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David Lynch is a Actor, Director, Scriptwriter, Producer, Director of Photography, Editor, Art Direction, Sound and Special Effects American born on 20 january 1946 at Missoula (USA)

David Lynch

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Birth name David Keith Lynch
Nationality USA
Birth 20 january 1946 (78 years) at Missoula (USA)
Awards Officier de la Légion d'honneur

David Keith Lynch (born January 20, 1946) is an American director, screenwriter, visual artist, musician, actor, and author. Known for his surrealist films, he has developed a unique cinematic style. The surreal and, in many cases, violent elements contained within his films have been known to "disturb, offend or mystify" audiences.

Born to a middle-class family in Missoula, Montana, Lynch spent his childhood traveling around the United States, before going on to study painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, where he first made the transition to producing short films. He moved to Los Angeles, where he produced his first motion picture, the surrealist horror film Eraserhead (1977). After Eraserhead became a cult classic on the midnight movie circuit, Lynch was employed to direct a biographical film about a deformed man, Joseph Merrick, titled The Elephant Man (1980), from which he gained mainstream success. He was then employed by the De Laurentiis Entertainment Group, and proceeded to make two films: the science-fiction epic Dune (1984), which proved to be a critical and commercial failure, and then a neo-noir crime film, Blue Velvet (1986), which was critically acclaimed.

Next, Lynch created his own television series with Mark Frost, the popular murder mystery Twin Peaks (1990–1991; 2017): he also created a cinematic prequel, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992); a road movie, Wild at Heart (1990); and a family film, The Straight Story (1999); in the same period. Turning further towards surrealist filmmaking, three of his subsequent films operated on "dream logic", non-linear narrative structures: the psychological thriller Lost Highway (1997), the neo-noir mystery film Mulholland Drive (2001) and the mystery film Inland Empire (2006). Meanwhile, Lynch embraced the Internet as a medium, producing several web-based shows, such as the animated DumbLand (2002) and the surreal sitcom Rabbits (2002).

Lynch has received three Academy Award nominations for Best Director and a nomination for best screenplay. He has won France's César Award for Best Foreign Film twice, as well as the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and a Golden Lion award for lifetime achievement at the Venice Film Festival. The French government awarded him the Legion of Honor, the country's top civilian honor, as a Chevalier in 2002 and then an Officier in 2007, while that same year, The Guardian described Lynch as "the most important director of this era". Allmovie called him "the Renaissance man of modern American filmmaking", while the success of his films has led to him being labelled "the first popular Surrealist."

Biography

Lynch has had several long-term relationships. In 1967, he married Peggy Lentz in Chicago, Illinois. They had one child, Jennifer Chambers Lynch, born in 1968, who is a film director. They filed for divorce in 1974. On June 21, 1977, Lynch married Mary Fisk, and the couple had one child, Austin Jack Lynch, born in 1982. They divorced in 1987, and Lynch began dating Isabella Rossellini after filming Blue Velvet. Lynch and Rossellini broke up in 1991, and Lynch developed a relationship with Mary Sweeney, with whom he had one son. Sweeney also worked as Lynch's longtime film editor/producer and co-wrote and produced The Straight Story. The two married in May 2006, but divorced that July. Lynch married actress Emily Stofle, who appeared in his 2006 film Inland Empire, in February 2009. They have a daughter.

Political views
Lynch has said that he is "not a political person". However, he has expressed admiration for former US President Ronald Reagan. Describing his political philosophy, he stated, "at that time, I thought of myself as a libertarian. I believed in next to zero government. And I still would lean toward no government and not so many rules, except for traffic lights and things like this. I really believe in traffic regulations." Lynch continued to state that "I don't know if there even is a Libertarian party. They wouldn't have a prayer of getting anywhere. So I'm a Democrat now. And I've always been a Democrat, really. But I don't like the Democrats a lot, either, because I'm a smoker, and I think a lot of the Democrats have come up with these rules for non-smoking."

He endorsed the Natural Law Party in the 2000 presidential election and Democratic incumbent Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election.

Transcendental Meditation

Lynch advocates the use of Transcendental Meditation in bringing peace to the world. He was initiated into Transcendental Meditation in July 1973, and has practiced the technique consistently since then. Lynch says he met Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the founder of the TM movement, for the first time in 1975 at the Spiritual Regeneration Movement center in Los Angeles, California. He reportedly became close with Maharishi during a month-long "Millionaire's Enlightenment Course" held in 2003, the fee for which was US$1 million.

In July 2005, he launched the David Lynch Foundation For Consciousness-Based Education and Peace, established to help finance scholarships for students in middle and high schools who are interested in learning the Transcendental Meditation technique and to fund research on the technique and its effects on learning. Together with John Hagelin and Fred Travis, a brain researcher from Maharishi University of Management (MUM), Lynch promoted his vision on college campuses with a tour that began in September 2005. Lynch is on the board of trustees of MUM Trustees and has hosted an annual "David Lynch Weekend for World Peace and Meditation" there since 2005.

Lynch is working for the building and establishment of seven buildings, in which 8,000 salaried people will practice advanced meditation techniques, "pumping peace for the world". He estimates the cost at US$7 billion. As of December 2005, he had spent US$400,000 of personal money, and raised US$1 million in donations. In December 2006, the New York Times reported that he continued to have that goal. Lynch's book, Catching the Big Fish (Tarcher/Penguin 2006), discusses the impact of the Transcendental Meditation technique on his creative process. Lynch attended the funeral of the Maharishi in India in 2008. He told a reporter, "In life, he revolutionised the lives of millions of people. ... In 20, 50, 500 years there will be millions of people who will know and understand what the Maharishi has done." In 2009, he went to India to film interviews with people who knew the Maharishi as part of a biographical documentary.

In 2009, Lynch organized a benefit concert at Radio City Music Hall for the David Lynch Foundation. On April 4, 2009, the "Change Begins Within" concert featured Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Donovan, Sheryl Crow, Eddie Vedder, Moby, Bettye LaVette, Ben Harper, and Mike Love of the Beach Boys. David Wants to Fly, released in May 2010, is a documentary by German filmmaker David Sieveking "that follows the path of his professional idol, David Lynch, into the world of Transcendental Meditation (TM)."

An independent project starring Lynch called Beyond The Noise: My Transcendental Meditation Journey, directed by film student Dana Farley, who has severe dyslexia and attention deficit disorder, was shown at film festivals in 2011, including the Marbella Film Festival. Filmmaker Kevin Sean Michaels is one of the producers. In 2013 Lynch wrote: "Transcendental Meditation leads to a beautiful, peaceful revolution. A change from suffering and negativity to happiness and a life more and more free of any problems."

Website
Lynch designed his personal website, a site exclusive to paying members, where he posts short videos and his absurdist series Dumbland, plus interviews and other items. The site also featured a daily weather report, where Lynch gives a brief description of the weather in Los Angeles, where he resides. Until June 2010, this weather report (usually no longer than 30 seconds) was also being broadcast on his personal YouTube channel, David Lynch – Daily Weather Report. An absurd ringtone ("I like to kill deer") from the website was a common sound bite on The Howard Stern Show in early 2006.

Lynch is a coffee drinker and even has his own line of special organic blends available for purchase on his website as well as in Whole Foods. Called "David Lynch Signature Cup", the coffee has been advertised via flyers included with several recent Lynch-related DVD releases, including Inland Empire and the Gold Box edition of Twin Peaks. The possibly self-mocking tag-line for the brand is "It's all in the beans ... and I'm just full of beans." This is also a quote of a line said by Justin Theroux's character in Inland Empire.