10 beautifully strange scenes that capture the essence of David Lynch
The news of David Lynch’s death has profoundly affected a community of film lovers enthralled and inspired by a man whose artistry was truly uncompromising. He brought surrealism and weirdness into the mainstream in a way that was both terrifying, beautiful, and utterly confusing, and his legacy will live on through his daring movies, television, paintings, and music.
The genius of Lynch’s work resides in his ability to blend truly horrifying or depressing themes, from murder and incestual abuse to infidelity and alienation, with gorgeous imagery or bizarre dream-like sequences that feel both unsettling and mesmerising. When Laura Palmer lets out a great big scream in Twin Peaks, you can’t help but feel a mixture of emotions – it’s scary, upsetting, powerful, heartbreaking, and beautiful all at once.
There are many moments in his work where you can’t help but feel astounded by what you’re seeing. Lynch saw the world a certain way, and even when he depicted the worst, he found a way to also show us the lighter sides of life through humour, music, empathy, beauty, and compassion. He was a complex filmmaker who knew how to strike a perfect balance in his work.
So, here are ten scenes that are both bizarre and unforgettable, capturing Lynch’s essence perfectly.
10 beautifully strange scenes that define David Lynch:
Laura sees an angel (Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, 1992)
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me is easily one of David Lynch’s most tragic films, following protagonist Laura Palmer during the week leading up to her death. The high-schooler grapples with the realisation that her father, Leland, is, in fact, her rapist, turning to drugs and prostitution as a means of escape. In the movie’s last act, we see Laura’s final moments, in which she is abused and killed by her father, who then wraps up her body and disposes of it in water.
However, we then see Laura in the Red Room with Agent Cooper, where an angel comes down and greets her. Laura smiles, but she simultaneously cries and laughs as she watches the angel while a bright light flashes on her face. The emotional music ties the whole scene together, and it’s both tragic, strange, and beautiful. “The angels wouldn’t help you because they’ve all gone away,” Laura says earlier in the film, but finally, she is face to face with one, a vision of her suffering coming to an end.
The woman on the bridge (Twin Peaks, 1990)
The opening sequence to Twin Peaks feels magical and almost other-worldly, creating a feeling of intense nostalgia and melancholy as the camera drifts over the fog-drenched town, with a peaceful tension created through the merging of these sleepy images and the twang of Angelo Badalamenti’s mesmerising score. It reminds us of simpler times while also reflecting an indescribable looming threat, luring the audience into a false state of comfort through the meditative synth sounds that feel as if it’s rippling right through you, leaving you with a sinking feeling as you resign yourself to a peculiar mood like everything is ending and beginning at the same. A portal to a different place in time.
However, Lynch follows this dreamy sequence with distinctly unsettling imagery that confirms the allusions to the darkness within the opening, with a distressing image of a woman walking across an empty bridge covered in cuts and blood. She looks dazed and somewhat catatonic, with a ripped dress and bruised knees that allude towards the harrowing undercurrent in this seemingly harmless town. It’s a jarring and deeply unnerving sight, with Lynch creating a perfect harmony between the beauty and pain within this town that feels strangely familiar yet completely alien at the same time. Through this single sequence alone, he was able to change the entire framework of television as we know it, creating a long and disquieting portrait of small-town secrets and the hidden stories that lie all around us.
Car chase (Lost Highway, 1997)
Like Mulholland Drive, Lost Highway, which came four years earlier, follows a similar dream sequence narrative. However, in the more horror-adjacent Lost Highway, Lynch instead centres around a man named Fred whose life suddenly turns dark and mysterious. A tale of guilt, jealousy, and doppelgangers that calls back to Vertigo, Lost Highway is a film that demands to be rewatched and studied, because not everything is as it seems.
There are many weirdly beautiful moments in the film, and then there are those that are straight-up terrifying, like when the Mystery Man approaches Fred at a party. However, the final car chase in which Fred speeds away from detectives is one of the best scenes in the director’s canon, with Lynch putting his own unique spin on a classic cinematic trope. A surrealist sequence where Fred’s head shakes violently is terrifying, and the images of a dark, seemingly endless road being travelled make for a stunning end.
Club Silencio (Mulholland Drive, 2001)
A late night trip to Club Silencio turns into a nightmarish experience for Betty and Rita in Mulholland Drive. When they arrive, a man speaks to the crowd, explaining that what they are about to see is “an illusion.” Betty starts violently shaking, before a singer, played by Rebekah Del Rio, performs a beautiful Spanish rendition of Roy Orbison’s ‘Crying’, which moves the pair to tears.
Her singing continues despite the fact she collapses, and at this point Betty finds a mysterious blue box in her bag. The whole scene is incredibly haunting and weird. Who is the blue-haired woman watching from a balcony? Why are the performances illusions? What brought Betty and Rita here? Yet, above everything, it’s a beautiful and unforgettable scene.
In dreams (Blue Velvet, 1986)
After the disastrous Dune, Lynch released Blue Velvet, which is one of his first proper explorations of the ‘woman in trouble’ trope he frequently returned to throughout his career. Dorothy Valens, played by Isabella Rossellini, finds herself tormented by Frank Booth, a terrifying criminal with sadistic sexual impulses while engaging in a strange relationship with the college student Jeffrey.
