Visionary filmmaker David Lynch, whose influence can be felt throughout games, has died
As reported by Variety, David Lynch, the auteur director of Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, Mulholland Drive, and more, has died at the age of 78. Lynch is survived by his four children, and leaves behind a body of work that had a transformative effect not only on film and television, but also videogames.
Lynch revealed at the end of 2024 that he had been suffering from emphysema due to many years of being an active smoker: «I have to say that I enjoyed smoking very much, and I do love tobacco—the smell of it, lighting cigarettes on fire, smoking them—but there is a price to pay for this enjoyment, and that price is emphysema.»
Lynch was reportedly unable to leave his home to direct new projects, but he wrote that he was optimistic about his health and said, «I am filled with happiness, and I will never retire.» Last week, Lynch's producer Sabrina Sutherland wrote on Reddit that he was «good and safe» after evacuating due to the LA wildfires.
Lynch was born in Missoula Montana in 1946, and made his first feature film, Eraserhead, while studying at the AFI Conservatory from 1972-1976. The surreal, unsettling exploration of isolation and fatherhood became a cult classic. Lynch's defining success was the TV show Twin Peaks, a detective story, melodrama, and surreal work of psychological horror set in the Pacific Northwest that paved the way for the entire prestige TV genre.
Lynch's distinctive style influenced artists globally, and has had a substantial effect on the past 30-plus years of videogames. The developers of The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening cited Twin Peaks as a primary inspiration, for instance, with its quirky cast, dreamlike atmosphere, and undercurrent of something more insidious and melancholy all showing the show's influence.
The works of Remedy all lovingly crib off Lynch as well, going all the way back to Max Payne's dream sequences, offbeat sense of humor, and Twin Peaks-spoofing show-within-a-show, Address Unknown. Further on, Alan Wake
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