"Smoking is part of my life as an artist." And David Lynch took it to the extreme. Until the emphysema that has caused his death due to being a heavy smoker since the age of eight. A child from Montana, still with baby teeth, already holding on to a cigarette that he refused to let go of. This is shown in many of the remaining images of him. Also in his filmography. And even in his last appearance on screen.
It was in 2022, when Steven Spielberg asked one of Hollywood's great cult directors to be part of the cast of The Fabelmans. Lynch, of course, initially said no. Until he was convinced by his friend Laura Dern -undisputed in Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart- and Spielberg granted him a wish: to have a bag of Cheetos in the dressing room. His role was very simple: to become John Ford for a few minutes. And he did, of course, with a big cigar in hand. With the assertiveness of the eternal smoker. With 70 years of nicotine in his lungs that have had enough.
Tobacco was one of his last declarations of love, even after being diagnosed with the lung problem that would eventually kill him. "I love tobacco, its smell, lighting cigarettes, smoking them...," the director stated through his social media last August. By then, he had been two years without smoking, but after the diagnosis, which occurred in 2020, he continued clinging to his endless cigarettes for another two years. Without leaving home, barely able to walk, and clinging to oxygen, but in love with tobacco. "This pleasure comes at a price," he acknowledged in that message.
The price was death, but it had also been eternity in his film career. The creation of an image always associated with a cigarette between his fingers. It is not difficult to find one of those images from the beginning, filming the terrifying Eraserhead in the late 70s, where he began to forge his personality as an independent filmmaker, even though it took six years to finance the project. Just the poster itself shows the importance of tobacco in his life. The head of a disheveled Jack Nance is covered by a whitish beret more reminiscent of a cigarette than a foggy day.
Nine years later, Lynch would leave one of the most remembered scenes in his cinema with, indeed, a cigarette among the protagonists. It was in Blue Velvet when an unexpectedly emotional Dennis Hopper -whose role was that of a ruthless mobster- watches Dean Stockwell, the pub owner where the encounter takes place, performing the magnificent ballad that is In Dreams by Roy Orbison. In his left hand, he holds the microphone, but in his right hand, he swings, like a showgirl, an elongated cigarette holder with a cigarette at the end.
In dreams I walk with you / In dreams I talk to you / In dreams you're mine all of the time plays in the background while the smoke from the cigarette is barely visible on stage. Also barely visible was the smoke from the cigarette that Laura Dern, accompanied by Nicolas Cage, smoked in the convertible in Wild at Heart.
And who could unlink tobacco from Twin Peaks. What sense would all that dreamlike, surreal, indescribable universe have had without the smoke of cigarettes running freely. Laura Palmer lying in bed with an ashtray by her side while turning the pages of a book. Laura Palmer, with a Zippo in her hands. Laura Palmer, enveloped in red light with a suggestive cigarette between her fingers. Laura Palmer, simply Laura Palmer and tobacco.
Because no matter how much he tried to quit, he could never do it, just as tobacco will never be separated from the filmography of the man who became the very image of cult. "Many times [I tried to quit], but when it got tough, I smoked the first cigarette and it was a one-way trip to heaven," he admitted in an interview with People.
David Lynch holding onto his endless cigarette. Until it burned out.