Even if you were just talking aboutDavid Lynch’s quintessential television show,Twin Peaks, you’re going to be bandying the word “iconic” about. Even a whopping 32 years later, if you’re to mention a damn fine cup of coffee, the name Laura Palmer, or the Black Lodge, people are likely going to know what you’re talking about.
And Lynch’s iconic moments extend far beyond a show that, somewhat astoundingly, only ran for two seasons (with a third being released 25 years after a cliffhanger ending). Discussed for the sorts of awards most filmmakers only dream about (nominated for numerous Best Director Oscars, winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes for 1990’sWild at Heart), it has come to be common movie parlance that a “Lynchian” film is going to be dreamy, surreal, violent, sharp-witted.
We’re going to count down the top 10 most iconic moments in David Lynch’s filmography; each one is sure to stick with you long after the closing credits have rolled.
10The Introduction of the Guild Navigator - Dune (1984)
Lynch’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s sci-fi classicDunehas been much maligned in the nearly forty years since its release, but Lynch should be congratulated for leaning into some of the original novel’s weirder elements, whichmany thought completely unfilmable. Case in point: The guild navigator. The guild navigators are large and rather hideous humans who have been mutated into something horrific, who use Spice as means of interstellar travel, to “fold space”.
We meet one confined to a huge tank, and it has large pale eyes, a wormlike body with small arms and hands, and a face that looks, if we’re speaking favorably, a lot like a plateful of tripe. Although this was only Lynch’s third film, he was setting a startling visual precedent.
Related:David Lynch’s Dune: Where the Cast is Today
9Teresa Banks’ Body Is Found - Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992)
In between the 1991 cancelation of cult classic television showTwin Peaksafter its second season and its third season revival in 1992 came Lynch’s prequel film,Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. If there was any doubt about what audiences were in for, those doubts were dispelled when the body of a young woman, wrapped in plastic, is pulled from the river, just as Laura Palmer’s was in the unforgettable first scenes of the television show.
The body this time is Teresa Banks, and it’s a year before Laura’s disappearance. Lynch himself (as FBI agent Gordon Cole) sends a two-man team to Washington to investigate. Paired with Angelo Badalementi’s haunting score, the scene drops viewers into a place both familiar and unsettling, setting the scene for a film that ends up being darker than the show, as we get to see how dark things really got inLaura Palmer’s last days on Earth.
8Alvin Straight on the Lawn Mower - The Straight Story (1999)
Maybe the most Lynchian thing David Lynch has ever done is to make a movie that absolutely no one would have expected him to make, which is the case with 1999’sThe Straight Story. There are no elements of black comedy, it’s not violent or surreal, or upsetting, just a gorgeous slow film based on the true story of Alvin Straight, a WWII veteran who drove his lawn mower across two states to visit his estranged brother before his death.
Alvin is played by Richard Farnsworth, a man in ill health himself, whose vision is too impaired to have a driver’s license. He decides his only hope of seeing his brother (Harry Dean Stanton) is to take his riding lawn mower the 420 miles from Iowa to Wisconsin, an idea met with distress by anyone who learns about the scheme. There are any number of setbacks and pitfalls along the way, but there are some beautiful, meditative shots of Alvin peacefully riding his beat-up John Deere across flat country, determined to reach his destination.
7The Rabbits - Inland Empire (2006)
Inland Empirewas released in 2006, but it includes footage from a 2002 series of web films directed by Lynch, entitledRabbits. It features three anthropomorphic rabbits, voiced by Scott Coffey, Laura Harring, and Naomi Watts, and everything takes place in one room in what seems to be the rabbits’ home, with a laugh track that never quite matches up with the action.
It’s incredibly surreal and frightening, with mysterious dialogue that doesn’t always add up, and unsettling noises heard from off-screen.Inland Empirebegins and ends withRabbitsbeing watched as a television show by an unhappy young sex worker.Does it make much sense? No.Will it still scare the hell out of you? Definitely.
6Marietta Puts on Lipstick - Wild at Heart (1990)
1990’sWild at Heartis a love story about Lula (Lynch regular Laura Dern) and Sailor (Nicolas Cage), who have just endured a period of separation while Sailor was in jail (set up by Lula’s mother, Marietta, played by Diane Ladd, who also happens to be Dern’s actual mother). Marietta will stop at nothing to keep the young lovers apart, sending a private detective (her sort-of boyfriend, Harry Dean Stanton) as well as a gangster after the couple (Sailor once rejected Marietta’s advances, which seems to be behind her intense dislike.)
