David Lynch studied at Francis C. Hammond High School in Alexandria.
College/University
Gallery of David Lynch
230 Fenway, Boston, MA 02115, USA
Lynch began his studies at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 1964, but he quickly got bored of it and dropped out after a year. He told his parents that he dropped out as he was uninspired.
Gallery of David Lynch
118-128 N Broad St, Philadelphia, PA 19102, USA
Lynch entered the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1966, graduating from it in 1969.
Career
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Gallery of David Lynch
Achievements
Membership
Awards
Cannes Film Festival Award
1990
David is a recipient of the Cannes Film Festival Award of 1990, for Wild at Heart, and of 2001, for Mulholland Drive.
Venice Film Festival Award
2006
Lynch received the Venice Film Festival Award in 2006, for the film Inland Empire.
Saturn Award
2018
David Lynch is a recipient of the Saturn Award of 2018, for Twin Peaks.
César Award
David Lynch received the César Award for The Elephant Man in 1982.
National Order of the Legion of Honour
Lynch has been honoured by the French government with induction into the Legion of Honour, first being honoured as a Chevalier (knight) in 2002, and again as an Officier (officer) in 2009.
Lynch began his studies at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 1964, but he quickly got bored of it and dropped out after a year. He told his parents that he dropped out as he was uninspired.
Lynch has been honoured by the French government with induction into the Legion of Honour, first being honoured as a Chevalier (knight) in 2002, and again as an Officier (officer) in 2009.
(In David Lynch's "dream of dark and troubling things, " H...)
In David Lynch's "dream of dark and troubling things, " Henry is left alone in his apartment to care for his deformed baby and has a series of strange encounters with the beautiful girl across the hall and the woman living in his radiator.
(Set in a distant future the year 10191 where life in the ...)
Set in a distant future the year 10191 where life in the universe and space travel is dependent upon a spice Melange found only on the desert planet Arrakis or Dune; where the natives of the planet await the arrival of their Messiah who will lead them into a holy war against the evil Harkonnen empire.
(This sexy thriller has been acclaimed as one of the year'...)
This sexy thriller has been acclaimed as one of the year's best films. Two beautiful women are caught up in a lethally twisted mystery - and ensnared in an equally dangerous web of erotic passion.
A Figure Witnessing the Orchestration of TimeA Figure Witnessing the Orchestration of Time
2009
Bob's Second Dream
2011
Boy Lights Fire
2011
All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth
2012
Fight With Myself
2013
Head #3
2013
Hello x
2013
Dialogue During a Picnic
2017
Billy (and His Friends) Did Find Sally In...
2018
Woman with Small Dead Bird
2018
Ant, Bee, Tarantula
I See My Love
photography
David Lynch, Nudes
(A cinematic collection of feminine nudes from iconic film...)
A cinematic collection of feminine nudes from iconic film director David Lynch “I like to photograph naked women." 125 photographs in black-and-white and colour.
David K. Lynch is an American film director, writer, painter, screenwriter, photographer and musician, who is known for his uniquely disturbing and mind-bending visual work, especially, dark, offbeat films that include "Eraserhead" and "Blue Velvet," and for creating the television series "Twin Peaks."
Background
Ethnicity:
Lynch's father had Scottish, Irish, and English ancestry. His mother was of half Finnish and half German descent. His Irish ancestry can be traced to Galway and as far back as being descended from Rollo, a Viking King.
David Keith Lynch was born on January 20, 1946, in Missoula, Montana, United States, to Donald Walton Lynch, who was a research scientist working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Edwina "Sunny" Lynch (née Sundholm), who was an English language tutor.
The Lynch family often moved around because of Lynch's father's work. When Lynch was two months old, he moved with his parents to Sandpoint, Idaho, and only two years after that, following the birth of his brother John, the family moved to Spokane, Washington. It was there that Lynch's sister Martha was born. The family then moved to Durham, North Carolina, then Boise, Idaho, and then Alexandria, Virginia.
