How David Lynch became cinema’s ultimate beekeeper: “Like a little hive!”
He may be remembered today as one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, but David Lynch experienced significant career fluctuations and often received mixed responses for some of his finest work, which led him to develop a new attitude about filmmaking, especially after one of his most divisive films.
Eraserhead was a small film that gave him the platform to work with Mel Brooks to direct The Elephant Man, which was well-reviewed and earned him multiple Academy Award nominations, including ‘Best Picture’ and ‘Best Director.’ However, his attempt to make a broadly appealing studio blockbuster with Dune was a disaster, as he was not given the final cut and eventually disowned the film altogether.
Lynch had rebounded with Blue Velvet, a more warmly received gothic thriller that earned him another Academy Award nomination, but while many were impressed by the surrealism and dark humour that made his style so fascinating, others felt that he had become too excessive and that the graphic content bordered on being exploitative and mean-spirited.
Lynch certainly didn’t alter his approach to storytelling based on any backlash, as his next film, Wild at Heart, was perhaps his most disturbing. The Bonnie & Clyde-style getaway road film starred Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern, who go on the run to escape from both the law and ruthless criminals, leading to a chaotic and violent adventure. Although it includes some of the most upsetting scenes in Lynch’s entire filmography, Wild at Heart is also a commentary on Americana and includes innumerable references to The Wizard of Oz and the music of Elvis Presley.
Despite being grounded in American aesthetics, it was treated as a masterpiece overseas and won the prestigious Palme d’Or prize at the Cannes Film Festival. However, critics in America still had their knives out for Lynch and berated him with even more criticism than he had received for Blue Velvet.
Following this, Lynch said that he had stopped trying to figure out how to please these people, noting to Time, “I can’t try to second-guess the critics. The world is changing, and we are changing within it. As soon as you think you’ve got something figured out, it’s different. That is what I try to do. I don’t try to do anything new, or weird, or David Lynch. But I’m real happy with the picture. See, I love 47 different genres in one film. I hate one-thing films, and I love B-movies. But why not have three or four Bs running together? Like a little hive!”
Lynch has always had a healthy sense of humour, but the backlash to Wild at Heart put into perspective how wrong-footed many American critics were with his body of work. Some refused to get on board with the way that he approached narrative, but he eventually proved them wrong when his films began to be remembered by serious cinematic scholars.
The release of Mulholland Drive marked a rare inflexion point, as it was considered a masterpiece upon its release; even Roger Ebert, a notorious critic of Lynch, gave the film a perfect score and named it as one of the best of the year.
Wild at Heart hasn’t quite got the resurgence it deserves within the critical community, perhaps because the physical media release has been out-of-print. However, the enduring popularity of Cage (who has always spoken highly of Lynch) might eventually lead it to being accepted as a classic.
