the avant-garde,” wrote Sting on Instagram. He is so proud that he was able to star in Lynch’s film “The Desert Planet.”

Director Ron Howard (70, “A Beautiful Mind – Genius and Madness”) described him as a “fearless artist” who followed his heart and soul and created unforgettable cinema with “radical experimentation”.

“Rest in peace,” wrote director James Gunn (58, “Guardians of the Galaxy”) on the X platform. “You have inspired so many of us.”

Lynch, who initially studied art before switching to film, shocked audiences with his disturbing horror scenes and surreal images in his black-and-white debut film “Eraserhead” (1977). “The Elephant Man” (1980), about a horribly disfigured man presented as a fairground attraction in Victorian England, was an international box office success and received eight Oscar nominations.

“Blue Velvet” (1986) with Isabella Rossellini as an abused nightclub singer caused a sensation with a slow tracking shot into a cut ear in a meadow. The brutal road movie “Wild at Heart” about a young couple in love, starring Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern, won Lynch the “Golden Palm” at Cannes in 1990.

He accompanied the thriller “Lost Highway” (1997) about a schizophrenic killer with songs by the German hard rock band Rammstein. With “Mulholland Drive” (2001) he ventured into the metropolitan area of ​​his adopted home of Los Angeles and won another directing award at Cannes.

Even in his old age, his handwriting was imaginative and gripping. In 2017 he brought 18 new episodes of the cult mystery series “Twin Peaks” to the screen. They were even more brutal, scary and confusing than the 30 original episodes in the early 1990s that would set the tone for television and fashion for an entire decade.

With a mix of horror film, coming-of-age drama and soap about the murder of the young beauty queen Laura Palmer and the investigations of the young FBI agent Dale Cooper, Lynch managed to captivate an audience of millions to the TV screen. Angelo Badalamenti’s jazz music underlined the hypnotic atmosphere in which anything seemed possible. Lead actor Kyle MacLachlan, as Dale Cooper, was even possessed by a demon in the last season.

With “The Straight Story” (1999), Lynch created perhaps his most straightforward film – an old man drives a lawn mower tractor through the Midwest for weeks to visit his brother. Lynch himself was born in a small town in the US state of Montana and grew up in the country.

According to his own statements, he liked all of his films, he only regretted one: “I’m more or less proud of everything except for “Dune,” he said in a 2020 YouTube conversation about the film with the German title “Der Wüstenplanet”. The year before, he had already commented critically on the science fiction saga from 1984 at the Manchester International Festival: “”Dune” is a huge, gigantic sadness in my life.” He didn’t have full creative control over the film. The science fiction novel “Dune” on which it is based was recently remade into a film by director Denis Villeneuve.

Lynch is known more for his dark film characters than for his long-standing peace efforts. He has been meditating since the 1970s according to the teachings of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who the Beatles once followed. The filmmaker founded a foundation for “consciousness-based teaching and world peace” and relied on transcendental meditation as a peacemaker. He meditates twice a day, the director wrote on the foundation’s website. This gives him access to “unlimited energy, creativity and inner happiness.”

Lynch had two sons and two daughters from four marriages. Daughter Jennifer Lynch from her first marriage, like her father, has a penchant for psychopath horror. As a director, she made thrillers such as “Boxing Helena” and “Under Control”. The youngest offspring from his marriage to actress Emily Stofle, daughter Lula Boginia, was born in 2012. The filmmaker also dated actress Isabella Rossellini for several years.

As a director and screenwriter, Lynch was nominated for an Oscar four times, but he always came away empty-handed in the competition. A consolation: the Film Academy awarded him an honorary Oscar in 2019. The reason given was that he crossed boundaries “without fear” for his artistic vision.

Lynch has made short films and written screenplays in recent years. Director Steven Spielberg was also able to win him for a rare appearance in front of the camera. In the autobiographical drama “The Fablemans” (2022) about Spielberg’s own childhood and youth, Lynch had a small role – as master director John Ford.