My senior year of high school I remember going over to my friends house to watch David Lynch’s Dune. Except, I had no idea who David Lynch even was. I was really early into my journey as a cinephile so my taste wasn’t the best and I remember thinking it was one of the strangest films I’d ever seen. After that I never really thought about it much. I went on my cinematic journey and naturally I learned about David Lynch a few years later. He was the weird guy. His movies make no sense. They’re disturbing. Honestly, all of these things are probably true. But, it’s these special traits that make David Lynch’s films so fascinating and impactful.
I knew of his existence for a while but I never watched any of his films for the longest time and I’m not really sure why. That was until I started doing a podcast with my cousin who is also one of my best friends. We’d both been cinephiles for a while before then and we finally decided to share that with the world in 2020. David Lynch was always his favorite filmmaker and we used the podcast as a way to connect to each other through his art. Throughout that time, we watched through all 3 seasons of Twin Peaks, all 10 of his films, all his shorts, weather reports, and any other fun things Lynch worked on.
That was probably the most rewarding cinematic journey I’ve been on. I’d never seen any of his films before—except for Dune a long time ago—so I got to go on a very special journey with one of the most special people in my life. We started with Eraserhead and went in order all the way through his whole career finishing with Twin Peaks: The Return. It was so incredible seeing how Lynch evolved as a filmmaker throughout his career, but the coolest thing about it was seeing the profound impact many of these films had on my cousin and getting to share that with him. David Lynch’s art brought me and my cousin closer than we’ve ever been and I will have that forever.
The surreal approach he had to filmmaking is so intoxicating. We live in a very strange world that doesn’t make sense a lot of the time. So coming across a filmmaker that could put that feeling into an image on screen was something that hit me very personally. His films, though strange a lot of the time, have a wonderful sincerity to them and his unique perspective of the world can be extremely relatable. He famously wouldn’t answer questions about the meaning of his films and chose to let the art speak for itself. That taught me that art doesn’t have to be one specific thing, but can be a million different things to a million different people. Lynch has an ability to create a mood and atmosphere that no other filmmaker can quite achieve. There is a reason the term Lynchian is thrown around so often today. He literally created a new cinematic language that inspired a whole generation of filmmakers and film lovers.
David Lynch has plenty of impactful quotes or hilarious moments ranging anywhere from him crying watching It’s A Wonderful Life talking about how beautiful it is, to “What a heavy load Einstein must have had, fucking morons everywhere.” Although my favorite thing he ever said that has stuck with me ever since I heard it was “Who gives a fucking shit how long a scene is?” This really struck me the first time I heard it and I try my best to live by that every day. Art isn’t just one particular thing. Throughout the years people like to make rules for these sorts of things but this quote reminds me that there are no rules when it comes to art. If you have a crazy idea you’re unsure of, fuck it, just do it. See what happens. Maybe something great will come of it. If not, who cares, you tried something and that’s what’s important. I try to apply this idea to many different things in my life and it’s made me a happier person because of it. That doesn’t happen without David Lynch being his true self and just creating what comes up in his strangely beautiful brain.
David Lynch’s art has brought me closer to ones I love, taught me more about myself than I ever could have imagined, and fundamentally changed the way I perceive the world at large. He taught me to find the little joys in life and cherish them. Like Fridays, a sunny day, or a slice of pie.
NickStimer.com 
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