David Lynch, the film director, ‘the visionary of America’s subconscious’ and a ‘a singular auteur whose films found poetry in the ugly underbelly of American life’ has died. He ‘saw that if the US dreamed of safety and prosperity and the suburban drive and the picket fence, it also dreamed of the opposite: of escape, danger, adventure, sex and death. And the two collided and opened up chasms and sinkholes in the lost highway to happiness.’
Best known for Twin Peaks, The Elephant Man, Dune, Blue Velvet he was described as ‘a purebred, corn-fed all-American surrealist and a man who insisted that below our manicured lawns and behind our tidy housefronts lay incomprehensible urges and unholy evil. In his work, the sunny American Dream and its nightmare subconscious were conjoined and inseparable, each unimaginable without the other.’
Blue Velvet for example was ‘a subversive coming-of-age tale in which the boyish naïf played by Kyle MacLachlan falls under the spell of a sexually masochistic chanteuse (Isabella Rossellini) and her brutal gangster lover (Dennis Hopper), it was wide-eyed and wondrous one moment, deeply disturbing the next.’
‘The movie haunts like a Freudian spectrograph of the country’s soul.’
According to ADB his first film which won awards was about an abused, bed-wetting boy who grew a kindly grandmother from a seed.
Despite the nightmares permeating his movies and creative subconscious he claimed to have had a happy childhood, albeit constantly moving because of his father’s job as a research scientist in agriculture.
Born 20 January 1946 3am Missoula, Montana, he had a sharp-witted, communicative Capricorn Sun Venus conjunction and Mercury in his 3rd house opposition Mars Saturn in Cancer in his 9th square a 12th house Jupiter.
Mars Saturn can be a destructive energy and juxtaposed with an amplified Jupiter may have given him his sense of a two-tier life/society. Jupiterian success and sunny smiles on the the one hand and ruthless/perverted Saturn Mars on the other. His Uranus in his 8th would also give him a doorway into deeper realities as would his 8th house North Node.
His 10th house Virgo Moon conjunct his Midheaven suited him for a career that brought him into contact with the public But being unaspected would give him a sense of disconnection with his environment initially at home and later with society. It would make him vulnerable and feel unsupported, perhaps one reason he ‘let in’ the horrors that lurked below the surface which most manage to blot out.
Mel Brooks described him as “Jimmy Stewart from Mars.”
He has Black Moon Lilith exactly conj his Asc, trine Mars-Saturn, 8th, which
explains his dark themes with sadism, sex, in movies like Blue Velvet.
Is anything known about his particular hairstyle and does it show in his natal chart?
@El Aznar, his whole look was quintessential Scorpio/Capricorn, which would very much be all black, all graphic, up to the hair. It’s popular with artists, but those who carry it naturally tend to have these placements. I have Capricorn Moon and Scorpio Venus/Uranus, but Libra Sun and Virgo Ascendant fight back just enough make black and white prints and contrasted looks my best choice.
And on style, in general, I find that overall, before everybody and their dog had a stylist, it was really easy to connect celebrities and their looks to Sun, Moon, Venus, and Ascendant. One of my favourite examples is Catherine Deneuve. She is a perfect Libra/Leo/Capricorn mix.
I have my Virgo Pluto rising, Venus in Virgo, Sun in Libra, Moon in Scorpio. As a teen, I went straight from boho to New Wave to Goth, head to toe in black. I remember at the time my dad used to joke about it and ask me if I was thinking of becoming a pallbearer.
Thank you for this. I love Capricornian fashion. There’s a Serbian designer, Dragana Ognjenović, known for her signature black and white look, only rarely venturing into other colours (sometimes bolder):
https://www.gettyimages.at/fotos/dragana-ognjenovic
I think she’s a Sun & Moon in Capricorn.
Also Uranus squares his Moon, and aspects Sun Venus Mercury for that shock of hair?
Many thanks, Marjorie. I was mid teens when ‘Erasurehead’ was released and it seemed at the time to fit so neatly into the iconoclastic Punk movement zeitgeist. I consider myself lucky to have been young and impressionable at a time of so many super talented, daring and innovative film directors, such as Derek Jarman, Ken Russell, David Lynch and Lindsay Anderson. According to Lynch, he made ‘Erasurehead’ just as he was about to become a father for the first time, living in an unpleasant, impoverished neighbourhood in Philadelphia and the film reflected his fears and anxiety at the prospect of impending parenthood. ‘Erasurehead’ spawned a whole ‘look’ for male art students of the time – the punk shock of hair jarring with the conventional formal suit.
