I’m not there yet. It’s still unfolding.
A collection of shared memories and an outpouring of love for David Lynch
NB: This newsletter is too long for email, so it’s probably best to read on the web or the app.
There have been so many wonderful tributes written about David Lynch since his passing (many of which have unearthed previous interviews with Lynch that are full of rich and wonderful gems, like this one from 2018 that I’m quoting in this post’s title.) In honor of what would have been his 79th birthday, here is a compendium of tribute pieces, social media tributes, older interviews, and other ephemera that have brought me joy and that have given me more to ponder, especially when I think about this great and singular artist, who may be gone too soon, but whose impact will be forever immeasurable.
Mark Frost reminding everyone to celebrate David Lynch’s life, not just mourn his death:
Thanks to all for your kind remembrances on this awful day. Words will come later. Only feelings at the moment. Mourn and remember him but don’t forget to celebrate too. We won’t see his like again. The man from another place has gone home.
These movie theater marquees:
It’s so lovely to see movie theaters celebrating such a monumental loss for the art. Here’s a quote about seeing movies in cinemas from a 2013 interview with The Independent:
If you have a chance to enter another world, then you need a big picture in a dark room with great sound. It's a spiritual, magic experience.
Matt Zoller Seitz writing for Vulture:
Fire Walk with Me was subsequently reclaimed by the next generation of viewers and critics as not only arguably Lynch’s most aesthetically daring film since Eraserhead but the inaugural salvo in a new phase of his career—one in which each subsequent feature seemed more of a concentrated assault on the very idea that linear narrative could make sense of life. At times it seemed as if Lynch was trying to do with cinema what he would recommend that aspiring artists do with transcendental meditation and other kinds of mind-expansion: realize that you don’t know what you think you know, and that the guiding principles and systematized rules that were reinforced throughout your existence, in life itself as well as art, are meaningless lies. Something greater and more powerful can be accessed by abandoning or shattering them.
Celebrities who had a David Lynch film on their Letterboxd Four Favorites
Michael Phillips writing for Chicago Tribute:
I asked him the question he never much liked. If you’re a happy camper, why the eternal pull to the dark side in your work? What does it mean?
Lynch gave me a little heh-heh. “Well, there’s these things called stories. And stories have conflicts, life and death situations, all kinds of different characters in the story you’re telling. Our world, the real world, conjures a lot of ideas. It’s filled with negativity, all kinds of stuff, and ideas come from that world, and sometimes I fall in love with certain ideas and want to make them into something. And then it becomes part of a story. But Michael, you don’t have to suffer to show suffering. And there’s light and dark flowing through everything.”
An interview with Lynch in The Guardian, 2018:
“A film or a painting — each thing is its own sort of language and it’s not right to try to say the same thing in words. The words are not there. The language of film, cinema, is the language it was put into, and the English language — it’s not going to translate. It’s going to lose.”
Sophie writing for :
David made lovely furniture - not as a hobby or an artistic statement, but as a fundamental practice of being. In his workshop, where sawdust caught light like microscopic stars, this mythical director would spend hours with wood and tools, studying grain patterns as if they were secret maps, perfecting joints with the same obsessive precision he brought to his films. These weren't art pieces meant to shock or provoke, though they held their own strange beauty. They were tables and chairs, things meant to hold us, to last, to be useful. A Lynch table meant for Sunday dinners, for coffee cups and elbows, for the weight of ordinary lives being lived.
Zosha Millman writing for :
Quietly, we are always reminded how hard and vital it is to look something in the face when all we want to do is curl up and cry.
Jim Laczkowski writing about Mulholland Drive (2001) for :
It’s every bit of humanity boiled down into jagged fragments of longing and despair, yes, but of fleeting moments of something breathtaking too. What part of you gets revealed inside the illusions you carry—when you truly stop to think about them is something we may not be cognizant of, but it’s there. What we’ve lost, what we truly want, is always there. Try to hide all you want, the blue box won’t let you forget. It contains the truth. The person behind the diner is holding on to it too. Your mind is its own “blue box.”
