Understanding David Lynch: Embracing the Mystery
"It's better not to know so much about what things mean or how they might be interpreted, or you'll be too afraid to let things keep happening." -David Lynch
In the world of movie-making, one director who will, and will continue to be brought up, is David Lynch. Over 58 years of directing and producing movies, David Lynch has been known as an American filmmaker who strove to explore the depths of society through his deeply imaginative mind. In 2025, David Lynch tragically passed away, which brought a larger audience to his movies, making his narrative ever so relevant to this day. But the questions remained for viewers: how do you truly explain one of his movies? For 5 decades, critics and average movie watchers alike have been obsessed with trying to deciepher Lynch's filmography for an answer to this question. However, can there really be an answer to something as imaginitive, and unique like a "Lynchian" film?
With each movie David Lynch has directed, he tells a different story, each of which follows an indirect path. Although he tended to frequently use similar actors in his movies, each of them is a uniquely original role in his similarly eccentric plotlines. From his first movie release, Eraserhead, in 1977, viewers
reported an unsettling and strange feeling about the film. This black-and-white movie not only included bizarre events, but also an equally odd way of telling a story. This movie introduced the dream-like sequence that Lynch would soon include in
most of his movies, which is fragmented and illusionist, rather than straightforward or direct. Instead of relying on typical logic of plot, he explored his stories through the lens of a deeper underlying consciousness, as in a dream. Specifically, Lynch envisions this strategy as:
"When you sleep, you don't control your dream. I like to dive into a world that I've made, a world I chose and that I have complete control over" (David Lynch)
To take his audience to an entirely new place through his films, he uses this approach, which allows him to exert complete control and to take his viewers on a journey. When you dream, what you remember from those dreams doesn't make sense; it is our brain's way of encoding information from earlier that day. Emulating this same process, David Lynch strives for his movies to mix reality with "dreams" to convey deeper meaning.
However, the meaning he threads through his movies, he doesn't necessarily want his audience to seek out. In movies such as Muholland Drive, the story follows two women who follow two different versions of their "reality."
Many viewers argue that the second half of the movie is the real version of their life, and the first half is Diane's (Betty's) ideal world. But there is no single explanation for this movie, and it could be interpreted in many different ways depending on how you look at it. David Lynch wanted this for his audience; he did not want them to come to a single conclusion, but rather use their own experience watching as a guide for their understanding. While many people can appreciate this unique approach to filmmaking, critics still find many of David Lynch's movies confusing and hard to make sense of. Compared to other filmmakers in his time, Lynch was creating movies that challenged societal ideals and other aspects of the world that people ignored. When asked why he took this differing approach from other filmmakers, he answered:
"I don't know why people expect art to make sense. They accept the fact that life doesn't make sense." (David Lynch).
Instead of a director concerned with making "smart" movies, he wanted to create a work of art, that is, an abstraction of the world around us. One way of thinking about it is to start with a blank canvas. When you think of what to put on the empty space your mind wanders, and as each stroke of your brush covers the space, a new piece of the puzzle is created. This brainstorming process originates from David Lynch's history with art in art school, (pre-drop out...), and is why he chooses to be so artistic with his film choices.
Funnily enough, this mindset allowed for Lynch to create movies that many people consider to be some of the most genius films in filmmaking history. David Lynch's 1986 film, Blue Velvet, completely undermines and criticizes the 1950's underworld behind an innocent mask of surface America. In a dark
and a violent dream sequence, he exposes that the underbelly can exist within a seemingly peaceful town. As soon as this movie was released it was deemed as extremely misoginistic and cruel, however arguably this criticism reflects the refusal to accept the reality in which we live in. The world we live in is a waking nightmare after all, so how can we turn away from a movie that so much as points this out? Violence, perversion, and gross imagery are so little compared to society in modern day, and David Lynch is one of the only directors who directly comments on this in this time period. In a world where we constantly ignore the flaws, Lynch finds them and picks them apart in his movies. As put by David Lynch himself,
"Music, painting, cinema- this is the art of life" (David Lynch).
Now that we live in a world where David Lynch no longer creates movies, the question remains if these movies will stand the test of time. As movie enthusiasts and directors continue to create and consume films, the works of art that Lynch brought to life must be forever remembered. If not for his dedication to think outside of the box, the inspiration for hundreds of movies would not have existed. Even if some of his movies have outdated effects (sorry Dune 1984), we must remember the materials he had to work with in the time, and how impactful he is a a film director. So, I leave you, lovely readers, with one last David Lynch quote:
"People get used to film that pretty much explains itself one-hundred percent, and they kind of turn off that beautiful thing of intuition when they're looking at a film that has some abstractions. Some people, on the other hand, love these abstractions, and it gives them room to dream. An abstraction is a thing that cinema can say. And it’s so beautiful, these pictures and sounds flowing along together in time, in a sequence, making a thing that can only really be said in cinema.” (David Lynch).
Until next time,
Between Scenes (Cassidy)
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