On David Lynch's death

There have been so many thoughtful and profound things written about the life and death of David Lynch - I was moved by this Vulture article talking about Lynch's meditations on death in his work, and this interview with the owner of Laura Palmer's house used in Twin Peaks, who speaks meaningfully about interacting with people to whom the show meant a lot, and who allows visitors to tour a place that they connected with through Lynch's work. I think that the tributes left by Lynch collaborators like Kyle MacLachlan, Naomi Watts and Alicia Witt (who wasn't ten yet when Lynch's adaptation of Dune was filmed) show how highly he was regarded by actors and actresses he directed.

I remember that when I first discovered Lynch, I was surprised to find out that my mother - who never watches American television shows, and doesn't watch many films - had followed the first season of Twin Peaks when it came out in Austria, had been waiting along with so many others to find out what had happened to Laura Palmer. She also loves The Elephant Man. I can't recall what came first for me, if I watched Twin Peaks, lucky enough to find a DVD set of the first season (it took a while for the second season to be available to me), or if Mulholland Drive was my first encounter with Lynch's work. In any case, Mulholland Drive is a film that meant a lot to me, that I rewatched countless times and came away with different ideas about with each new look. Lynch always left the interpretation of his works to those who watched it, instead of imposing his own, a gift to unpack. I would guess that many other people also found a particular one of his works at just the right time in their life where it resonated and made its greatest impact, and that impact has been obvious from the shared grief over his passing, and the celebration of his work in reaction to it.