Editorial: David Lynch’s Cinematic Dreamscape

A Farewell to a Master of the Strange

Wild ideas, free expression, boundary pushing, artistic transgressivism, fearless creativity, risky humor. These are all things that we here at Screaming Eye Press champion and, perhaps, no one artist embodied that approach more than David Lynch. While I never had the pleasure of meeting the man, from all accounts he was as warm, friendly, hopeful and inspiring as his films were cold, dark, disturbing, and nightmarish. A man who thought consciousness, awareness, imagination, and creativity could change personal, and perhaps larger, worlds.

People describe his work as being “surreal,” a very accurate word but in ways that most people might not realize. Surrealism isn’t just the weird, bizarre, dreamlike, or “incomprehensible” (a label that many have applied to Lynch’s oeuvre). Surrealism began as a political as well as an artistic movement. The word literally means “Beyond realism” and when something is “surreal” it is “beyond the real.” The early surrealists thought that, through their art, they could affect what Jungians would call the collective unconscious. They felt they could change the world.

I have no idea if David Lynch had similar thoughts about his work but it definitely went beyond what we see as real to a reality deeper and more awesome than what we see every day. And by awesome I mean that word in its original form as well where “awe” meant an experience where terror mixes with reverence and repulsion with fascination.

While some of his films (e.g., Dune, The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, the first two seasons of Twin Peaks) have fairly straightforward narratives much of his work has more mercurial narrative structures (e.g., Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire, the last season of Twin Peaks). Although I empathize with folks who are frustrated by Lynch’s work when they just want a cool story that “makes sense” I also feel a bit saddened because it is an “apples to oranges” situation and by wanting the apple so badly, they are not allowing themselves to enjoy what Lynch’s oranges have to offer (bite into one and you just might see reality warp in front of your eyes and that orange change to a donut or a cup of coffee).

Lynch’s films, like so much of surreal art (of whatever medium), is about the spaces between. Between images, between characters, between dialogue, and most importantly, between our thoughts and feelings as an audience. It’s as much about what we bring to it as it is what images and ideas he wrought.

His approach has inspired filmmakers, visual artists, poets, authors, audio drama producers, comic book writers, etc. etc. He was one of a kind and as I mourn his passing I am also elated that the people who knew him were blessed with his presence and that the rest of us were blessed with the works he created.

Rest in Peace David Lynch.

Lothar Tuppan
Editor in Chief
February 2025