My lack of David Lynch knowledge has always been an embarrassing blight on my identity as a cinephile.
I’ve always known Lynch as an incredible filmmaker, even if my familiarity with his work was uncharacteristically limited. In my readings on cinema, I frequently encountered his name used as a descriptor — “Lynchian” — indicating a blend of the mundane and the surreal, characteristic of his style. I knew Twin Peaks had inspired the melodramatic chaos of Riverdale, which almost single-handedly killed my desire to watch it. And, of course, Eraserhead and Mulholland Drive appear on essentially every list of the greatest films of all time. Yet, I never felt particularly compelled to dive into Lynch’s body of work.
That is, until I heard news of his passing earlier last month, just a few days shy of his 79th birthday. As actors and film fans came together to mourn the loss of such an icon, I felt unsettled by this gap in my knowledge. Could I really call myself a movie buff if I hadn’t seen a single Lynch film? How life-altering is his art, considering so many filmmakers I admire cite him as a key influence? I finally felt the pull to his filmography, and I’m so grateful that I did. Calling David Lynch an incredible artist feels like an understatement. He was a one-of-a-kind visionary, and his films are absolutely essential viewing. There’s no better place to start than Twin Peaks, arguably his most accessible — if still enigmatic — work. At least on the surface.
(Mild Spoilers Ahead)
Lynch conceived Twin Peaks with co-director and writer Mark Frost in the late 80’s. Initially, the idea was a deconstruction of small-town America — exploring the dark underbelly of a quirky, mostly isolated town in North Dakota. The location eventually shifted to Washington State, where a singular image emerged: a body, wrapped in plastic, being pulled from a lake. This body became homecoming queen Laura Palmer, and with her, Twin Peaks as we know it was born. The series follows the often strange inhabitants of Twin Peaks, Washington, and the FBI agent sent from Philadelphia to investigate the murder that changes the town forever.
On the surface, Twin Peaks seems like any other small-town mystery, but Lynch transforms it into something wholly unique. The idea of darkness lurking beneath normal exteriors was something oft-explored in film and television — including by Lynch himself in his previous film, Blue Velvet (which I’ll dive more into later). But Twin Peaks became something much more.
The feature-length pilot immediately hooked my attention. Its opening shot is the one that inspired the series: as Laura Palmer’s body is pulled from the water by the Twin Peaks police force, one of the cops begins to cry. I found this open display of emotion rather atypical for a murder mystery. But the pilot continues in that direction. For every scene of our coffee-loving protagonist, Special Agent Dale Cooper, and his quirky ramblings, there are equally raw and devastating expressions of grief from those who knew Laura—from the haunting moment her father learns of her death to the stunned silence of her classmates as they process the news from her empty desk.
Twin Peaks flirts with being a soap opera but never fully commits, which is one of its strengths. This is especially evident in the first season, where the primary conflict driving the plot is still the search for Laura’s killer. Some scenes border on the absurd, but just as quickly as they appear, they’re grounded by the devastating reality of the story’s premise. It feels like every time you laugh, Lynch forces you to reconcile with what you’re laughing at. Every moment of hilarity is undercut by emotional devastation.
The show has supernatural elements, but you don’t have to view it that way — I certainly didn’t. Laura Palmer is a tragic figure in the series. As Agent Cooper investigates her murder, he uncovers more of the tragedies that plagued her young life — working at a brothel, becoming entangled with two dangerous men, and being taken advantage of by nearly every resident of the town before ultimately ending up floating in a lake. But Lynch approaches Laura’s character with so much love and care. She was exploited, but the show never exploits her. Her pain is never sensationalized — it’s treated with respect.
It’s impossible to talk about Twin Peaks, and especially Laura Palmer, without mentioning the 1992 prequel film Lynch created after the show’s cancellation: Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. The film begins with the investigation of a similar murder three years before Palmer’s, then shifts to the final week of her life.
If you’re coming into Fire Walk With Me directly from the show, as I did, the tonal shift couldn’t be more jarring. Twin Peaks is soapy and funny. Fire Walk With Me is one of the most horrifying films I’ve ever seen. It’s Lynch, safety off. It strips away all the small-town charm that coats the tragedy at the show’s core. While the series describes the horrors that plagued Laura Palmer, Fire Walk With Me shows them in brutal detail.
There are scenes in the film that will haunt me forever, but for the sake of keeping this (mostly) spoiler-free, I’ll refrain from sharing. While the show leans into its supernatural elements, the film uses them far more metaphorically. Do demons exist in the town of Twin Peaks, or are they simply manifestations of the evil within humans? The show doesn’t know, but the film suggests that what afflicts Laura isn’t a traditional monster — it’s the cycles of abuse and trauma that exist behind closed doors. The movie is relentless and suffocating, but it has to be.
Renowned film critic Roger Ebert famously accused Lynch of being misogynistic for the situations he places his female characters in. I couldn’t disagree more. It’s true that the women at the heart of Lynch’s stories frequently find themselves in dangerous, abusive situations — Laura Palmer, for one, as well as other female characters in Twin Peaks. But this extends beyond Twin Peaks to his other works, most notably his 1986 film Blue Velvet, which similarly explores the darkness lurking beneath suburban small-town life. In many ways, Blue Velvet feels like a precursor to Twin Peaks. It stars Kyle MacLachlan (a.k.a. Dale Cooper) as college student Jeffrey, whose discovery of a severed ear in a field behind his home leads him to an abused lounge singer, Dorothy, and a world of sadomasochism.
Dorothy, like Laura, is a tormented woman. Ebert took particular issue with her portrayal — so much so that actress Isabella Rossellini publicly defended Lynch against his criticisms. But viewing Lynch’s female characters as exploited is, I think, reductive of the care he put into their interiorities. They are tragic figures, yes, but Lynch doesn’t sensationalize their suffering. At the core of Blue Velvet is a question: Are people born good or evil, or do we — especially men — make a conscious choice as to which path to follow? Within this context, Dorothy is not merely an object of abuse; she is a complex figure through which the film wrestles with its central themes.
Now, back to Laura. In real life, victims of sexual assault and misogyny are frequently disbelieved. Within the world of Twin Peaks, Laura’s suffering is acknowledged as a failure on the part of the town — on everyone who ignored what she was going through for their own gain. In the series, Laura is idealized as a figure of strength and goodness, and in Fire Walk With Me, she is fully humanized. Lynch’s love for her character is evident throughout the entire Twin Peaks mythology.
There are a thousand reasons I could recommend diving into David Lynch’s filmography. Film critic Pauline Kael once described him as the only “populist surrealist,” and the description is apt — he’s arguably the most mainstream arthouse-adjacent director, creating works that are not only visually striking but emotionally resonant. His films force us to sit with the “hyperreal” tragedies that exist in everyday life.
But what stands out to me most is Lynch’s treatment of Laura Palmer and the other female characters whose stories he engages with. He doesn’t merely create these women — he honors them. Though I mourn the loss of an incredible filmmaker whose work I’ve only just discovered, his films have left an indelible mark on me — one that, like the town of Twin Peaks, lingers long after the credits roll.