Education
Lynch hated school as the education wasn’t as fulfilling as he thought it would be. Hence, he focused more on extracurricular activities, such as painting. Alongside his schooling, Lynch also joined the Boy Scouts, although he would later note that he only "became a Scout so I could quit and put it behind me."
During his high school days at Francis C. Hammond High School in Alexandria, his grades went from bad to worse. However, Lynch was popular with other students, and after leaving decided that he wanted to study painting at college, beginning his studies at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 1964, but he quickly got bored of it and dropped out after a year. He told his parents that he dropped out as he was uninspired.
He then went on a tour of Europe in an attempt to learn the nuances of painting from the famous expressionist painter Oskar Kokoschka. Upon reaching Salzburg, however, they found that he was not available and returned to the United States, where Lynch entered the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He preferred this college to his previous school in Boston, claiming that "In Philadelphia, there were great and serious painters, and everybody was inspiring one another and it was a beautiful time there." He also said that the days he spent in Philadelphia were the formative years of his life. The gothic buildings and the overall vibe which the city had, formed the basis for his first few films.
At the Pennsylvania Academy Lynch made his first short film, and fell in love with the art of filmmaking as he realized that he can convey much more through films. The American Film Institute had just started operations and Lynch was one of the earliest students to enroll at the institute to learn filmmaking. The Institute also agreed to help finance Lynch's work, which helped him to create his first recognizable movies.
David Lynch started his career when he made a short film titled Six Men Getting Sick after deriving inspiration from one of his dreams, in which he saw his paintings move. He then invested his entire savings on another short film. Lynch’s films were different from mainstream cinema as they exhibited images and sounds that seemed to be coming straight out of a nightmare. The Pennsylvania Academy praised him for his vision, and after that, Lynch moved to Los Angeles.
Learning about the newly founded American Film Institute, which gave grants to filmmakers who could support their application with a prior work and a script for a new project, Lynch decided to send them a copy of The Alphabet along with a script that he had written for a new short film, one that would be almost entirely live action, named The Grandmother. Good reviews from critics game Lynch an opportunity to make his first feature film. The proposed feature film was titled as Gardenback, but the project did not materialize and Lynch started working on a new feature-length project called Eraserhead.
The film Eraserhead premiered only in 1977 after five years of hard work, which involved physical and mental exhaustion. The bizarre movie had a dark worldview, disturbing subject matter and a surreal tone, but it garnered enough attention to land Lynch the job of directing The Elephant Man (1980), starring John Hurt. That film received eight Academy Award nominations, including two for Lynch in the categories of directing and adapted screenplay.
Lynch gained popularity as a director and started receiving offers to direct mainstream Hollywood films, but Lynch focused on doing things that he liked and hence had to reject some high profile films, including Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. However, Lynch's next directing gig wouldn't go quite as well, as he was picked to helm the science fiction film Dune (1984), an adaptation of a well-loved book starring Kyle MacLachlan and Sting, among many others. The movie was plagued with production problems and received scathing reviews upon its release.
Lynch's next directorial venture was Blue Velvet in 1986. Although the film was unorthodox as compared to the usual American films, it became a huge success. Lynch would continue in a similar vein with the violent Wild at Heart (1990). It was Lynch’s most unusual film as it had a fairly straightforward treatment. However, it also had the trademark elements of a David Lynch movie and it became a big commercial and critical hit.
The same year, Lynch took his unique vision to television with the series Twin Peaks, which first aired in 1990. The series became a mega success, eventually becoming a rage in America. A second season went into production soon on 22 additional episodes. However, Lynch himself only directed six episodes of the series, devoting his time to working on the film Wild at Heart, but carefully chose the directors for other episodes.
Lynch then made a prequel film to the series with a title Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, but the film proved a colossal failure and Lynch’s career took a plunge. He made his comeback with the 1997 film Lost Highway, which was also a critical and commercial failure at the time of its release.
In 1999, Lynch directed The Straight Story, which was rated G (general viewing) by the Motion Picture Association of America, which came as "shocking news" to many in the film industry, who were surprised that it "did not disturb, offend or mystify."
