David Lynch: RIP and Ranked (A Celebration)

[dragoner]

1st half of dune was perfect, then it fell down. I really like Mulholland Drive, though I think I like Wild At Heart best.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

In all honesty, I think I never loved David Lynch, but I’ve always liked David Lynch. As in, I’ve never seen a work of his that affected me deeply, but I’ve enjoyed every work of his I’ve seen. Even the small stuff like this:


In some ways, it’s as if he and I were on similar but divergent artistic paths.

Dune was probably my favorite, overall. I have watched Twin Peaks sporadically in reruns- really enjoyed the Black Lodge sequences. Eraserhead and Blue Velvet are pleasant memories, but largely forgotten.

 

[TiQuinn]

In all honesty, I think I never loved David Lynch, but I’ve always liked David Lynch. As in, I’ve never seen a work of his that affected me deeply, but I’ve enjoyed every work of his I’ve seen. Even the small stuff like this:


In some ways, it’s as if he and I were on similar but divergent artistic paths.

Dune was probably my favorite, overall. I have watched Twin Peaks sporadically in reruns- really enjoyed the Black Lodge sequences. Eraserhead and Blue Velvet are pleasant memories, but largely forgotten.

Same here. I can’t say David Lynch was a director I ever went out of my way to watch because his movies had a vibe that I had to really be in a mood to watch, but when I did, I enjoyed them and it was more just letting the vibe wash over me rather than try to really parse or critique the movie. I watched them because they were truly unique and I was watching something with a very intentional perspective. The surrealism was the point.

 

[Denito]

So I usually just lurk around here but for this topic I had to come out of hiding. Apologies in advance for any grammatical errors, since English obviously isn't my mother tongue.

Like many other people I found David Lynch through Twin Peaks. But while I watched the original series in 2013/2014 during my time in Japan, it was watching The Return in 2021, which I absolutely adore to this day, that got me interested in and then hooked to his other works. My partner who only had a casual interest in his stuff and I used to watch the last few months of his weather reports before they ended. Over the last few years I still held out hope that he would do one last work even though I couldn't ask for anything more fitting and more deserving of his final piece than Twin Peaks The Return. Interestingly, the day David Lynch's death was reported, I talked with a fellow colleague and later my girlfriend about him. And while I was actually shocked to read about his passing, I'm mostly thankful for all the great moments he gave me and other people.



So without further ado, here's my try at ranking all of his works that I have seen:

(Dune - Disclaimer: Even though I have the original cut I only ever saw the extended one of which Lynch tried to distance himself as much as possible and that was over 20 years ago. Because of these reasons I'm not ranking it officially even though it would probably fall into the lower ranks)

11. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me - only saw it once after The Return and didn't like it that much. Lynch's cut is a little to weird for my taste and having seen the deleted scenes made me scratch my head a little more about his decisions in that film.

10. Inland Empire - also just seen it once after getting his whole film collection so I probably need to give it a second go, but while I respect the idea to shoot the whole movie digitally with his little camera I can’t help but wonder what higher production values would have done for this one

09. Eraserhead – I’m still getting the creeps when thinking about the „baby“ but it was a really interesting film that I have to rewatch eventually

08. The Straight Story – a beautiful little movie

07. The Elephant Man – great movie all around

06. Lost Highway – really interesting and dark film that I think I really need to rewatch soon

05. Wild at Heart – really liked it and also need to watch it again

04. Twin Peaks – when it stinks it stinks (hey James subplot in season 2) but when it’s great it’s so very special

03. Blue Velvet – disturbing, weirdly funny, beautiful, mesmerizing – David Lynch in a nutshell

02. Mulholland Drive – While I still think about what this world would be like if the original series had been greenlighted I am at the same time so, so very thankful that we received this piece of art with its new ending which might be one of the prime examples of „art through adversity“

01. Twin Peaks: The Return: the reason I am writing this post right now. For me it’s not only a small miracle that so many of the original cast could come back for this one (especially when considering that quite a few of them died in the years after). It’s more cohesive in tone, darker and more mysterious with an even better, more fitting ending than the one we got with season 2. Even though I could have binged the series at the time I found it on one of my streaming services, I soon realized that I have to take my time with each episode (a feeling which the concert performances at the end of most of the episodes really helped convene, starting with the absolutely fitting Shadow by The Chromatics). And with over 15 hours of David Lynch directed material it truly is a precious gift that I’m already looking forward to watching again.

 

[Baron Opal II]

I saw Dune with my dad, we loved it. Lynch's vision matched his exceptionally well.

Lost High was with Bill Pullman? That was one that I didn't get at all. Later, someone mentioned that David Lynch directed it, and that reframed my expectations for a second viewing. Enjoyed it that time.

 

[RangerWickett]

I kinda disliked Twin Peaks: The Return. I liked Fire Walk With Me best of any of the Lynch stuff I've seen, which proved he could do Twin Peaks and have an interesting tone without Mark Frost. But The Return just lacked verve. It was one note, and that note was unsettling.

Like, I get it, I think. The point of Twin Peaks was basically that trauma is not wrapped up tidily. It subverted the cop-solve-murder-resolve-in-1-hour plots that happened so often in TV back then. And so having a sequel that people expected to 'answer things' actually be a hollow doppelganger of the original show we loved, lacking its soul? Yeah, it makes a point.

But it wasn't fun. He could have made his point in 3 episodes, and then done the nuclear test episode as a separate thing, because that was an amazing ep.

What did the rest of y'all get out of The Return? It was so lifeless to me.