David Lynch

David Keith Lynch is a director, screenwriter, producer, painter, musician, actor, and photographer. He has been described by The Guardian as "the most important director of this era." AllMovie called him "the Renaissance man of modern American filmmaking," while the success of his films has led to him being labelled "the first popular Surrealist."

Born to a middle-class family in Missoula, Montana, Lynch spent his childhood traveling around the United States, before going on to study painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, where he first made the transition to producing short films. He moved to Los Angeles, where he produced his first motion picture, the surrealist horror film Eraserhead (1977). After Eraserhead became a cult classic on the midnight movie circuit, Lynch was employed to direct a biographical film about a deformed man, Joseph Merrick, titled The Elephant Man (1980), from which he gained mainstream success. He was then employed by the De Laurentiis Entertainment Group and proceeded to make two films: the science-fiction epic Dune (1984), which proved to be a critical and commercial failure, and then a neo-noir crime film Blue Velvet (1986), which stirred controversy over its violence but grew in critical reputation later on.

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David Keith Lynch is a director, screenwriter, producer, painter, musician, actor, and photographer. He has been described by The Guardian as "the most important director of this era." AllMovie called him "the Renaissance man of modern American filmmaking," while the success of his films has led to him being labelled "the first popular Surrealist."

Born to a middle-class family in Missoula, Montana, Lynch spent his childhood traveling around the United States, before going on to study painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, where he first made the transition to producing short films. He moved to Los Angeles, where he produced his first motion picture, the surrealist horror film Eraserhead (1977). After Eraserhead became a cult classic on the midnight movie circuit, Lynch was employed to direct a biographical film about a deformed man, Joseph Merrick, titled The Elephant Man (1980), from which he gained mainstream success. He was then employed by the De Laurentiis Entertainment Group and proceeded to make two films: the science-fiction epic Dune (1984), which proved to be a critical and commercial failure, and then a neo-noir crime film Blue Velvet (1986), which stirred controversy over its violence but grew in critical reputation later on.

Next, Lynch created his own television series with Mark Frost, the popular murder mystery Twin Peaks (1990–1991). He also created a cinematic prequel, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992), a road movie Wild at Heart (1990) and a family film The Straight Story (1999) in the same period. Turning further towards surrealist filmmaking, three of his subsequent films operated on "dream logic" non-linear narrative structures: the psychological thriller Lost Highway (1997), the neo-noir "love story" Mulholland Drive (2001) and the fragmented mystery film Inland Empire (2006). Meanwhile, Lynch embraced the Internet as a medium, producing several web-based shows, such as the animated DumbLand (2002) and the surreal sitcom Rabbits (2002). Lynch and Frost reunited for the Showtime limited series Twin Peaks: The Return (2017), with Lynch co-writing and directing every episode.

Subject ID: 51362

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