The Influence of David Lynch

David Lynch: One of my storytelling influences.

WIth the recent passing of David Lynch, it game me a moment to ponder how this strange fellow impacted me as an artist. Obviously, I was first influenced by mainstream blockbusters like Indiana Jones and Star Wars, but as a child of the 80s, one of the standout filmmakers of the time was David Lynch. I first encountered David Lynch as a rabid fan of Dune. I’d devoured the first four books during middle school and the stars aligned: Lynch was making a movie version of it. 

A total disappointment.

The one of my friends explained Lynch to me and after a trip to Popingo video to watch Elephant Man and Eraserhead, I began to “get it,” and when “Blue Velvet” released shortly after, I was a student of David Lynch. 

Decades later, I can now see Lynch fingerprints all over my own work, so this blog will explore David Lynch by illustrating how he influenced my storytelling style.

By The poster art can or could be obtained from De Laurentiis Entertainment Group., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=56859916

Small Town Horror

The red ants are there if you look closely enough. David Lynch was a Boy Scout, but he knew that under the veneer of that Normal Rockwell world death and decay loomed. The darkness is what made the idyllic that much brighter. I learned this lesson in Blue Velvet and it was reinforced by a strange “life imitating art” moment of sheer insanity with my own “Roy Orbison meets Crazy Person” in a small town in South Dakota. 

So when Twin Peaks arrived to again showcase the contrasts of evil against the backdrop of small town Americana, I knew that’s the type of world I wanted to live-in or at least write.

So Lake Manitou in HIawatha County showcases the idyllic small town world with the red ants of death and decay lingering in the shadows. 

A Community POV

What a cast of characters! David Lynch had cheerleaders, cops, log-ladies, one-eyed housewives creating soundless drape runners, etc, etc, etc. WIth each character he invented and put on display, the list of suspects grew larger. America all played detective and debated who it could be. At MSU during my freshman year, I had to listen to a kid explain why Deputy Andy was the killer. Wrong.

When studio executives told Lynch they wanted him to reveal who killed Laura Palmer, Lynch knew it would destroy his show. Why? The mystery is what drove the investigation and the curiosity of the viewers. For two seasons, he let the Palmer murder investigation be the vehicle to look closer at the town of Twin Peaks. When he relented and gave the people what they wanted, views tuned out. Yes, the town was still weird, but the investigation is what drove people to learn and study the neighbors. 

Twin Peaks also showed a diverse community from the trailer park to the mansion, so that’s what I am trying to do with The Dreamcatcher Chronicles and will branch off into with my Sheriff Brian Forsberg series (currently in development). It’s a bit of a writing sin, but then again, Lynch didn’t follow the norms.

Questions without answers

So Twin Peaks was an example of David Lynch going against a David Lynch principle: to pose questions without answers. Studio executives re released an extended cut of Dune where a narrator “explained” what was going on. It sucked. Even though Lynch’s version of Dune was tough to follow, it was quintessential Lynch because he just let the audience make their own decisions. He did this in several other movies. I can still remember a beggar-zombie showing up to such the soul of a character. WTF! No explanation. No set-up. No forced dialogue to give it closure. Nothing. And it stuck with me for years. Mulholland Drive! 

Yes, it makes the “normies” shake their heads, but Lynch is not for the world of Marvel fans who get things spoonfed to them. I loved this about Lynch.

You can spend hours and hours (much longer than actual run time) listening to Youtubers explain the meaning of David Lynch and any given movie. Each image had meaning. Colors had meaning. Motifs had meaning. I used to teach poetry and my sophomores only wanted the answer, but I explained that good poetry allowed people to form their own meanings (within reason). 

Twin Peaks ended the same way. After rating plummeted, the studio execs begged Lynch to come back and save the show, so he returned for the final few episodes. Question. Question. Question. Question. He even took the Boy Scout main character, agent Dale Cooper, and let him get possessed by the villain (kinda a metaphor of the executives ruining his show). The final scene is Agent Dale Cooper smashing his head into a mirror only to see Bob. 

And cut to black.

25 years later…

He brings back Twin Peaks for another season. Question. Question. Question. Only to have Agent Dale Cooper and Laura Palmer (is it really them) end the entire franchise with: What year is it? 

Screams!

(no explanation)

Cult Classic vs Mainstream 

After Twin Peaks, David Lynch never again became a blockbuster director. He stayed true to himself and did lots of weird shit. And a few heart-warming films. And some more weird shit. In knowing himself, he stayed true to his unique art form. 

And became a cult classic.

