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Adieu David Lynch – Till We Meet Again in the Script

It’s been a decade ago since I took my last, and only, screenwriting course at the Portland Community College in Oregon. The course could be taken twice so I took the first one in Spring 2014 and the last one in Fall 2014, a term that ended in December. Our instructor told us that we’d be picking a film director, read one of his movie scripts, analyze it in the context of the movie based on it, and also give a short presentation about key aspects of that director’s filmmaking talent. Soon as I learnt of the assignment, one name flashed in my head – David Lynch.

When Twin Peaks aired on Pakistan Television in early 1994, I was just 17. Since age 10 or so I had grown up watching English TV shows (English language shows from mainly America and UK but other countries as well) and select English feature films. I had been writing stories already and reading a lot. Twin Peaks instantly seized my viewer heart. The mystery involving many young characters of my age (back then) combined with the unique, nontraditional filming style and supernatural elements mingled with our day-to-day reality made the show a must-watch and must-remember for me. I have carried it with me ever since.

Later in life, after I got round-the-clock access to the internet, I watched David Lynch’s movies off and on, striking Eraserhead off my watch-list just a few months ago. My most favorite among Lynch’s movies remains Mulholland Drive that I’ve seen at least three times to date.

Back to 2014! I picked Mulholland Drive for my assignment. I found the script online, read it, outlined it, wrote an essay about it, and made a presentation highlighting the key features of Lynch’s work. And I did all this with great enthusiasm since it was not just another college assignment for me, but I was tapping into my timeless passion for Twin Peaks. I was 17 again!

There was more creative excitement coming from our screenwriting instructor. She told us that we should try to incorporate elements of our favorite director’s work into our screenplay that we’d be developing through the term (we were required to complete the first act – roughly 25 to 30 pages by the final week of the term). So I could be David Lynch in a manner of speaking? Wow!

My passion for creative writing and admiration for Lynch’s talent worked as a virtual rocket taking me to the outer limits of creative expression. I already had a premise to work on for the course. Now I needed to play Lynch as I wrote it; or should I say, Lynch my script. Thus started the story Birds of Sunwood – set in a small fictional town in Victorian England. All went well, the writing, presentation, the term, the grades. And then life happened to me.

For the next 10 years, Birds of Sunwood would sit patiently in the back row, waiting to be picked up and completed. And it’s still waiting. For a number of years over the past decade, it’s been on my mind that once I completed the script, I’d try to find a way to reach out to David Lynch and pitch Birds of Sunwood to him for possibly making it his production. As the calendar changed dates to 2025 a few weeks ago, I renewed my writing vow to finish the screenplay this year no later than end of summer. It shouldn’t wait anymore. But life is more in a rush. David Lynch passed yesterday. I had just woken up from sleep to go to the bathroom when I saw my filmmaker friend Joe’s message asking me if I had seen the news about Lynch’s passing. My mind half-numb from sleep took the blow and I read the news immediately on returning from bathroom. Sadness blanketed me and I tried to fall sleep again, finally succeeding. And there he was – David Lynch in my dream world.

The dream was long, vivid, somewhat dark, and somber, the details of which I may pen down after this write-up and include in my memoir about moving to America. But in short, Lynch visited me as a friend in my dream, seemingly like we’d been friends for years. Strange as I never saw him in person or even thought of seeing him in person except the times when I thought of him possibly producing Birds of Sunwood. There was this invisible connection, which I believe I have with all the Twin Peaks people. I feel this connection will never be lost.

Lynch’s passing hurt me but looking at his achievements, I feel he had a great life that touched so many other lives, many of them thousands of miles apart in small towns in countries like Pakistan (the wonders of television!). Someday Birds of Sunwood will be complete, provided life waits for it a little. And if/when it is made, it will be dedicated to David Lynch.

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3 thoughts on “Adieu David Lynch – Till We Meet Again in the Script”

  1. Brenda Martin says:

    I enjoyed reading your thoughts on David Lynch, and the premise of being intimately connected to someone whom you have never met. I have had feelings like that about relatives who died before I was even born – people that I am genetically connected to and I know a little about, who I feel are with me and a part of what I do and think about (even though I know they’re not), just as David Lynch and his characters are to you. And sometimes this connection has even caused me a strange feeling of loss, similar to what you may have felt today, at the loss of never being able to share your work with him. I actually don’t think this is strange but, rather, is a blessing.

  2. Dave says:

    I wrote this to Sahil Bloom yesterday:
    “The memory fades, the records fade, the brain eventually gets too old and the body supporting it dies, but the rest of us are still here, and you’ll all be there when I’m gone, except maybe for you, Sahil, and few hundred million other people who will die between now and my own death. Awareness goes on and on and on… I hope you understand why death isn’t ominous to me.”

    If that doesn’t do it for you, try this one: Do you remember what happened a few days before your 5th birthday? 4th? Christmas of your 6th year? Perhaps you could put some effort into figuring it out, but that little kid isn’t who you are any more. Who you’ll be in 10 years isn’t who you are today either, even if you do remember it as if it’s you. Our intimate access to our own memories certainly makes it seem like that’s all we are, but if we were also those 4, 5, and 6 years olds whose memories have faded so much, perhaps we can relate to “people we’ve never met” simply because we all have awareness, and awareness goes on and on and on.

  3. Annie Harmon says:

    When you were talking about how David appeared in your dream being “vivid, somewhat dark”, I thought it was going to be a twin peaks production! I do hope you finish that screenplay and somebody with David Lynch’s vision produces it.

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