Blue Velvet effectively launched Lynch into the stratosphere of the public consciousness, and he followed up with both the landmark TV show Twin Peaks (1990), which sadly will not be represented in this retrospective for obvious reasons, and his most unhinged film Wild at Heart. Starring Nicolas Cage and Dern, it combines the fantastical tendencies of The Wizard of Oz with the rock and roll road movie. It is absolutely irrepressible, almost too insane for its own good (the combination of Cage and Willem Dafoe is a sight to behold), but it comes back, as it frequently does for Lynch, to love.
Unfortunately for Lynch, the brief love that the cultural zeitgeist ran out fairly quickly. By the finale of the protracted second season of Twin Peaks, public interest had faded, something only bolstered by the dismal reception towards Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. Fire Walk unfortunately isn't playing in this series, but it represents in many ways an important milestone for Lynch. It is, in my view, one of his greatest and most heart-wrenching works, but it was roundly ignored, and Lynch retreated once more into his more experimental tendencies.
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