David Lynch, director of Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive, passes away

“We would appreciate some privacy at this time. There’s a big hole in the world now that he’s no longer with us. But, as he would say, ‘Keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole,’” the post read. “It’s a beautiful day with golden sunshine and blue skies all the way.”

Last summer, David Lynch had revealed to Sight and Sound that he was diagnosed with emphysema and would not be leaving his home because of fears of contracting the coronavirus or “even a cold.”

“I’ve gotten emphysema from smoking for so long and so I’m homebound whether I like it or not,” Lynch said, adding he didn’t expect to make another film.

“I would try to do it remotely, if it comes to it,” Lynch said. “I wouldn’t like that so much.”

David Lynch was a onetime artist who broke through in the 1970s with the surreal Eraserhead and rarely failed to startle and inspire audiences and peers in the following decades. His notable releases ranged from the neo-noir Mulholland Drive to the skewed Gothic of Blue Velvet to the eclectic and eccentric Twin Peaks.

His other credits included the crime story Wild at Heart, winner of the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival; the biographical drama The Elephant Man and the G-rated, straightforward The Straight Story. Actors regularly appearing in his movies included Kyle McLachlan, Laura Dern, Naomi Watts and Richard Farnsworth.

David Lynch was a Missoula, Montana, native who moved around often with his family as a child and would long feel most at home away from the classroom, free to explore his fascination with the world. He had an early gift for visual arts and a passion for travel and discovery that led to his enrollment in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the beginning of a decadelong apprenticeship as a maker of short movies.

“David’s always had a cheerful disposition and sunny personality, but he’s always been attracted to dark things. That’s one of the mysteries of David,” a childhood friend is quoted as saying in Room to Dream, a 2018 book by Lynch and Kristine McKenna.

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