David Lynch, celebrated TV and film director, dies at 78

David Lynch, the celebrated director of avant-garde films such as Eraserhead, Mulholland Drive and The Elephant Man and the much-loved TV show Twin Peaks, has passed away at the age of 78.

- RYAN COOGAN

His family announced his death in a Facebook post yesterday, writing: “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.’”

Speaking to Sight & Sound magazine last year, Lynch revealed he had been diagnosed with emphysema due to smoking throughout his life, and said he could not “go out” because of the risk of catching Covid. “I’ve gotten emphysema from smoking for so long and so I’m homebound whether I like it or not. It would be very bad for me to get sick, even with a cold,” he said, revealing that he could only walk a short distance before he was “out of oxygen”.

Known for his use of unsettling visuals, stream-of-consciousness storytelling style, and kitsch soundtracks, Lynch walked a tightrope between his artistic sensibilities and his inexplicable popular appeal among the more conventional moviegoing public. New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael labelled him “the first populist surrealist”.

In his frequent collaborations with Hollywood luminaries such as Laura Dern, Kyle MacLachlan, Sheryl Lee, Naomi Watts, Jack Nance and Harry Dean Stanton, the director leaves behind an oeuvre that rivals the medium’s most accomplished auteurs.

Born in Missoula, Montana, in 1946 to an agricultural research scientist and an English tutor, the young David Lynch had aspirations to be a painter. He studied at Boston’s School of the Museum of Fine Arts, but left after only a year, saying that he was “not inspired” by the experience. Instead, he travelled around Europe, hoping to train with Austrian expressionist painter Oskar Kokoschka – however, he returned to the US after only two weeks upon learning that the artist was unavailable.