Political and public views
Lynch has said that he is "not a political person" and that he knows little about politics.[89]: 103 Describing his political philosophy in 2006, he said, "at that time [the 1990s], I thought of myself as a libertarian. I believed in next to zero government. And I still would lean toward no government and not so many rules, except for traffic lights and things like this. I really believe in traffic regulations."[131] He continued: "I'm a Democrat now. And I've always been a Democrat, really. But I don't like the Democrats a lot, either, because I'm a smoker, and I think a lot of the Democrats have come up with these rules for non-smoking."[131] He has said he voted for Ronald Reagan in the 1984 U.S. presidential election; in the 2000 U.S. presidential election he endorsed the Natural Law Party, which advocated Transcendental Meditation.[132][89] He said he would vote for Democratic incumbent Barack Obama in the 2012 U.S. presidential election.[133]
In 2009, Lynch signed a petition in support of director Roman Polanski after Polanski's arrest on his 1977 sexual abuse charges. Polanski had been detained while traveling to a film festival. The petition argued the arrest would undermine the tradition of film festivals as a place for works to be shown "freely and safely", and that arresting filmmakers traveling to neutral countries could open the door "for actions of which no-one can know the effects."[134][135]
In the 2016 U.S. presidential election, he endorsed Bernie Sanders,[136] whom he described as "for the people",[137] He voted for Sanders in the 2016 Democratic primaries,[138] and for Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson in the general election.[139] In a June 2018 interview with The Guardian, he said that Donald Trump could go down as "one of the greatest presidents in history because he has disrupted the [country] so much. No one is able to counter this guy in an intelligent way." He added: "Our so-called leaders can't take the country forward, can't get anything done. Like children, they are. Trump has shown all this."[138] The interviewer clarified that "while Trump may not be doing a good job himself, Lynch thinks, he is opening up a space where other outsiders might."[138] At a rally later that month, Trump read out sections of the interview, claiming Lynch was a supporter.[140] Lynch later clarified on Facebook that his words were taken out of context, saying that Trump would "not have a chance to go down in history as a great president" if he continued on the course of "causing suffering and division" and advising him to "treat all the people as you would like to be treated".[141]
In one of his daily weather report videos, Lynch expressed support for Black Lives Matter protests.[142] In another such video, Lynch condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine and addressed Russian president Vladimir Putin directly, telling him there was "no room for this kind of absurdity anymore" and that Putin would reap what he had sown, lifetime after lifetime.[143]
–2009: Established career
That year, Lynch approached ABC again with ideas for a television drama. The network gave Lynch the go-ahead to shoot a two-hour pilot for the series Mulholland Drive, but disputes over content and running time led to the project being shelved indefinitely. But with $7 million from the French production company StudioCanal, Lynch completed the pilot as a film, Mulholland Drive. The film, a non-linear narrative surrealist tale of Hollywood's dark side, stars Naomi Watts, Laura Harring and Justin Theroux. It performed relatively well at the box office worldwide and was a critical success, earning Lynch Best Director at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival (shared with Joel Coen for The Man Who Wasn't There) and Best Director from the New York Film Critics Association. He also received his third Academy Award nomination for Best Director.[34] In 2016, the film was named the best film of the 21st century in a BBC poll of 177 film critics from 36 countries.[35]
With the rising popularity of the Internet, Lynch decided to use it as a distribution channel, releasing several new series he had created exclusively on his website, davidlynch.com, which went online on December 10, 2001.[36] In 2002, he created a series of online shorts, DumbLand. Intentionally crude in content and execution, the eight-episode series was later released on DVD.[37] The same year, Lynch released a surreal sitcom, Rabbits, about a family of humanoid rabbits. Later, he made his experiments with Digital Video available in the form of the Japanese-style horror short Darkened Room. In 2006, Lynch's feature film Inland Empire was released. At three hours, it is the longest of his films. Like Mulholland Drive and Lost Highway, it does not follow a traditional narrative structure. It stars Lynch regulars Laura Dern, Harry Dean Stanton and Justin Theroux, with cameos by Naomi Watts and Laura Harring as the voices of Suzie and Jane Rabbit, and a performance by Jeremy Irons. Lynch has called Inland Empire "a mystery about a woman in trouble". In an effort to promote it, he made appearances with a cow and a placard bearing the slogan "Without cheese there would be no Inland Empire".[38]
In 2009, Lynch produced a documentary web series directed by his son Austin Lynch and friend Jason S., Interview Project.[39] Interested in working with Werner Herzog, in 2009 Lynch collaborated on Herzog's film My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? With a nonstandard narrative, the film is based on a true story of an actor who committed matricide while acting in a production of the Oresteia, and starred Lynch regular Grace Zabriskie.[40] In 2009, Lynch had plans to direct a documentary on Maharishi Mahesh Yogi consisting of interviews with people who knew him,[41] but nothing has come of it.
