David Lynch exposed the decay at the guts of American culture

“There is some kind of evil out there,” says Sheriff Truman in an episode of David Lynch’s legendary television series: “Twin Peaks.”

This sentence sums up the filmmaker's work: whose family announced his death on January 16, 2025. Lynch's movies and tv series reflected the dark, threatening and sometimes bizarre underbelly of American culture – a culture that’s increasingly emerging from the shadows today.

As someone who teaches Film noirI often take into consideration how American cinema holds up a mirror to society.

Lynch was a master at this.

Many of Lynch's movies, corresponding to “1986”Blue velvet” and 1997’s “Lost highway“can be brutal and graphic, with images that critics have described as “disturbing” And “all chaosupon their release.

But beyond these confusing effects, Lynch was on to something.

His images of corruption, violence and toxic masculinity are all too familiar in today's America.

Take “Blue velvetThe film centers on naive college student Jeffrey Beaumont, whose idyllic suburban life surrounded by white picket fences is turned the other way up when he finds a human ear on the side of the road. This grisly discovery brings him into the orbit of a violent sociopath, Frank Booth, and a seductive lounge singer named Dorothy Vallens, who sadistically tortures Booth while holding her child and her husband – whose ear, it seems, was that, that Beaumont had found – hostage.

Nevertheless, Beaumont finds himself perversely drawn to Vallens and delves deeper into the shadowy world that lurks beneath his hometown – a world of smoky bars and drug dens frequented by Booth and a solid of crazy characters, including pimps, addicts and a corrupt detective .

Booth's haunting line “Now it's dark” serves as a strong refrain.

The corruption, perversion and violence depicted in Blue Velvet are indeed extreme. But the acts Booth commits are also paying homage to the stories of sexual abuse reported by organizations just like the Catholic Church And the Boy Scouts.

As detections of such crimes proceed to extend, they have gotten less of an aberration and more of a dire warning about something deeply rooted in our culture.

These evils are sensational and horrific, and there may be an impulse to perceive them as existing outside our reality and being perpetrated by individuals who usually are not like us. what “Twin Peaks“, Lynch's hit TV series and “Blue Velvet” effectively convey to viewers that these hidden worlds where venality and cruelty lurk are only across the corner, in places we see but are inclined to ignore.

And then there are the eerie and eerie worlds that appear in “Lost highway” And “Mulholland Drive.” The characters in these spicy movies appear to live in parallel realities dominated by good and evil.

“Lost highway” begins with jazz musician Fred Madison being convicted of murdering his wife. However, he claims to don’t have any memory of the crime. Exploring the theme of other worlds, Lynch transports Madison to an illusory realm inhabited by murderers, drug dealers and pornographers by merging his identity with that of a young mechanic named Pete Dayton. Lynch combines the worlds of “normality” and perversity into one.

In the Nineties, artists liked Trent Reznor by Nine Inch Nails, whose music is featured on the official Lost Highway soundtrack, also exposed audiences to pictures of decadence and social decay inspired by his own disturbing experiences in Hollywood and the United States Music industry.

These dark themes have since been embodied in wealthy and powerful men Sean “Diddy” CombsBill Cosby and Jeffrey Epstein, who for years skirted the surface of high society, keeping their perversions hidden from the general public.

In his 2001 film “Mulholland Drive“Lynch turns his attention to Hollywood and the misery that seems ingrained in its nature.

A large-eyed, innocent-minded aspiring actress named Betty Elms involves Los Angeles with a vision of becoming famous. Her struggle to succeed – which ends in depression and death – is actually tragic. But it's also not terribly surprising considering she was attempting to survive in a corrupt system that too often rewards those that don't deserve it or are willing to compromise their morals.

Like so many who go to Hollywood with big dreams only to search out fame is beyond their reach, Elms is unprepared for an industry so rife with exploitation and corruption. Her fate is comparable to that of the ladies who desperately sought fame and ended up falling into the trap she set Harvey Weinstein.

Lynch's death comes at a time when America appears to be heading toward an increasingly dark future. Maybe it's one which was predicted Politicians are deaf to sexual assaultTolerating the denigration of victims and even brag about getting away with murder.

Lynch's essential work warns that the cruelty of such people will not be really what we must always fear most. Instead, it’s those that laugh, cheer, or just turn away—weak responses that enable and reinforce such behaviors, giving them an appropriate place on the planet.

When Lynch's movies were first released, they often appeared as bizarre, funny reflections of society.

Today they speak of profound and terrible truths that we cannot ignore.