Richard Brody writing for The New Yorker:
The marks of this inner turmoil can be seen in a movie such as “The Straight Story,” from 1999, his gentle vision of an elderly man’s extended drive, on a lawnmower, to visit his estranged brother. The film plays like what those who don’t dream horrors would call a living dream—a secularly redemptive vision of love and solidarity. It’s a vision that Lynch’s culminating onscreen presence in “The Return” embodies, as a survivor of the knowledge and the forebodings that he unsparingly gave of, for half a century, and from which he emerged granitically principled, unyieldingly humane, empathetically steadfast to the end.
Hillary Weston on her favorite line from Twin Peaks:
"There are many cures for a broken heart. but nothing quite like a trout’s leap in the moonlight." twin peaks, S2 ep20. i’ve written that quote on the first page of every notebook i’ve had for the last 15 years. it contains a whole world for me. and when i think of david lynch i don’t just think of the electrical shock his work sent through my life, but of the people and ideas/places that have become a part of me and showed me what i loved because of the curtains he lifted. to encounter his work at a young age and experience the way he made the mundane fascinating and romantic, buzzing with mystery and the possibility of the transcendent around every moonlit corner, was the greatest gift. safe travels into the next life, dear DL.
Robert Daniels on this scene in Twin Peaks between Major Briggs and his son Bobby:
A spoiler: But there’s immense tragedy in losing a parent just as you’re beginning to understand one another, just as you are both starting to see each other as friends and not adversaries. I lost my dad at 25, and this scene broke me.
I mean, it’s always tragic to lose a parent. But there’s something especially bittersweet when you’re just on the cusp of asking the questions that you only just realized you should ask, and then having that chance snatched away when the words were just on the tip of your tongue.
The way Lynch pulled the emotion of this scene (beautifully acted by Don S Davis and Dana Ashbrook) into Bobby Briggs (Ashbrook tapping those emotions again) in THE RETURN is just incredible.
Brian Tallerico writing for RogerEbert.com:
The entire art form was shifted by him and is now lessened by his absence. We owe it to him to burst through the doors he opened.
This story that makes me laugh every time I read it:
This video of David Lynch watching and reacting to It’s A Wonderful Life:
This passage from Lynch on Lynch:
Human beings are like little factories. They turn out so many little products. The idea of something growing inside, and all these fluids, and timings and changes, and all these chemicals somehow capturing life, and coming out and splitting off & turning into another thing. . .it’s unbelievable.
Travis Woods on this video from the making of The Return
If there’s something I take from David Lynch’s work, it’s that for every bit of bleak, incomprehensible darkness in the world, there are also donut crumbs of magic to be found if you look for them—like David Patrick Kelly singing in the woods during TWIN PEAKS downtime. Magic.
This quote from Lynch about Sunset Blvd. shared by Film Noir Confidential on Instagram:
“I think I might have screened Sunset Boulevard by Billy Wilder early on for the crew before we started shooting Eraserhead. Sunset Boulevard just has the greatest mood; you’re immersed in it like a dream. It catches a Hollywood story that connects the golden age of Hollywood with the present day. But it’s a truthful movie, and so it carries through to today. It has a lot of sadness in it, and beauty. And mystery. And dreams. Beauty, beauty, beauty and more dreams.”
This lovely clips of David Lynch talking about death posted by I Know Catherine, The Log Lady on Instagram:
The vigil held at Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank:
Last night, fans of David Lynch gathered outside Bob's Big Boy in Burbank, CA, to celebrate the filmmaker’s unique legacy. For seven years, every afternoon at 2:30 PM, this place was his go-to lunch spot. His order? Always the same: a Bob's Big Boy chocolate shake paired with a cup of coffee. (x)
Kyle MacLachlan’s tribute on Instagram:
Forty-two years ago, for reasons beyond my comprehension, David Lynch plucked me out of obscurity to star in his first and last big budget movie. He clearly saw something in me that even I didn’t recognize. I owe my entire career, and life really, to his vision.
What I saw in him was an enigmatic and intuitive man with a creative ocean bursting forth inside of him. He was in touch with something the rest of us wish we could get to.
