People didn't fully understand David Lynch. Oftentimes, they would magnify his darker, surrealist qualities. They allowed some of his more abstract ideas take over as the whole of his creativity. The deranged, disturbing darkness brooding from suburbia in Blue Velvet. The dizzying noir in Mulholland Drive. Or the murkiness of something like Elephant Man.
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However, they also frequently overlook David Lynch's earnest sentimentality as an artist. Ultimately, he's a deep optimist and contrasts this with the factors that allow such evils to root in our society. How do good and evil exist in the same breath and where does it stem from? Lynch ponders these larger questions without the innate instinct of answering them. What made him such a great artist was that he allowed us to answer them ourselves via the images he put on screen. His sympathy and clear compassion for women in his films bleed through. Moreover, David fervently tells their stories and how they interact with the evils on a day to day basis. He clearly leads with love in his own strange, surreal ways.
None of this is more evident than how he engages with grief and societal evil in Twin Peaks. The show grapples with the death of Laura Palmer (not a spoiler, legitimately what the show is about from its first moments). It initially offers the allure of a classic crime mystery, trying to narrow down who did it. However, that was never really the point. It's why David Lynch left the project in the middle of season 2 when executives were hard pressed to try and get answers. 'Who' wasn't the right question. 'Why' Laura died was the exercise and 'how' it affected the small, isolated community of Twin Peaks.
David Lynch's Twin Peaks is a Beacon of Empathy and Love Amidst Grief
Lynch's subversion of the soap opera pastiche is especially poignant here. The piercing, somber piano chords whenever a character talks about Laura is deeply stirring. The love perseveres in their grief. The most courageous thing we could ever do is to remember rather than reject so as to not forget. In my darkest hours, David Lynch's work in Twin Peaks stood as a testament to never let cynicism poison the heart. The grief would blind me from the mere gratitude that I got to love so purely and unafraid. I would never allow the world to drag me down to its level. What am I truly here here on this earth for if not to love fully and unabashedly?
David Lynch was truly inimitable as an artist. He was raw, honest, and unafraid to portray what evil really is and where it comes from. Some of the images he would capture are some of the most horrifying to ever be caught on film. But his mission statement isn't poison soaked by irony. Rather, it's this unwavering belief that there is this innate good that we must fight to preserve that makes him special. In his exploration of grief in Twin Peaks, David Lynch magnifies the bleak, horrid violence in order that we conquer it with love and compassion.
