SPECIAL EDITION: REMEMBERING DAVID LYNCH
BEAM FROM THE BOOTH | GRAND RAPIDS FILM SOCIETY
[EDITED BY: GRIFFIN SHERIDAN & SPENCER EVERHART]
REMEMBERING DAVID LYNCH
It’s always hard losing a voice as monumental as David Lynch. And yet, there is something about his passing that just stings a little bit more in the GR film community. There’s such a pronounced love for Lynch and his work. So, we wanted to give all of you an opportunity to celebrate your own specific appreciation for this singular filmmaker.
Here is what you all had to say...
He was the first person to make me realize the impact a director makes on a film and inspired me to expand my film taste into the more experimental.
— Houston
I think Lynch's most important lesson told through his art is that for all the joy in life's simple pleasures and the delightful quirkiness of humans, always remember that evil festers just below the surface and demons walk among us.
— Aaron, @ thrillbot3000
It’s challenging to put into words the immense importance David takes up in my life. He represents a freedom, passion, and escape from any typical “conventions” of film or society. His talent is beyond description, and his personality is too. I love to see these videos of him directing or explaining events from his career because it shows an enviable attitude of full expressing himself without caring what others think. He pushes boundaries and has had me ruminate on ideas and concepts I never would have given a thought before. I am constantly mesmerized by his work, Twin Peaks specifically being one of the most beautiful and important things I have ever seen—the raw emotions he was able to bring to life on camera, gorgeous scenery, humor and memorable dialogue, the camerawork of each scene, etc. One of my favorite videos of all time is a video of women that have worked with David all talking about why they love him. They describe these stories and turns of phrase he would say, which always make me think “oh, that’s so David!” I feel like I actually knew him. His art speaks to his entity, his entire being is woven throughout it—and it truly is just that—art. He’s the bee’s knees.
— Mallory Hohn, @ mal.hohn
I will never know if I was attracted to David Lynch’s art because it so matched my inner life or if my aesthetic is because of David Lynch. Chicken or egg? I found him when I was 14, the night the Twin Peaks pilot aired, and I’ve never been able to look away again. This led me to become a video editor, running fan festivals and making friends with people from around the world. It led me to his orbit - living in Snoqualmie, WA, and on the set of The Return. I don’t believe any other individual has ever been so influential in my life. He changed everything, and I am forever grateful. Thank you, David.
— Mary Hutter, @ grrlskout
I was fortunate enough to speak with David on four different occasions. He knew about the "Twin Peaks Day event at Wealthy Theater and loved the celebration. My favorite lesson from him was that we don't need to suffer in order to create something beautiful, that we do not need to create in order to spite something else. We're meant to fall in love with our ideas and share that goodness, or as he (and my grandfather) would say, “Keep your eye on the doughnut and not the hole.”
— Kaitlin Oster, @ roller_kosters
When you think of David Lynch, you probably don’t immediately think of his turn as John Ford in the final scene of Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans (2022). But besides absolutely crushing the role, Lynch’s appearance is a moving reminder of his cinematic legacy. Spielberg said: “Here was one of my heroes—David Lynch playing one of my heroes.”
Lynch was more than a director—he was also a painter, actor, musician, and writer. Someone who synthesized his passion for creativity to make not just “movies,” but “art.” Ford barks at Sammy Fabelman (a stand-in for Spielberg) to never put the horizon in the middle of the frame because it’s “boring as shit.” Nothing Lynch did was ever boring, regardless of where the horizon was.
The Fabelmans’ final shot is Spielberg’s winking tribute to Ford’s advice and influence. David Lynch’s influence is inescapable, and his vision is singular. In a delightful interview about The Fabelmans, Lynch was asked to give his Ford-esque advice to young filmmakers. He said: “Get your own voice. Stay true to that voice.” Boy, did he ever.
— Anna Davis, @ anna_the_davis25
David Lynch showed me how to truly experience a film, revealing that life, dreams, and cinema share a common thread - each has its own darkness and light, mysteries, and beauty. Sometimes, it's the simple things, like a cup of hot coffee, that remind us to appreciate the intricacies of life.