–1976: Short films and Eraserhead
Back in the United States, Lynch returned to Virginia, but since his parents had moved to Walnut Creek, California, he stayed with his friend Toby Keeler for a while. He decided to move to Philadelphia and enroll at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, after advice from Fisk, who was already enrolled there. He preferred this college to his previous school in Boston, saying, "In Philadelphia there were great and serious painters, and everybody was inspiring one another and it was a beautiful time there."[11]: 36–37 It was here that he began a relationship with a fellow student, Peggy Reavey, whom he married in 1967. The following year, Peggy gave birth to their daughter Jennifer. Peggy later said, "[Lynch] definitely was a reluctant father, but a very loving one. Hey, I was pregnant when we got married. We were both reluctant."[11]: 31 As a family, they moved to Philadelphia's Fairmount neighborhood, where they bought a 12-room house for the relatively low price of $3,500 (equivalent to $32,000 in 2023) due to the area's high crime and poverty rates. Lynch later said:
We lived cheap, but the city was full of fear. A kid was shot to death down the street ... We were robbed twice, had windows shot out and a car stolen. The house was first broken into only three days after we moved in ... The feeling was so close to extreme danger, and the fear was so intense. There was violence and hate and filth. But the biggest influence in my whole life was that city.[11]: 42–43
Meanwhile, to help support his family, he took a job printing engravings.[11]: 43 At the Pennsylvania Academy, Lynch made his first short film, Six Men Getting Sick (Six Times) (1967). He had first come up with the idea when he developed a wish to see his paintings move, and he began discussing doing animation with an artist named Bruce Samuelson. When this project never came about, Lynch decided to work on a film alone, and purchased the cheapest 16mm camera that he could find. Taking one of the academy's abandoned upper rooms as a workspace, he spent $150,[17] which at the time he felt to be a lot of money, to produce Six Men Getting Sick.[11]: 37–38 Calling the film "57 seconds of growth and fire, and three seconds of vomit", Lynch played it on a loop at the academy's annual end-of-year exhibit, where it shared joint first prize with a painting by Noel Mahaffey.[11]: 38 [18]: 15–16 This led to a commission from one of his fellow students, the wealthy H. Barton Wasserman, who offered him $1,000 (equivalent to $8,800 in 2023) to create a film installation in his home. Spending $478 of that on the second-hand Bolex camera "of [his] dreams", Lynch produced a new animated short, but upon getting the film developed, realized that the result was a blurred, frameless print. He later said, "So I called up [Wasserman] and said, 'Bart, the film is a disaster. The camera was broken and what I've done hasn't turned out.' And he said, 'Don't worry, David, take the rest of the money and make something else for me. Just give me a print.' End of story."[11]: 39
With his leftover money, Lynch decided to experiment with a mix of animation and live action, producing the four-minute short The Alphabet (1968). The film starred Lynch's wife Peggy as a character known as The Girl, who chants the alphabet to a series of images of horses before dying at the end by hemorrhaging blood all over her bed sheets. Adding a sound effect, Lynch used a broken Uher tape recorder to record the sound of Jennifer crying, creating a distorted sound that Lynch found particularly effective. Later describing what had inspired him, Lynch said, "Peggy's niece was having a bad dream one night and was saying the alphabet in her sleep in a tormented way. So that's sort of what started The Alphabet going. The rest of it was just subconscious."[18]: 15–16 [11]: 39–40
Learning about the newly founded American Film Institute, which gave grants to filmmakers who could support their application with a prior work and a script for a new project, Lynch decided to send them a copy of The Alphabet along with a script he had written for a new short film that would be almost entirely live action, The Grandmother.[11]: 42 The institute agreed to help finance the work, initially offering him $5,000 out of his requested budget of $7,200, but later granting him the additional $2,200. Starring people he knew from both work and college and filmed in his own house,[11]: 44–47 The Grandmother featured a neglected boy who "grows" a grandmother from a seed to care for him. The film critics Michelle Le Blanc and Colin Odell wrote, "this film is a true oddity but contains many of the themes and ideas that would filter into his later work, and shows a remarkable grasp of the medium".[18]: 18
In 1970,[19] Lynch moved with his wife and daughter to Los Angeles, where he began studying filmmaking at the AFI Conservatory, a place he later called "completely chaotic and disorganized, which was great ... you quickly learned that if you were going to get something done, you would have to do it yourself. They wanted to let people do their thing."[11]: 57–58 He began writing a script for a proposed work, Gardenback, that had "unfolded from this painting I'd done". In this venture he was supported by a number of figures at the Conservatory, who encouraged him to lengthen the script and add more dialogue, which he reluctantly agreed to do. All the interference on his Gardenback project made him fed up with the Conservatory and led him to quit after returning to start his second year and being put in first-year classes. AFI dean Frank Daniel asked Lynch to reconsider, believing that he was one of the school's best students. Lynch agreed on the condition that he could create a project that would not be interfered with. Feeling that Gardenback was "wrecked", he set out on a new film, Eraserhead.[11]: 58–59
Eraserhead was planned to be about 42 minutes long (it ended up being 89 minutes), its script was only 21 pages, and Lynch was able to create the film without interference. Filming began on May 29, 1972, at night in some abandoned stables, allowing the production team, which was largely Lynch and some of his friends, including Sissy Spacek, Jack Fisk, cinematographer Frederick Elmes and sound designer Alan Splet, to set up a camera room, green room, editing room, sets as well as a food room and a bathroom.[11]: 59–60 The AFI gave Lynch a $10,000 grant, but it was not enough to complete the film, and under pressure from studios after the success of the relatively cheap feature film Easy Rider, it was unable to give him more. Lynch was then supported by a loan from his father and money that he earned from a paper route that he took up, delivering The Wall Street Journal.[11]: 60, 76 [20] Not long into Eraserhead's production, Lynch and Peggy amicably separated and divorced, and he began living full-time on set. In 1977, Lynch married Mary Fisk, sister of Jack Fisk.[11]: 60, 80, 110
Lynch has said that not a single reviewer of the film understood it in the way he intended. Filmed in black and white, Eraserhead tells the story of Henry (Jack Nance), a quiet young man living in a dystopian industrial wasteland, whose girlfriend gives birth to a deformed baby whom she leaves in his care. It was heavily influenced by the fearful mood of Philadelphia, and Lynch has called it "my Philadelphia Story".[11]: 56 [21]
Due to financial problems the filming of Eraserhead was haphazard, regularly stopping and starting again. It was in one such break in 1974 that Lynch created the short film The Amputee, a one-shot film about two minutes long. Lynch proposed that he make The Amputee to present to AFI to test two different types of film stock.[18]: 28–29
Eraserhead was finally finished in 1976. Lynch tried to get it entered into the Cannes Film Festival, but while some reviewers liked it, others felt it was awful, and it was not selected for screening. Reviewers from the New York Film Festival also rejected it, but it was screened at the Los Angeles Film Festival, where Ben Barenholtz, the distributor of the Elgin Theater, heard about it.[11]: 82–83 He was very supportive of the movie, helping to distribute it around the United States in 1977, and Eraserhead subsequently became popular on the midnight movie underground circuit,[11]: 54 and was later called one of the most important midnight movies of the 1970s, along with El Topo, Pink Flamingos, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Harder They Come and Night of the Living Dead.[22] Stanley Kubrick said it was one of his all-time favorite films.[11]: 77
–present: Weather reports and other projects
Lynch did weather reports on his now-defunct website in the 2000s.[66] He returned to doing weather reports from his apartment in Los Angeles, along with two new series, What is David Lynch Working on Today?, which details him making collages and Today's Number Is..., where each day he picks a random number from 1 to 10 using a jar containing ten numbered ping-pong balls. In one of his weather reports, he detailed a dream he had about being a German soldier shot by an American soldier on D-Day.[67][68] After his final weather report on December 16, 2022, Lynch said the series would not return, adding: "Now I can sleep longer in the morning. I had to get up very early to consult the real weather bulletin. In two years I have not missed a single one."[69]
In June 2020, Lynch rereleased his 2002 web series Rabbits on YouTube.[70][71] On July 17, 2020, his store for merchandise released a set of face masks with Lynch's art on them for the COVID-19 pandemic.[72] In February 2022, it was announced that Lynch had been cast in Steven Spielberg's film The Fabelmans in a role Variety called "a closely guarded secret", later revealed to be that of film director John Ford, whose encounter with Spielberg is dramatized in the film's final moments, with the film's protagonist Sammy Fabelman (played by Gabriel LaBelle) in Spielberg's place.[73] Lynch and the cast were nominated for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.[74]
In August 2024, Lynch publicized that he had been diagnosed with emphysema, which he attributed to his years of smoking, and he could no longer direct in person. He said a project for Netflix, with working titles Wisteria and Unrecorded Night, had fallen through but that he would like to see his unproduced projects Antelope Don't Run No More and Snootworld realized.[75] Lynch confirmed he was working on existing projects as able, and later released a statement in which he said that he was in good health and had no plans to retire.[76]
Recurring collaborators
Lynch is also widely noted for his collaborations with various production artists and composers on his films and other productions.[85] He frequently worked with Angelo Badalamenti to compose music for his productions, former wife Mary Sweeney as a film editor, casting director Johanna Ray, and cast members Harry Dean Stanton, Jack Nance, Kyle MacLachlan, Naomi Watts, Isabella Rossellini, Grace Zabriskie, and Laura Dern.
