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It felt fitting that my city was burning when I heard the news Thursday that David Lynch had died at 78<\/a>. Few filmmakers grasped the complexities of Los Angeles better than Lynch did and fewer still seemed so at home with its distinct, otherworldly mix of beauty and disaster, sunshine and noir. Los Angeles is where, after all, he shot \u201cEraserhead,\u201d<\/a> his feature directorial debut about \u2014 well, how to describe this sui generis art film in which a lady lives in a radiator and a baby looks like a slimy, fetid bobble-headed alien. Yet now David Lynch is gone and another part of this city seems to have disappeared with him, and I am bereft.<\/p>\n Lynch was literally born in Missoula, Mont., but I think he was more rightly birthed by Los Angeles. He went to school here, attending the American Film Institute (\u201cEraserhead\u201d began as his student project!), eventually establishing a nearby compound where he took to delivering delightful weather reports with his singular twang. In the one he recorded for May 11, 2020<\/a>, he sits at a desk with several pairs of glasses upon it and a mug that must be filled with black coffee<\/a>. \u201cHere in L.A.,\u201d he says, squinting up at a window, it\u2019s \u201ckind of cloudy, some fog this morning.\u201d He swivels to face the camera, ticks off the temperature and adds: \u201cThis all should burn off pretty soon and we\u2019ll have sunshine and 70 degrees. Have a great day.\u201d<\/p>\n I always took his signoffs to have a great day literally. Lynch created some of the most disturbing and haunted work in cinema, but in interviews \u2014 many peppered with his trademark interjections like \u201cjeepers\u201d \u2014 he came across as approachable. If anything, he appeared almost performatively normal, which made him seem even stranger. In 2001, the year his masterpiece \u201cMulholland Drive\u201d was released, my friend, the critic John Powers, spoke with Lynch. \u201cHe still reminds me of Jimmy Stewart,\u201d Powers wrote<\/a>, \u201cnot the Mr. Smith who goes to Washington but the grizzled obsessive from \u2018Vertigo.\u2019\u201d Time had already taken its toll: \u201cHis beaming smile has lost its innocence.\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019ve rarely received as many angry responses as I did when my rave of \u201cMulholland Drive\u201d ran. People didn\u2019t just disagree; they seemed as enraged at my review as they were at the film. Among the most furiously voiced criticisms was that it just didn\u2019t make sense, leaving some viewers frustrated to the point of fury. The thing is, it had confused me as much as it had wowed me on first viewing. Movies are supposed to be obvious, but Lynch never was. Worse, he had made a work of art in an industry that disdains not just art \u2014 unless it hangs on mansion walls \u2014 but also artists who don\u2019t conform to its orthodoxies. If his relationship with Hollywood was difficult, it\u2019s because he never seemed part of it \u2014 artistically, spiritually or in any other way \u2014 even when he made more establishment-consecrated films.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n