Our friendship blossomed on Blue Velvet and then Twin Peaks and I always found him to be the most authentically alive person I’d ever met.
David was in tune with the universe and his own imagination on a level that seemed to be the best version of human. He was not interested in answers because he understood that questions are the drive that make us who we are. They are our breath.
While the world has lost a remarkable artist, I’ve lost a dear friend who imagined a future for me and allowed me to travel in worlds I could never have conceived on my own.
I can see him now, standing up to greet me in his backyard, with a warm smile and big hug and that Great Plains honk of a voice. We’d talk coffee, the joy of the unexpected, the beauty of the world, and laugh.
His love for me and mine for him came out of the cosmic fate of two people who saw the best things about themselves in each other.
I will miss him more than the limits of my language can tell and my heart can bear. My world is that much fuller because I knew him and that much emptier now that he’s gone.
David, I remain forever changed, and forever your Kale. Thank you for everything.
Naomi Watts’ tribute on Instagram:
My heart is broken. My Buddy Dave… The world will not be the same without him. His creative mentorship was truly powerful. He put me on the map. The world I’d been trying to break into for ten plus years, flunking auditions left and right. Finally, I sat in front of a curious man, beaming with light, speaking words from another era, making me laugh and feel at ease. How did he even “see me” when I was so well hidden, and I’d even lost sight of myself?!
It wasn’t just his art that impacted me – his wisdom, humor, and love gave me a special sense of belief in myself I’d never accessed before.
Every moment together felt charged with a presence I've rarely seen or known. Probably because, yes, he seemed to live in an altered world, one that I feel beyond lucky to have been a small part of. And David invited all to glimpse into that world through his exquisite storytelling, which elevated cinema and inspired generations of filmmakers across the globe.
I just cannot believe that he's gone. I’m in pieces but forever grateful for our friendship. I’m yelling from the bullhorn: Godspeed, Buddy Dave! Thank you for your everything. —Buttercup xox
This photo of David Lynch campaigning for Laura Dern’s performance in Inland Empire (2006)
Laura Dern’s tribute on Instagram:
Happy birthday, tidbit.
I will love and miss you every day for the rest of my life.
Justin Theroux’s tribute on Instagram:
Laura once told me this monologue was the most telling of David. The most David in its spirit. I agree. David was kind. David was laughter. David was loving.
I love you David. Now that the Robins have come for you. 🖤🕊️
Mädchen Amick’s tribute on Instagram:
It’s hard for me to find the words to express the loss of, yes, a masterful genius but more importantly, a simply wonderful guy. David Lynch was my mentor. How lucky was I? He was also my dear friend. Always there for a random check-in, or life-changing advice. He was my north star. He watched me grow up. He watched me become a mother. He cheered me on when I stepped into the director’s chair. I will hold those long conversations we had in his home on the hill very close to my heart. We laughed. We cried. We stayed inspired. I will miss you David. And I will see you on the other side. — Your Madgekin
Chris Isaak’s tribute on Instagram
I just heard the news that David Lynch has died. I knew he was sick but I hoped he might make a comeback. I feel lucky for all the time I got to spend with him, he was one of a kind. He was so smart, so creative, and he had a way of being very honest and direct that reminded me of how kids say things…innocent without doubletalk or bumpers. He was able to take an actor, and with a few simple directions, make him better.
It was David who made the first video for my song “Wicked Game.” I couldn’t get the money to make a video and David stepped in, directed, and got the ball rolling. He was a friend when I needed one.
I always had fun working with David. Sometimes it was just us in the recording studio, other times on set filming. I remember he had just finished filming on “Fire Walk With Me” and I brought David a gift, a paintball gun. He took a few practice shots and somebody bet him he couldn’t hit a wall clock at the far end of the set. He suddenly got very serious, focused, and BAM! Bullseye. I kind of carry that picture of him focused and hitting a bullseye. He was an amazing guy. I really liked him a lot. I think I’m gonna always miss him.
Nobody like him.
