1. David Keith Lynch was an American filmmaker, visual artist, musician, and actor.
136 Facts About David Lynch
1. 2.
Widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, Lynch was often called a "visionary" and was acclaimed for films often distinguished by their surrealist and experimental qualities.
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David Lynch studied painting and made short films before making his first feature, the independent body horror film Eraserhead, which found success as a midnight movie.
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David Lynch earned critical acclaim and nominations for the Academy Award for Best Director for the biographical drama The Elephant Man, the mystery thriller Blue Velvet, and the neo-noir Mulholland Drive.
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David Lynch directed the space opera Dune, the neo-noir Lost Highway, the road movie The Straight Story, and the experimental thriller Inland Empire.
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David Lynch co-wrote and directed its film prequel, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me and a third season in 2017.
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David Lynch's acting career included roles on Twin Peaks, The Cleveland Show, and Louie, and in the films Lucky and The Fabelmans.
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David Lynch directed music videos for Chris Isaak, X Japan, Moby, Interpol, Nine Inch Nails and Donovan, and commercials for Dior, YSL, Gucci and the New York City Department of Sanitation.
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David Lynch worked as a musician, releasing solo albums, and as a furniture designer, cartoonist, animator, photographer, and author.
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David Keith Lynch was born in Missoula, Montana, on January 20,1946.
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David Lynch's father, Donald Walton Lynch, was a research scientist working for the US Department of Agriculture, and his mother, Edwina "Sunny" Lynch, was an English language tutor.
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The David Lynch family often moved around according to where the USDA assigned Donald: David Lynch moved with his parents to Sandpoint, Idaho, when he was two months old; two years later, after his brother John was born, the family moved to Spokane, Washington.
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David Lynch adjusted to this transitory early life with relative ease, noting that he usually had no difficulty making new friends when he attended a new school.
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David Lynch befriended Toby Keeler, whose father, Bushnell, was a painter.
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At Francis C Hammond High School in Alexandria, Lynch did not excel academically, having little interest in schoolwork, but he was popular with other students, and after leaving he decided that he wanted to study painting at college.
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David Lynch began his studies at the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design in Washington, DC, before transferring in 1964 to the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston with roommate musician Peter Wolf.
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David Lynch decided to move to Philadelphia and enroll at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, after advice from Fisk, who was already enrolled there.
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In Philadelphia, David Lynch began a relationship with a fellow student, Peggy Reavey, whom he married in 1967.
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Meanwhile, to help support his family, David Lynch took a job printing engravings.
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At the Pennsylvania Academy, David Lynch made his first short film, Six Men Getting Sick.
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David Lynch had first come up with the idea when he developed a wish to see his paintings move, and he began discussing creating animation with an artist named Bruce Samuelson.
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When this project never came about, David Lynch decided to work on a film alone and purchased the cheapest 16mm camera he could find.
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AFI dean Frank Daniel asked David Lynch to reconsider, believing that he was one of the school's best students.
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David Lynch agreed on the condition that he could create a project that would not be interfered with.
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Eraserhead was planned to be about 42 minutes long, its script was only 21 pages, and David Lynch was able to create the film without interference.
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David Lynch was then supported by a loan from his father and money that he earned from a paper route that he took up, delivering The Wall Street Journal.
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David Lynch proposed that he make The Amputee to present to AFI to test two different types of film stock.
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David Lynch said that not a single reviewer of the film understood it as he intended.
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David Lynch tried to get it entered into the Cannes Film Festival, but while some reviewers liked it, others felt it was awful, and it was not selected for screening.
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David Lynch wanted to make some alterations that would deviate from real events but in his view make a better plot, but he needed the permission of Brooks, whose company, Brooksfilms, was responsible for production.
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David Lynch declined, saying that he had "next door to zero interest" and arguing that Lucas should direct the film himself as the movie should reflect his own vision, not David Lynch's.
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Soon, the opportunity to direct another big-budget science fiction epic arose when Dino de Laurentiis of the De Laurentiis Entertainment Group asked David Lynch to create a film adaptation of Frank Herbert's science fiction novel Dune.
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David Lynch agreed, and in doing so was contractually obliged to produce two other works for the company.
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David Lynch began writing a script based on the novel, initially with both de Vore and Bergren, and then alone when De Laurentiis was unhappy with their ideas.
