The director David Lynch believes to be a “genius”
Filmmaker David Lynch has often been deemed a genius in his own right. The modern auteur and surrealist storyteller has become widely known and celebrated for his ventures into neo-noir cinema, from Blue Velvet to Mulholland Drive, and even for the poorly received sci-fi epic Dune. Twin Peaks, however, has become a cultural reference point with a devoted cult following and two spin-offs. Even his YouTube series David Lynch’s Weather Report garnered a devoted audience.
Lynch’s contributions to cinema and television have gained him an Academy Award and a Palme d’Or win, alongside a cult audience for his quirky visual style and narrative absurdity. This cult following includes a number of similarly acclaimed directors. Denis Villeneuve, who directed his own screen adaption of Dune in 2021, called Lynch “a master – one of the best filmmakers of all time” during an interview with NME. Speaking with the BFI, Gaspar Noé cited Lynch’s debut Eraserhead as one of the reasons he wanted to learn how to make films.
Earlier this year, Lynch revealed the directors who influenced him during an interview with The Filmosophers. He recalls the first time he watched French filmmaker Jacques Tati’s 1953 comedy Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot, or Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday, which he calls “beautiful”.
Lynch notes that he hadn’t heard of Jacques Tati until he was working in Pennsylvania printing engravings. “I was printing next to Dorothy McGuinness, who we called Flash, in a carriage house,” he said. “Roger Label and Christine Lapel, they had upstairs – that was their place, and Christina had been doing these etchings of animals for years, and so Flash and I would print them.”
Lynch continues: “Dorothy was Christine’s mother, so she loved soap operas. So I’m there, printing and the TV is on as we’re inking up these plates and then printing them, and I got hooked on the soaps with Dorothy. And so I’m watching Edge of Night, Another World, and different soap operas. And every afternoon, we watch Dialing for Dollars – they have a movie on every afternoon.”
One day, the movie was Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday. Lynch recalls: “Roger came running down the stairs, he said ‘David, David… Dorothy, Mr Hulot’s Holiday is on this afternoon. And we looked at him, and he says, ‘You gotta see this, you’ve gotta see this.’ So we watched Mr Hulot’s Holiday.“
The film was nominated for an Academy Award and has maintained cultural relevance over 50 years later, influencing the 2007 film Mr Bean’s Holiday.
Lynch shares how the film led him to admire Tati, stating: “After that, I was, you know, a gigantic fan of Jacques Tati and just think he’s a genius in comedy with a heart and understanding of human nature and sound. Incredible filmmaker. He’s got a great touch, for sure. All the different characters and the way it’s put together, the timing, the sounds, beautiful work.”
Both Lynch and Tati have rightfully claimed places in the history of cinema for their innovative visual storytelling and influence on the filmmakers that followed.