Peter Demming’s tribute on Instagram:
It’s impossible to articulate the loss felt by the passing of David Lynch. I was blessed to call him a mentor, a collaborator (still insane to comprehend for me) and a friend for thirty-three years. Such a unique vision, David had the truly singular ability to combine images and sound to foster emotions and realities far beyond the reach of any language. To take audiences to strange and dark places only he could bring to life. To be tasked to create imagery worthy of David’s imagination was the absolute best job in cinema. Ever. And one I will forever be grateful to have been fortunate to be a part of. Creativity. Inspiration. Imagination. Emotion. Pushing boundaries every opportunity he had and including us on that journey. The greatest ever to do it. I’ll so miss the infinity of your positive spirit, David and sharing a cup ‘o joe. I’ll just miss you David. Tomorrow is David’s birthday. He would have been 79.
❤️🧡💛💚💙💜 to Jennifer, Austin, Riley and Lula.
Michael Horse’s tribute on Instagram:
Wherever my friend is i hope they have big boys
Amber Tamblyn sharing a photo of her dad at a Twin Peaks wrap party.
My dad, Russ Tamblyn, and David Lynch celebrating the wrap of Twin Peaks in the 90s. Heartbreaking to lose such a visionary artist at this particular time in our history.
This photo of David Lynch and Roy Orbison at The Roxy:
David Lynch on Late Night with David Letterman in 1991:
Lynch: Now we're sort of in trouble and we think that we have a good show and we can do well on a week night because we feel very strongly that the people who like Twin Peaks are party people.
Letterman: What does that mean exactly?
Lynch: They are not home on Saturday night.
Letterman: Oh, I see.
Lynch: They don't want to be home on Saturday night and so to have the show on that night would be wrong.
Sofia Coppola at the premiere of The Straight Story (1999)
Vera Drew’s thread about Lynch’s impact on her as an artist:
Martin Scorsese’s tribute, as shared by IndieWire:
“I hear and read the word ‘visionary’ a lot these days—it’s become a kind of catch-all description, another piece of promotional language. But David Lynch really was a visionary—in fact, the word could have been invented to describe the man and the films, the series, the images and the sounds he left behind,” said Martin Scorsese in a statement shared with IndieWire. “He created forms that seemed like they were right on the edge of falling apart but somehow never did. He put images on the screen unlike anything that I or anybody else had ever seen—he made everything strange, uncanny, revelatory and new. And he was absolutely uncompromising, from start to finish. It’s a sad, sad day for moviemakers, movie lovers, and for the art of cinema. But ‘Eraserhead,’ ‘The Elephant Man,’ ‘Blue Velvet,’ ‘Wild at Heart,’ the two ‘Twin Peaks’ series and the film ‘Fire Walk with Me,’ ‘Lost Highway,’ ‘The Straight Story,’ ‘Mulholland Drive,’ ‘Inland Empire’… as the years and the decades go by, they will just keep growing and deepening. We were lucky to have had David Lynch.”
This 1997 profile on David Lynch in Rolling Stone:
Every single element in a movie now has to be understood - and understood at the lowest common denominator. It's a real shame, because there are so many places that people could go if they weren't corralled so tightly with those kinds of restraints.
Jane Schoenbrun’s tribute on Twitter:
Like Kafka, like Bacon, he dedicated his life to opening a portal. He was the first to show me another world, a beautiful one of love and danger I sensed but had never seen outside sleep. Thank you David your gift will reverberate for the rest of my life.
This story from the Snoqualmie Valley Historical Museum:
David Lynch in the lobby of the North Bend Theatre during the sneak preview of “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me” in North Bend, Washington (1992). It was shown two weeks ahead of its North American premiere and was introduced by David Lynch himself. David Lynch chose the Snoqualmie Valley for the mysterious atmosphere the forested towns provided. The real owner of Double-R Diner in 1992 (Mar-T Cafe) Pat Cokewell also pictured (white dress). Her secret recipe for cherry pie was said to be added to the show after the crew started working late nights in the restaurant. Pat used to give them the key and told them to lock up when done and they often asked if they could eat some pie. She told them to make a mark on a receipt and she’d charge them later. After the pie was added to the show she had to staff an extra shift just to keep up with the pie demand alone. She used to drop hints about the recipe but she never revealed it even though she was made many offers for it.
