Editing David Lynch (section)

===Style===
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| quote = "An academic definition of Lynchian might be that the term 'refers to a particular kind of irony where the very macabre and the very mundane combine in such a way as to reveal the former's perpetual containment within the latter'".
| source = —Writer [[David Foster Wallace]] in a 1997 article on David Lynch for ''[[Premiere (magazine)|Premiere]]''<ref name="DFW">{{cite news |last=Wallace |first=David Foster |author-link=David Foster Wallace |date=September 1997 |title=David Lynch Keeps His Head |url=http://www.lynchnet.com/lh/lhpremiere.html |work=[[Premiere (magazine)|Premiere]]}}</ref>
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Lynch's distinctive style blends [[surrealism]] with classic [[Hollywood film|Hollywood]] storytelling and "pulpy" romanticism,<ref>{{cite web |last1=Sims |first1=David |title=David Lynch Was America's Cinematic Poet |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2025/01/david-lynch-death-career/681347/ |website=The Atlantic |date=January 17, 2025 |access-date=11 March 2025}}</ref> often employing [[experimental film]]making techniques alongside elements from commercial genres such as [[film noir]], [[Supernatural horror film|supernatural horror]], [[soap opera]], [[Camp (style)#Film|camp comedy]], and [[erotic thriller]].<ref>{{cite web |last1=Bradshaw |first1=Peter |title=David Lynch: the great American surrealist who made experimentalism mainstream |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/jan/16/david-lynch-the-great-american-surrealist-who-made-experimentalism-mainstream |website=[[The Guardian]] |access-date=January 17, 2025|date=16 January 2025}}</ref> His films have been said to evoke a "dreamlike quality of mystery or menace" through striking visual imagery, and frequently combine "surreal or sinister elements with mundane, everyday environments".<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://www.oed.com/dictionary/lynchian_adj?tl=true#:~:text=Characteristic%2C%20reminiscent%2C%20or%20imitative%20of%20the%20films%20or%20television%20work,quality%20of%20mystery%20or%20menace. |title=Oxford English Dictionary}}</ref> Critic [[Peter Bradshaw]] of ''[[The Guardian]]'' called Lynch "the great American surrealist" and described his subversive narratives as "splitting and swirling in [[Non sequitur (literary device)|non sequitur]]s and [[M. C. Escher|Escher]] loops".<ref>{{cite web |last1=Bradshaw |first1=Peter |title=David Lynch: the great American surrealist who made experimentalism mainstream |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/jan/16/david-lynch-the-great-american-surrealist-who-made-experimentalism-mainstream |website=[[The Guardian]] |access-date=January 17, 2025|date=16 January 2025}}</ref> Film analyst Jennifer Hudson wrote, "Like most surrealists, Lynch's language of the unexplained is the fluid language of dreams".<ref name="hudson">{{cite journal |last=Hudson |first=Jennifer |date=Spring 2004 |title='No Hay Banda, and yet We Hear a Band': David Lynch's Reversal of Coherence in ''Mulholland Drive'' |journal=[[Journal of Film and Video]] |issue=56 |volume=1 |pages=17–24}}</ref> Ryan Gilbey called Lynch "the greatest cinematic surrealist since [[Luis Buñuel|[Luis] Buñuel]]" and "the most original film-maker to emerge in postwar America".<ref name=gilbey>{{cite web |last1=Gilbey |first1=Ryan |title=David Lynch obituary |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/jan/17/david-lynch-obituary |website=The Guardian |date=January 17, 2025 |access-date=11 March 2025}}</ref>

[[J. Hoberman]] wrote that Lynch's work is characterized by "troubling juxtapositions, outlandish non sequiturs and eroticized derangement of the commonplace".<ref name="Hoberman" /> Hoberman called his approach "more intuitive" than that of his surrealist precursors, and suggested that his art synthesized the disparate styles of Hollywood filmmaker [[Frank Capra]] and modernist author [[Franz Kafka]].<ref name="Hoberman" /> Dennis Lim suggested that Lynch's films "push clichés to their breaking point and find emotion in artifice."<ref>Lim, Dennis (2015). ''David Lynch: The Man From Another Place.''</ref> B. Kite of the [[British Film Institute|BFI]] called Lynch's approach "stylised but not mocking", arguing that Lynch was "singularly brave and direct in his approach to heightened emotion" in an era where most filmmakers would opt for ironic distance.<ref name="kite"/> Nick De Semlyen of ''[[Empire Magazine|Empire]]'' described his films as moving "back and forth between violent chaos and otherworldly beauty", and suggested that "while other filmmakers tried to wrestle order out of chaos, compacting their stories into neat three-act structures, Lynch revelled in the tumult—that feeling that life is a beautiful, terrifying mystery."<ref>{{cite web |last1=De Semiyen |first1=Nick |title=David Lynch Conjured Cinematic Dreams – And We All Got To Live In Them |url=https://www.empireonline.com/movies/features/david-lynch-tribute-cinematic-dreams-we-got-to-live-in/ |website=Empire |date=January 17, 2025 |access-date=11 March 2025}}</ref>

Lynch's work inspired the use of the adjective "Lynchian" to describe art or situations reminiscent of his style.<ref name="Hoberman" /> Phil Hoad of ''[[The Guardian]]'' called the term Lynchian a "go-to adjective to describe any sniff of the [[uncanny]] and esoteric on screen", adding that his "destabilising vision has become a common lens for discerning the truth about the 'normal world'".<ref>{{cite web |last1=Hoad |first1=Phil |title=Deviant obsessions: how David Lynch predicted our fragmented times |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/jan/09/david-lynch-twin-peaks-director-predicted-our-times |website=The Guardian |date=January 9, 2023 |access-date=23 March 2025}}</ref>