These qualities made Lynch a uniquely thoughtful chronicler of sin, suffering, forgiveness, and redemption. He had immense empathy for his characters and the systems they were stuck in. He cared for the everyday people thrown into dangerous or tragic situations and the monsters who created those situations, often blurring the line between the two. Lynch’s movies frequently contain disturbing imagery, but they are always contrasted with moments illustrating how righteousness persists (or tries to) in horrible circumstances.
Take, for instance, the opening scene of the aforementioned Blue Velvet: After a montage of blue skies and white picket fences establish the town of Lumberton as a pleasant, upstanding community, we see a man watering his lawn, then collapsing, seemingly from a stroke. The camera pans down into the grass, which is crowded with bugs and grubs crawling over each other. Lumberton seems like a place where nothing bad happens, but below the surface, like those red ants, there’s as much corruption as anywhere else.
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