“My films are made to be felt, not to be understood,” David Lynch told us a few years ago. He also claimed that “only death could stop me from turning.” It happened this Thursday, definitively depriving us of an immense filmmaker but also of a charming man with delicious humor.
We came away from each meeting with David Lynch enriched, impressed by his kindness, his gentleness, his simplicity but also his humor. Today, all that remains is his films, his paintings and the enormous pain of moviegoers who he marked forever. To pay tribute to him, let's take a look at these major works classified from the most general public to the most experimental.
1/“A True Story”
We only recognize David Lynch in his taste for atypical characters in this original road movie. A true story (1999), it is that of an old man who sets off along American roads to find his sick brother. Important detail: he undertakes this journey of several hundred kilometers on a lawn mower. Contrary to his usual, the filmmaker offers a solar work celebrating the beauty of America and human beings. This enchanted parenthesis seems a good way to gently delve into the master's filmography.
2/« Elephant Man »
David Lynch didn't like Elephant Man (1980) but we have the right to disagree with him. The true story of Joseph Merrick (1862-1890), a man physically deformed by Proteus Syndrome, exploited as a fairground freak and saved by a doctor, is a good sequel to King David's introduction to cinema. Accessible to the general public, he speaks about difference in a masterful way. “I'm not a monster. I am a human being,” shouts the hero played by John Hurt. A line that could define David Lynch’s cinema.
3/« Twin Peaks »
There was a before and after Twin Peaks on television. Three seasons, the first two in 1991 and the third in 2017, and a feature-length cinema film, Fire Walk With Memake this saga one of the first series as addictive as it is innovative. “Who killed Laura Palmer?” “, this question tears apart a small town with poisonous secrets. David Lynch and agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan, the filmmaker's favorite actor) dive into a universe on the borders of fantasy for a fascinating tale with perverse characters. We are left wanting to have a cherry pie and a “Damn Good Coffee” with them while listening to the haunting music of Angelo Badalamenti.
-4/« Sailor et Lula »
Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1990, Sailor et Lula takes the duo Laura Dern and Nicolas Cage into a road movie as fascinating as it is rock'n'roll. Willem Dafoe, Diane Ladd, Harry Dean Stanton and Isabella Rossellini are on the trip. We sing Elvis Presley's “Love Me Tender” at the top of our lungs with this couple on the run fleeing from bad guys who want to stop them from loving each other. In dictionaries, this film should serve as an example to illustrate the notion of “cool”. Recommended for anyone who wants to hit the road with their loved one.
5/ « Blue Velvet »
A severed ear found in a garden, Isabella Rossellini singing in a blue velvet dress and Dennis Hopper terrifying with his inhaler: images from Blue Velvet (1987), haunt lastingly. Kyle MacLachlan leads the investigation into a sinister nightclub. We let ourselves be caught up in a universe that prefigures Twin Peaks and its delicately perverse protagonists. The American dream takes its toll in this captivating nightmare carried by Roy Orbison's “In Dreams”.
6/ « Mulholland Drive »
Okay then, we're getting into the hard part! Mulholland Drivee (2001) is considered David Lynch's most hermetic work. Naomi Watts and Laura Harring are the heroines of a hallucinatory trip around Hollywood where David Lynch lived but whose codes he liked to torpedo. Just let yourself be carried away. “It’s what you won’t understand that is the most beautiful,” said Paul Claudel. We imagine that this quote would have pleased David Lynch. Muldholland Drive is his masterpiece, a film outside of time and the world. The quintessence of his filmography. Unforgettable.
7/« Eraserhead »
If you liked Mulholland Driveit's time for you to try EraserheadDavid Lynch's first feature film released in 1977. This experimental poem demands total letting go. This is the price to pay for a unique and immersive experience in a world of furious madness filmed in hypnotic black and white. This terrifying dream already shows the strength of a unique filmmaker whose cinema changed the 7th Art forever.