Looking at his astrology, it seems to me that the Mars/Saturn in Cancer opposite his Capricorn Sun, Venus, Mercury does bring to mind some of the perennial characters and themes that populate his fims. The psychopathic ‘Frank’ in ‘Blue Velvet’ for instance is an embodiment of Jung’s ‘terrible father’ or ‘ogre’ parental archetype (Mars, Saturn in Cancer opposite Sun, Venus in Capricorn) who Jeffrey – the young protagonist – encounters following his own father’s hospitalisation after an accident. It’s a right of passage narrative in which the young, naive, innocent youth faces darkness, corruption and evil in the world as well as the ambivalence of parental figures, with Frank’s coerced lover, Dorothy as a tragic Mother/Lover archetype. Lynch is so good at juxtaposing the mundane, cosy, mom and apple pie vision of America with the bizarre and the out of place, such as the image of the severed ear, lying on a neatly mowed lawn and white picket fence which the protagonist finds at the beginning of the film.
R. I. P. I shall really miss him.
* Apologies – ‘Eraserhead’
I agree that BV is the sickest film ever made. His films and Tv shows— anything to do with him made me nauseous. I have Neptune conjunct Venus in the 7th and an 8th house stellium. He has always rubbed me the wrong way and I got such creepy vibes from him. What in his chart would indicate his support for Roman Polanski? He signed a letter of support for him. Also, he started smoking at the age of eight and quit in 2022. I’m surprised he smoked while being a meditator.
Different strokes. For me, the most nauseating film ever made is ‘Love, Actually’.
Yes-that movie is so awful! There’s a scathing review (fairly recent) of it at Jezebel.com. Worth reading, IMO.
Oh thanks for the recommendation, Amelia. I never grow tired of loathing it!
Mean Lilith is at 18 Scorpio, conjunct his Ascendant. From Astrodienst : “Blue Velvet,” was voted the Best Film by the National Society of Film Critics and called by other reviewers “the sickest movie ever made” for its sado-masochism.
It’s just occurred to me that Lynch’s Capricorn Sun as well as his Mars, Saturn conjunction in Cancer runs alongside the USA’s slightly paranoid, conspiracy-loving Mercury 24 Cancer, Pluto 27 Capricorn opposition. That makes a lot of sense to me. His is tapping into America’s dark side.
What a huge and fascinating talent David Lynch expressed, and so endlessly influential too.
The USA Pluto/Mercury is interesting, perhaps particularly in the ‘mother’ and ‘father’ signs of Cancer and Capricorn – that whole era of the old so-called American Dream with it’s white picket fences and stable family lives.
I was curious about the American horror novelist Stephen King, who has also dug beneath the neat suburban neighbourhoods to release the darkness. He has Mars 24 Cancer (21 September 1947), conjunct that US Mercury in Cancer. It trines his Jupiter in Scorpio, and opposes Black Moon Lilith in Capricorn.
Stephen King’s Mean BML at 26 Capricorn (on his Descendant) is conjunct the USA’s 27 Capricorn Pluto (opposition Mercury). Rather apt for the “King of Horror”?
Yes, Sarah K, indeed it is.
I noticed that the Pluto/Mercury US opposition is also reflected in Roman Polanski’s natal chart – Pluto 23 Cancer, Moon 22 Cancer square Uranus 27 Aries, Mars 24 Libra. Black Moon Lilith 22 Gemini connects with the US Mars square Neptune (films).
His hit film Rosemary’s Baby, was based on the novel by Ira Levin – Venus/Pluto in Cancer on the US Mercury, sextile Mercury in writer’s Virgo, and Mars just into Libra. The story also shows the conventional veneer being torn apart when an attractive, educated young couple are seduced and groomed by elderly Satanists in their charming NYC apartment building.
Levin’s Stepford Wives is another tale of fantastical horror flourishing in a suburban setting.
Good spot VF about tapping into America’s dark side
Sad to see this. Coincidentally someone recently returned my boxset of Twin Peaks – a series which fascinated me as a teenager and probably appealed to my Aquarian placements. It was ahead of its time in its weirdness and yet paved the way for series like The X-Files, Lost, Stranger Things and so on. Worth mentioning that The Elephant Man and The Straight Story are both diversions from his usual style. Both are true stories without the embellishment modern filmmakers would feel a need to add, the latter is a heartwarming watch. Mulholland Drive is often mentioned as one of the best films of this century and it is very intriguing. Watched Dune last year for the first time and yes, it’s incomprehensible – stunningly beautiful visuals but incomprehensible!
His chart just doesn’t seem anything like I’d have expected.
@Gnarly Dude, I think his Gemini Uranus inconjunct Capricorn Mercury is the key to the weird twist to mundane things running through his catalogue. Even his weather reports.
Good spot. Beyond the weirdness, I would never have guessed film maker. But arguably with planets across the 3rd – 9th and nodes across Gemini-Sag he is communicating and publishing.
So unexpected, and a bit disturbing that he is gone. I didn’t see it coming at all.
He was also a big fan of Transcendental Meditation.