the filmmaker celebrated for his uniquely dark and dreamlike vision in such movies as 鈥淏lue Velvet鈥 and 鈥淢ulholland Drive鈥 and the has died just days before his 79th birthday.
His family announced the death in a Facebook post on Thursday.
"There鈥檚 a big hole in the world now that he鈥檚 no longer with us. But, as he would say, 鈥楰eep your eye on the donut and not on the hole,鈥欌 the family's post read. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a beautiful day with golden sunshine and blue skies all the way.鈥
The cause of death and location was not immediately available. Last summer, Lynch had revealed to Sight and Sound that he was diagnosed with emphysema and would not be leaving his home because of fears of contracting the coronavirus or 鈥渆ven a cold.鈥
鈥淚鈥檝e gotten emphysema from smoking for so long and so I鈥檓 homebound whether I like it or not,鈥 Lynch said, adding he didn鈥檛 expect to make another film.
鈥淚 would try to do it remotely, if it comes to it,鈥 Lynch said. 鈥淚 wouldn鈥檛 like that so much.鈥
Lynch broke through in the 1970s with the surreal 鈥淓raserhead鈥 and rarely failed to startle and inspire audiences, peers and critics in the following decades. His notable releases ranged from the neo-noir 鈥淢ulholland Drive鈥 to the skewed gothic of 鈥淏lue Velvet鈥 to which won three Golden Globes, two Emmys and even a Grammy for its theme music. Pauline Kael, the film critic, called Lynch 鈥渢he first populist surrealist 鈥 a Frank Capra of dream logic.鈥
鈥溾楤lue Velvet,鈥 鈥楳ulholland Drive鈥 and 鈥楨lephant Man鈥 defined him as a singular, visionary dreamer who directed films that felt handmade,鈥 director Steven Spielberg said in a statement. Spielberg noted that he had cast Lynch as director John Ford in his
鈥淚t was surreal and seemed like a scene out of one of David鈥檚 own movies,鈥 Spielberg said. 鈥淭he world is going to miss such an original and unique voice.鈥
鈥淟ynchian鈥 became a style of its own, yet one that ultimately belonged only to him. Lynch鈥檚 films pulled disturbing, surrealistic mysteries and unsettling noir nightmares out of ordinary life. In the opening scenes of 鈥淏lue Velvet,鈥 among suburban homes and picket fences, an investigator finds a severed ear lying in a manicured lawn.
on Thursday that he was a proud owner of two end tables crafted by Lynch (his numerous hobbies included furniture design), called the biographical drama 鈥淓lephant Man鈥 a perfect film.
鈥淗e鈥檚 one of those filmmakers who was influential but impossible to imitate. People would try but he had one kind of algorithm that worked for him and you attempted to recreate it at your peril,鈥 Soderbergh told the AP. 鈥淎s non-linear and illogical as they often seemed, they were clearly highly organized in his mind.鈥
Lynch, who was married four times and had four children, never won a competitive Academy Award. He received nominations for directing 鈥淭he Elephant Man,鈥 鈥淏lue Velvet鈥 and 鈥淢ulholland Drive鈥 and, in 2019, was for lifetime achievement.
鈥淭o the Academy and everyone who helped me along the way, thanks,鈥 he said in characteristically off-beat remarks. 鈥淵ou have a very nice face. Good night.鈥
Actors regularly appearing in his movies included Kyle McLachlan, Laura Dern, Naomi Watts and Richard Farnsworth. said Lynch 鈥渨as in touch with something the rest of us wish we could get to.鈥
鈥淚 always found him to be the most authentically alive person I鈥檇 ever met,鈥 McLachlan said on Instagram. 鈥淒avid was in tune with the universe and his own imagination on a level that seemed to be the best version of human.鈥
Aside from furniture making and painting, Lynch was a coffee maker, composer, sculptor and cartoonist. He exuded a Zen peacefulness he attributed to Transcendental Meditation, which his David Lynch Foundation promoted. In the 2017 short film 鈥淲hat Did Jack Do?鈥 he played a detective interrogating a monkey. He regularly ate at, and espoused the joys of, the Los Angeles fast-food restaurant Bob鈥檚 Big Boy.
Lynch was himself a singular presence, almost as beguiling and deadpan as his own films. For years, he posted videos of daily weather reports from Southern California. When asked for analysis of his films, Lynch typically demurred.
鈥淚 like things that leave some room to dream,鈥 he told the New York Times in 1995. 鈥淎 lot of mysteries are sewn up at the end, and that kills the dream.鈥
Lynch was who moved around often with his family as a child and would feel most at home away from the classroom, free to explore his fascination with the world. Lynch鈥檚 mother was an English teacher and his father a research scientist with the U.S. Agriculture Department. He was raised in the Pacific Northwest before the family settled in Virginia. Lynch鈥檚 childhood was by all accounts free of trauma.
