Dreams & Nightmares: A David Lynch Marathon

Filmmaker. Painter. Photographer. Eagle Scout. All-American original. How does one synthesize the multitudes of the late David Lynch? A grandmaster who deftly merged pop surrealism with the shadows of Americana, Lynch luxuriated in and laid bare the myths of a nation’s dream life—blending oneiric logic, elliptical narratives, and the tropes of Classical Hollywood into something wholly his own. Though he may have departed our realm, he’s left behind a body of work that will be savored and debated for as long as cinema endures. 

To commemorate what would have been the maestro’s 80th birthday, the Colonial Theatre presents a day-long marathon of three seminal Lynch classics—each paired with a thematically resonant short film. A companion exhibition featuring work by local artists will also be on view in the Garden Suite. 

SCHEDULE

11:30am: Doors open, gallery opens 

12:30pm: Announcements 

12:40pm: Asparagus (dir. Suzan Pitt, 1979) – 18 minutes 

1:00pm: Eraserhead (dir. David Lynch, 1977) – 89 minutes 

2:30pm: 15-minute intermission 

2:45pm: Meshes of the Afternoon (dir. Maya Deren, 1943) – 14 minutes 

3:00pm: Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (dir. David Lynch, 1992) – 134 minutes 

5:15pm: Dinner Break (60 minutes) 

6:15pm: Un Chien Andalou (dir. Luis Buñuel, 1929) – 21 minutes 

6:40pm: Lost Highway (dir. David Lynch, 1997) – 134 minutes 

8:55pm: End of Show 

PROGRAM NOTE

We begin by channeling the spirit of New York City’s legendary Elgin Theatre, where Eraserhead became a fixture of the midnight-movie circuit, by emulating the original bill: pairing Lynch’s 1977 debut brain-scrambler with Suzan Pitt’s critically acclaimed short film Asparagus — a surreally perverse, hand-painted vision that perfectly complements the homegrown quality of Lynch’s nightmarish world where industrial hum, psychic dread, and sexual and parental anxiety conduct an unearthly dance. 

The dread of small-town horror and domestic entrapment punctuates our second feature, 1992’s Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, Lynch’s feature-length prequel to his groundbreaking ABC television series, in which we glimpse the final days of Laura Palmer before she was found dead, wrapped in plastic. Opening with the image of a television set being pulverized, this is no mere continuation of the series’ infectiously quirky tone. Once dismissed as a failure, Fire Walk With Me has since resurfaced from critical exile to claim its place among Lynch’s greatest achievements. It will be preceded by Maya Deren’s cornerstone of the American avant-garde, Meshes of the Afternoon — a oneiric domestic nightmare from the 1940s whose influence quietly set the tone for myriad filmmakers to follow, Lynch included. 

Finally, we conclude with 1997’s Lost Highway, Lynch’s descent into the shadowy corridors of identity, memory, and obsession. After Fire Walk With Me, he disappeared further down the narrative rabbit hole, dissolving linear causality into a nightmarish loop of doubling, paranoia, and spectral seduction. A cavalcade of enigmas, heralded by a ghostly voice proclaiming “Dick Laurent is dead,” Lost Highway careens wildly through noirish motifs — guilt, murder, and eroticism — and boasts a stellar cast including Bill Pullman, Patricia Arquette, Robert Loggia, Richard Pryor, and an unforgettably eerie Robert Blake. Preceding Lost Highway is Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí’s Un Chien Andalou, which effectively inaugurated cinematic surrealism and shares Lynch’s drive to jolt the viewer from complacency through disorienting logic and dreamlike mania.