David Lynch

David Lynch and Trent Reznor

David Keith Lynch (January 20, 1946 - January 15, 2025) was an influential American filmmaker, artist, and musician who worked with Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails. He was most well-known for films such as Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive, and for the television series Twin Peaks. He directed ten feature films and a large number of short films, as well as working in TV commercials, music videos, web series, and more.

Biography

Lynch was born in Montana and grew up all around the United States as his father, a research scientist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, needed to relocate frequently. His idyllic upbringing and fascination with small-town America would inform much of his work. He became interested in art at an young age and continued to draw and paint alongside his career in cinema. His work was characterized by its surrealist and disorienting style, sometimes violent and disturbing imagery, as well as subtle and quirky humor. His films often carried recurring themes and devices, and their sound design was frequently tantamount to their visuals. The term "Lynchian" was coined to to describe things that are simultaneously onimous and mundane, referring to his film style.

He began making films as a student at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, eventually getting a grant from the American Film Institute. His first major film, Eraserhead, gained him a cult following in the late seventies, but his breakthrough wouldn't come until 1986 with Blue Velvet. He later helmed the TV series Twin Peaks with Mark Frost, which brought him to a much more mainstream audience and also proved highly influential on many other television shows in its wake. The popularity of his films after this point began to decline, but he had a return to form with Mulholland Drive in 2001. A continuation of Twin Peaks under the title Twin Peaks: The Return was brought back to TV in 2017. Lynch also recorded two albums, Crazy Clown Time and The Big Dream, as well as several collaborative albums, and was an accomplished photographer and furniture builder. His artwork and photography was featured in several exhibitions and was published in several books.

Connections with NIN/Reznor

"Ruiner" uses samples of the elephant sounds from the opening sequence of Lynch's The Elephant Man.
Lynch recruited Trent Reznor to produce the soundtrack for his 1997 film, Lost Highway. It also included the newly-recorded NIN song "The Perfect Drug" along with "Driver Down" and "Videodrones; Questions", which were credited to Reznor.
Lynch was the original choice to direct the music video for "Head Like A Hole" in 1989[1], but the job went to Eric Zimmerman/H-Gun instead.
Nine Inch Nails tapped Lynch to direct the music video for "Came Back Haunted" in 2013.
In a Q+A session before the 2017 Riot Fest show, it was revealed that "She's Gone Away" was written specifically for Twin Peaks: The Return and that a different song was originally presented to Lynch, who rejected it, asking for something edgier. In an interview with Fangoria[2], it was revealed that the song originally presented to Lynch was an early version of "This Isn't The Place".
Nine Inch Nails (billed as "The Nine Inch Nails" and consisting of Reznor, Robin Finck, Mariqueen Maandig Reznor, Atticus Ross, Alessandro Cortini and Joey Castillo of Queens Of The Stone Age) appeared in an episode of Twin Peaks: The Return doing a mimed performance of the song, which also appears on the soundtrack for the new series.
An Angelo Badalamenti piece from the Twin Peaks: The Return soundtrack called "The Fireman" was used as intro music during the I Can't Seem To Wake Up 2017 and Cold And Black And Infinite tours.

Body of Work

Feature Films

Eraserhead (1977)
The Elephant Man (1980)
Dune (1984)
Blue Velvet (1986)
Wild At Heart (1990)
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992)
Lost Highway (1997)
The Straight Story (1999)
Mulholland Drive (2001)
Inland Empire (2006)

Television

Twin Peaks (1990-1991)
On The Air (1992)
Hotel Room (1993)
Twin Peaks: The Return (2017)