Lynch first trained as a painter, and although he is now better known as a filmmaker, he has continued to paint. Lynch has stated that "all my paintings are organic, violent comedies. They have to be violently done and primitive and crude, and to achieve that I try to let nature paint more than I paint."[11]: 22 Many of his works are very dark in color, and Lynch has said this is because
I wouldn't know what to do with [color]. Color to me is too real. It's limiting. It doesn't allow too much of a dream. The more you throw black into a color, the more dreamy it gets ... Black has depth. It's like a little egress; you can go into it, and because it keeps on continuing to be dark, the mind kicks in, and a lot of things that are going on in there become manifest. And you start seeing what you're afraid of. You start seeing what you love, and it becomes like a dream.[11]: 20
Many of his works also contain letters and words added to the painting. He explains:
The words in the paintings are sometimes important to make you start thinking about what else is going on in there. And a lot of times, the words excite me as shapes, and something'll grow out of that. I used to cut these little letters out and glue them on. They just look good all lined up like teeth ... sometimes they become the title of the painting.[11]: 22
Lynch considers the 20th-century Irish-born British artist Francis Bacon to be his "number one kinda hero painter", stating that "Normally I only like a couple of years of a painter's work, but I like everything of Bacon's. The guy, you know, had the stuff."[11]: 16–17
Lynch was the subject of a major art retrospective at the Fondation Cartier, Paris from March 3 – May 27, 2007. The show was titled The Air is on Fire and included numerous paintings, photographs, drawings, alternative films and sound work. New site-specific art installations were created specially for the exhibition. A series of events accompanied the exhibition including live performances and concerts.[90]
His alma mater, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, presented an exhibition of his work, entitled "The Unified Field", which opened on September 12, 2014, and ended in January 2015.[91]
Lynch is represented by Kayne Griffin Corcoran in Los Angeles, and has been exhibiting his paintings, drawings, and photography with the gallery since 2011.[92]
His favorite photographers include William Eggleston (The Red Ceiling), Joel-Peter Witkin, and Diane Arbus.[93]
Lynch has been involved in several music projects, many of them related to his films, including sound design for some of his films (sometimes alongside collaborators Alan Splet,[94] Dean Hurley,[95] and Angelo Badalamenti[96]). His album genres include experimental rock, ambient soundscapes and, most recently, avant-garde electropop music. He produced and wrote lyrics for Julee Cruise's first two albums, Floating into the Night (1989) and The Voice of Love (1993), in collaboration with Badalamenti, who composed the music and also produced. In 1991, Lynch directed a 30-second teaser trailer for the Michael Jackson album Dangerous, personally requested by Jackson.[97] Lynch also worked on the 1998 Jocelyn Montgomery album Lux Vivens (Living Light), The Music of Hildegard von Bingen.[98] He composed music for Wild at Heart, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, Mulholland Drive, and Rabbits. In 2001, he released BlueBob, a rock album performed by Lynch and John Neff. The album is notable for Lynch's unusual guitar playing style. He plays "upside down and backwards, like a lap guitar", and relies heavily on effects pedals.[99] Most recently Lynch composed several pieces for Inland Empire, including two songs, "Ghost of Love" and "Walkin' on the Sky", in which he makes his public debut as a singer. In 2009, his new book-CD set Dark Night of the Soul was released.[100] In 2008, he started his own record label, David Lynch MC, which first released Fox Bat Strategy: A Tribute to Dave Jaurequi in early 2009.[101]
In November 2010, Lynch released two electropop music singles, "Good Day Today" and "I Know", through the independent British label Sunday Best Recordings. Describing why he created them, he stated that "I was just sitting and these notes came and then I went down and started working with Dean [Hurley, his engineer] and then these few notes, 'I want to have a good day, today' came and the song was built around that".[102] The singles were followed by an album, Crazy Clown Time, which was released in November 2011 and described as an "electronic blues album".[103] The songs were sung by Lynch, with guest vocals on one track by Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs,[104] and composed and performed by Lynch and Dean Hurley.[103] All or most of the songs for Crazy Clown Time were put into art-music videos, Lynch directing the title song's video.[105][106][107][108]
On September 29, 2011, Lynch released This Train with vocalist and longtime musical collaborator Chrystabell on the La Rose Noire label. [109] [110]
Lynch's third studio album, The Big Dream, was released in 2013 and included the single "I'm Waiting Here", with Swedish singer-songwriter Lykke Li.[111] The Big Dream's release was preceded by TBD716, an enigmatic 43-second video featured on Lynch's YouTube and Vine accounts.[112]
For Record Store Day 2014, David Lynch released The Big Dream Remix EP which featured four songs from his album remixed by various artists. This included the track "Are You Sure" remixed by Bastille. The band Bastille have been known to take inspiration from David Lynch's work for their songs and music videos, the main one being their song "Laura Palmer" which is influenced by Lynch's television show Twin Peaks.[113]
On November 2, 2018, a collaborative album by Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti, titled Thought Gang, was released on vinyl and on compact disc. The album was recorded around 1993 but was unreleased at the time. Two tracks from the album already appeared on the soundtrack from the 1992 movie Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me and three other tracks were used for the Twin Peaks TV series in 2017.[114][115]
In May 2019, Lynch provided guest vocals on the track "Fire is Coming" by Flying Lotus. He also co-wrote the track that appears on Flying Lotus' album Flamagra. A video accompanying the song was released on April 17, 2019.[116]
In May 2021, Lynch produced a new track by Scottish artist Donovan titled "I Am the Shaman". The song was released on May 10, Donovan's 75th birthday. Lynch also directed the accompanying video.[117]
Lynch designed and constructed furniture for his 1997 film Lost Highway, including the small table in the Madison house and the VCR case. In April 1997, he presented a furniture collection at the prestigious Milan Furniture Fair. "Design and music, art and architecture – they all belong together."[118]
Working with designer Raphael Navot, architectural agency Enia and light designer Thierry Dreyfus, Lynch has conceived and designed a nightclub in Paris.[119] "Silencio" opened in October 2011, and is a private members' club although is free to the public after midnight. Patrons have access to concerts, films and other performances by artists and guests. Inspired by the club of the same name in his 2001 film Mulholland Drive, the underground space consists of a series of rooms, each dedicated to a certain purpose or atmosphere. "Silencio is something dear to me. I wanted to create an intimate space where all the arts could come together. There won't be a Warhol-like guru, but it will be open to celebrated artists of all disciplines to come here to programme or create what they want."[120]
In 2006, Lynch wrote a short book, Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity, which describes his creative processes, stories from his career, and the benefits he has realized from his practice of Transcendental Meditation. He describes the metaphor behind the title in the introduction:
If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you've got to go deeper.
