<\/p>\n
But already, his dark universe, as singular as it is disturbing but tinged with absurdist humor<\/strong>, is beginning to win over his fellow students and teachers. According to an equally Lynchian legend, it all started withan electric shock: his encounter with the tortured works of Francis Bacon.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n This sense of visual drama<\/strong> was to follow him through a dozen films over the next thirty years, <\/strong>some of which left a lasting impression on the retina, such as Eraserhead, Mulholland Drive<\/strong> and Blue Velvet<\/strong><\/em>. He was less fortunate on television, however, having created a television UFO in two seasons: Twin Peaks<\/em>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n If David Lynch were a piece of music, it would inevitably be a song from the 1950s, the golden age of American consumerism. The Montana native retains a close link with his childhood memories of cherry pie, Drive-ins and Diners, retro fast-food joints with red neon lights serving burgers, fries and milkshakes.<\/strong> His work abounds in homage to this period, from the decor to the soundtrack. We might therefore tend to associate him with the light-hearted, innocent productions of the period. But that’s to misunderstand his taste for the bizarre<\/strong>, to the extent that Percy Faith’s Theme from a summer place<\/em>, as naive as it is eerie in its instrumental ritornello, (too) easily sums up his character. It’s a song that’s both the candy of an era and the sanitized music of an elevator.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n His stories are full of characters who are, to say the least, strange and even disturbing<\/strong>, such as \u201cthe woman with the log\u201d and the dancing dwarf in the Twin Peaks <\/em>series, <\/em>the violent drug dealer Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper) in Blue Velvet<\/em> or Bobby Peru and his mistress Perdita Durango in Wild At Heart<\/em>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n As one of his favorite actors, Kyle MacLachlan (Dune, Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks<\/em>), recalls, he retains very precise multisensory memories<\/strong> of this era, such as the time he liked to enjoy his milkshakes at Bob’s Big Boy, so that they were at a certain temperature. This same meticulousness <\/strong>can be found in the choice of music for his films<\/strong>, finding in Angelo Badalamenti his sonic double.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This taste for the strange and the \u201cfreaks <\/strong>\u201d (bizarre personalities both physically and psychologically, editor’s note) is said to have been born ofa visual shock<\/strong> in the presence of his brother: the sight of a naked woman in the middle of the street<\/strong>. Neither moved nor amused, he burst into tears, imagining that the worst must have happened<\/strong>, even in a small town that looked too perfect to be honest<\/strong>. He learned a lesson that permeates all his work, namely that even the most peaceful villages are home to disturbed people who do things they’d rather keep secret.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\nFreaks and false pretenses<\/h2>\n
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