“So many great films”: The movie directors David Lynch called “my heroes”
There aren’t a huge number of filmmakers to have created such a distinctive and unique style that anything even vaguely approximating it gets lumped into a bespoke subgenre, but it was clear from the beginning that David Lynch was in a class of his own.
Before the term Lynchian had even entered the cinematic lexicon, his 1977 feature debut Eraserhead was the embodiment of it. Narratively ambitious, visually daring, thematically resonant, and occasionally stomach-churning, Lynch’s first movie carried all of the hallmarks of what would soon become his signature artistic aesthetic.
Whether it’s film or television, transcendental meditation, weather reports, or art, the multi-talented maverick’s work has always been entirely reflective of who he is as a person and creative. Well, maybe apart from Dune, but he’s long since held his hands up over that one and disowned the sci-fi literary adaptation completely.
Lynch is such a recognisable and unmistakable filmmaker that it’s hard to imagine him not only being influenced by other directors, but drawing inspiration from an array of more conventional classics. However, while he did clarify to The Talks that “everyone should find their own voice” if they want to make it behind the camera, he singled out several icons for special praise.
“It’s not about copying, but Godard, Fellini and Bergman were my heroes,” he said. “Sunset Boulevard, Rear Window, 8½, Jacques Tati’s My Uncle or Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday, Rear Window, all of Kubrick’s movies, all of Fellini’s movies, probably all of Bergman’s movies. There have been so many great films that were an inspiration.”
When questioned on whether any of those aforementioned titles had influenced his own filmography even on a subconscious level, Lynch disagreed with the initial sentiment before outlining how each passing year of cinema makes it increasingly difficult for any filmmaker to create something that’s entirely free of comparison to at least one movie that’s come before.
“There have been 110 or more years of cinema, and it’s impossible for any one of us to make a film that can’t be compared to something that has come before,” he continued. “To me, Blue Velvet is Blue Velvet, and Rear Window is Rear Window. You could say that Sunset Boulevard or Rear Window has conjured an idea for me, but even though I love them or am inspired by them, life is a 24/7 movie.”
From Lynch’s perspective, it’s the ideas that come from life and experience that power cinema, not the medium itself. “It’s hard to say it’s cinema that conjures ideas,” he argued, because in his mind “there are billions of ideas swimming around, you just have to catch them.” It’s true that nobody’s going to be stealing his ideas, anyway, if only because there’s nobody that does Lynchian like the master.