Down deep, the fish are more powerful and more pure. They're huge and abstract. And they're very beautiful.
The book weaves a nonlinear autobiography with descriptions of Lynch's experiences during Transcendental Meditation.[121]
Working with Kristine McKenna, Lynch published a biography-memoir hybrid, Room to Dream, in June 2018.[122]
–2019: Return to television
In 2010, Lynch began making guest appearances on the Family Guy spin-off The Cleveland Show as Gus the Bartender. He had been convinced to appear in the show by its lead actor, Mike Henry, a fan of Lynch who felt that his whole life had changed after seeing Wild at Heart.[42] Lady Blue Shanghai is a 16-minute promotional film that was written, directed and edited by Lynch for Dior. It was released on the Internet in May 2010.[43]
Lynch directed a concert by English new wave band Duran Duran on March 23, 2011. The concert was streamed live on YouTube from the Mayan Theater in Los Angeles as the kickoff to the second season of Unstaged: An Original Series from American Express. "The idea is to try and create on the fly, layers of images permeating Duran Duran on the stage", Lynch said. "A world of experimentation and hopefully some happy accidents".[44] The animated short I Touch a Red Button Man, a collaboration between Lynch and the band Interpol, played in the background during Interpol's concert at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in April 2011. The short, which features Interpol's song "Lights", was later made available online.[45]
It was believed that Lynch was going to retire from the film industry; according to Abel Ferrara, Lynch "doesn't even want to make films any more. I've talked to him about it, OK? I can tell when he talks about it."[46] But in a June 2012 Los Angeles Times interview, Lynch said he lacked the inspiration to start a new movie project, but "If I got an idea that I fell in love with, I'd go to work tomorrow".[47] In September 2012, he appeared in the three-part "Late Show" arc on FX's Louie as Jack Dahl. In November 2012, Lynch hinted at plans for a new film while attending Plus Camerimage in Bydgoszcz, Poland, saying, "something is coming up. It will happen but I don't know exactly when".[48] At Plus Camerimage, Lynch received a lifetime achievement award and the Key to the City from Bydgoszcz's mayor, Rafał Bruski.[49] In a January 2013 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Laura Dern confirmed that she and Lynch were planning a new project,[50][51] and The New York Times later revealed that Lynch was working on the script.[52] Idem Paris, a short documentary film about the lithographic process, was released online in February 2013.[53] On June 28, 2013, a video Lynch directed for the Nine Inch Nails song "Came Back Haunted" was released.[54] He also did photography for the Dumb Numbers' self-titled album released in August 2013.[55]
On October 6, 2014, Lynch confirmed via Twitter that he and Frost would start shooting a new, nine-episode season of Twin Peaks in 2015, with the episodes expected to air in 2016 on Showtime.[56] Lynch and Frost wrote all the episodes. On April 5, 2015, Lynch announced via Twitter that the project was still alive, but he was no longer going to direct because the budget was too low for what he wanted to do.[57] On May 15, 2015, he said via Twitter that he would return to the revival, having sorted out his issues with Showtime.[58] Showtime CEO David Nevins confirmed this, announcing that Lynch would direct every episode of the revival and that the original nine episodes had been extended to 18.[59] Filming was completed by April 2016.[60][61] The two-episode premiere aired on May 21, 2017.[62]
While doing press for Twin Peaks, Lynch was again asked if he had retired from film and seemed to confirm that he had made his last feature film, responding, "Things changed a lot... So many films were not doing well at the box office even though they might have been great films and the things that were doing well at the box office weren't the things that I would want to do".[63] Lynch later said that this statement had been misconstrued: "I did not say I quit cinema, simply that nobody knows what the future holds."[64]
Since the last episode of The Return aired, there has been speculation about a fourth season. Lynch did not deny the possibility of another season, but said that if it were to happen, it would not air before 2021.[65]
Cinematic influences and themes
I look at the world and I see absurdity all around me. People do strange things constantly, to the point that, for the most part, we manage not to see it. That's why I love coffee shops and public places—I mean, they're all out there.