鈥淒avid鈥檚 always had a cheerful disposition and sunny personality, but he鈥檚 always been attracted to dark things,鈥 a childhood friend is quoted as saying in 鈥淩oom to Dream,鈥 a 2018 book by Lynch and Kristine McKenna. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 one of the mysteries of David.鈥
He praised his parents as 鈥渓oving鈥 and 鈥渇air鈥 in his memoir, though he also recalled formative memories that shaped his sensibility.
One day near his family鈥檚 Pacific Northwest home, Lynch recalled seeing a beautiful, naked woman emerge from the woods bloodied and weeping.
鈥淚 saw a lot of strange things happen in the woods,鈥 Lynch told Rolling Stone. 鈥淎nd it just seemed to me that people only told you 10% of what they knew and it was up to you to discover the other 90%.鈥
He had an early gift for visual arts and a passion for travel and discovery. He dropped out of several colleges before enrolling in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, beginning a decade-long apprenticeship as a maker of short movies. He was working as a printmaker in 1966 when he made his first film, a four-minute short named 鈥淪ix Men Getting Sick (Six Times).鈥 That and other work landed Lynch a place at the then-nascent American Film Institute.
There, he began working on what would become his 1977 feature debut, 鈥淓raserhead.鈥 The film, featuring Jack Nance with high-rising hair to rival the Bride of Frankenstein, took four years to make and debuted in theaters at midnight. It took nearly as long to develop a cult following and the interest of Hollywood. became an advocate and approached him about directing a 鈥淪tar Wars鈥 film. Another fan was who produced Lynch's next movie, 鈥淭he Elephant Man.鈥
鈥淗e is very sensitive, and he really understands human nature,鈥 Lynch told Bomb magazine of Brooks. 鈥淥therwise he couldn鈥檛 do those great comedies. I guess 鈥楨raserhead鈥 spoke to him, and off we went.鈥
鈥淭he Elephant Man,鈥 about Joseph Merrick, a severely deformed man who became a circus attraction in 19th century Europe, earned eight Oscar nominations. Producer Dino De Laurentiis then hired Lynch to director a big-budget adaptation of The film was a flop with critics and audiences 鈥 Lynch described producers' trims and tweaks in post-production as 鈥渁 nightmare鈥 鈥 but, still, the movie attracted a cult following over the years.
After that came 1986's 鈥淏lue Velvet,鈥 starring Isabella Rossellini, Dennis Hopper, Laura Dern and McLachlan. Kicked off by the Bobby Vinton song, the detective story that twists its way to Hopper's oxygen-mask maniac, peeled back the superficial veneer of Reagan-era America.
鈥淭here are things lurking in the world and within us that we have to deal with,鈥 Lynch told The Los Angeles Times in 1986. 鈥淵ou can evade them for a while, for a long time maybe, but if you face them and name them, they start losing their power. Once you name the enemy, you can deal with it a lot better.鈥
In 1990, Lynch debuted both the Palme d'Or-winning 鈥淲ild at Heart,鈥 with Nicolas Cage and Dern, and the radical TV series 鈥淭win Peaks.鈥 The show, a surreal sensation about the mysterious death of high-school homecoming queen Laura Palmer, was a sensation, earning five Emmy nominations for its first season.
鈥淭win Peaks,鈥 which Lynch created with writer Mark Frost, remains one of the most enigmatic and singularly director-driven series to ever find a wide American audience on television. It clung to Lynch, too, who returned to it with the 1992 prequel 鈥淭win Peaks: Fire Walk With Me鈥
After the nocturnal noir 鈥淟ost Highway鈥 (1997) and the comparatively simple road movie 鈥淭he Straight Story,鈥 starring Richard Farnsworth as a 73-year-old man who travels cross country by lawn mower, Lynch directed his last masterpiece,
The film, starring Laura Elena Harring and Naomi Watts as young actors in Hollywood, was assembled out of a failed TV pilot. But that restructuring only enhanced the movie's intoxicating puzzle, a doppelganger murder mystery. In the 2022 Sight and Sound poll, it ranked as the eighth greatest film of all time.
Lynch's last feature was 2006's 鈥淚nland Empire,鈥 a fragmented and experimental thriller made without a script and shot on digital video.
In 2005鈥檚 鈥淟ynch On Lynch,鈥 edited by Chris Rodley, Lynch addressed some of the mysteries at the heart of his work.
鈥淭he more you throw black into a color, the more dreamy it gets,鈥 he said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 like a little egress. You can go into it, and because it keeps on continuing to be dark, the mind kicks in, and a lot of things that are going on in there become manifest. And you start seeing what you鈥檙e afraid of. You start seeing what you love, and it becomes like a dream.鈥
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AP National Writer Hillel Italie contributed reporting.
Jake Coyle, The Associated Press