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David Lynch helped build some of the sets, attempting to create "a certain look", and particularly enjoyed building the set for the oil planet Giedi Prime, for which he used "steel, bolts, and porcelain".
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David Lynch objected to the changes and had his name struck from the extended cut, which has Alan Smithee credited as the director and "Judas Booth" as the screenwriter.
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David Lynch was still contractually obligated to produce two other projects for De Laurentiis, the first a planned sequel to Dune, which due to the film's failure never went beyond the script stage.
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The other was a more personal work, based on a script David Lynch had been working on for some time.
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David Lynch called the story "a dream of strange desires wrapped inside a mystery story".
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David Lynch included 1960s pop songs, including Roy Orbison's "In Dreams" and Bobby Vinton's "Blue Velvet", the latter of which largely inspired the film.
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David Lynch met the television producer Mark Frost and they started working together on a biopic of Marilyn Monroe based on Anthony Summers's book The Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe, but it never got off the ground.
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David Lynch directed two of the first season's seven episodes and carefully chose the other episodes' directors.
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David Lynch appeared in several episodes as FBI agent Gordon Cole.
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David Lynch, who disliked the direction that writers and directors took in the later episodes, directed the final episode.
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David Lynch has said the film is about "the loneliness, shame, guilt, confusion and devastation of the victim of incest".
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David Lynch CIBY-2000 financed Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, and most of the TV series's cast reprised their roles, though some refused and many were unenthusiastic about the project.
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In 1993, David Lynch collaborated with Japanese musician Yoshiki on the video for X Japan's song "Longing ~Setsubou no Yoru~".
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Mr David Lynch accomplished the unthinkable by putting Richard Farnsworth, in a devastatingly real and rock-solid performance, on a lawnmower at five miles per hour and still building enough drama and emotion for a great chase.
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In 1999, David Lynch approached ABC again with ideas for a television drama.
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David Lynch received his third Academy Award nomination for Best Director.
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David Lynch called Inland Empire "a mystery about a woman in trouble".
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Interested in working with Werner Herzog, in 2009 David Lynch collaborated on Herzog's film My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done.
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In 2009, David Lynch had plans to direct a documentary on Maharishi Mahesh Yogi consisting of interviews with people who knew him, but nothing came of it.
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In 2010, David Lynch began making guest appearances on the Family Guy spin-off The Cleveland Show as Gus the Bartender.
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David Lynch had been convinced to appear in the show by its lead actor, Mike Henry, a fan of Lynch who felt that his life had changed after he saw Wild at Heart.
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David Lynch directed a concert by English new wave band Duran Duran on March 23,2011.
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On June 28,2013, a video David Lynch directed for the Nine Inch Nails song "Came Back Haunted" was released.
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David Lynch did photography for the Dumb Numbers's self-titled album released in August 2013.
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On October 6,2014, David Lynch confirmed via Twitter that he and Frost would start shooting a new, nine-episode season of Twin Peaks in 2015, with the episodes expected to air in 2016 on Showtime.
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Showtime CEO David Nevins confirmed this, announcing that Lynch would direct every episode of the revival and that the original nine episodes had been extended to 18.
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David Lynch did weather reports on his-defunct website in the 2000s.
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In June 2020, David Lynch rereleased his 2002 web series Rabbits on YouTube.
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In February 2022, it was announced that David Lynch had been cast in Steven Spielberg's semi-autobiographical film The Fabelmans in a role Variety called "a closely guarded secret".
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David Lynch played John Ford, whom the young Spielberg met, an encounter Spielberg considers formative.
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David Lynch worked on a number of projects that never progressed beyond the pre-production stage.
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In 1983, David Lynch began writing and drawing a comic strip, The Angriest Dog in the World, that featured unchanging graphics of a tethered dog so angry it could not move, alongside cryptic philosophical references.
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Around this time David Lynch became interested in photography and traveled to northern England to photograph its degrading industrial landscape.
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David Lynch directed a short film, The Cowboy and the Frenchman, as part of The French as Seen by.
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David Lynch produced a 50-minute video of the performance in 1990.
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David Lynch first trained as a painter, and although better known as a filmmaker, continued to paint.
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David Lynch was the subject of a major art retrospective at the Fondation Cartier in Paris from March 3 to May 27,2007.