In 2001, Lynch came up with ‘Mulholland Drive,’ which is now widely known as one of the best films ever made. The film was originally meant to be a TV series but the project was dropped at the last minute, owing to the unusual narrative techniques employed by Lynch. So, Lynch then reworked on the script and turned it into a feature film, which became a great commercial success.
In 2006, Lynch directed ‘Inland Empire,’ which remains to be his last feature film to date. The film was praised by the critics and also turned out to be a commercial success. Lynch gave up filmmaking after stating that Hollywood is no more a fascinating place for him. He also said that earning money has become the only motive of the majority of producers and filmmakers.
In autumn 2014, it was announced that Twin Peaks would return to the airwaves as a Showtime miniseries. Various original cast members were slated to return, as well. The 18-episode season, which aired from May through September 2017, drew generally strong reviews and picked up several award nominations for its production and performances.
In addition to writing and directing, Lynch often served as sound designer and wrote music for his films. He has also directed several commercials and music videos. After quitting filmmaking, he has kept himself busy making music. He even released a couple of music albums, namely Crazy Clown Time and The Big Dream.
Beginning in 2009, Lynch produced an Internet documentary series, Interview Project. He also continued to express himself as a painter, photographer, and installation artist, and his works were exhibited in a retrospective in Paris in 2007. Room to Dream, a memoir/biography that he wrote with Kristine McKenna, was published in 2018.
(A cinematic collection of feminine nudes from iconic film...)
2018
Religion
From his childhood, Lynch was raised a Presbyterian.
Politics
Lynch has said that he is "not a political person" and that politics is "something he knows little about." However, in the 1990s, he expressed admiration for former US President Ronald Reagan, and in 2006, he stated, "at that time, I thought of myself as a libertarian. I believed in next to zero government. And I still would lean toward no government and not so many rules, except for traffic lights and things like this. I really believe in traffic regulations." Lynch continued to state that "I'm a Democrat now. And I've always been a Democrat, really." He also later stated that he would vote for Democratic incumbent Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election.
In the 2016 United States presidential election, David Lynch endorsed Bernie Sanders and expressed his opinion that Donald Trump could go down as "one of the greatest presidents in history because he has disrupted the thing so much. No one is able to counter this guy in an intelligent way." He also stated that Trump is "causing suffering and division," advising him to "treat all the people as you would like to be treated."
Views
Lynch is a strong supporter of transcendental meditation. He says that he practices transcendental meditation on a daily basis. He also promotes it in schools and colleges throughout the USA. In July 2005, he launched the David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and Peace, established to help finance scholarships for students in middle and high schools who are interested in learning the Transcendental Meditation technique.
As for Lynch's work, there are several recurring themes within Lynch's work, leading film critics Le Blanc and Odell to state that "his films are so packed with motifs, recurrent characters, images, compositions and techniques that you could view his entire output as one large jigsaw puzzle of ideas". One of the key themes that they noted was the usage of dreams and dreamlike imagery and structure within his works, something they related to the "surrealist ethos" of relying "on the subconscious to provide visual drive."
Another of Lynch's prominent themes is industry, with repeated imagery of "the clunk of machinery, the power of pistons, shadows of oil drills pumping, screaming wood mills and smoke billowing factories", as can be seen with the industrial wasteland in Eraserhead, the factories in The Elephant Man, the sawmill in Twin Peaks and the lawn mower in The Straight Story.
Another theme is the dark underbelly of violent criminal activity within a society, such as with Frank's gang in Blue Velvet and the cocaine smugglers in Twin Peaks. The idea of deformity is also found in several of Lynch's films, from The Elephant Man to the deformed baby in Eraserhead, as well as death from head wounds, found in most of Lynch's films. Other imagery commonly used in Lynch's works are flickering electricity or lights, fire and stages upon which a singer performs, often surrounded by drapery.
