‘The Ultimate QFT Filmmaker’ – David Lynch and Belfast

By Katie Ward

When the horizon’s at the bottom, it’s interesting. When the horizon’s at the top, it’s interesting. When the horizon’s in the middle, it’s boring as shit.’

So said David Lynch, portraying John Ford in the 2022 film The Fablemans – what would be his final onscreen appearance. Though this was not Lynch’s directorial work, it was a summative and fitting send-off for the Montana-born filmmaker, who succumbed to his emphysema in the beginning of January at the age of 78. Throughout his life, Lynch thrived on pushing horizons every which way, dwelling solely in the realm of ‘interesting.’ Convention, centrality, boredom – these were foreign concepts to him.   

From his radical debut, the surreal and hellish Eraserhead (1977) until his much anticipated Twin Peaks: The Return (2017), Lynch was brave, wildly imaginative and compassionate in his work, managing to marry the most universal fundaments of the human condition with the highly irregular. Dream logic and absurdity trademark Lynch’s works, like the feverish Mulholland Drive (2001), which strays wildly from real life yet remains firmly rooted in humanity. Watching a David Lynch project, it often feels like he was privy to some higher plane of existence – one that he periodically pulled back a curtain to, making the stories he shared feel like some grand act of generosity on his part. His surrealist style, though groundbreaking, was not always received positively – or understood at all. Lynch, however, was never very interested in explaining. ‘As soon as you finish a film’, he said, while being interviewed for Angela Ismailos’ 2009 film Great Directors, ‘people want you to talk about it. And it’s, um, the film is the talking.’  

This commitment to the surreal and undefinable cemented Lynch as one of the greats. His hugely successful Twin Peaks and his cult classics such as Blue Velvet (1986) and Lost Highway (1997) made his sphere of influence almost unavoidable, with countless artists citing Lynch as their inspirations – so much so that the term ‘Lynchian’ became popular among film critics to describe anything reminiscent of his work [2]. This sphere of influence reached us here in Belfast on a very personal scale. I spoke to Michael Staley, programmer at Queen’s Film Theatre, about how Lynch has influenced him and the entirety of the QFT team. 

For Staley, Twin Peaks was a gateway drug. ‘‘I was 16 when [Twin Peaks] was first broadcasted on the BBC back in 1990’, he said. ‘I’d never seen anything like it before […] it naturally led me to explore Lynch’s filmography. I was lucky to be able to see five of his films in the cinema on release […] Each film was a beautiful, self-contained world, unlike anything else, and further cemented my love of Lynch and love of cinema. I’m sure there was a part of me that had Lynch at the back of my mind when I started working at QFT in 2008. He is perhaps the ultimate QFT filmmaker: his films can be challenging, but they are hugely popular, he somehow made the avant-garde accessible.’ 

In 2007, Lynch was invited to Belfast to break ground on a brand new transcendental meditation centre on the Belfast peace line. During his stay, he gave a talk at the Whitla Hall and introduced a screening of his 1980 film The Elephant Man. Staley was fortunate enough to attend both events. 

‘The atmosphere [at the Whitla Hall] was slightly odd – no-one knew what to expect,’ he recalled. I […] remember Lynch closing his eyes tightly as he answered each question, letting the answers come through him somehow, while holding one hand in front of him and twirling his fingers constantly.’ Of the Elephant Man introduction, Staley says; ‘It was a thrill […] for some reason there was very little light at the front of the screen, so Lynch was barely visible. But that added to the Lynchian nature of the whole thing.’ 

Staley calls Lynch’s death ‘a huge shock for the entire QFT team […] I’ve programmed his films regularly over the years, and luckily our LUMI young programmers are also fans, recently choosing Mulholland Drive and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me for their monthly slots.’ 

‘I don’t usually programme tribute screenings, but I broke my rule for Lynch’, he added. ‘Lynch  is so important to QFT and our audience that I’m planning a full retrospective of [his] films for the summer.’ 

So Lynch’s legacy lives on – and, in a way, Lynch himself lives on with it, on the other side of the curtain. As his collaborator and friend Mark Frost put it; ‘mourn and remember him but don’t forget to celebrate too. We won’t see his like again. The man from another place has gone home.’ [3] 

Sources: 

[1]Pulver, Andrew; David Lynch, Twin Peaks and Mulholland Drive director, dies aged 78 https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/jan/16/david-lynch-twin-peaks-and-muholland-drive-director-dies-aged-78

[2] Lynchian, adj. meanings, etymology and more | Oxford English Dictionary 

[3] https://bsky.app/profile/markfrost.bsky.social/post/3lfvbjtodks2k