This video interview on BBC Archive of David Lynch at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival
Lynch speaks with Barry Norman about bringing Wild At Heart to the festival, his first time attending what he called “the best festival in the world.” The video then ends with him explaining to Norman why he’s kept his shoe united for two months.
This 2012 conversation between Matt Diehl and Lynch in Interview Magazine:
Most films reflect the world, and the world is violent and in a lot of trouble. It’s not the other way around. The films don’t make a peaceful world violent—the violent world made the films.
Lynch by Lynch, the Film Director as Self-Portraitist in the New York Times:
It would be a forest, because I love wood. There’s a beautiful mystery in a forest particularly a forest of Ponderosa Pine. It was my father’s favorite tree, and it became my favorite tree. . . . It has an incredible smell and a beautiful look, and the trees are not close together. The forest is very friendly with chipmunks and birds and deer and babbling brooks with ice-cold, crystal clear water. The forest floor is deep with pine needles, so it is very soft. There is a silence in the forest — maybe just a light sound of wind blowing through the pine needles. And the sunlight is so beautiful as it filters through, thrilling the soul.
This FLOOD Magazine profile from 2022:
Nobody knows what life would be like if they didn't do certain things, you know what I mean? You can't go back, you can't figure it out. But I remember the way I was before I started TM. I had big anxieties. I had fears. I had melancholy—not full-on depression, but melancholy. I had a lot of anger, and I also was not self-assured. In show business, you could get killed, squashed like a bug, so easily if you don’t have inner strength. Transcending is the key, Rain. Consciousness, a field of unbounded, eternal, infinite, immortal, immutable consciousness is within every human being. Transcending means you've gone deep enough within to experience that ocean unbounded, eternal. And every time a human being really experiences that unbounded, pure consciousness, they infuse some, they begin to grow in that.
This interview with Town & Country about his paintings:
How is creating artwork different for you than making movies?
It's all ideas. You go where the inspiration from ideas that you happen to fall in love with will take you. Once in a while you get an idea for a painting that's just like a gift; you're so excited and you know what you're going after it because of the idea, and it takes you into the world of paint. Some ideas are cinema ideas; there are ideas for everything. So, you go by the ideas that you fall in love with.
This archival recording of a Q&A after a screening of ERASERHEAD at the Pacific Film Archive in 1978.
I'm really interested in mood and sound and visuals working together to get a feeling of mystery and a feeling of openness where you can sort of zoom out to areas that you don’t normally go out into. I like the strange areas that Eraserhead country sort of is. And developing another world. There’s rules, you know, even if there’s a strange place, there’s rules that you go by and you have to obey all these rules the moment you start. But everything has to feel right and make sense, even though it’s so strange. So I really tried hard to use humor in a certain way so I could go from humor to frightening to strange.
These two songs that meant so much to him.
This Mortal Coil’s cover of “Song To The Siren,” which, as the story goes, Lynch wanted to use in Blue Velvet, but could not afford the rights. Which led to him collaborating with Angelo Badalamenti on the song “Mysteries of Love” as sung by Julee Cruise.
All three then collaborated on the album Floating into the Night. I like to think they’re all reunited now, making even more beautiful music together in whatever comes next.
These loving words of encouragement from the man himself.
Lastly, this message from his children:
David Lynch, our beloved dad, was a guiding light of creativity, love, and peace. On Monday, January 20th—what would have been his 79th birthday—we invite you all to join us in a worldwide group meditation at 12:00pm NOON PST for 10 minutes.
Let us come together, wherever we are, to honor his legacy by spreading peace and love across the world. Please take this time to meditate, reflect, and send positivity into the universe.
Thank you for being part of this celebration of his life.
Love,
Jennifer, Austin, Riley and Lula Lynch
In Heaven (Everything is Fine)
I started to write this post several times now and each time I had to stop myself because there is just too much to say. This is very stream of consciousness.
Thanks for this generous post