David Lynch: Five key films

PARIS - US director David Lynch, the master of macabre, mesmerising features and an offbeat gem of a TV series, has died at age 78.

Here is a look at five of his most emblematic works:

'The Elephant Man' (1980)

Lynch's black-and-white second feature is among his more sentimental works, and was adapted from the diary of Joseph Merrick, the so-called "Elephant Man" born in the US in 1862 with a condition that caused severe physical deformities.

Merrick (called John in the film) was paraded around the country as part of a freak show and died by suicide at the age of 27 -- one of the many terrible scenes in Lynch's affecting film.

An unrecognisable John Hurt in the title role earned one of the film's eight Oscar nominations -- as did Lynch for best director. Anthony Hopkins played the kind doctor who befriended Merrick in his final years.

'Blue Velvet' (1986)

The cut-off ear in the grass, a tragic heroine in feathers played by Isabella Rossellini, and the languid refrain of the title track -- Lynch created one of his most perverse and unsettling environments in this enduring classic.

Dennis Hopper brought added creepiness to the proceedings as Rossellini's crazed boyfriend and Kyle MacLachlan played the young protagonist home from college who finds the ear and, in his investigation, delves into Lynch's favourite territory: small town America's sinister flip side.

"Blue Velvet is an unforgettable vision of innocence lost, and one of the most influential American films of the past few decades", said the Criterion Collection on its website about the film that brought Lynch his second Oscar nod for best director.

'Twin Peaks' (1990-1991)

Twin Peaks is a town surrounded by enormous pine trees, a deadbeat cafe serving special cherry pie, a strange woman who dances alone, a midget in a red suit -- and one dead girl, dragged from the lake in a body bag.

Into this mysterious mix steps the ever-upbeat special agent Dale Cooper, played by MacLachlan, dedicated to solving the question: "Who killed Laura Palmer?", around which Lynch created what The New York Times in 2020 called "one of television's most influential series".

"So many things were revolutionary about 'Twin Peaks'", wrote the Times in 2017, "and its DNA saturates the TV gene pool: Every serialised mystery, teenage melodrama, quirky dramedy and surreal supernatural thriller owes something to it."

Lynch added to the intrigue and weirdness in a second season broadcast in 1991, the film "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me" (1992) and then a sequel series in 2017.

'Lost Highway' (1997)

The yellow lines on a highway at night illuminated by car headlights is one of the enduring images from Lynch's twisted feature set in a dream logic and dealing with issues of shifting identity, the supernatural and sexual perversity.

Reception for the film was mixed -- "Lost Highway is like kissing a mirror: You like what you see, but it's not much fun, and kind of cold", said US critic Roger Ebert in 1997 -- but it contains many of Lynch's classic themes, not least his penchant for unanswered questions.

"I love mysteries. To fall into a mystery and its danger... everything becomes so intense in those moments; When most mysteries are solved, I feel tremendously let down", he told Rolling Stone in an interview in 1997.

'Mulholland Drive' (2001)

This late flourish, which brought Lynch his third best director Oscar nomination, is a cool attack on Hollywood, depicted as a baffling world of hallucinations and cryptic happenings with Naomi Watts as the wholesome actress who meets a mysterious brunette suffering from amnesia.

With "Inland Empire" five years later, the two films are Lynch's bittersweet farewell to movie-making -- aside from a Netflix feature in 2020 involving a monkey accused of murder, Lynch has devoted himself to transcendental meditation and other art forms. - AFP