Oscar Profile #56: David Lynch

Born January 20, 1946, in Missoula, Montana, David Lynch’s father was a research scientist for the Department of Agriculture and his mother an English language tutor. Because of his father’s job, the family moved around a lot, the future writer-director having spent most of his formative years in Virginia.

After attending the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in 1964, he decided to go to Europe with friends for three years but came back in fifteen days and eventually enrolled in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. While there from 1966 to 1970 he made several experimental films. Now married with a young daughter, he moved to Los Angeles in 1971 and began work on the film Eraserhead in 1972. The surrealistic film set in a post-Apocalyptic world was eventually completed and made its theatrical debut in 1977.

The cult success of Eraserhead allowed Lynch to briefly become a director for hire. His first mainstream Hollywood film, 1980’s The Elephant Man was a rare for the era made in black-and-white. It was a critical and box-office success, resulting in eight Oscar nominations including two for Lynch for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay, which he co-wrote with two others..

Lynch’s next film, 1984’s Dune was a critical and commercial failure, but he quickly recovered his reputation with the stunning Blue Velvet. Released in 1986, the sex-filled mystery thriller won numerous awards, but strangely enough its only Oscar nomination was for Lynch’s direction.

Perhaps the pinnacle of his success came with the twenty-nine episode run of his TV series, Twin Peaks, which ran from April, 1990 through June, 1991. The story, which centers on of the murder of a young woman in a picaresque small Washington State town, has remained a cult favorite for more than twenty years.

In the midst of the show’s run came another theatrical release, that of the bizarre crime thriller Wild at Heart, which won several major awards including a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for Dianne Ladd as a mom with murder on her mind.

The wild success of Twin Peaks led to a 1992 theatrically released prequel entitled Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me.

After concentrating on TV for much of the 1990s, Lynch returned to the big screen with 1997’s Lost Highway, his most surrealistic up to that time, in which the lead character morphs into another one when he is released from prison where he had been incarcerated for the murder of his wife, which he didn’t commit.

Lynch next directed his first and only film to date that he had not written himself, the sweet real life story of an elderly man who goes on a journey on his tractor to visit his estranged brother before the brother’s imminent death. Called The Straight Story, the film’s protagonist is named Alvin Straight, the title is also a bit of a pun in that it is the first and again, only Lynch film to date, that is actually an unembellished or “straight” story. The result was a Best Actor Oscar nomination for Richard Farnsworth, but, alas, none for Lynch himself.

A return to the surreal netted 2001’s Mulholland Dr. , a critically acclaimed film about an amnesiac that Lynch had originally written for TV. Although the film won numerous awards, its only Oscar recognition was given to Lynch himself who received his third nomination for Best Director.

Lynch’s sole full length film since Mulholland Dr. was 2006’s Inland Empire about an actress who begins to take on the persona of the character she is playing. Although the critics were generally kind, the film was not a commercial success and Lynch’s work since has been limited to short films. Still, Lynch’s major successes having been few and far between, one can’t help but wonder what the 65 year-old one-of-a-kind filmmaker has left in his bag of tricks.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

THE ELEPHANT MAN (1980)

Bernard Pomerance’s 1979 Broadway play and Lynch’s 1980 film both tell the true story of Joseph (John) Merrick with one major difference. Both follow the rescue of the disfigured man, who lived from 1862-1890, by a Victorian doctor, his residence in a London hospital, his gradual acceptance by London society and his sad, lonely, early death. The difference? In the play the title role is played a young, handsome actor whose deformity is left to the imagination. In the film, full body makeup renders star John Hurt unrecognizable, but his performance, as well as those of Anthony Hopkins as the doctor who rescues him and the principal supporting cast of Anne Bancroft, John Gielgud and Wendy Hiller, is impeccable. The superb black-and-white photography enhances the film’s emotional journey.

BLUE VELVET (1986)

A dark, sensual mystery set in a bucolic small American town, Blue Velvet opens with the finding of a severed human ear and never lets up. Kyle MacLachlan and Laura Dern, both of whom would become perennial Lynch players, are the young innocents and Isabella Rossellini, Dennis Hopper and Dean Stockwell are the jaded older protagonists. For Hopper, his deranged character was the actor’s career high performance, although the staid Academy nominated him for Best Supporting Actor that year for the more family friendly The Hoosiers instead.

TWIN PEAKS (1990-91)

Who killed Laura Palmer and why? Lynch’s TV series takes almost thirty spellbinding hours to let you know. One of the best loved anthology series in the history of television, the film either made or rebooted the careers of its entire cast which included Kyle MacLachlan, Michael Ontkean, Madchen Amick, Dana Ashboork, Richard Beymer, Lara Flynn Boyle, Sherilyn Fenn, Peggy Lipton, Jack Nance, Joan Chen, Piper Laurie, Ray Wise, Sheryl Lee and Grace Zabriskie. Watch out for the Log Lady.

THE STRAIGHT STORY (1999)

This wonderfully drawn character study may seem on the surface to be the antithesis of a David Lynch film, but the leisurely pace, the eccentricities of the characters and the bucolic scenery are very much the trademarks of all his films. Richard Farnsworth, the former stunt man turned character actor had the role of his career as Alvin Straight, the farmer who goes on a journey on his tractor to visit his estranged brother before the latter dies. The real-life Straight died shortly after the incident and Farnsworth died shortly after receiving his well-deserved Oscar nomination for his performance.

MULHOLLAND DR. (2001)

A car wreck, an amnesiac, another woman and a blue box figure into the Hollywood mystery that put star Naomi Watts on the Hollywood map. Co-starring Laura Elena Harring and screen legend Ann Miller, the film’s many twists and turns also involve the likes of Robert Forster, Lee Grant, Dan Hedeya and Justin Theroux. There are twists and turns galore, but is the puzzle ever completely put together? You decide.