David Lynch’s Creative Legacy

Back in the 80s a friend introduced me to an art house theatre in West Los Angeles. I saw my first experimental film there and the field of possibilities unveiled David Lynch’s subconscious landscape, Eraserhead, (1977).

Immediately, I was turned on by the way the film took me beyond the movie map of my rural American South youth and the part of me that helped me detach from my familial belief systems made a body of work that got me into an avant garde art school.

Now, decades later with the auteur director, David Lynch’s passing, I can see how being authentically true to your particular vein of creativity has an impact that is unpredictable at the onset.

In the documentary, David Lynch: The Art Life, (2016), Lynch narratives a montage of scenes where he immerses himself in his painting technique. As I watched the images pass through my retina, I felt my brain let go and enjoy the tirade of cultural rebellion he allows himself. It’s easy to see the seeds of Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive within the fluidity of the mise-en-scene represented in the documentary’s still images.

Horror, violence, libidinal transgressions elicit the viewers personal memories much the same way one might experience a painting by Francis Bacon. Lynch performs an autobiographical 88 minute one act from start to finish and in his particular minimal, naked style of recounting a personal experience manages to touch on the sublimity of being an artist of any medium. Contrary to McLuhan’s prediction, the message isn’t catalyzed by his particular type of launch pad for expression of the liminal spaces but by the absence of socially constructed narratives. The result is an open portal that grants permission to all that dare to accept the invitation to go down the same rabbit hole that Carl Jung explored and documented in The Red Book.

Now, in the second decade of the 21st century I wonder if that same art house still exists so I do what I do with any contemporary conundrum, I Google my question and there it is, the Landmark Nuart, still going strong, a little less art house maybe but the remaining movie houses in Los Angeles playing something other than major blockbusters are marvels I will continue to support.

Who knows, perhaps there’s a Lynchian retrospective in the pipes; Eraserhead is still parked on their past programming page but if you don’t find it playing in a theatre the documentary explores how it came about through the mind of the writer/director. The true story of its evolution over a five year period is pure cinematic delight told from inside Lynch’s often tormented, ever passionately committed, film making journey.

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Journal Prompt:

Do you have a filmmaker or a specific film that affected your creative trajectory?

Why

and

how?