Lynch has said his work is more similar to that of European filmmakers than American ones, and that most films that "get down and thrill your soul" are by European directors.[11]: 62 He has expressed his admiration for Federico Fellini,[11]: 62 Jean-Luc Godard,[77] Ingmar Bergman,[77] Werner Herzog, Alfred Hitchcock,[78] Roman Polanski, Jacques Tati,[11]: 62 Stanley Kubrick, and Billy Wilder. He has said that Wilder's Sunset Boulevard (1950) is one of his favorite pictures,[11]: 71 as are Kubrick's Lolita (1962), Fellini's 8½ (1963), Tati's Monsieur Hulot's Holiday (1953), Hitchcock's Rear Window (1954), and Herzog's Stroszek (1977).[11]: 21 He has also cited Herk Harvey's Carnival of Souls (1962) and Jerzy Skolimowski's Deep End (1970) as influences on his work.[79]
Several themes recur in Lynch's work. Le Blanc and Odell write, "his films are so packed with motifs, recurrent characters, images, compositions and techniques that you could view his entire output as one large jigsaw puzzle of ideas".[18]: 8 One of the key themes they note is the usage of dreams and dreamlike imagery and structure, something they relate to the "surrealist ethos" of relying "on the subconscious to provide visual drive". This can be seen in Merrick's dream of his mother in The Elephant Man, Cooper's dreams of the red room in Twin Peaks and the "dreamlike logic" of the narratives of Eraserhead, Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire.[18]: 8–9 Of his attitude to dreams, Lynch has said, "Waking dreams are the ones that are important, the ones that come when I'm quietly sitting in a chair, letting my mind wander. When you sleep, you don't control your dream. I like to dive into a dream world that I've made or discovered; a world I choose ... [You can't really get others to experience it, but] right there is the power of cinema."[11]: 15 His films are known for their use of magic realism. The motif of dreams is closely linked to his recurring use of drones, real-world sounds and musical styles.[80]
Another of Lynch's prominent themes is industry, with repeated imagery of "the clunk of machinery, the power of pistons, shadows of oil drills pumping, screaming woodmills and smoke billowing factories", as seen in the industrial wasteland in Eraserhead, the factories in The Elephant Man, the sawmill in Twin Peaks and the lawnmower in The Straight Story.[18]: 9–11 Of his interest in such things, Lynch has said, "It makes me feel good to see giant machinery, you know, working: dealing with molten metal. And I like fire and smoke. And the sounds are so powerful. It's just big stuff. It means that things are being made, and I really like that."[11]: 110
Another theme is the dark underbelly of violent criminal activity in a society, such as Frank Booth's gang in Blue Velvet and the cocaine smugglers in Twin Peaks. The idea of deformity is also found in several of Lynch's films, from The Elephant Man to the deformed baby in Eraserhead, as well as death from head wounds, found in most of Lynch's films. Other imagery common in Lynch's works includes flickering electricity or lights, fire, and stages upon which a singer performs, often surrounded by drapery.[18]: 9–11
Except The Elephant Man and Dune, which are set in Victorian London and a fictitious galaxy respectively, all of Lynch's films are set in the United States, and he has said, "I like certain things about America and it gives me ideas. When I go around and I see things, it sparks little stories, or little characters pop out, so it just feels right to me to, you know, make American films."[11]: 18 A number of his works, including Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks and Lost Highway, are intentionally reminiscent of 1950s American culture despite being set in later decades of the 20th century. Lynch has said, "It was a fantastic decade in a lot of ways ... there was something in the air that is not there any more at all. It was such a great feeling, and not just because I was a kid. It was a really hopeful time, and things were going up instead of going down. You got the feeling you could do anything. The future was bright. Little did we know we were laying the groundwork for a disastrous future.[11]: 3–5
Lynch also tends to feature his leading female actors in "split" roles, so that many of his female characters have multiple, fractured identities. This practice began with his casting Sheryl Lee as both Laura Palmer and her cousin Maddy Ferguson in Twin Peaks and continued in his later works. In Lost Highway, Patricia Arquette plays the dual role of Renee Madison/Alice Wakefield; in Mulholland Drive Naomi Watts plays Diane Selwyn/Betty Elms and Laura Harring plays Camilla Rhodes/Rita; in Inland Empire Laura Dern plays Nikki Grace/Susan Blue. The numerous alternative versions of lead characters and fragmented timelines may echo and/or reference the many worlds interpretation of quantum physics and perhaps Lynch's broader interest in quantum mechanics.[81] Some have suggested that Lynch's love for Hitchcock's Vertigo, which employs a split lead character (the Judy Barton and Madeleine Elster characters, both portrayed by Kim Novak) may have influenced this aspect of his work.[82][83]
His films frequently feature characters with supernatural or omnipotent qualities. They can be seen as physical manifestations of various concepts, such as hatred or fear. Examples include The Man Inside the Planet in Eraserhead, BOB in Twin Peaks, The Mystery Man in Lost Highway, The Bum in Mulholland Drive, and The Phantom in Inland Empire. Lynch approaches his characters and plots in a way that steeps them in a dream state rather than reality.[84]
–1999: Twin Peaks and stardom
Around this time, he met the television producer Mark Frost, who had worked on such projects as Hill Street Blues, and they decided to start working together on a biopic of Marilyn Monroe based on Anthony Summers's book The Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe, but it never got off the ground. They went on to work on a comedy script, One Saliva Bubble, but that did not see completion either.[11]: 156–157 [18]: 85 While talking in a coffee shop, Lynch and Frost had the idea of a corpse washing up on a lakeshore, and went to work on their third project, initially called Northwest Passage but eventually Twin Peaks (1990–91).[11]: 157 A drama series set in a small Washington town where popular high school student Laura Palmer has been murdered, Twin Peaks featured FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper (MacLachlan) as the investigator trying to identify the killer, and discovering not only the murder's supernatural aspects but also many of the townsfolk's secrets; Lynch said, "The project was to mix a police investigation with the ordinary lives of the characters." He later said, "[Mark Frost and I] worked together, especially in the initial stages. Later on we started working more apart." They pitched the series to ABC, which agreed to finance the pilot and eventually commissioned a season comprising seven episodes.[11]: 157–159
During season one Lynch directed two of the seven episodes, devoting more time to his film Wild at Heart, but carefully chose the other episodes' directors.[11]: 174–175 He also appeared in several episodes as FBI agent Gordon Cole. The series was a success, with high ratings in the United States and many other countries, and soon spawned a cult following. Soon a second season of 22 episodes went into production, but ABC executives believed that public interest in the show was decreasing. The network insisted that Lynch and Frost reveal Laura Palmer's killer's identity prematurely, which Lynch grudgingly agreed to do,[11]: 180–181 in what Lynch has called one of his biggest professional regrets.[26] After identifying the murderer and moving from Thursday to Saturday night, Twin Peaks continued for several more episodes, but was canceled after a ratings drop. Lynch, who disliked the direction that writers and directors took in the later episodes, directed the final episode. He ended it with a cliffhanger (like season one had), later saying, "that's not the ending. That's the ending that people were stuck with."[11]: 182
While Twin Peaks was in production, the Brooklyn Academy of Music asked Lynch and Badalamenti, who wrote the music for Twin Peaks, to create a theatrical piece to be performed twice in 1989 as a part of the New Music America Festival. The result was Industrial Symphony No. 1: The Dream of the Broken Hearted, which starred frequent Lynch collaborators such as Laura Dern, Nicolas Cage and Michael J. Anderson, and contained five songs sung by Julee Cruise. Lynch produced a 50-minute video of the performance in 1990.[18]: 55–56 Meanwhile, he was also involved in creating various commercials for companies including Yves Saint Laurent, Calvin Klein, Giorgio Armani and the Japanese coffee company Namoi, which featured a Japanese man searching Twin Peaks for his missing wife.[11]: 211–212
1990 was Lynch's annus mirabilis: Wild at Heart won the Palme d'Or at Cannes, and the television series Twin Peaks was proving a smash hit with audiences across the world. The musical/performance piece Industrial Symphony No. 1, which Lynch had staged with Angelo Badalamenti at the Brooklyn Academy of music, had spawned the album Floating into the Night and launched singer Julee Cruise. Five one-man exhibitions between 1989 and 1991 emphasized Lynch's roots in fine art and painting, and a rash of ads (including a teaser trailer for Michael Jackson's 'Dangerous' tour) confirmed the demand for the Lynch touch ... In an unlikely scenario for the maker of Eraserhead, Lynch had become an influential and fashionable brand name.
