Like all of us, Margaret Qualley will not forget impact David Lynch had at the cinema.
The “Substance” actress looked back at how the late auteur Lynch inspired her own cinephile tastes and filmography. Lynch died this week at the age of 78.
“I adore him,” Qualley told IndieWire. “I think”Blue velvet‘ may be the first film of his that I saw when I was like 16. It still stays with me in such a deep way. Those images and Isabella Rossellini’s performance… I will forever be inspired by him, like everyone else.”
Qualley also cited how Transcendental Meditation “changed her life” thanks to Lynch’s practice.
“He has some quote about how people believe that Vincent van Gogh’s suffering and his pain were a sign of his art. And (Lynch) talked about how he thinks that probably actually limits his art, and he could have been a lot more productive if he hadn’t been in so much pain,” Qualley said. “And I thought that was such an astute point in that sense, like dismissing the idea of the struggling artist and the amount of suffering that someone has to go through to be able to make sound work. I feel like that’s something that actors specifically have been plagued with of, in the sense that you have to expose yourself to it to become good.”
She continued, “I think the pursuit of joy and happiness and family and a beautiful life and working from that place is so inspiring, and to be able to look to David Lynch as someone who was capable of absolutely limitless creativity and had the ability to go in all sorts of emotional directions while striving to be happy is really special.”
Lynch’s quote in full reads: “You don’t have to suffer to show suffering. You don’t have to be filled with chaos to show chaos. Have that in the story. I don’t know what goes on in the artists’ heads, but I think all the great artists loved to work. Many say: ‘Well, suffering is good for art,’ they say. ‘Let’s take a look at van Gogh, because he The only time he was happy was when he was painting. And the rest of his life was pretty miserable. He was really hungry is just common sense. Suffering is reduced. Negativity is the enemy of creativity.”
He later said“People can bring up Vincent van Gogh as an example of a painter who did great work despite, or because of, his suffering. I don’t think it was the pain that made him so great, I think painting gave him what happiness than he had.”