— Brannon Reid, @Retiredmallgoth
The work of David Lynch and the man himself have helped unlock a part of me that’s always existed but I sequestered away in attempts to fit in more my entire life. He has helped me love and accept my weird self, fully and authentically.
— Emma W, @ Emwolfe227
David Lynch is the man who made me understand why I love cinema and why I love movie theaters like no other place in the world.
But more important, through his art, he offered me the most wonderful journey of my life. A journey that began on October 2005, when I was 18 and I discovered Mulholland Drive. A totally unreal experience.
His universe was an intimate space without limit, where I could find comfort and infinite beauty. Unique, magic, and with no equivalent in my world.
I never knew him in person, but I will miss him forever in my heart, hoping that there’s a place somewhere up, where I’ll be able to thank him.
“One day, the sadness will end.”
— Navid, @ hispa_navid
My first exposure to Mr. Lynch was—and please contain your shock—in college. Inside a dingy, rotting house that would as soon as house a Lynch villain as four 20-year-olds, we popped a rented Mullholland Drive DVD into the communal Xbox 360. That viewing experience can be classified as one of my few ‘pre and post’ moments in life. Forever changed, haunted, and drawn to the mystery and wonder of what would be called “Lynchian,” his work showed me that films could confound as much as they could illuminate. Mr. Lynch’s understanding of the dichotomous nature of America, a land of both dreams and nightmares, was strikingly both hidden and obvious. You felt it before you knew it. Interpretation?! F*ck that sh!t! SUBCONSCIOUS PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP! We will miss the man, but we can honor his memory by following the movements and voices inside us. We can be the dreamers.
— Kyle Johnson, @ Dinkledizzle
“David Lynch changed my life” almost seems like a platitude, but it's something in my life I know to be true. I knew I was going to be a filmmaker by the time I was 11, but I didn't see my first David Lynch Film until I was a teenager. That's when everything changed. Eraserhead (1977) felt like a transmission from another dimension. I was hypnotized. I was transported. My idea of what a movie could be and how it could make me feel was completely destroyed. And for the better.
My obsession was known by everyone around me. My mom had a t-shirt printed for me that read “IN HEAVEN EVERYTHING IS FINE,” I dragged my best friend downtown to watch a 35mm screening of Eraserhead at the old UICA, had regular Twin Peaks viewings with some close friends and family members, and consumed just about everything Lynch had a hand in. January 15th was devastating. And while I'm sad he's gone, I'm glad to know his work, legacy, and dreams remain.
In dreams I walk with you
In dreams I talk to you
In dreams you're mine all of the time
We're together in dreams, in dreams
— Jackson Ezinga, @ ezoj123
As I write, I glance over at the Big Boy plastic bank on my desk; his blue eyes gaze at me. I feel strangely safe to keep typing. I think that’s how David felt during his frequent visits to Bob’s in Burbank - secure in his own world, free to imagine and daydream all sorts of ideas.
I was deeply saddened by the news of his passing; it blew up in my face like a Part 8 atomic bomb. I didn’t want to believe it to be true so I wandered down the rabbit hole searching for possible meanings. Will we see him again in 25 years??? 78 years old...7+8=15…passed on 1/16/2025, 4 days before his birthday...spiraling...it was Kyle MacLachlan’s tribute post that made me come to terms with reality.
David Lynch, I will forever remain inspired by your ~
. . . . . unwillingness to conform to the norms of Hollywood fame
. . . . . pure and vibrant heart
. . . . . gratefulness for the small things in life
. . . . . brilliant artistry (which has undoubtedly informed my own art-life)
. . . . . commitment to sharing the gift of Transcendental Meditation (a tool I utilize daily)
. . . . . allowing room to dream
I am writing 15 words over the limit here because you wouldn’t put up with bullshit time and space constraints either.
10-4, good buddy.
— Caleb Francis Jenkins, @ c__jenks
David Lynch was, to me at least, art itself. Here was a man dedicated to film, painting, sculpture, sound work and music, woodworking, furniture making, photography, engravings...the list goes on and on. He was the first person that made me aware of a center that we all possess. Where everything is whole and complete. His art was a portal to that common ground. And he has inspired me to express myself in the same ways. There he is now, I hope, floating in that infinite consciousness, still spreading joy to us all.