While Lynch was working on the first few episodes of Twin Peaks, his friend Monty Montgomery "gave me a book that he wanted to direct as a movie. He asked if I would maybe be executive producer or something, and I said 'That's great, Monty, but what if I read it and fall in love with it and want to do it myself?' And he said, 'In that case, you can do it yourself'." The book was Barry Gifford's novel Wild at Heart: The Story of Sailor and Lula, about two lovers on a road trip. Lynch felt that it was "just exactly the right thing at the right time. The book and the violence in America merged in my mind and many different things happened."[11]: 193 With Gifford's support, Lynch adapted the novel into Wild at Heart, a crime and road movie starring Nicolas Cage as Sailor and Laura Dern as Lula.[27] Describing its plot as a "strange blend" of "a road picture, a love story, a psychological drama and a violent comedy", Lynch altered much of the original novel, changing the ending and incorporating numerous references to The Wizard of Oz.[11]: 193–194, 198 Despite a muted response from American critics and viewers, Wild at Heart won the Palme d'Or at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival.[28]
After Wild at Heart's success, Lynch returned to the world of the canceled Twin Peaks, this time without Frost, to create a film that was primarily a prequel but also in part a sequel. Lynch said, "I liked the idea of the story going back and forth in time."[11]: 187 The result, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992), primarily revolved around the last few days in the life of Laura Palmer, and was much "darker" in tone than the TV series, with much of the humor removed, and dealing with such topics as incest and murder. Lynch has said the film is about "the loneliness, shame, guilt, confusion and devastation of the victim of incest". The company CIBY-2000 financed Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, and most of the TV series' cast reprised their roles, though some refused and many were unenthusiastic about the project.[11]: 184–187 The film was a commercial failure in the United States at the time of its release, but it has since experienced a critical reappraisal. A number of critics, such as Mark Kermode, have called it Lynch's "masterpiece".[29]
Meanwhile, Lynch worked on some new television shows. He and Frost created the comedy series On the Air (1992), which was canceled after three episodes aired, and he and Monty Montgomery created the three-episode HBO miniseries Hotel Room (1993) about events that happen in one hotel room on different dates.[18]: 82–84
In 1993, Lynch collaborated with Japanese musician Yoshiki on the video for X Japan's song "Longing ~Setsubou no Yoru~". The video was never officially released, but Lynch claimed in his 2018 memoir Room to Dream that "some of the frames are so fuckin' beautiful, you can't believe it."[30]
After his unsuccessful TV ventures, Lynch returned to film. In 1997, he released the non-linear noiresque Lost Highway, which was co-written by Barry Gifford and starred Bill Pullman and Patricia Arquette. The film failed commercially and received a mixed response from critics.[31][32]
Lynch then began work on a film from a script by Mary Sweeney and John E. Roach, The Straight Story, based on a true story: that of Alvin Straight (Richard Farnsworth), an elderly man from Laurens, Iowa, who goes on a 300-mile journey to visit his sick brother (Harry Dean Stanton) in Mount Zion, Wisconsin, by riding lawnmower. Asked why he chose this script, Lynch said, "that's what I fell in love with next", and expressed his admiration of Straight, describing him as "like James Dean, except he's old".[11]: 247, 252 Badalamenti wrote the music for the film, saying it was "very different from the kind of score he's done for [Lynch] in the past".[11]: 260
Among the many differences from Lynch's other films, The Straight Story contains no profanity, sexuality or violence, and is rated G (general viewing) by the Motion Picture Association of America, which came as "shocking news" to many in the film industry, who were surprised that it "did not disturb, offend or mystify".[11]: 245 Le Blanc and Odell write that the plot made it "seem as far removed from Lynch's earlier works as could be imagined, but in fact right from the very opening, this is entirely his film—a surreal road movie".[18]: 69 It was also Lynch's only title released by Walt Disney Pictures in the U.S., after studio president Peter Schneider screened the film before its Cannes Film Festival premiere and quickly had Disney acquire the distribution rights. Schneider said it is "a beautiful movie about values, forgiveness and healing and celebrates America. As soon as I saw it, I knew it was a Walt Disney film."[33]
Transcendental Meditation
Lynch advocates Transcendental Meditation as a spiritual practice.[145] He was initiated into Transcendental Meditation in July 1973, and has practiced the technique consistently since then.[146][147] Lynch says he met Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the founder of the TM movement, for the first time in 1975 at the Spiritual Regeneration Movement center in Los Angeles, California.[148][149] He became close with the Maharishi during a month-long "Millionaire's Enlightenment Course" held in 2003, the fee for which was $1 million.[150]
In July 2005, Lynch launched the David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and Peace,[13][151] established to help finance scholarships for students in middle and high schools who are interested in learning Transcendental Meditation and to fund research on the technique and its effects on learning. Together with John Hagelin and Fred Travis, a brain researcher from Maharishi University of Management (MUM), Lynch promoted his vision on college campuses with a tour that began in September 2005.[152] Lynch is on MUM's board of trustees[153] and has hosted an annual "David Lynch Weekend for World Peace and Meditation" there since 2005.[154]
Lynch was working for the building and establishment of seven buildings in which 8,000 salaried people would practice advanced meditation techniques, "pumping peace for the world". He estimates the cost at US$7 billion. As of December 2005, he had spent $400,000 of his money and raised $1 million in donations.[147] In December 2006, The New York Times reported that he continued to have that goal.[13] Lynch's book Catching the Big Fish (Tarcher/Penguin, 2006) discusses Transcendental Meditation's effect on his creative process. Lynch attended the funeral of the Maharishi in India in 2008.[150] He told a reporter, "In life, he revolutionized the lives of millions of people. ... In 20, 50, 500 years there will be millions of people who will know and understand what the Maharishi has done."[155] In 2009, Lynch went to India to film interviews with people who knew the Maharishi as part of a biographical documentary.[156][157]
In 2009, Lynch organized a benefit concert at Radio City Music Hall for the David Lynch Foundation. On April 4, 2009, the "Change Begins Within" concert featured Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Donovan, Sheryl Crow, Eddie Vedder, Moby, Bettye LaVette, Ben Harper, and Mike Love of the Beach Boys.[158] David Wants to Fly, released in May 2010, is a documentary by German filmmaker David Sieveking "that follows the path of his professional idol, David Lynch, into the world of Transcendental Meditation (TM)".[159][160] At the end of the film, Sieveking becomes disillusioned with Lynch.[161]
