This year cinema lost one of its greats – the American auteur David Lynch, a pioneering and uncompromising true original, who made some of the most extraordinary and powerful films ever to grace the screen.
Fellow director Steven Spielberg described Lynch as a “singular, visionary dreamer who directed films that felt handmade”, while Martin Scorsese said Lynch made “everything strange, uncanny, revelatory and new… he put images on the screen unlike anything that I or anybody else had ever seen”.
Lynch might be gone, but his wondrous, dreamlike films live on, and STUDIOCANAL Presents is the home of three of the director’s key works – The Elephant Man, Mulholland Drive, and Inland Empire.
The Elephant Man (1980) Lynch’s exceptional biopic features an astounding performance from John Hurt as the disfigured John Merrick, with Anthony Hopkins as the surgeon who shows him kindness. Mel Brooks, who produced the Bafta-winning (and Oscar-nominated) film, said Lynch was “a remarkably unique and very talented filmmaker. It was such a truly great pleasure to work with him. If his name was in the credits, you knew the film was really worth seeing.”
Mulholland Drive (2001) This dazzling, daring and unforgettable psychological thriller stars Naomi Watts in a breakout role as an actress plunged into the nightmare side of Los Angeles. Watts said about working with Lynch: “He put me on the map. The world I’d been trying to break into for ten plus years, flunking auditions left and right…”. Ironically, one of the standout scenes in the film features her character at a particularly intense and awkward audition – done in a way only Lynch could do.
Inland Empire (2006) An epic companion piece to Mulholland Drive, and Lynch’s final film, this fragmentary and disorientating three-hour masterwork features a truly astonishing lead performance from Laura Dern (who appeared in Lynch’s films Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart). Named after the area of Los Angeles where Dern’s husband is from, the film took shape after Lynch called Dern and said, “let’s experiment”, and they began to improvise scenes shot on a camcorder. Famously, Lynch campaigned for Dern to win an Oscar, by sitting on the side of Hollywood Boulevard with a live cow.
ALL THREE FILMS ARE AVAILABLE TO STREAM NOW ON STUDIOCANAL PRESENTS
STUDIOCANAL Presents is available on Apple TV and Prime Video.
The platform offers subscribers access to a wealth of exceptional film and television from the renowned and incomparable world-spanning library of Studiocanal, including stunning 4K restorations, timeless classics, and award-winning favourites. With film and TV exclusives added each month, and supported with a monthly podcast hosted by film experts, this is the streaming platform that delivers quality content for true film fans.
Karen Woodham is the founder and owner of the Blazing Minds. She is also a Cinema reviewer and works with RealD 3D reviewing the latest 3D releases and IMAX, she has also had several articles published in various publications including the first edition of SFW Magazine. In 2015 she became an Award Winning Blogger and also has her website listed as one of the UK’s Top 10 Film Blogs.
