Filmmaker and painter David Lynch died January 15 at age 78. He spoke with Terry Gross in 1994 about making his surrealist first movie, Eraserhead, leaving things up for interpretation, and where he finds inspiration. Also, we'll hear from Isabella Rossellini who starred in Lynch's Blue Velvet as a nightclub singer, and Nicolas Cage, who worked with him in Wild At Heart. And our TV critic David Bianculli shares an appreciation. Also, Justin Chang reviews the new film supernatural thriller Presence.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
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This is Fresh Air. David Lynch, the artist and filmmaker who broke boundaries with such unsettling films as Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive, died last week at the age of 78. Today, we'll listen back to our archive conversation with David Lynch, as well as old interviews with some actors who worked with him.
But first, I'd like to start with a tribute to the writer and director whose vision was largely responsible for one of the most influential and singular series in television history, Twin Peaks. David Lynch's career began with a 1977 cult hit Eraserhead, which so impressed Mel Brooks that he hired Lynch to direct the ultra-serious, very moody movie The Elephant Man.
Brooks kept his own name off the credits as producer for fear that audiences might expect a comedy. But The Elephant Man, as a drama, was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including one for Lynch as Best Director. He didn't win, but soon went on to make two visually remarkable movies starring a young actor named Kyle MacLachlan.
The science fiction epic Dune and his moody, otherworldly Blue Velvet. McLaughlin also starred in Twin Peaks, the 1990 ABC series co-created by Lynch and Mark Frost. And McLaughlin starred as well in that show's unexpected, incomprehensible sequel, presented by Showtime in 2017. For the big screen, after Blue Velvet, Lynch kept making movies that seemed to be pulled directly from his subconscious.
Wild at Heart, Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire, and, of course, Twin Peaks' Fire Walk With Me. In addition to making films and TV shows, David Lynch loved music and photography and art and old movies and classic television.
He pursued his many passions all his life, from composing and recording albums of music and practicing transcendental meditation to woodworking and making and posting eccentric short videos on YouTube. For two years, he made daily one-minute videos called Today's Number Is, appearing on camera to reach his hand into a big glass jar of numbered ping-pong balls.
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