David Lynch has a chicken. Your argument is invalid.
"
It makes me uncomfortable to talk about meanings and things. It's better not to know so much about what things mean. Because the meaning, it's a very personal thing, and the meaning for me is different than the meaning for somebody else."
is a widely acclaimed and influential director of film and television. Like
Alfred Hitchcock and
Akira Kurosawa, he was originally trained as a painter. He made a short film called
Six Men Getting Sick, which won a cash prize. From this point forward, he would be a professional filmmaker.
Some of the obvious influences on his films are
Federico Fellini,
Billy Wilder,
The Wizard of Oz, 1950s pop music (and
'50s culture in general),
Tod Browning and
Luis Buñuel. Some of his frequent collaborators include Kyle MacLachlan,
Laura Dern, Isabella Rossellini, Angelo Badalamenti, and the late Jack Nance.
If you watch one of his works, expect some type of severe head trauma to play a role. Also, pay close attention to use of white noise and ambient sounds.
Mr. Lynch's filmography includes:
Tropes in Mr. Lynch's movies and life include:
- Alan Smithee: For the long version of Dune.
- Amnesiac Dissonance
- Arc Words: There is not a single David Lynch film that doesn't depend on the use of repeated cryptic phrases to set a spooky or dreamlike mood.
- Big Ol' Eyebrows: The Mentats in Dune. And, indeed, Lynch himself.
- Body Motifs: Injuries and/or deformities to the face and/or head
- Circus of Fear: The Elephant Man tries to escape one
- Cryptic Conversation: All the time
- Cloudcuckoolander: Lynch is certainly one of these. Mel Brooks once described him as "Jimmy Stewart from Mars." He also has a Twitter account. He posted twice about finding out whether he's connected to the moon and three times about buying an ax.
- Dada Comics: His comic The Angriest Dog in the World inspired Dinosaur Comics
- Daylight Horror: He sometimes likes to set scary moments during daylight hours, often in normal, suburban locations. See, for example, the Winkies scene in Mulholland Drive.
- Directing Against Type: The Straight Story is a sweet, gentle movie about an elderly man who travels on his riding lawnmower visit his estranged brother. It actually does bear a lot of the subtler trademarks of Lynch's direction, though.
- Dying Dream: Mulholland Drive. Or is it?
- Emerging From The Shadows: Often seen in his films.
- The Fifties: None of his works are actually set in the fifties, but most of them are visually and thematically very clearly influenced by the era.
- Fisher King: In Dune
- Gainax Ending: Most of his films lack a comprehensible ending, including Twin Peaks but excluding the aptly-named The Straight Story.
- Grotesque Gallery
- Lighter and Softer: The Straight Story. No explanation required.
- Louis Cypher: Some of Lynch's creepiest characters, such as the Mystery Man, the magician in "Silencio" and (possibly) the Cowboy are heavily implied to be this.
- Magical Realism: Most of his films fall into the genre in some way or another. Some are realistic but extremely bizarre (Blue Velvet, Straight Story) while others go into the realm of pure fantasy (Twin Peaks) and beyond (Eraserhead, good god, Eraserhead...). The rest are, well.... somewhere in between. It's not like we can really be sure or anything.
- Meta Twist: Blue Velvet
- Mind Screw: Mr. Lynch is a mental Lothario.
- Myth Arc: Averted trope
- Nightmare Valley: Some of his commercials, and Michael J. Anderson's role in Mulholland Drive.
- Non-Actor Vehicle: Sting in Dune
- Nothing Is Scarier
- Ostentatious Secret: Mulholland Drive has a mysterious blue box, which has a matching blue key. It is shown to open once or twice, though the Mind Screw makes it hard to tell what if anything is going on.
- Production Posse and Spiritual Successor: Many of his films share themes, crew, actors and occasionally even characters. Word Of God is that Lost Highway and Twin Peaks are in the same universe, which raises a few questions about the roles of Jack Nance and David Bowie.
- Not really. Bowie's songs in the film are score and there being two completly diffrent characters looking the same makes sense because of Lyncg use of doppelgangers.
- Psychic Nosebleed: When Paul takes the Water of Life in Dune. Quite possibly Henry's nosebleed in Eraserhead
- The Resolution Will Not Be Televised: Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, although it doesn't really resolve much
- Scare Chord: He is really good at these.
- Seemingly Wholesome '50s Girl: A favorite character type
- Shrug of God: Lynch flatly refuses to explain his movies, and that goes times ten for how he made Eraserhead's baby.
- Typical response about the baby - an interviewer once asked point blank if it was a calf fetus, which is the popular opinion. Lynch's response was, "This is what a lot of people think it is." He did admit that the baby's sounds are not based on the sound of a real baby crying.
- Sliding Scale Of Realistic Versus Fantastic: Fucked with. Brutally.
- Slipstream
- Surreal Horror
- Surreal Humor
- Tomato in the Mirror: Part of the plot of Mulholland Drive, maybe.
- Villain Protagonist: About half of his films feature one, at least to some extent.
- World of Symbolism: His movies have a reputation for falling into this category. Though some of them do have a comprehensible story, there's simply no way to take movies like Eraserhead and Inland Empire on anything except a very symbolic, fever-dream level.
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