Both hailed and reviled, Blue Velvet was rejected by the Venice film festival. Lynch’s scarcely less controversial follow-up, Wild at Heart, starring Laura Dern and Nicolas Cage as a young couple on the run in the American southwest, won the Palme d’Or at the 1990 Cannes film festival.

David Lynch, who died Thursday, combined Eisenhower-era innocence & experimental cinema to forge a disturbing, darkly hilarious look at American life

David Lynch, the creator of the television series "Twin Peaks" and the director of "Dune," passed away at the age of 78.

Lynch was far more revered in Europe than in America, but he was a particularly American artist. Like one of his idols, Elvis Presley, Lynch was one those unique cultural figures who embodied both the optimism and nightmare of the American dream.

David Lynch, the American filmmaker, writer and artist who scored best director Oscar nominations for Blue Velvet, The Elephant Man and Mulholland Drive has died at age 78As per the statement shared by his family on Thursday said,

A visionary, his films included “Eraserhead,” “Blue Velvet” and “Mulholland Drive.” He also brought his skewed view to the small screen with “Twin Peaks.”

David Lynch has died at 78. The filmmaker was celebrated for his uniquely dark vision in such movies as “Blue Velvet” and “Mulholland Drive” and the TV series “Twin Peaks.”

David Lynch, who made films and television shows unlike anyone else, has died at 78, his family said in a statement Thursday.

His sinister, surreal vision of America made him a leading counterculture auteur — with movies such as Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart and Mulholland Drive, and the groundbreaking TV series Twin Peaks.