David Lynch & Me
Ariel Rivera
During the months post COVID lockdown, when everyone was trying to find their own niche hobby to claim as proof of personality, I discovered that I had grown an affinity for films. I was a regular Roger Ebert, reviewing films on Letterboxd immediately when they finished and throwing around verbiage like mise en scène to flex my film fluency. Looking back on this time makes me cringe to be quite honest, I was watching all these films with the most mundane analytical lens trying desperately to figure out what they meant and spending the runtime playing seesaw with the numerical score I would give the film. That is til I watched David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive.
Screencap from Mulholland Drive | Image Credit: Universal Pictures
Mulholland Drive follows Betty, played by Naomi Watts, an aspiring actress who’s new to Hollywood as she helps Rita, played by Laura Harring, figure out who she is after she suffers a bout of amnesia following a car crash. It is a hodgepodge of genres and was listed number five in The Wrap’s most confusing movies of all-time list. All this to say that this movie seems like prime material for my analytical brain to focus on dissecting instead of experiencing, but the emotions I felt as the credits rolled were indescribable.
I’ve seen Mulholland Drive four times now and with each viewing I fall into the same dizzying, hypnotic spell, getting completely entranced by the surrealist masterpiece Lynch creates. Along with the The Elephant Man, Mulholland Drive is generally regarded as David Lynch’s most critically acclaimed film because of its surrealism. In fact, I’d go so far to say he is the king of surrealism, his work often surrounding the jubilous escapism dreams can bring along with the dark truths dreams and the unconscious can uncover.
It is through this emphasis on surrealism and the unconscious that Lynch taught me how to intrinsically feel a movie—how to let images seep into my skin, replacing flesh for fiction. That is why when it was announced that David Lynch had tragically passed away in Janaury of this year, it completely devastated me and countless others in the film community. How does one process the loss of an artist who completely changed the way cinema was viewed? Who changed the form forever and dared to touch upon unspoken realities through his films—we process this by finding bits of David everywhere we turn.
David Lynch Visiting Veda House, Stockholm (2010) | Image Credit: IMDB
The use of the word “Lynchian” to describe works or aspects of a film that viewers find similar to Lynch’s style has become something of a worn out refrain - just in 2024 alone, I can recount four separate times a different film got labeled Lynchian (those being I Saw the TV Glow, Queer, Kinds of Kindness, and The Substance). Not every funky line reading or stilted, quiet pause in a film is Lynchian—a dreamlike atmosphere alone doth not a Lynchian film make. That’s not to say the filmmaker may or may not have been directly or indirectly inspired by Lynch’s work, and while it may get tiresome to see the term get thrown around willy-nilly, even I am guilty of this at times, there is something endearing in seeing a multitude of Lynch fans uphold his legacy in this way.
Classic American iconography decorates Lynch’s worlds, such as diners, cherry pies, the idea of Hollywood, a shiny red car, all these motifs constantly remind me of David. This 1950’s Grease-esque nostalgia that usually accompanies these types of projects can come off conservative leaning in a “missing the good ole days,” white picket fence sort of way, but with Lynch at the helm, his projects display the falsity of this “dream” life. This deconstruction of the American nuclear family is seen in countless modern day projects, most notably American Beauty, A History of Violence, and Cache to name a few.
The Mar-T Diner which was used as the Double R Diner in Twin Peaks | Image Credit: Twede’s Cafe
Since his passing, I find myself thinking about David often. His work is notorious for being metaphorical and avant-garde, but what is imprinted on me with his films is just how empathetic a worldview he had of society. Knowing that there is a capacity for wickedness and rot to seep through all of us, but there is also unimaginable goodness and beauty in the world that will keep us going. Waterfalls, the sway of leaves, stolen glances, the pursuit of love, relishing in the quiet moments of life and finding beauty in the absurdity of what life can be, is what Lynch means to me. The shadow man may come and paralyze you, a night terror may wake you up in a puddle of sweat, but for a moment you lived the most beautiful, twisted, strange dream, and everything was fine. After all, in heaven everything is fine.
Strike Out,
Ariel Rivera
Ariel Rivera is a junior at Florida International University, majoring in Media Communications with a minor in English Studies. As a writer, Rivera is passionate about expanding on pop culture topics that may seem frivolous at first glance, but which, through his unique point of view, become pillars of discussion. A self-described crazy film nerd, Rivera enjoys watching and reviewing movies in his free time, as well as reading and lounging with his dog, Neo.
