David Lynch, director of ‘Twin Peaks’ and ‘Mulholland Drive’, has died at the age of 78

CNN
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David Lynch, an influential director known for his unique and surreal films and TV shows, including “Blue Velvet” and “Twin Peaks,” has died. He was 78.

His death was confirmed via his official Facebook pagewhere his family wrote:

“It is with deep regret that we, his family, announce the death of the man and artist David Lynch. We would appreciate some privacy at this time. There is a great void in the world now that he is no longer with us. But as he would say, “Keep your eye on the donut and not the hole.”

It is a beautiful day with golden sunshine and blue skies all the way.”

CNN has reached out to Lynch’s foundation for further comment.

Lynch’s nearly 50-year film career was characterized by a series of distinctive, highly stylized films, often featuring surreal situations, fragmented timelines and supernatural elements. He was awarded the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at the Venice Film Festival in 2006 and an honorary Oscar in 2019 for “a lifetime of artistic achievement.”

In 2024, Lynch announced that he had been diagnosed with emphysema after years of smoking and was largely “housebound” due to the risk of contracting Covid-19. After sharing the news, Lynch assured his followers that he planned to continue working, writing that despite his diagnosis, “I am filled with happiness and I will never retire.”

Born in Missoula, Montana, in 1946, Lynch spent his childhood moving to different parts of the United States due to his father’s job as a researcher for the United States Department of Agriculture.

Although he achieved fame as a filmmaker, Lynch began his career as a painter and visual artist, studying at Washington, DC’s Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and finally at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

It was in Philadelphia that, in addition to raising a family, Lynch first began experimenting with filmmaking, inspired by the idea of ​​making his paintings move.

“I painted, and the painting painted, as I said before, very dark paintings. And I saw a little part of this figure moving, and I hear a wind,” he said in a 1997 interview. “And I really wanted these things to move and have a sound with them. And so began I wanted to make an animated film like a moving painting. And that was it.”

Lynch’s early experiments with the medium reflect his penchant for strange subject matter and creative imagery: his first short, “Six Men Get Sick (Six Times),” is an experimental animation with characters vomiting in sequence.

In 1970, he moved with his family to Los Angeles, where he enlisted American Film Institute Conservatory and began work on his first feature film: the cult classic “Eraserhead,” a kind of body horror meets parental drama film. The black-and-white film was released in 1977 and has been shown for years as a midnight feature.

Lynch followed up “Eraserhead” with the commercial hit “The Elephant Man,” starring John Hurt as Joseph Merrick, and “Dune,” a widely panned adaptation of Frank Herbert’s science fiction novel.

His next feature, “Blue Velvet,” features many of the themes that recur throughout his work: a dreamlike plot involving sex and violence, a suburban setting that belies the seedy underworld beneath, and appearances by frequent Lynch collaborators Kyle MacLachlan and Laura Dern.

In 1990, Lynch debuted with both “Wild at Heart” – a romantic crime drama starring Dern and Nicolas Cage that won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival – and “Twin Peaks”, one of the most influential works of his career. . The cult classic TV show stars MacLachlan as a polite but eccentric FBI agent investigating the mysterious murder of the homecoming queen in the cozy fictional town of Twin Peaks. The series’ first season received 14 Emmy nominations. Although it was canceled after only two seasons, the series has been cited as one of the most influential television series of all time.

MacLachlan remembered Lynch as an “enigmatic and intuitive man with a creative sea welling up inside him,” and credited Lynch with helping him build the career he has today.

“His love for me and mine for him came out of the cosmic destiny of two people who saw the best things about themselves in each other,” MacLachlan wrote on his Instagram page on Thursday. “I will miss him more than the limits of my language can tell and my heart can bear. My world is so much fuller because I knew him and so much emptier now that he is gone.”

For the past twenty years, Lynch took somewhat of a long hiatus from feature films. His last feature film, “Inland Empire” from 2006 is a psychological thriller starring Dern, Jeremy Irons and Justin Theroux. In the meantime, he has directed numerous shorts and music videos, including for Interpol and Nine Inch Nails.

In 2017, Lynch debuted the highly anticipated third season of Twin Peaks, “Twin Peaks: The Return,” set 25 years after the original series.

And while he’s best known as a filmmaker, Lynch continued the painting practice that launched his career as an artist and ventured into music, releasing a rock album called “BlueBob” in 2001, an EP called “This Train” in 2011, and a “modern blues” album called “The Big Dream” in 2013.

“I only ever wanted to be a painter, but painting led to filmmaking,” he said of his career in a 2019 interview with New York Times. “I always say I go where the ideas take me.”

Another through line that defined Lynch was his commitment to transcendental meditation, which according to website for the David Lynch Foundation is a “technique practiced 20 minutes twice a day while sitting comfortably with eyes closed.” In one declaration on his website, the filmmaker wrote that he started the practice in 1973 and had “not missed a single meditation since. Twice a day, every day.”

“It has given me effortless access to unlimited reserves of energy, creativity and happiness deep within,” he added. “This level of life is sometimes called ‘pure consciousness’ – it’s a treasure trove. And this level of life is deep within all of us.”

Speaking with Vulture in 2018, the director said that despite their sometimes morbid subject matter, the source of his films was ultimately joy.

“The thing is, if you get an idea that you love and you want to realize it, the journey of realizing it has to be gratifying, and the outcome has to be gratifying,” he said.

“Happiness is not a new car; it is the execution of the work. If you enjoy doing it, the result will be a pleasure.”

This story has been updated with additional information.