— Afonso Lucas, @ afonso.f.lucas
My first encounter with the films of David Lynch was back in 1979, my senior year of high school when I saw Eraserhead at a midnight movie. It goes without saying that I’d never seen anything like it. The movie and its director served as indicators that something deeply primordial and disturbing had erupted within American pop culture.
I’ve been tracking Lynch’s contributions to that culture ever since. I admit that for most of his career, I saw him as more of a fringe character - an amusing eccentric whose work fit into some kind of vaguely undefined “art/cult weirdness” category.
My estimation of Lynch has been profoundly upgraded in recent years. Inclusion of his most important works in the Criterion Collection encouraged me to take a more prolonged look at his deeply considered and multi-layered dreamscapes. Lynch’s massively influential presence in the artistic expressions of so many people I admire, who view him as a beloved forerunner in their own creative journeys, led me to reappraise his cinematic oeuvre and explore the work he did in music, short form video, and painting. David Lynch was what they used to call a ‘Renaissance man,’ and we’re all beneficiaries of his legacy. Despite the sadness we experienced with his passing, his ultimate impact on human civilization continues to grow and hasn’t yet reached the point at which it will begin to recede.
— David Blakeslee, [letterboxd]
David Lynch was my ultimate muse. I loved his quirky, high-pitched voice, his abstractness, his epic coif, his high-rise khaki pants, his juxtaposition of the absurd and the grotesque, the quiet and the chaos, reality and the parallel universe. His art, his music, and his films are extraordinary beyond comprehension.
Words cannot describe the way he’s inspired me to be unapologetically creative, and truly changed the way I view, interpret, and make art.
— Heather Ross, @ Chupi.da.fruitbat
David Lynch was not only an incredible force of light and strange goodness in the world for millions of fans, he taught me more about what it means to be creative and a true “fine artist” than any other person or thing.
He proved that you could be deeply true to your weirdest self and your convictions while remaining widely accessible and retaining simple tastes (coffee, cigarettes, a chocolate milkshake). It’s no small feat to traverse the terrain of “celebrity” for as long as he did and avoid what seems now the inevitable scandal of problematic behavior toward others. He seemed genuinely decent, gentile, and flawed, and...he meant so much to me.
His integrity - his singular vision and adherence to it - was remarkable and undeniable. He was so in touch with the mysteries of life and able to communicate his love for them in such a visceral, powerful way. He embraced the deep-seeded contradictions of his own psyche and was equally at peace with the beautiful thoughts/impulses and the dark ones. He made my own odd behaviors and unorthodox thoughts less suspect, and probably yours too.
He brought us all closer in a world that needs that so badly.
— Brett Colley, @ bc_thunderbolt
I think David Lynch is the American filmmaker. The other greats of our time, Scorsese, Coppola, Spielberg, are all great humanists and their work collectively paints a vivid picture of what it is to be an American. But David saw this rotten, beautiful, quirky, horrible, charming, haunted bastard of a country for what it is.
He lived his life with curiosity and kindness and followed his inspiration with a courage that feels not of this Earth. It gives me hope for the future that someone who so identified himself with the myths and delusions of our county could be a beautiful and inspiring presence within it as well.
— Matt Everitt, @ thematteveritt
I long ago decided to spend my life making the exact kind of art I’ve wanted to without regard for fame, fortune, or what others will think. That’s what Lynch (and many others) have meant to me.
— Josh Burge, @ joshuatheburge
A very special thanks from the GRFS team to all those who submitted to this very special issue.
JOIN US FOR TWIN PEAKS DAY 2025
MULHOLLAND DRIVE (Lynch, 2001)
WHAT: Join us for a special one night screening of Mulholland Drive to celebrate Twin Peaks Day and the life of the late David Lynch. A woman named Rita is left amnesiac after a car crash. She wanders the streets of Los Angeles in a daze before taking refuge in an apartment. There she is discovered a wholesome Midwestern blonde. Together, the two attempt to solve the mystery of Rita's true identity.
WHEN: Monday, February 24th, 7:00pm
WHERE: The Wealthy Theatre
