David Lynch says he will never retire – but he certainly won’t set foot on a film set again.

That was the news when the 78-year-old surrealist cult director revealed his diagnosis of emphysema to Sight and Sound magazine, leaving the life-long cigarette enjoyer homebound and left to the devices of his own abode.

It is unfortunate that Lynch will never grace a film set again to craft another dream or nightmare, but he doesn’t have to. His is a legacy well-cemented, and it’s high time that beloved artists of the modern era are heralded and given their flowers before they’re no longer here. The tradition of the only good artist being a dead one is unhelpful, and cynical, and must truly be consigned to the old ways of thinking.

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Though it probably is not much of an ask to uplift the stature of Lynch given his popularity and massive cult following. He appeals not only to the serious arthouse crowd but also breaks the barrier into casual filmgoers, with a natural ability to force even the most unassuming viewer to engage with his ideas. His body of work is truly excellent and uniquely special, whether the cinematic conceit he attempts to build holds or not. He is fearless in the directions he takes, and it makes no difference whether anyone else understands or gives permission.

Lynch worked away on weekends for over five years before his first independent full-length production came to fruition, the black and white avant-garde Eraserhead from 1977. Status as a midnight movie was likely, with its irrational industrial otherworld taking in audiences with the director’s already idiosyncratic style. Eraserhead still remains Lynch’s most singular, innovative work to many.

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1986’s Blue Velvet saw Lynch set in a theme that would haunt the rest of his oeuvre – the plasticity of mainstream society, and the dark seedy underbelly that such a society creates and then hides away. The film’s opening motif of a severed ear sitting in an all-American white picket fence garden, only to go down into the bugs and dirt that lie beneath, is a critical image of his work, and one that truly sticks to mind.

Lynch would continue to try different things, such as the kitschy Wild at Heart, and the darkly ominous Lost Highway. But it was in 2001 when Lynch released his masterpiece Mulholland Drive, where a split story of split personality in the furnaces of Hollywood allowed Lynch to perfect a lot of the ideas and themes that he had been working on and crafting up until that point. It is a perfect encapsulation of the Los Angeles façade, the repressed nightmares of the showbiz dream.

Still of Naomi Watts in Mulholland Drive, 2001 (Image: Focus Features)
It’s hard to talk about Lynch’s legacy without Twin Peaks, his foray into the world of network television. The murder mystery drama was truly groundbreaking in 1990, elevating the standards and depths of the typical TV show to one of a cinematic quality. The golden era of prestige television, from The Sopranos to Mad Men, owes its path to what Lynch managed to convince network executives to air at a time when television formats were standard and hesitant to risk. Its film accompaniment, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, was met with disdain upon release, but has seen its reputation rise sharply as a tragically beautiful and ethereal take on the life and soul of deceased schoolgirl Laura Palmer.

Lynch returned to the town of Twin Peaks in 2017, setting a third season of the show a quarter of a century after its ending. In a way, Lynch has already created his swansong with Twin Peaks: The Return. It returned a lot of his regular actors and contributors and expanded then tied together many of the ideas and themes obsessed over throughout his career. Many film critics committed the cardinal sin of including it in their best film lists, sparking the debate of what even constitutes a lowly TV show and the loftier film. They were right to bend the rules, however, as format is irrelevant – it is truly one of the great artistic achievements of the past decade.

Still from Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, 1992 (Image: New Line Cinema)
Putting away the director’s chair and moving on to more remote possibilities, the feeling is one of loss, but gratitude. Is it fair to expect more at this point? And does a creative like Lynch even need the comforts of a film set to express something potent, vivid, and interesting? Hardly.

But his reputation is assured regardless, with a legacy that should be celebrated with him still in the picture. Often the masters of film are looked at in the rearview, through an unfamiliar time and place, without the artist themselves around to speak. But Lynch is still around, and what he has to say is still relevant. There might not be another season of Twin Peaks, and we might not see another fully realised full-length film, but his presence alone is just as important.