A “legend of cinema” wrote the César Academy on social media in tribute to American director David Lynch, who passed away at the age of 78 on Thursday. France has a soft spot for the enigmatic artist, whose works are regularly shown in the country’s cinemas.
“He is one of the great filmmakers who left their mark on their era, and one we will never forget,” the post continued.
Lynch was considered one of American cinema’s great auteurs, and was adored by fans and the industry alike. Nominated several times for the Oscars, he received an honorary statuette in 2019 for his career.
His family announced his death via a public statement on Facebook on Thursday. The director had announced last year that he was suffering from emphysema.
Steven Spielberg called Lynch “a singular, visionary dreamer” while Ron Howard hailed him as “a gracious man and fearless artist” who “proved that radical experimentation could yield unforgettable cinema”.
Lynch was particularly admired in France, where he won the César award for best foreign film for Mullholland Drive in 2002. His film Wild at Heart starring Laura Dern and Nicolas Cage also won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1990.
Gilles Jacob, former president of the Cannes Film Festival, called Lynch’s death “an immense loss and a very serious blow to the future of modern cinema as he conceived his art”.
A distinctive universe
French cinema critic and filmmaker Thierry Jousse told RFI that Lynch had a very distinctive way of making cinema, blending influences including surrealism and the absurdism of novelist Franz Kafka. “He was one of the few artists able to create a world entirely of his own. It’s an upside-down universe, a kind of labyrinth where all of his references collided.”
Born in small-town Montana in 1946, the son of an agricultural research scientist, Lynch travelled extensively around Middle America as a young man.
He attended fine arts colleges in Boston and Philadelphia before joining the American Film Institute, where he began work on his film Eraserhead.
The 1977 black and white futuristic film about a couple and their grotesque baby was met with mixed reviews from critics, but went on to have success on the underground circuit and become a cult favourite.
‘A creative ocean’
This was followed by 1980’s tragedy The Elephant Man, also shot in black and white but decidedly more mainstream and accessible, earning him his first best director Oscar nomination.
Based on the diary of Joseph Merrick, born in the United States in 1862 with a condition that gave him a severely deformed physical appearance, it starred Anthony Hopkins and John Hurt.
It also won a French César award for best foreign film in 1982.
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In the 1990s, he made the series Twin Peaks, which paved the way for many a prestige television drama. The tale of a tight-knit northwestern town reacting to the rape and murder of a popular but troubled high school girl captivated and shocked Americans.
One of the stars of the series, Kyle MacLachlan, who went on to make several films with Lynch, called him “an enigmatic and intuitive man with a creative ocean bursting forth inside of him”.
“I owe my entire career, and life really, to his vision,” he wrote on Instagram.
Lynch returned to the red carpet of the Cannes Film Festival with the actor in 2017 to screen the Twin Peaks film.
‘He was all about creating texture’
French film writer and director Nicolas Saada said Lynch was a role model for many filmmakers who came after him, in particular due to his use of sound in his films.
“He was all about creating texture in his films,” Saada told RFI. “The depth of his photography, the colours he used. He also created an aural texture. From his very first film Eraserhead, he put a lot of work into using sounds, be they from an industrial source or sounds from the street.”
Saada said Lynch had la “sixth sense” when it came to sound production, taking real life sounds and distorting them to create abstract sounds. “On top of that, the music used added to the overall texture, creating a very unique result.”
In today’s world, where everything is “rational and explained”, he says Lynch’s approach represented “total freedom” from linear storytelling constraints.
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Arthouse attraction
Despite only making 10 films in 30 years, Lynch’s diverse repertoire is still popular in arthouse cinemas in Paris.
“There’s an atmosphere and a universe that continues to attract people,” explains Melvine, who works at the Cinema des Écoles in Paris, which is hosting a retrospective of Lynch’s films.
“With each screening, it’s the same success. We’ve been showing Blue Velvet for two or three years, for example, and each time it’s full,” he told Franceinfo.
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