David Lynch has emphysema and will only be able to direct remotely from now on

David Lynch hasn’t directed a feature film since Inland Empire in 2006, but he has directed many shorts since then, as well as all 18 episodes of Twin Peaks: The Return and videos for some of the songs from Cellophane Memories, the new music album he has sent out into the world with Chrystabell (copies of the album are available to order at THIS LINK). A while back, we heard that he’s hoping to make an animated film called Snootworld, which was rejected by the Netflix streaming service, but that he was thinking of passing the helm over to a different director. Now we know why Lynch hasn’t been directing much lately: in an interview with Sight and Sound magazine, he revealed that he has emphysema and will only be able to direct remotely from now on.

Lynch lives in “relative isolation,” so interviewer Sam Wigley asked him if the idea of returning to a film set feels daunting. Lynch replied, “I’ll tell you, I’ve gotten emphysema from smoking for so long, and so I’m homebound whether I like it or not. I can’t go out. And I can only walk a short distance before I’m out of oxygen. Smoking was something that I absolutely loved but, in the end, it bit me. It was part of the art life for me: the tobacco and the smell of it and lighting things and smoking and going back and sitting back and having a smoke and looking at your work, or thinking about things; nothing like it in this world is so beautiful. Meanwhile, it’s killing me. So I had to quit it. And now, because of Covid, it would be very bad for me to get sick, even with a cold. So I probably would be directing from my house. And because of Covid, they’ve now invented ways where you can direct from home. I wouldn’t like that so much. I like to be there amongst the thing and get ideas there. But I would try to do it remotely, if it comes to it.“

Still, Lynch hasn’t given up on the idea of bringing more stories and ideas to the screen. He said, “Well, we don’t know what the future will bring, but we remain hopeful.”

Fans have been hoping to see more from Lynch, whether it be Snootworld, more Twin Peaks, or a movie called Antelope Don’t Run No More, which he wrote after Inland Empire, and some have said that has the best script Lynch has ever written. So hopefully he will be able to bring more stories to the screen, whether that requires handing projects over to different directors or directing remotely. John Carpenter recently directed the TV series Suburban Screams remotely and loved the experience, so maybe Lynch could also enjoy it if he gave it a try.

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