My passion is the more mysterious now because Lynch's later work seemed horribly disappointing and jaded. Come on, let's not beat around the bush: for the most Lynch has been producing crap for the last decade or so. Thus, for the moment, at least, Blue Velvet represents the precarious difficulty in making—or seeing (in the sense of recognizing)— great films. Had I blundered into comprehension, or had Lynch drifted into clarity? Did I need a great movie experience in 1986 as much as Lynch, or more? Having made Blue Velvet, did he need to turn his back on the challenging prospect of fusing art and box office? I ask that because the career of David Lynch seems so intertwined with his foxy sense of himself. At least, it does if one assumes that Lynch understood what he was doing in Blue Velvet. In conversation, he makes every effort to be nonchalant or dismissive of that burden. Why not? It would be as hard to advance on Blue Velvet as it must have been to work after Citizen Kane.

Lynch was the son of a research scientist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture: the family traveled a good deal and that fostered Lynch's love of middle America. By high school, however, they were in Alexandria, Virginia, so Lynch took art classes at Washington's Corcoran School of Art. He then studied painting at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia in the late sixties. He even won a three-year scholarship to Europe, which he quit after fifteen days.

He made a one-minute animated film for a contest while in Philadelphia, and that led him to the American Film Institute, where he made The Grandmother and began Eraserhead. He continues to do some work as a painter and photographer, as can be witnessed on his very hands-on website, www.davidlynch.com, where you can buy a signed unlimited Lynch piece for under $500 while for a limited edition piece there is no price and you have to e-mail for details which is gallery speak for shitloads of cash!

He has also, since Blue Velvet , had a TV partnership with Mark Frost for the Twin Peaks venture and for the Fox show American Chronicles. In 1992, another series, On the Air, had a limited network run; and in 1993 Lynch was involved on Hotel Room, a series for HBO. In addition, he has made some television commercials, notably a series for Calvin Klein's Obsession.

It remains natural, I think, to wonder what Lynch wants. Eraserhead was not just a student film, but as private as any solitary art, like writing or painting. It seemed to indicate someone who saw his future in experimental cinema. Yet The Elephant Man and Dune were attempts at mainstream movies, no matter how personal or obscure they ended up. The Elephant Man was a prestigious stage play; it had Mel Brooks as a father figure, as well as a solid cast and properly focused pathos. John Hurt's hero was exactly that, whereas nothing in Eraserhead acknowledges the function of heroism. Dune was a de Laurentiis sci-fi epic, taken from Frank Herbert. It cost, and lost, a lot of money. It is often brilliant, but frequently ponderous and unintelligible. Some observers marveled that Dino had let it happen.

But then the Italian producer let Lynch make Blue Velvet, which kept surrealism, hallucination, and "experiment" in perfect balance with Americana, a simple compelling storyline and the furious gravitational dorce of a voyeurist setup. I believe Blue Velvet is also an allegory on sexual awakening, about innocence and peril, family life and adulthood, such as no American film has achieved. The movie works: at the art-houuse level, it was a big hit. The performances are extraordinary: Dennis Hopper was savage yet lucid; Kyle McLachlan and Laura Dern were like fairytale princes and princesses; Dean Stockwell was uncanny; Isabelle Rossellini seemed at last like a naked, forlorn actress. (She and Lynch for years, and they acted together in Zelly and Me [88, Tina Rathbone].)

Was Twin Peaks a cynical move, or as "artistic" as Blue Velvet? Was Lynch seeking to cash in to bring Magritte to the masses? Was he saturating the mass audience, or rebelling against the celebration of Blue Velvet? I have a hunch he is not quite sure himself. There were beautiful passages to be found in Twin Peaks (notably those directed by Lynch), but the whote thing seemed a dead end reaching as far as the longest northwestern view. The subsequent movie—Fire Walk With Me—is the worst thing Lynch has done—and I trust, the least necessary or sincere.

What will happen to Lynch? Where will he go? Such questions may have more say about the institution of the movies and the nature of its audience. But whatever happens, Blue Velvet will grow larger over the years, along with films like Vertigo, The Night of the Hunter, and Citizen Kane. There is a genius in Lynch that may have been lucky to get its one moment.

For the most part, the above was written in 1994, when there was still Lost Highway to come. That film has its devout fans, but I am not one of them. Indeed, I felt the director was still striving for the natural air of dream—and Lynch seems pretentious when he is straining. Equally, while touched by The Straight Story, I was suspicious of its straight-faced dedication to simple, honest feelings. It's not a film I want to see again—whereas Blue Velvet I review regularly. But Mulholland Dr. I want to see all the time. This seemed to me, emphatically, a second masterpiece, and the first film in which Lynch's style was so sweet, so serene, that one went with the drive or the dream of the movie without ever feeling those old panicky questions—Where are we going? What is it about? It's about itself and the the dual process of dreaming and driving—it's also one of the greatest films ever made about the cultural devastation caused by Hollywood.