(Toronto) Kyle Edward Ball was just nine years old when he saw his first David Lynch film, the mind-bending psychological thriller Mulholland Drive released in 2001, but he was forever struck by this film, as other Canadian filmmakers have also been marked by the director’s influence.
Updated yesterday at 5:32 p.m.
Alex Nino Gheciu
The Canadian Press
“What struck me is that his films are like music. They have a feeling and an atmosphere, explained the Edmonton-based horror filmmaker. He proved that you could do something not only strange, but also experimental with a capital E and that people would enjoy it if you made it interesting. »
The 33-year-old director says David Lynch inspired him to make his own avant-garde films, including the viral horror film Skinamark released in 2022.
At the film’s premiere in Los Angeles, Mr. Lynch asked his team to send Mr. Ball a congratulatory note along with a package of merchandise, including a signed DVD of his first feature film Eraserhead released in 1977.
“It was incredible. He was my childhood hero. He is still my idol,” he testified.
David Lynch died of emphysema, his family announced Thursday. He was 78 years old.
A singular vision
Mr. Ball is one of several Canadian filmmakers who say the Montana-born writer-director had a major influence on their careers with his dark, singular and surreal vision.
“Lynch was everything to me, the reason I first picked up a camera,” Winnipeg director Guy Maddin said by email.
Mr. Maddin became a pioneer of Winnipeg’s experimental film scene with his confusing and offbeat feature films, from Tales From the Gimli Hospital in 1988 at Rumours last year.
“He got into my head so much that I felt like I knew him, even though we never met. The emergence of this visionary changed cinema forever. What a huge loss. Extremely sad. »
After causing a sensation in the 1970s with Eraserheada nightmarish indie body horror film, David Lynch captured Hollywood’s attention with his quirky, unflinching style. Movies like the thriller Blue Velvet from 1986 and the twisted, feverish romance Wild at Heart from 1990 cemented his status as one of cinema’s most unconventional and disturbing filmmakers.
At the same time, its horror and mystery series Twin Peaks from the early 1990s, which he created with screenwriter Mark Frost, is widely considered to have revolutionized American television by providing audiences with complex, bizarre and non-linear storytelling.
“He created a very experimental television show and showed that people will watch it and enjoy it if you also make it funny or moving or mysterious,” said Mr. Ball, whose next project is a horror film A24. “He proved that conventional audiences are much more adventurous than we think. »
An entry into experimental cinema
Alan Jones, filmmaker and co-founder of the Toronto film collective Bleeding Edge, says he was inspired by the DIY spirit of Mr. Lynch, who made Eraserhead with close friends and minimal financial support.
“When it came out, the film was rejected by every major film festival and it became famous through midnight screenings, basically. I feel like that’s the spirit that has driven a lot of the films we’ve screened with Bleeding Edge: no real money, just a lot of friends coming together to create very personal, very unique things. “, he said.
Bleeding Edge hosts screenings at Toronto’s Paradise Theater that highlight some of the city’s boldest and most original independent filmmakers.
Co-founder Ethan Vestby says Mr. Lynch’s influence can be traced to Toronto’s current wave of young, experimental directors making “aesthetically daring and strange” films, citing Braden Sitter Sr.’s crime comedy as recent examples. The Pee Pee Poo Poo Man of 2024 and Nate Wilson’s polyamorous mystery thriller film The All Golden of 2023.
“The fact that he was the only mainstream avant-garde artist in America, at least in cinema, in the 20e and at 21e century, means that he has served as an inspiration to virtually everyone interested in [aux films expérimentaux] “, he explained.
-“It opens something in people’s brains. For a lot of young filmmakers, he’s the first person whose work you see and say, “Hey, I didn’t know films could do that. I didn’t know I could break these rules.”
Toronto director Kire Paputts credited Mr. Lynch as his gateway to experimental cinema. He knew the director by watching Eraserhead when he was 10 years old.
“It taught me that you can make a movie and it doesn’t have to make sense to be enjoyable,” he shared.
He says David Lynch’s uncompromising vision inspired his own films, including the coming-of-age drama The Rainbow Kid of 2015 and the dark comedy-drama The Last Porno Theatre of 2019.
“I don’t think he really cared what people thought about his films. He was doing exactly what he wanted to do, so I try to have the same mindset in my own work,” said Mr. Paputts, who is currently working on a Hamilton chase film called The Junkie Run.
“It’s more important to have a vision, stick to it and not get tempted by money or other things that come with this industry,” he said.
Mr. Paputts says he was also inspired by the way Mr. Lynch’s films challenge viewers’ perceptions of reality.
“It’s something I think about quite often when I write. How can we move away from reality and fall further into a dreamlike state?, he argued. There are images and details of his work that will stay with me forever. »
Other reactions to the death of David Lynch
David Lynch will continue “to nourish our imagination”, declared the Cannes Film Festival on Friday, after the death of the American director, who had been president of the jury and had received the Palme d’Or.
“It is with infinite sadness that we learn of the death of David Lynch, we lose a unique and visionary artist whose work will have influenced cinema like few others before,” greeted the Festival sur X and its general delegate , Thierry Frémaux.
“Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1990 for Sailor et Lula then Best Director Award in 2001 for Mulholland Drivehe elegantly chaired the jury in 2002, they recalled. He leaves behind a rare and timeless body of work, whose films will continue to nourish our imagination and inspire all those who see in cinema an art capable of revealing the unspeakable. »
Lynch was very popular in Europe, and particularly in France, where he had, among other things, designed a select nightclub in the heart of Paris, the Silencio.
It was also in Paris, at the Fondation Cartier, with which he had special relationships, that a major monographic exhibition was dedicated to him in 2007, The Air is on Fire.
“We are all very moved and affected by the Cartier Foundation,” said Grazia Quaroni, director of the foundation’s collection, on Friday, which includes “a heritage of drawings revealing its continued creative ferment.”
“The former general director of the foundation, Hervé Chandès, discovered his studio in Los Angeles and he revealed to the world all the facets of expression of David Lynch, filmmaker, but also painter, designer, sculptor, photographer, musician, of immense generosity and rare attention to others, whoever they may be,” she added.
In addition to his Cannes distinctions, David Lynch had twice received the César for best foreign film, in 1982 for Elephant Man then in 2002 for Mulholland Drive. “A cinema legend has passed away. David Lynch leaves behind an extraordinary filmography. […] He is one of the great filmmakers who marked their time and whom we will never forget,” praised the Académie des Césars on X.
“I wish you a wonderful trip David”, wrote Marion Cotillard, who had shot for Lynch in a medium-length film for Dior in 2010, Lady Blue Shanghai.
“I am so proud that our paths crossed and to have had the great chance to be filmed by you. Being near you was like being in touch with a depth of heart and soul,” the French star said on Instagram.
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