Lynch had a tremendous charisma, beyond the obvious; even if you didn’t agree or didn’t understand his perspective inside and outside the cinema, he was absolutely captivating, you respected his gaze and his words. He didn’t open his mouth with the intention of articulating something profound, he was simply himself and, every now and then, he dared to express a thought or two that was going through his mind.
He may have unwittingly given an alibi to those who were looking for an excuse to create an uncontrollable mess, baptizing it as art, but even they, in the long run, functioned as an epitome of his greatness. I often wonder about major issues that concern me from time to time, how Lynch would deal with them with or without a camera in his hands. What would he say about someone who deceives others? How would he capture a “blooming” heart on camera? And how much (and which) of all that we have seen in his films stems from “personal experiences that he chose to remember differently”, as he had stated in the past?
Now that he no longer lives here, it is impossible for us to learn anything from the above. However, the lines, whether his own or through the roles he “built” on screen that he left us as a legacy, are and will be food for thought for a long time to come and – why not? – for a change in approach towards things, people and situations. You can find them below.
1. Dreams and reality are intertwined, and through exploring both we can find meaning.
2. In a sense, all films are a gateway into someone else’s dreams. Maybe we can even share the same dreams, exchange the same experiences.
3. I like to remember things in my own way, the way I remember them, not necessarily the way they happened.
4. Ideas are like fish. If you want to catch small fish, you can stay in the shallows. But if you want to catch big fish, you have to go deeper. In the deep, the fish are stronger and purer. They are huge and abstract. And they are very beautiful.
5. Black has depth… you can go into it… And you start to see what you fear. You start to see what you love, and it becomes like a dream.
6. I don’t know why people expect art to make sense. They accept the fact that life doesn’t make sense.
7. Sometimes, the things that we can’t explain are the ones that hold the greatest truth.
8. Intuition is the key to everything, in painting, in film, in business – in everything. I think you could have an intellectual ability, but if you can sharpen your intuition – which they say is emotion and intelligence coming together – then the intellect comes into play.
9. When I got married, I thought, “Oh, that’s it, that’s it. In a way, your life is over.” But it was actually the best thing that could have happened to me, because there are certain things that come with marriage that get you out of a difficult situation, you know what I mean.
10. In my mind, it’s really fun to have something that has clues and is mysterious – something that is intuitively understood by being spoon-fed to you. That’s the beauty of cinema, and it’s almost never tested. Nowadays, most movies are relatively easy to understand and so people’s minds stop working.