An independent project starring Lynch called Beyond The Noise: My Transcendental Meditation Journey, directed by film student Dana Farley, who has severe dyslexia and attention deficit disorder, was shown at film festivals in 2011,[162] including the Marbella Film Festival.[163] Filmmaker Kevin Sean Michaels is one of the producers.[164] In 2013, Lynch wrote: "Transcendental Meditation leads to a beautiful, peaceful revolution. A change from suffering and negativity to happiness and a life more and more free of any problems."[145]
In a 2019 interview of Lynch by British artist Alexander de Cadenet, Lynch said of TM: "Here's an experience that utilizes the full brain. That's what it's for. It's for enlightenment, for higher states of consciousness, culminating in the highest state of unity consciousness."[165] In April 2022, Lynch announced a $500 million transcendental meditation world peace initiative to fund transcendental meditation for 30,000 college students.[166]
Lynch designed his personal website, a site exclusive to paying members, where he posts short videos and his absurdist series Dumbland, plus interviews and other items. The site also featured a daily weather report, where Lynch gives a brief description of the weather in Los Angeles, where he resides. He continues to broadcast this weather report (usually no longer than 30 seconds) on his personal YouTube channel, DAVID LYNCH THEATER, along with "TODAY'S NUMBER", where he draws a random number, between one and ten, out of a bingo cage.[167][168] Lynch also created a short film, "Rabbits", for his website.[169] An absurd ringtone ("I like to kill deer") from the website was a common sound bite on The Howard Stern Show in early 2006.[170]
Lynch is a coffee drinker and has his own line of special organic blends available for purchase on his website and at Whole Foods.[171][172] Called "David Lynch Signature Cup", the coffee has been advertised via flyers included with several recent Lynch-related DVD releases, including Inland Empire and the Gold Box edition of Twin Peaks. The brand's tagline is "It's all in the beans ... and I'm just full of beans."[173][174] This is also a line said by Justin Theroux's character in Inland Empire.[175]
In an August 2024 interview with Sight and Sound, Lynch said he was suffering from emphysema due to years of smoking, and had become housebound due to health risks. He said this would likely preclude any further directorial projects.[176][177]
In November 2024, Lynch told People that he quit smoking in 2022, two years after he was diagnosed with emphysema, and that he had started smoking when he was 8. He said he is now reliant on supplemental oxygen for most daily activities. "I can hardly walk across a room", he said.[178]
Spanish footballer (born 1995)
, the first or paternal
and the second or maternal family name is
David Raya Martín (born 15 September 1995) is a Spanish professional footballer who plays as a goalkeeper for Premier League club Arsenal and the Spain national team.
Raya began his senior career in England with Blackburn Rovers. He made his professional breakthrough as part of the team that was promoted from League One in 2018. He transferred to Championship club Brentford in 2019 and was a part of the team that was promoted to the Premier League in 2021. In 2023, Raya joined fellow Premier League side Arsenal F.C. on loan, winning the Golden Glove award in his debut season and earning a permanent transfer the following summer.
Raya made his international debut for Spain in 2022, and was part of the squads for the 2022 FIFA World Cup as well as UEFA Euro 2024, which Spain won.
Born in Barcelona, Catalonia, Raya began his career in his native Spain and combined goalkeeping with playing as an outfield player in futsal.[5] He later played youth football for Cornellà, before moving to England to join Blackburn Rovers on a scholarship in July 2012.[6][2] Two years earlier, the transfer of Hugo Fernández to Ewood Park had led to an agreement between the two clubs for Cornellà players to join Blackburn Rovers for trials.[5] He progressed through the club's academy and signed a professional contract on 26 February 2014.[7] Raya gained his first senior experience with a four-month spell on loan at Conference Premier club Southport during the first half of the 2014–15 season and made 24 appearances.[8] After his return to Ewood Park, he made two late-season Championship appearances and signed a new three-year contract in April 2015.[9][10]
Despite making just 13 appearances during the 2015–16 and 2016–17 seasons,[11][12] Raya was Rovers' second-choice goalkeeper behind Jason Steele and was a frequent member of the matchday squad.[2][13] Rovers' relegation to League One at the end of the 2016–17 season saw Raya take over as the club's first-choice goalkeeper.[14][15] He made 47 appearances during the 2017–18 season and helped the club to automatic promotion straight back to the Championship.[14][16] He retained his place during 2018–19 and made 46 appearances during a season of consolidation in the Championship.[14][17] Raya departed Rovers in July 2019,[8] after making 108 appearances for the club.[18]
On 6 July 2019, Raya signed for Championship club Brentford on a four-year contract for an undisclosed fee,[8] reported to be in the region of £3 million.[19] Raya's performances during the first half of the 2019–20 season earned him a nomination for Goalkeeper of the Year at the 2020 London Football Awards and his 16 clean sheets in league matches during the season saw him share the EFL Golden Glove award with Bartosz Białkowski.[20][21] Raya made 49 appearances during a season which ended with a 2–1 2020 Championship play-off final defeat to West London rivals Fulham.[22][23]
Injury and transfer speculation led to Raya being left out of head coach Thomas Frank's matchday squads during the 2020–21 pre-season and early in the regular season.[24][25][13][26][27] After being reintegrated with two EFL Cup appearances and captaining the team in both matches,[28][29] he signed a new four-year contract on 2 October 2020.[30] Raya finished the 2020–21 season with 48 appearances, 17 clean sheets and a promotion medal,[28] earned with a 2–0 2021 Championship play-off final victory over Swansea City.[31] In his growing role as a sweeper-keeper, Raya attempted 300 more passes than any other Championship goalkeeper during the season.[5]
Raya began the 2021–22 season as a starter in Premier League matches,[32] before suffering a posterior cruciate ligament injury during a 2–1 defeat to Leicester City on 24 October 2021.[33] He returned to outdoor training on 10 January 2022.[34] After a behind closed doors friendly appearance on 1 February 2022,[35] Raya made his return to competitive match play with a start in a 4–1 FA Cup fourth round defeat to Everton four days later.[32] He was ever-present until the end of the campaign and finished a mid-table season with 25 appearances.[32][36]
Raya continued as a starter in league matches during the 2022–23 season and his performances during an unbeaten January 2023 (during which Brentford challenged the European places) saw him nominated for the Premier League Player of the Month award.[37][38][39] That same month, Raya rejected a second offer of a new contract.[38] He was a member of the club's leadership group during the 2022–23 season.[40][37] According to Opta Sports, Raya led all goalkeepers for both saves (154) and save percentage (77%) in the 2022–23 Premier League, becoming the only goalkeeper to top both categories in a single campaign in the competition since stats started being tracked in 2003–04.[41]