During one sequence, Frank makes Jeffrey watch Dean Stockwell’s Ben as he lip-syncs to ‘In Dreams’ by Roy Orbison. Stockwell shines a light on his face, washing him out and creating an unsettling atmosphere before giving an impressively realistic performance. Meanwhile, the deranged Frank mouths some of the words before a range of emotions flash upon his face. It’s one of the film’s most memorable moments because it is truly bizarre yet so captivating.
The pencil factory (Eraserhead, 1977)
Lynch’s first feature film, Eraserhead, was years in the making. When it finally came to fruition, critics had mixed opinions on the experimental and, quite frankly, terrifying film. Surreal and unnerving, the movie is the equivalent of a bizarre nightmare you wake up from and find yourself unable to shake for the rest of the day, the shadow of its strangeness looming over you. In one frightening sequence, protagonist Henry finds his head replaced with his grotesque alien baby as a haunting soundscape fills the room.
His head bounces off onto the floor before falling through the roof and splatting on the pavement, where a child picks it up and takes it to a pencil factory. His head is then used to make erasers for the end of pencils, with one of the men in charge shouting at another, “OK, Paul!” You can’t be sure what’s going on, but it’s strangely poetic.
Baby wants blue velvet (Blue Velvet, 1986)
Lynch was a master of atmospheric dissonance, using every tool at his disposal to heighten the tension within everyday settings, whether it be the colour palette, sound design, or costumes. In his 1986 film Blue Velvet, one scene does this particularly beautifully, with Jeffrey hiding in a cupboard while witnessing Dorothy Vallens’s abuse.
The room is washed in dark brown and red, with the deep blue of Dorothy’s dress standing out as she sits in front of Frank Booth. The moment oozes with anxiety and suspense, feeling frozen as you watch Jeffrey try to quieten his breathing as he watches through the slats in the door, attempting to stay hidden. As the scene unravels, we become immersed in this feeling of danger and uncertainty, initially unsure of the dynamic between them as the power seems to slip quickly between them. At first, we are frightened for Dorothy’s safety, but then everything suddenly shifts as Frank becomes more submissive, desperately pleading with her in a childlike manner as he says, “Baby wants blue velvet”. It captures the sheer genius of Lynch as he rewrites a moment before our very eyes, holding our breath with Jeffrey as everything begins to change.
Tiny airport people (Mulholland Drive, 2001)
Mulholland Drive is a puzzling and enigmatic modern masterpiece. In it, Lynch creates a nightmarish dreamscape punctuated by exaggerated optimism and distorted details, tapping into a subconscious pool of thought that feels like you are in a deep sleep. The film has been endlessly picked apart and theorized, with Lynch emphasising the importance of asking questions and how, ultimately, we don’t need to understand what happened at Mulholland Drive because greater fulfilment can be found through our own interpretation of the great mystery.
However, while most of the film follows a somewhat sensical storyline, the last half hour of the film flips the audience upside down with the appearance of doppelgangers, strange charcoal-covered women that hide in alleyways and miniature old people that scuttle under doorways. The final scene of Mulholland Drive gleefully destroys everything we have just seen, flipping the idea of truth and performance as we realise that everything is not as it seems. Lynch never allows you to feel comfortable within his story worlds, but Mulholland Drive brings this to a new level by immersing us in a constant sense of mystery and unanswerable questions.
My life is full (The Elephant Man, 1980)
Given the fact that Lynch pulled this script from a pile at random and decided to shoot it purely because he liked its title, he is incredibly self-assured and deliberate in his vision and the distinct surrealism that he infuses into this heartbreaking story. The Elephant Man explores what it means to be human and the exploitation of those who don’t fit into our bracket of normality, with the main character treated like an aberration due to his physical deformity despite being the kindest and most gentle soul.
However, there is one scene that stands out in its emotional devastation, which is beautifully played by Anthony Hopkins and John Hurt, as Treves reckons with the fact that Merrick is most likely going to die but wants to protect him from this truth. The weight of their friendship and the importance of kindness is highlighted as we see how love and compassion have transformed Merrick, allowing him to feel loved for the first time. Treves tries to protect himself from this realisation, both moved and upset by how grateful he is for being shown a shred of human decency. It’s a beautifully elegant and simplistic film that is heavy in its messaging, acting as a punch to the gut as Lynch hammers in the importance of empathy and the innate cruelty of humankind.
Love song (Wild at Heart, 1990)
Wild at Heart is a truly bizarre and brilliant gem within Lynch’s filmography, existing as a trippy and surrealistic love story between two outcasts who fight to be together, no matter the odds stacked against them. With the unlikely pairing of Laura Dern and Nicolas Cage, the film blends horror with eroticism and heavy metal, with the chemistry between them shining through the darkness that hangs over the uniquely hellish and deranged landscape.
However, the ‘Love Song’ scene sticks out in encapsulating the individualistic madness of the film, with Lynch blending both romance and comedy as Ripley and Fortune manically dance in the club, with an unhinged mood taking over with jarring screaming sounds in the background that feels like an outward reflection of the character’s inner worlds. The Elvis-inspired impression is an added stroke of genius and remains one of the most ridiculously entertaining scenes from his entire filmography.
