Lynchian

The Spell of David Lynch
A short but wide-ranging exploration of the appeal of the enigmatic genius David Lynch and what that appeal says about who we are

'What is it about David Lynch's cinematic bag of tricks - his shots of shadows and flickering electricity, his sinister soundscapes and his heartfelt scores, his dreamlike irrational stories - that affects us so deeply? How can he present us with trees swaying in the wind, or a character suddenly becoming another person, or more questions than answers, and it stays with us forever? And why is it that, when somebody else uses his tricks, it does not achieve the same results?'

The loss of David Lynch in January 2025 produced an extraordinary outpouring of love and grief that revealed how deeply he mattered. But the strength and size of this reaction came as a surprise to many. In life, Lynch was a wilfully obtuse cult filmmaker who had been unable to get a film financed for the last two decades of his life. In death, both the man himself and his work are unquestionably in the pantheon of all-time greats.

He leaves behind an adjective, 'Lynchian', a term used to describe work that echoes his. And yet, only Lynch could be truly Lynchian, and those who copy him fail to have an impact. So why does his work affect people so deeply? Why do some find it haunting and unforgettable while others dismiss it as meaningless? Answering that question takes us into the strange realms of psychology, art and theology. We will discover why ambiguity and mystery are so seductive, how Lynch's creative and meditative practices overlapped and why a director whose work contains so much abuse of women has such a female-skewing fanbase.

Through a personal, first-person lens, Lynchian unpacks the mystery but refuses to solve the enigma of an artist whose work reshaped cinema from the inside out - where story gives way to dreams, and meaning lies not in answers, but in experience.

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Contributor: John Higgs (Read by)

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