'Lynch was everything to me': How the surrealist icon inspired Canadian filmmakers

Director David Lynch gives the thumbs up during the meeting Close Encounters where he was given a Lifetime Achievement Award, during the Rome Film Festival, in Rome on November 4, 2017. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP, Domenico Stinellis

TORONTO — Kyle Edward Ball was only 9 when he watched his first David Lynch movie — 2001’s mind-bending psychological thriller “Mulholland Drive” — but it left an indelible mark on him.

“What struck me is his movies are like music. They have a feeling and an atmosphere to them,” said the Edmonton-based horror filmmaker.

“He proved you could make something not just weird, but experimental with a capital E and people would like it if you made it worth their while.”

The 33-year-old says Lynch inspired him to eventually make avant-garde movies of his own, including 2022 viral slasher sensation “Skinamarink.”

When the film premiered in L.A., Lynch had his team send Ball a congratulatory note along with a package of merch, including a signed DVD of his 1977 debut feature “Eraserhead.”

“It was amazing. He was my childhood hero. He’s still my idol.”

Lynch died after a battle with emphysema, his family announced Thursday. He was 78.

Ball is one of several Canadian filmmakers who say the Montana-born writer-director had a major influence on their careers with his dark, singular, surrealistic vision.

“Lynch was everything to me, the reason I first picked up a camera,” said Winnipeg auteur Guy Maddin via email.

Maddin would go on to become a trailblazer in Winnipeg’s experimental film scene with his bewildering, offbeat features, from 1988’s “Tales From the Gimli Hospital” to last year’s “Rumours.”

“He got inside my head so much that I felt I knew him, though we never met. The emergence of this visionary changed cinema forever. Such an enormous loss. Extremely sad.”

After making a splash in the ’70s with “Eraserhead,” a nightmarish indie body horror film, Lynch caught the attention of Hollywood with his offbeat and unyielding style. Movies like 1986’s psychosexual thriller “Blue Velvet” and 1990’s feverish, twisted romance “Wild at Heart” cemented his status as one of cinema’s most unconventional and unsettling filmmakers.

Meanwhile, his early ’90s outré mystery-horror ABC series “Twin Peaks,” which he created with writer Mark Frost, is widely considered to have revolutionized American episodic TV by introducing complex, bizarre and non-linear storytelling to audiences.

“He made a TV show that was very experimental and showed people will watch and enjoy it if you also make it funny or moving or mysterious,” said Ball, whose next project is an A24 horror film.

“He proved conventional audiences are way more adventurous than people give them credit for.”

Alan Jones, a filmmaker and co-founder of Toronto film collective Bleeding Edge, says he’s been inspired by Lynch’s do-it-yourself ethos. Lynch famously made “Eraserhead” with close friends and minimal financial backing.

“When it came out, it was rejected by all the major film festivals and it became well known through midnight screenings, basically. I feel like that’s the spirit that’s come with a lot of the movies that we’ve played with Bleeding Edge — no real money, just a lot of friends coming together to make stuff that’s very personal, very unique.”

Bleeding Edge hosts screenings at Toronto’s Paradise Theatre that highlight some of the city’s most audacious and out-of-the-box independent filmmakers.

Co-founder Ethan Vestby says Lynch’s influence can be traced in Toronto’s current wave of young, experimental directors making “esthetically bold and strange” films, pointing to Braden Sitter Sr.‘s 2024 fecal crime comedy “The Pee Pee Poo Poo Man” and Nate Wilson’s 2023 polyamorous mystery-thriller “The All Golden” as recent examples.

“The fact that he was like the only mainstream avant-garde artist in America, at least in film, in the 20th century into the 21st century, means he served as an inspiration for basically everyone who’s into (experimental films),” he says.

“He unlocks something in people’s brains. For a lot of young filmmakers, he’s the first person whose work you see and go, ‘Hey, I didn’t know movies could do that. I didn’t know I could break those rules.’”

Toronto director Kire Paputts says Lynch was his gateway to experimental filmmaking. His introduction to the director was watching “Eraserhead” when he was 10.

“It taught me you can make a film and it doesn’t have to make sense to be enjoyable,” he shared.

He says Lynch’s uncompromising vision went on to inform his own films, including 2015’s coming-of-age drama “The Rainbow Kid” and 2019’s dark dramedy “The Last Porno Theatre.”

“I don’t think he really cared about what people thought of his films. He was doing exactly what he wanted to do, so I try to have that same mindset in my own work,” says Paputts, who’s currently working on a Hamilton-set chase film called “The Junkie Run.”

“It’s more important to have a vision, stick to it and not get tempted by money or other things that come along with this industry.”

Paputts says he’s also been inspired by the way Lynch’s films challenge viewers' perceptions of reality.

“It’s something I think about quite a bit when I’m writing. How can this get away from reality and fall more into a dreamlike state?” he said.

“There are images and details from his work that are going to live rent-free in my head forever.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 17, 2024.