David Lynch names his most definitive favourite movie
Since releasing his first feature, Eraserhead, in 1977, David Lynch has carved out an ideal place in the cinematic canon for himself. Mastering the ability to (mostly) earn critical and commercial success while also staying true to his bizarre, surrealist ideas, Lynch has changed the notion of popular cinema.
Proving that movies can still be successful despite using non-typical narrative structures and championing ambiguity, Lynch has risen among the ranks of modern filmmakers to become one of the most well-respected of his generation. From the psychosexual nightmare of Blue Velvet to the mindboggling Mulholland Drive, Lynch’s oeuvre has rarely faltered, although his work is certainly not for everyone.
Each of Lynch’s movies feel like they inhabit a specific world that is so idiosyncratic and unmistakably Lynchian. Characters are allowed to make little sense, dreams and reality blend and blur, violence and abuse are commonplace, and dialogue is often uncanny or undecipherable. When you watch Twin Peaks, for example, you feel like you’ve entered into a world that simply couldn’t be mistaken for anything else, full of strange characters and conversations spoken backwards, set against a backdrop of chevron floors and dramatic red curtains.
It is this distinctiveness present in all of Lynch’s films that brings back dedicated fans. This is something that the filmmaker finds vital to cinematic viewing experiences, taking inspiration from his own love of re-entering the worlds of his favourite movies. He once discussed this idea in relation to his all-time favourite film, Sunset Boulevard.
Directed by Billy Wilder, considered by many to be one of the greatest screenwriters of all time, Sunset Boulevard is about the very act of filmmaking, with Gloria Swanson portraying an actor who was once a popular silent star. In an interview with Richard A. Barney, Lynch said: “It would be a beautiful world if people liked the world inside the film so much that they would want to go back and be in it again. That’s the way it is for me with a film like Sunset Boulevard. We all have favourite films. For me, it’s just a world that I like to visit again and again.”
Elsewhere, Lynch has specified what he likes about this world so much. Talking to Dazed and Confused, the director highlighted the movie’s “mood”, comparing it to being “immersed like a dream”.
He added, “It catches a Hollywood story that connects the golden age of Hollywood with the present day. But it’s a truthful movie, and so it carries through to today. It has a lot of sadness in it, and beauty. And mystery. And dreams. Beauty, beauty, beauty and more dreams.”
It is clear that Sunset Boulevard’s themes of Hollywood, this merging of sadness and beauty, and a dreamlike atmosphere were on Lynch’s mind when he made movies like Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire, which tackle similar ideas. Wilder’s film has remained a Hollywood classic ever since it was released in 1950, inspiring plenty more filmmakers besides Lynch.