On 15 August 2023, Raya completed a season-long loan move to Arsenal,[42] becoming the fifteenth player from Spain to represent Arsenal's first team.[43] Arsenal paid £3 million to complete the loan deal, which has a purchase option of £27 million. As part of the deal, Raya signed a two-year contract extension with Brentford, which also includes a club option for an additional 12 months.[44][45] On 17 September, he made his debut as a starter for Arsenal against Everton at Goodison Park, replacing Aaron Ramsdale as Arsenal's starting goalkeeper.[46] Raya would later make his Arsenal home and Champions League debut against PSV Eindhoven on 20 September, keeping a clean sheet as the Gunners ran out 4–0 winners.[47] On 24 September, Raya started in the first North London Derby of the season against Tottenham Hotspur and had a mixed performance.[48] In reference to the replacement of Ramsdale with Raya as Arsenal's starting keeper, BBC journalist Phil McNulty stated in November 2023 that manager Mikel Arteta had to "face inevitable scrutiny about whether he has also reduced Arsenal's effectiveness and fluency by applying a fix to something that was not broken."[49]
On 12 March 2024, Raya saved two penalties in a penalty shootout win against Porto in the Champions League round of 16, which qualified his club to the quarter finals for the first time since the 2009–10 season, which McNulty stated "settled all lingering arguments about his status as Arsenal's first-choice goalkeeper".[50] On 20 April, Raya kept a sixth consecutive away clean sheet in the Premier League, becoming the second goalkeeper in the competition's history to achieve this feat, after Edwin van der Sar did so in 2008–2009.[51] On 4 May, he was confirmed as the outright winner of the 2023–24 Premier League Golden Glove, having kept the most clean sheets of any goalkeeper in the season.[52] Raya became the third Arsenal goalkeeper to claim the award after Wojciech Szczęsny and Petr Čech, and the third Spaniard to win the accolade after Pepe Reina and David de Gea.[52] Raya was later included in the PFA Premier League Team of the Year for the season.[53]
On 4 July, he completed his permanent move to Arsenal by signing a long-term contract.[54][55] In the game against Aston Villa on 24 August, he made a stunning one-handed stop to keep out Ollie Watkins's close-range header,[56][57][58] which would later win August 2024's Premier League Save of the Month award.[59] On 19 September, he saved a penalty against Italian side Atalanta taken by Mateo Retegui and the rebound header, becoming the fourth Arsenal goalkeeper to save a penalty in the Champions League, after Richard Wright, Jens Lehmann and Łukasz Fabiański.[60][61] In his post-match interview, Raya credited Arsenal's goalkeeping coach Iñaki Caña for the role he played in his double save against Atalanta.[62][63] He was later voted as Arsenal's Player of the Month for September.[64]
After failing to receive a call-up by Spain at youth level,[65] Raya won his maiden international call-up to the senior team for a pair of friendlies in March 2022.[66] He made his debut with a start in a 2–1 win over Albania on 26 March and remained an unused substitute in the second match.[66] Raya was an unused substitute during the entirety of Spain's victorious 2022–23 UEFA Nations League campaign.[13][67]
Raya was named in Spain's 2022 World Cup squad,[66] but prior to the team's exit in the round of 16,[68] his only match play during the period came with a second half substitute appearance in a pre-tournament friendly versus Jordan.[69]
He was part of the Spain squad that won UEFA Euro 2024.[70] He played one match, starting the final group stage match in a 1–0 win over Albania.[70]
A sweeper-keeper, Raya "is renowned as a vocal keeper, as well as one who is adept with the ball at his feet".[71] He "can play out from the back and is happy covering the space in behind", which allows a team "to play with a high line".[8] As a result of his and Brentford's style of play during the 2020–21 season, Raya attempted 300 more passes than any other goalkeeper in the Championship.[71]
In an exclusive interview with Sky Sports on 14 August 2024, Raya credited former Brentford and current Arsenal goalkeeping coach Iñaki Caña – who was a key figure in Raya's transfer from Blackburn to Brentford in 2019 and his move from Brentford to Arsenal in 2023[44][72] – for transforming the way he played.[73][74]
"He has changed my style of being a goalkeeper. If you watch highlights from me when I was back at Blackburn, you will see a keeper that just stood on the line, not coming for anything, rarely going for a cross, rarely going outside the box, rarely anticipating, just waiting to make that save.
"When I signed for Brentford, Iñaki just completely changed my style of being a goalkeeper, to be more proactive and anticipate stuff that has not happened yet. So, if you can go for a cross, just go for it. Don't wait for the save. Instead, avoid the chance. For balls in behind and all that, stay high as much as possible to be able to cut out the attack.
"If you see me at Blackburn and then after I signed for Brentford, it's two completely different goalkeepers. At Blackburn, I wasn't going for any crosses. And then at Brentford and here, I think my numbers on crosses are remarkable."
"I love it. It's one of the parts of being a goalkeeper I enjoy the most, especially playing for Arsenal. We need that extra player to get that security straight from the back. I love being part of the build-up, being part of trying to create goals and to create attacks.
"It's fun. I enjoy the challenge. I know there are going to be mistakes and goals conceded because of it, because that's the way we play. But that's the risk that we take and that's the risk that the manager wants us to take. The benefit is bigger than the risk, I think."
Raya grew up in Pallejà and is a Real Madrid supporter.[5][75] He is currently in a relationship with Tatiana Trouboul.[76]
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Jakarta (ANTARA News) - DJ asal Amerika David Morales ditangkap Minggu pagi di bandara Jepang selatan, dengan tuduhan menyelundupkan obat terlarang setelah sejumlah kecil ekstasi diduga ditemukan di dalam kopernya, ujar polisi dan media setempat.
Morales ditahan di Bandara Fukuoka setelah petugas bea cukai menemukan obat perangsang eforia MDMA, yang lebih dikenal sebagai ekstasi.
"Ia ditahan atas dugaan melanggar hukum pengendalian narkotika dan psikotropika," kata juru biacar polisi kepada AFP.
Petugas berwenang diduga menemukan lima butir MDMA -- seberat 0,3 gram -- dalam koper milik Morales, menurut suratkabar Asahi Shimbun.
Sementara Sankei Shimbun melaporkan bahwa DJ berusia 56 tahun itu membantah tuduhan tersebut, mengatakan: "Ini bukan milik saya. (Seseorang) mungkin telah mencoba menjebak saya".
Morales dijadwalkan tampil pada event di Fukuoka, Sabtu, dan di Tokyo Minggu, menurut laman tersebut.
Menurut laman pribadinya, Morales adalah tokoh tari berpengaruh New York pada masa 1980-an hingga 1990-an. Ia meremix dan memproduksi untuk artis termasuk Mariah Carey, Aretha Franklin, Michael Jackson dan Janet Jackson.
Ia dinominasikan untuk meraih Grammy Award untuk pertamakali pada 1996 sebagai produser bagi lagu Mariah Carey "Fantasy." Dua tahun kemudian, ia memenangi Grammy untuk "Remixer of the Year" demikian dikutip dari AFP.
Penerjemah: Fitri SupratiwiEditor: Unggul Tri Ratomo Copyright © ANTARA 2018