So I decided that sometimes staying true to your own vision is better than trying to be commercial and selling to the normies. Lynch found his fan base. While the rest of my friends stuck to Star Wars, I veered into Lynch. 

So with my writing projects, I hold firm to the idea that they’re not for everybody. Heck, I have way too many characters (like Lynch). I don’t explain EVERYTHING (like Lynch). When the art demanded, he could be normal. He had a rated-G movie with Disney, for Pete’s sake, but he never set out to make money. 

It was always about the art.

Beyond Genre

So on my author table, I have signs where I take accessible ideas (It’s an Indiana Jones adventure with a main character who’s like the hobbit with a plot like the Davinci Code) to quickly explain my stories. All around my table, I have these comps (comparisons) to help people understand. 

With my Dreamcatcher Chronicles, I use Twin Peaks as a reference.

Why?

Another thing that I loved about David Lynch and Twin Peaks is that it does NOT fit into a genre box. Twin Peaks is Americana, procedural investigation, science fiction, horror, cozy mystery, Scooby Doo, Young Adult, and soap opera rolled into one. Oh, and don’t forget at the core of it is Native American mythology introduced by Deputy Tommy “Hawk” Hill.

 Staying within the lines of a genre is easy.

Folks get confused when you color outside of the lines.

To my detriment, I HATE writing inside of the box. Check out my “Autism and Authorship” blog entry for more insight, but having someone try to narrow down my story to a neatly fitting genre will make me walk away. I’m done. 

So Lynch was my hero for being so abstract.

Paradigms of Good and Evil

New stories like Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones tend to promote that there’s not much room between good guys and bad guys because…evil is a matter of perspective. Star Wars Disney even took Luke Skywalker and had him try to kill his nephew. 

But Lynch was pretty old school.

The Boy Scout understood innocence yet also could see the muddy underbelly. With both Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks, he kept (most) of his characters as heroes and villains. Sure, Jeffrey Beaumont lost his innocence but he remained the good guy while Frank Booth wasn’t just misunderstood but was Eevviill. Some for Twin Peaks. Dale Cooper walked the line while “Bob” was unrepentantly evil. 

Lynch could hold the light to showcase the shadows or show the goodness of a character by plunging him into darkness.

It became a larger metaphor as Season 2 ended and the concept of the White Lodge and the Black Lodge entered the show. Members of the Bookhouse Boys fought for the light to defend Twin Peaks and all the innocence and goodness within WHILE Bob came from the Black Lodge and only wanted to destroy goodness.

So my world of Hiawatha County uses this Lynchian idea of the Order of Eos being the villains (and always the villains) while the Isanti Lodge/Periphery are the heroes—even when they screw up. 

When Puppets See Their Strings

Finally, one of my favorite things about Twin Peaks (all 3 seasons) is Lynch’s bending of reality. The entire show is a metaphor for Lynch and the writing process. In season two, the studio execs ruined the show by wanting the mystery solved so Lynch ruined Cooper by having Bob possess him. What did Hollywood want? They couldn’t just leave Twin Peaks alone, and 25 years later, Lynch showed an altered Twin Peaks (reliving some moments on loop) that showed what would happen if he gave the modern audience what they wanted. 

Lynch self-inserted himself as both a character/actor and as huge metaphors (big coffee pot season 3) into the show. The world of Twin Peaks exists as a changeable figment of his imagination and he even tried to show Twin Peaks and culture together and how the outside world influenced its innocence. 

The characters IN THE SHOW begin watching a soap opera that mirrors their own lives. Like many other Lynch works, the characters seem to exist with dopplegangers or fragmented timelines where the audiences see alternate version of themselves.  The whole plot of season 3 centers around trying to bring the good Agent Cooper out of the Black Lodge along with Laura Palmer only to have the entire series come crashing down when the characters begin to realize…they are characters. 

“What year is it?”

Man, I love Lynch.

So by Book Three—THE TRICKSTER, you’ll see the influence of Lynch upon the world of Hiawatha County. Ansel, Lacy, and Levi begin to realize that there were alternative versions of themselves in the future. 

Then there is Robin, who exists outside of the world of Hiawatha County but is still trying to influence it.

All of this is heading for a crash course where my historical, supernatural, 

mystery, drama, YA, Americana series is going to end up with some Lynch existentialism. 

Soon, I’ll have to wrap up the Dreamcatcher Chronicles just like Lynch had to finish Twin Peaks. I might try to fit into a genre box at that point, but for now, I’m going to savor being out of the box in Lynch style.