Filmmaking Icon & Twin Peaks Creator David Lynch Passes Away

The world has lost one of its most influential filmmakers and artists as David Lynch, the mind behind the likes of Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, and Twin Peaks, has passed away. Variety reports that the writer-director known for his surrealist motifs and influence on genre films, passed away at the age of 78.

Lynch’s family announced the news in a post on Facebook, writing:

It is with deep regret that we, his family, announce the passing of the man and the artist, David Lynch. We would appreciate some privacy at this time. There’s a big hole in the world now that he’s no longer with us. But, as he would say, “Keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole.”

It’s a beautiful day with golden sunshine and blue skies all the way.

Lynch had a career that spanned over 50 years and was punctuated with some of the most idiosyncratic movies to break into mainstream culture including Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, and Inland Empire. While his films defied mainstream conventions and he famously clashed with many of the studios he worked with, he remained a creative force that the Hollywood system sought to work with due to the high regard for his projects and his visionary approach — even when those didn’t always find commercial success.

Born in Montana, Lynch’s family moved regularly due to his father’s work as a research scientist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture before settling in Alexandria, Virginia. Lynch initially found interest in painting and enrolled in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia in 1965. During this time, living in the urban environment of Philadelphia with his first wife and infant daughter, he began to work with film and directed a couple of shorts before he began to work for the nascent American Film Institute in 1971. His experiences in Philadelphia would form the inspiration for his first film, Eraserhead. The surrealist film, produced painstakingly over a five year period, pushed away critics but became a hit at midnight screenings.

The success of Eraserhead brought Lynch to the attention of Mel Brooks through producer Stuart Cornfeld, who urged Brooks to bring Lynch on. That resulted in Lynch writing and directing The Elephant Man, which became a box office and critical hit. It earned Lynch his first Oscar attention with nominations for Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Picture.

Lynch followed up the success of The Elephant Man with his biggest early disaster, Dune. After turning down a chance to direct Return of the Jedi, Lynch signed on to direct the adaptation of the Frank Herbert series for Universal Pictures and had notorious clashes with the studio over his cut, which ran a distinctly uncommercial four hours. The two-hour cut was satisfying to no one and lost money at the box office. He bounced back from that with the freaky neo-noir thriller Blue Velvet, which initially drew controversy for its explicit content but has become recognized as a classic, and then Wild at Heart in 1990.

During this time, Lynch began one of his most unlikely projects — a broadcast television series. Twin Peaks was a mystery series at ABC that was intended by the network to capitalize on the success of crime thrillers, but Lynch envisioned the project more about what how the shocking murder of a teenage girl would affect a small town. The series became a smash hit on ABC in 1990, with the phrase “Who Killed Laura Palmer?” becoming embedded in the pop culture lexicon. Lynch didn’t want to solve the mystery of the murder, but ABC insisted and once it was solved, the series viewership tanked. Lynch would revisit the project with 1992’s Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me and 2017’s Twin Peaks series for Showtime.

Lynch continued making films throughout the 1990s with films like Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, and Inland Empire that excited his fanbase but confounded mainstream audiences. He stopped making films after Inland Empire, though he always said that he hadn’t necessarily quit cinema. He continued painting with exhibitions throughout his career, and was involved in several music projects with three solo albums to his name and a number of collaborative albums. His final album was Cellophane Memories, his third collaboration with Chrystabell, which released in August of last year.

Throughout his carer, Lynch earned four Oscar nominations and the Academy Honorary Award in 2019. He also earned nominations for BAFTAs, a host of Emmys for Twin Peaks, a number of Golden Globes, and won the Palme d’Or at Cannes for Wild At Heart as well as Best Director at Cannes for Mulholland Drive.

ON behalf of 411, our condolences to the family, friends, and many fans of David Lynch’s. Film would not be the same without him.