Cinema’s king of surreal barely got an Oscars nod

In a ceremony that once championed independent film and individual creativity, why did the show spend more time mourning 007 than David Lynch, asks Clarisse Loughrey

- David Lynch

A murmur of confusion spread across social media during Sunday’s Oscars, as Margaret Qualley started to high kick to the Bond theme, shortly before musicians Lisa, Doja Cat and Raye emerged to warble Live and Let Die”, Diamonds Are Forever” and “Skyfall”. Did James Bond... die? Permanently, this time? News that 007 has been relinquished into the clutches of Amazon certainly doesn’t bode well for the super spy’s future – unless you’re particularly enamoured by the idea of a “young M” spin-off – but a 10-minute eulogy for the guy seemed a little bit much.

The Oscars does seem to have a chronic attachment to Bond tributes – the franchise was already “celebrated” on stage in both the 2022 and 2013 ceremonies – but this year, perhaps more than any other, there were other figures more deserving of our screen time. The magnitude of talent lost in the past year has felt especially painful. Gene Hackman’s death, only three days ago, was the latest shock. Opening the annual “in memoriam” segment, Morgan Freeman, his co-star in Unfor ven and Under Suspicion, spoke beautifully about his friend, an actor who approached his craft with unfailing honesty, who embraced his characters’ thorns, and found within them a radiant spirit.

I began to choke up a little. Hackman was a difficult loss, certainly, but this year had seen the death of the most pivotal artist in my life and in the lives, I know, of many others: director David Lynch, who netted dreams and put them up on screen. Lynch not only showed us the limitless potential of film as a medium, but of hidden worlds inside our own, of light within impenetrable darkness, and of love living deep within the jaws of evil.

Isabella Rossellini, star of Lynch’s Blue Velvet and