David Lynch Offered a Peace That Passes Understanding

In 2007, David Lynch told attendees of the British Film Institute, “Believe it or not, Eraserhead is my most spiritual film.” When the interviewer asked Lynch to expound on the statement, he offered a simple response in his reedy accent: “No.”

Unsurprisingly, a clip of the exchange has received renewed attention with the news that David Lynch died Jan. 16 at the age of 78. Fans love the moment, in part, because it captures Lynch’s lovable presence as a public figure, but also because it’s so true to who he was as an artist.

Lynch was a master of the surreal and the bizarre, a man who made movies that defied understanding—so much so that creators and critics alike use the word “Lynchian” to describe disturbing, dream-like art. But what makes his work spiritual?

In many cases, Lynch turns to the surreal to express a vision of inexplicable evil. There’s the long-haired Bob (Frank Silva) in Twin Peaks, the living nightmare (Bonnie Aarons) that lurks behind a diner in Mulholland Drive, the stranger (Robert Blake) who smiles satanically at a murderer in Lost Highway.

Yet just as often, Lynch uses the indescribable to portray a sense of happiness and contentment available to anyone who would forgo the petty desires that invite evil in. It’s this ineffable peace that makes all of Lynch’s work not only spiritual, but of special interest to Christian viewers—even if neither he nor his films expressed explicit Christian faith.

In fact, the phrase “peace that passes all understanding,” from Philippians 4:7, can apply to many Lynch works—especially his gentlest film, the G-rated Disney movie The Straight Story. Based on actual events, The Straight Story stars Richard Farnsworth as the elderly Alvin Straight, who learns that his estranged brother, Lyle (Harry Dean Stanton), has suffered a stroke. Determined to fix things with Lyle before either of them dies, but unable to get a driver’s license, Alvin drives his John Deere lawn mower from his home in Iowa to Lyle’s place in Wisconsin.

Alvin arrives at Lyle’s shack in the final moments of the film. After a terse, but not unpleasant greeting, Lyle invites Alvin to sit with him on the porch. Even though we’ve been building to the moment for over 100 minutes, Lynch lets the actors take their time. The camera watches as Alvin (portrayed by an 80-year-old Farnsworth, who was suffering from terminal cancer in real life), struggles up the steps next to Lyle. It waits as neither brother speaks, letting the two men just sit in their regret and relief and joy at seeing each other again. After what feels like an hour, the silence breaks when Lyle sees the tractor.

“Did you drive that thing all this way to see me?” he asks.

“I did, Lyle,” Alvin answers.

The two say no more to each other. We simply watch as the enormity of Alvin’s sacrifice dawns on Lyle and the two brothers share their appreciation for one another. After a bit, the camera pans up to the night sky, up to the heavens, suggesting that even a moment of forgiveness between two nondescript Midwesterns has cosmic import.

Lynch repeats this movement—panning up to the sky to signal a spiritual peace—throughout his oeuvre, including his magnum opus and final work, 2017’s Twin Peaks: The Return. More than a revival of the cult television series that he and Mark Frost created in 1990, Twin Peaks: The Return is an epic, 18-hour movie broken into hour-long episodes, giving plenty of space for soulful digressions that are only tangentially related to the main plot.

One such digression includes a shocking moment of horrific violence, in which Richard Horne (Eamon Farren)—one of the main characters in the series—hits and kills a child (Hunter Sanchez) with his truck. Horne has committed other acts of sadism and would commit more before his story ends, so it makes sense that the camera would follow him as he drives off from the event. And yet, the camera returns to the scene of the accident to show the boy’s mother (Lisa Coronado) cradling her boy’s bloodied body.

The sorrow envelops a gathered crowd of onlookers, including an older man named Carl Rodd (Harry Dean Stanton again). The camera takes Carl’s perspective as a yellow light emanates from the boy’s body and lifts into the air, recalling the movement from the end of The Straight Story. The sight of the boy’s soul not ending, but ascending into heaven, gives Carl strength to kneel beside the mother and put his arm around her. Again, he doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t try to excuse or explain the terrible loss. But he shares his peace, just as she shared her sorrow.

Like so many scenes in Lynch’s work, this hit-and-run sequence has a power that’s difficult to analyze. And yet, it makes perfect sense to Christian viewers. We know that the powers and principalities of this world will never overcome God’s love and goodness. We know that death, not even death on a cross, can prevent God’s good work. This is the work Paul references in his letter to the Philippians, work that allows us to rejoice, to let our “gentleness be evident to all,” and to live in “the peace of God, which transcends all understanding.”

As much as Lynch’s movies can get nasty and weird, their belief in a spiritual world beyond the here and now gives them a persistent peace, one that’s present even in upsetting films like his debut feature, Eraserhead.

Eraserhead takes place in an industrial nightmare, with brutalist brick walls and a constant metallic clanging on the soundtrack, mixed with the incessant sound of a haunting, howling wind. The anxieties of a young new father called Henry (Jack Nance) take the form of his hideous child, an inhuman creature that breathes with a guttural rattle and spews black bile.

At the point that Henry’s anxiety becomes overwhelming, he finds solace in a surprising place. Looking inside a radiator, he sees a blonde woman (Laurel Near) on a stage. And much to his surprise, she begins to sing.

“In heaven, everything is fine,” she coos in a sweet, soothing voice. “In heaven, everything is fine.”

The song provides comfort for Henry, even if it doesn’t solve his predicament. He’s still in the industrial hellscape. The Lady herself is an unusual sight, her cheeks puffing out as if covered in tumors. And yet, she smiles. And yet, she sings. And yet, she offers Henry peace.

This transcendent peace makes no literal sense, especially in the otherwise disconcerting world of Eraserhead. But the Lady does not live in this world. She's a spiritual being—of the sort Lynch may not have been willing to explain, but we nevertheless intuitively understand.

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At Think Christian, we encourage careful cultural discernment. We recognize and respect that many Christians choose not to engage with pop culture that contains particular content, such as abuse, sex, violence, alcohol or drug use, or that employs the use of coarse language. To that end, we suggest visiting Common Sense Media for detailed information regarding the content of the particular pieces of pop culture discussed in this article.