In Memoriam – David Lynch

Master of the surreal, David Lynch has left us. He is gone from this world, but his avant garde visions committed to film, live on. Few American filmmakers have had such a lasting effect on the global cinematic tradition, transforming the landscape of both film and television the way he did. A mid-century child of the Midwest who, through his experience of life and reality, also became a peerless visual poet of the L.A. “dream factory.” In this reviewer’s mourning opinion, the only outlier and arguably greatest graduate of the “New Hollywood” class of the 1970’s and father of the “midnight movie”. I mourn with his family and with the global cine-family of cinefiles who worship at the altar of the avant garde.
His genius could not be decoded, and his aesthetic is rarely imitated and even more rarely matched. Lynch leaves us with a cinematic legacy of the dreamscape that is staggeringly influential, simultaneously shaping and questioning our consciousness, our awareness, and our attitudes of the vast concept that is Americana.
All authorities in his class, from Steven Spielberg to Martin Scorsese have bowed to this great American Auteur whose singular vision has awed us for over 40 years, and who, most recently had been cast to play another great and singular American cinema visionary, John Ford, in Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans.”
Six years following the release of “Twin Peaks: The Return,” putting every other legacy TV sequel to shame, it now stands as his final artistic statement. A pure and absolute opus… a testament to the Lynchian oeuvre. Here is this cinefile’s ranking of the director’s best feature films and full-length TV shows, excluding his short films, commercials, and short-lived TV projects which remain, to this day, difficult to see, even in this age of streaming, and for those who have viewed them, their biggest flexes as cinephiles.
12. Dune (1984)
11. Wild at Heart (1990)
10. Lost Highway (1997)
9. The Straight Story (1999)
8. Inland Empire (2006)