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David Lynch was represented by Kayne Griffin Corcoran in Los Angeles, and began exhibiting his paintings, drawings, and photography with the gallery in 2011.
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David Lynch was involved in several music projects, many of them related to his films, including sound design for some of his films.
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David Lynch produced and wrote lyrics for Julee Cruise's first two albums, Floating into the Night and The Voice of Love, in collaboration with Badalamenti, who wrote the music and produced.
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In 1991, David Lynch directed a 30-second teaser trailer for Michael Jackson's album Dangerous at Jackson's request.
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David Lynch worked on the 1998 Jocelyn Montgomery album Lux Vivens, The Music of Hildegard von Bingen.
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David Lynch wrote music for Wild at Heart, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, Mulholland Drive, and Rabbits.
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David Lynch plays "upside down and backwards, like a lap guitar", and relies heavily on effects pedals.
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David Lynch wrote several pieces for Inland Empire, including two songs, "Ghost of Love" and "Walkin' on the Sky", in which he made his public debut as a singer.
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In November 2010, David Lynch released two electropop music singles, "Good Day Today" and "I Know", on the independent British label Sunday Best Recordings.
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All or most of the songs on Crazy Clown Time were put into art-music videos, with David Lynch directing the title song's video.
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On September 29,2011, David Lynch released This Train with vocalist and longtime musical collaborator Chrystabell on the La Rose Noire label.
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For Record Store Day 2014, David Lynch released The Big Dream Remix EP, which featured four songs from his album remixed by various artists.
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In May 2019, David Lynch provided guest vocals on the track "Fire is Coming" by Flying Lotus.
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David Lynch co-wrote the track that appears on Flying Lotus's album Flamagra.
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In May 2021, David Lynch produced a track, "I Am the Shaman", by Scottish artist Donovan.
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David Lynch directed videos for two tracks on the album, "Sublime Eternal Love" and "The Answers to the Questions".
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David Lynch designed and constructed furniture for his 1997 film Lost Highway, including the small table in the Madison house and the VCR case.
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In 2006, David Lynch wrote a short book, Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity, which describes his creative processes, stories from his career, and the benefits he realized from his practice of Transcendental Meditation.
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David Lynch describes the metaphor behind the title in the introduction:.
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David Lynch designed his personal website, a site exclusive to paying members, where he posted short videos, his absurdist series Dumbland, interviews, and other items.
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The site featured a daily weather report where David Lynch gave a brief description of the weather in Los Angeles, where he resided.
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David Lynch continued to broadcast this report on his personal YouTube channel, DAVID LYNCH THEATER, along with "TODAY'S NUMBER", where he drew a random number between one and ten out of a bingo cage.
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David Lynch was a coffee drinker and had his own line of special organic blends available for purchase on his website and at Whole Foods.
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In June 1977, David Lynch married Mary Fisk, with whom he had one child, Austin Jack David Lynch, in 1982.
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David Lynch had a relationship with actress Isabella Rossellini and lived with her between 1986 and 1991.
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In 2009, David Lynch married actress Emily Stofle, who appeared in his 2006 film Inland Empire as well as the 2017 revival of Twin Peaks.
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David Lynch said he was "not a political person" and knew little about politics.
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David Lynch voted for Sanders in the 2016 Democratic primaries and for Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson in the general election.
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In one of his daily weather report videos in 2020, David Lynch expressed support for Black Lives Matter protests following the murder of George Floyd.
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When Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, David Lynch was the first in his school to hear of it, as he was working on a display case rather than attending class.
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David Lynch was initiated into Transcendental Meditation in July 1973, and practiced the technique consistently thereafter.
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David Lynch said he met Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the founder of the TM movement, for the first time in 1975 at the Spiritual Regeneration Movement center in Los Angeles.
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David Lynch became close with the Maharishi during a month-long "Millionaire's Enlightenment Course" held in 2003, the fee for which was $1 million.
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Together with John Hagelin and Fred Travis, a brain researcher from Maharishi University of Management, David Lynch promoted his vision on college campuses with a tour that began in September 2005.
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David Lynch was working for the building and establishment of seven buildings in which 8,000 salaried people would practice advanced meditation techniques, "pumping peace for the world".
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David Lynch's book Catching the Big Fish discusses Transcendental Meditation's effect on his creative process.