Lynch also tends to feature his leading female actors in "split" roles, so that many of his female characters have multiple, fractured identities. He also frequently tends to have characters that have supernatural and omnipotent qualities. They can be seen as physical manifestations of various different concepts, such as hatred or fear. Examples of these characters are The Man Inside the Planet from Eraserhead, Bob from Twin Peaks, The Mystery Man from Lost Highway, The Bum in Mulholland Drive, and The Phantom in Inland Empire. Lynch approaches his characters and film content in a way that steeps them in a dream state rather than reality.
Quotations:
"Sex is a doorway to something so powerful and mystical, but movies usually depict it in a completely flat way."
"My cow is not pretty, but it is pretty to me."
"You're right on the money with that. We're all like detectives in life. There's something at the end of the trail that we're all looking for."
"The cinema is really built for the big screen and big sound, so that a person can go into another world and have an experience."
"I don't think that people accept the fact that life doesn't make sense. I think it makes people terribly uncomfortable. It seems like religion and myth were invented against that, trying to make sense out of it."
"The business side of film has goofed up so many things, but even that's changing. It happened to the music industry and now it's happening to the film studios. It's crazy what's going on. But artists should have control of their work; especially if, as I always say, you never turn down a good idea and never take a bad idea."
"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."
Membership
David Lynch is a member of the Directors Guild of America.
Personality
David Lynch makes deeply disturbing films about the seedy underbelly of cities and criminals, the duality/fractured nature of a character, nightmares, and corruption. Because of his oeuvre, one may think that he has a dark personality in real life when the exact opposite is true. In fact, many interviewers are taken aback when they meet him because he is typically a cheerful person.
Lynch is also a coffee drinker and even has his own line of special organic blends available for purchase on his website as well as in Whole Foods. He has famously said, "A bad Coffee is better than no Coffee at all."
Physical Characteristics:
David Lynch has straight grey hair, blue eyes and quirky, nasal voice. His height is 181 cm and weight is 78 kilo.
Quotes from others about the person
"You feel David in his movies — its another universe he takes you to — its an alternate reality but its close enough to our own that its scary." - Patricia Arquette
"Jimmy Stewart from Mars." - Mel Brooks
"Luckily, David is able to vent everything through his art ... because otherwise, somebody might be dead." - Jack Fisk
"Most people have strange thoughts, but they rationalize them. David doesn't translate his images logically, so they remain raw, emotional. Whenever I ask him where his ideas come from, he says it's like fishing. He never knows what he's going to catch." - Isabella Rossellini
"I just tend to admire people who go for what they believe in, like David Lynch for example, and just say what goes through their heads, and are not afraid of people not accepting them. I have no respect for people who deliberately try to be weird to attract attention, but if that's who you honestly are, you shouldn't try to "normalize yourself". It's a fine line." - Alicia Witt
"When I first met David Lynch, he was living in the stables of the American Film Institute... He'd work all night and have his crew lock him in during the day, and he'd sleep." - Sissy Spacek
"Working with David Lynch was like taking a bullet. A gun at you. 'Lost Highway' is, I think, one of the best films I've ever been to. It'll endure a long, long time." - Robbert Loggia
Interests
Painting, composing, design, weather forecasting
Artists
Favourite fim makers: Federico Fellini, Werner Herzog, Alfred Hitchcock, Roman Polanski, and Jacques Tati, along with the American movie directors Stanley Kubrick and Billy Wilder
Connections
During his life, Lynch has had several relationships. In 1967, he married Peggy Lentz in Chicago, Illinois. The couple gave birth to one child, Jennifer Chambers, born in 1968, who is a film director. They got divorced in 1974.
Three years later, on June 21, 1977, Lynch married Mary Fisk, and the couple had one child, Austin Jack, born in 1982. However, the couple divorced in 1987.
Lynch later developed a relationship with Mary Sweeney, with whom he had one son, Riley. The two married in May 2006 but divorced that July.
In 2009, Lynch married actress Emily Stofle, with whom he lives now. The couple has one child, Lula Boginia Lynch, born in 2012.