David Lynch, co-creator of the series Twin Peaks and director of Mulholland Drive and Blue Velvet, announced on Monday that he had been diagnosed with emphysema but emphasized that he would not retire.
The 78-year-old visionary revealed in the September issue of Sight & Sound magazine that he has been diagnosed with the lung disease and can’t leave the house anymore.
“I’ve gotten emphysema from smoking for so long, and so I’m homebound whether I like it or not,” he told the magazine. “I can’t go out. And I can only walk a short distance before I’m out of oxygen.”
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Yes, I have emphysema from my many years of smoking. I have to say that I enjoyed smoking very much, and I do love tobacco – the smell of it, lighting cigarettes on fire, smoking them – but there is a price to pay for this enjoyment, and the price for me is…
— David Lynch (@DAVID_LYNCH) August 5, 2024
According to the Cleveland Clinic, emphysema is a lung disease and a type of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) primarily caused by smoking, with symptoms including “shortness of breath, coughing, and fatigue.”
In a post via X, Lynch echoed his comments from the initial reveal, adding that “there is a price to pay” for his smoking habit, which he called an “enjoyment.”
“I have to say that I enjoyed smoking very much, and I do love tobacco—the smell of it, lighting cigarettes on fire, smoking them,” he described, clarifying that he has since quit. “I have now quit smoking for over two years. Recently I had many tests, and the good news is that I am in excellent shape except for emphysema. I am filled with happiness, and I will never retire.”
Lynch said any future directing he does would need to be from his house. Although he said he “wouldn’t like that so much,” he added that he would try directing remotely “if it comes to it.”
The filmmaker is perhaps best known for the television show Twin Peaks, an eerie mystery drama that was considered cutting-edge TV when it appeared on ABC in 1990. But who is the man who transcends artistic mediums?
Who is David Lynch?
Lynch was born in Missoula, MT, and moved around from place to place until he landed in Philadelphia, PA, where he enrolled in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.
Six Men Getting Sick (Six Times) (1967) was Lynch’s first charge into filmmaking as a student at the Pennsylvania Academy—an animated short featuring a group of people vomiting.
After a stint in Philadelphia, he moved to Los Angeles, CA, where he launched his film career. While working at the AFI Conservatory, Lynch created his first motion picture, Eraserhead (1977), a black-and-white surrealist horror film.
Aside from the previously stated films, Lynch also directed the 1984 version of Dune, which Lynch was disappointed with, blaming the finished product on its status as a studio picture and the subconscious compromises he made in his approach to it.
His work stretched out into the world of television, music, painting, and many other forms of art.
Lynch initially studied to be a painter. His painting is characterized by its absence of color. He believes that black is a liberating factor and uses it to make his works more dreamlike. In 2007, a major art retrospective on Lynch, The Air is on Fire, was displayed at the Fondation Cartier in Paris. This exhibition contained paintings, photographs, drawings, and other work, including site-specific installations.
And from 1983 to 1992, he had his own comic strip, The Angriest Dog in the World, featuring an angry dog chained to a stake in a yard.