Is love the blood of the universe?
typed for your pleasure on 24 February 2025, at 12.13 amSdtrk: ‘The world spins’ by Julee Cruise
So I know for a fact that the first thing I ever saw directed by David Lynch was his unique take on Dune, in the theatre back in 1983. I’d never read any of the series apart from the one Dune book I’d gotten on a whim from the Science Fiction Book Club — starting the series from the fourth book wasn’t the best idea — but it was a scifi film, which was all that mattered to me back then. I had no idea that it was a fast and loose adaptation of Herbert’s book, which loads of critics savaged, but I remember it being capital W Weird, and anything that helped reinforce that Star wars and Star trek are bland scifi franchises is something that’ll pique my interest.
As I wasn’t as director-aware back then as I am now, the next Lynch thing I saw would’ve been Twin peaks. To this day, I’m still astonished that such a bold, insidious, and on many levels, straight-up terrifying programme like that was aired on broadcast television. On ABC! When I think of ABC, I think of anodyne shite like Family matters and Perfect strangers! My best friend Sean and our mutual friend Tammy and I were obsessed with that series; Tammy and I would often watch the week’s episode while on the phone together, like a pre-Netflix watch party. It’s been about three decades and I still recall our shock and astonishment of watching S02 E14, where a major character was murdered; between the character being killed, and the brutal and relentless way the scene was executed, we couldn’t believe what we were seeing. During a telly show on ABC! But from the first episodes of Twin peaks onward, Lynch had a hold on me to the point of wanting to become a film director myself. Clearly that… didn’t pan out, but he made me more mindful of directors overall; prior to that, films were just something I looked at.
After becoming fully invested in the best soap opera ever made (apart from Invitation to Love, of course), I started looking into his previous work. I’ve seen all of his feature films, with the exception of ‘The elephant man’ and ‘The straight story’, and in the interest of full disclosure, I’d have to say that although I love and admire his distinctive cinematic vision, Twin peaks resonated with me the most of all. I think the reason for that is because of its subversive quality; I’m drawn to things that have the surface appearance of normality, but are actually something different and/or perverse. This should come as a surprise to no-one. Regardless, these days, everyone knows what the deal is with Twin peaks — it’s synonymous with bizarre — but when all is said and done, it’s a soap opera, which is a very American invention, but it’s a subversion of a bog-standard soap opera. I mean, I gather that soap opera storylines tend to get more unhinged the longer they air, but even then, anything they could come up with would be a pale comparison to anything Lynch could’ve devised.
Another huge part of his appeal was that he was naturally eccentric as a person. Eccentricity is something I will always champion, as it’s the weirdos and those who are proudly left-of-centre who are cultural pioneers and innovators. Not in a capitalist context, but in literary and artistic modes, as Wilde (an infamous eccentric himself) would say; modes which I think are the better arbiters of culture. I recall reading an interview with Lynch in the Nineties, where he’d stated that he always buttoned up his shirt collars as he didn’t like the feeling of wind on his collarbone; I’d read that thinking ‘no, I totally get that.’ And then, of course, there’s the soured relationship he had with his former boys Chucko, Buster, Pete, Bob, and Dan, but that’s an entirely different anecdote. He was relentlessly true to himself and the visions he fostered, and that’s something to be proud of.
David Lynch was an artist, first and foremost, and often the lines between his artistic endeavours and his ‘normal’ existence blurred, which was another indicator that he was the genuine article. And any director… no, any level-headed human being… who has the presence of mind to make the statement he did about watching feature films on a mobile phone will always have my admiration; he was absolutely right to have said so.
Happy Twin peaks day, David. Please be sure to tell Bowie we all say Hi
Lynch was a saint cloaked as a transgressor in a world full of transgressors cloaked as saints.
— Phil Hester (@philhester.bsky.social) January 16, 2025 at 1:37 PM
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