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An independent project starring David Lynch called Beyond The Noise: My Transcendental Meditation Journey, directed by Dana Farley, who has severe dyslexia and attention deficit disorder, was shown at film festivals in 2011, including the Marbella Film Festival.
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In September 2024, David Lynch made his last published broadcast speech at Meditate America 2024.
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David Lynch discussed the Beatles' practice of TM during their visit to India in 1968 and played a cover of "Across the Universe".
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David Lynch said he could no longer leave his house, meaning that he would only be able to direct remotely.
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David Lynch said a project for Netflix, with working titles Wisteria and Unrecorded Night, had fallen through, but that he would like to see his unrealized projects Antelope Don't Run No More and Snootworld realized.
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David Lynch said that month that he was working on existing projects as much as he could, and that he was in good health except for emphysema, and had no plans to retire.
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In January 2025, David Lynch was evacuated from his Los Angeles home due to the Southern California wildfires.
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David Lynch's films have already stood the test of time and they always will.
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Critic Richard Brody of The New Yorker wrote, "many films are called revelatory and visionary, but David Lynch's films seem made to exemplify these terms", citing his "audacious invention and exquisite realization of symbolic details and uncanny realms".
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David Lynch's films have been said to evoke a "dreamlike quality of mystery or menace" through striking visual imagery, and frequently combine "surreal or sinister elements with mundane, everyday environments".
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Hoberman wrote that David Lynch's work is characterized by "troubling juxtapositions, outlandish non sequiturs and eroticized derangement of the commonplace".
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Gilbey said David Lynch's work "exposed the horrors lurking beneath apparently placid exteriors, and found beauty in the quotidian, the industrial" while reflecting a "mix of folksy naivety and elusive strangeness".
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David Lynch refused to publicly explain or assign any specific meaning to his works, preferring that viewers interpret them in their own ways.
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Critic Greg Olson wrote that David Lynch's work is preoccupied with the "deepest realities" behind surfaces and facades.
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Lim wrote that the relationship between good and evil in David Lynch's art is ambiguous, adding, "for David Lynch, disruption is generative: trauma, the recurring subject of his films, can rupture the fabric of reality".
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David Lynch's work reflects a particular preoccupation with the instability of female identity.
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David Lynch tended to feature his female leads in "split" roles: many of his female characters have multiple, fractured identities.
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Kite suggested that David Lynch could be understood as "a religious or spiritual artist in a loosely categoric sense", and called his worldview "essentially monist" but punctuated by superficial duality and Gnostic conflict.
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David Lynch directly invoked the Vedic scriptures known as the Upanishads in several of his films and books; in Twin Peaks: The Return and in his live introductions to Inland Empire, he quotes a passage from an adapted version of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad:.
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All but two of David Lynch's films are set in the United States, and he frequently referenced 1950s and early 1960s US culture despite his works being set in later decades.
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David Lynch felt his work was more similar to that of European filmmakers than American ones, and said that most films that "get down and thrill your soul" are by European directors.
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David Lynch cited Herk Harvey's Carnival of Souls and Jerzy Skolimowski's Deep End as influences on his work.
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David Lynch said his favorite books were Frank Capra's The Name Above the Title, Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, Robert Henri's The Art Spirit, Robert Flynn Johnson's Anonymous Photographs, and Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis.
131.
David Lynch was noted for his collaborations with various production artists and composers on his films and other productions.
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David Lynch frequently worked with composer Angelo Badalamenti, film editor Mary Sweeney, casting director Johanna Ray, and actors Harry Dean Stanton, Jack Nance, Kyle MacLachlan, Catherine Coulson, Laura Dern, Naomi Watts, Isabella Rossellini, and Grace Zabriskie.
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In 2007, a panel of critics convened by The Guardian announced that "after all the discussion, no one could fault the conclusion that David Lynch is the most important film-maker of the current era", and AllMovie called him "the Renaissance man of modern American filmmaking".
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David Lynch received multiple awards and nominations, including three Academy Award nominations for Best Director and one for Best Adapted Screenplay.
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David Lynch twice won France's Cesar Award for Best Foreign Film, as well as the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and a Golden Lion award for lifetime achievement at the Venice Film Festival.
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The French government awarded him the Legion of Honour, the country's top civilian distinction, honoring him first as a Chevalier in 2002 and then as an Officier in 2009; David Lynch was awarded the key to the city of Bydgoszcz, Poland.