Marietta never comes across as particularly stable, but gives an iconic “losing it completely” performance with a tube of lipstick that matches her blood-red nails perfectly. She looks in the mirror before beginning to use the lipstick on her wrists in an imitation of suicidal self-harm, and then next thing you know her entire face and hands are painted a bloody red.
The true story of Joseph Merrick (called John in the film, as he was often erroneously called in life) is a tragic one. Abandoned by his family due to what is now believed to possibly have beenProteus syndrome, he worked in a Victorian side show for years, before having the good fortune to end up at a London hospital where he became friends with an empathetic doctor. This 1980 black and white film stars John Hurt as Merrick and Anthony Hopkins as the doctor, Treves. Although life is better for Merrick at the hospital, he still endures painful stints on the outside, with a public who greets him with fear, loathing, and violence.
We know early on that Merrick must sleep with his head balanced on his knees, to prevent the weight of his skull from suffocating him. It is then all the more heart-rending at the film’s end, when Merrick, health already failing, purposefully lays down to sleep, and thus to die.
4Frank Booth with the Oxygen Mask - Blue Velvet (1986)
There’s very little aboutBlue Velvetthat doesn’t feel uncomfortable: from Kyle MacLachlan’s discovery of a severed human ear in an abandoned lot to constant themes of sexual and physical violence. It’s a highly twisted mystery featuring an incredibly seductive Isabella Rossellini as Dorothy in her first major role, andDennis Hopperas one of the most villainous villains in screen history. His character, Frank, is a gangster drenched in menace, never more evident than in an already-creepy scene wherein MacLachlan (Jeffrey) is spying on Booth ogling a scantily-clad Dorothy in a dark Lynchian room.
If that wasn’t enough to convince you he’s a bad guy, that’s when Frank whips out his oxygen mask, goes down on his knees in front of Dorothy, and starts wailing “Mommy.” You won’t forget it, even if you want to.
3The Old People Coming Out of the Bag - Mulholland Drive (2001)
22 years on,Mulholland Driveis now a cult classic and favorite of many Lynch fans, a dark neo-noir about dreams and reality. You should not go into it looking for a clear, linear plot line or a neatly tied-up ending. Naomi Watts plays Betty, an aspiring actress who meets an amnesiac she calls Rita, played by Laura Harring. Names and identities switch without warning, with Watts and Harring reappearing in the second half of the film as Diane and Camilla.
The erotic scenes between the women made headlines upon the release, but the part that will stay haunt your dreams is an elderly couple that Betty apparently has traveled with early in the film. Perfectly sweet and innocuous, if a tad too smiley. However, they return to Diane at the end of the film, shrunken down to miniature size and running out of a crumpled paper bag.
Related:Mulholland Drive: Where the Cast of David Lynch’s Thriller is Today
Lynch’s 1977 feature-length debut was a black-and-white body horror of epic proportions. It starred Jack Nance as Spencer, and the wildly surreal film begins as he goes to visit the home of his girlfriend Mary for dinner with her parents, who turn out to be serving a not-quite-dead bird that Spencer is tasked with carving. Mary also confesses that she’s had Spencer’s baby, although she’s not entirely sure it’s a baby at all.
Turns out, the baby resembles the sperm-like creature that comes out of Spencer’s mouth early on in the movie, and that’s not its only problem. The baby is in constant pain, and has no skin, so swaddling is needed to keep all of its insides together. It’s pretty stomach-churning, and will forever more be what you think of when you hear the word “Eraserhead”.
1The Mystery Man - Lost Highway (1997)
It was 1997, and years before actorRobert Blake would go to trialover his involvement in the death of his second wife. But his role as The Mystery Man was no less nightmare-inducing then. Fred (Bill Pullman) and Renee (Patricia Arquette) have received a couple of eerie VHS tapes, proof that an unknown someone seems to be watching them, so they’re already a little shaken up.
At a party, Fred begins chatting with The Mystery Man, a powdered, eyebrowless Blake, who tells Fred they’ve met before. Fred doesn’t remember him, but the man insists, saying that it was at Fred’s house that they met, and that in fact, he’s there now, and Fred should give him a call. Mildly alarmed now, Fred plays along and calls home, and to his horror, The Mystery Man answers. The movie gets a lot more surreal after that, but this is arguably the most terrifying and memorable scene of the film, where something that absolutely cannot be happening is happening anyway.
