The great thinkers and artists of history: They’re just like us! They have side hustles! Franz Kafka was an insurance officer. Philip Glass had a moving company and did plumbing and drove taxis in his downtime between compositions. And the late, inimitable David Lynch was a prolific director of commercials. After the legendary filmmaker’s death at the age of 78 on January 16, his ten feature films, iconic television series, and art shorts will be revisited and examined and adored by many. It’s interesting that one of the most uncompromising directors in film history funded his Art Life by making ads. And the ads, to no one’s surprise, are often good little short films in their own right. What would otherwise be ephemera are, in Lynch’s hands, thought-out, experimental, and entirely in his voice. And it’s not just in the already Surrealist genre of perfume ads, either, although there are a lot of those, too. As he once put it, “I do, sometimes, commercials to make money. But I always say, every time, I learn something: efficiency of saying something and new technologies.” No wonder he was a Mad Men fan. Below, a comprehensive look at Lynch as an Ad Man, from PSAs to PS2.
Fragrances
Obsession by Calvin Klein (1990)
David Lynch’s first-ever foray into the world of hawking tonics was for Calvin Klein, making four short ads for its fragrance Obsession. The ads are sensual and gorgeous, featuring actors like Benicio del Toro and Twin Peaks’s Heather Graham, Lara Flynn Boyle, and James Marshall shot in close-ups in moonlit black-and-white. Voice-overs reciting passages about desire from iconic authors F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, D.H. Lawrence, and Gustave Flaubert are underscored by Angelo Badalamenti getting sumptuous on the synth.
Trésor by Lancôme (1991)
This came out the same year its star, Isabella Rossellini, and Lynch broke up. But his camera is absolutely in love with her in this ad.
Gio by Giorgio Armani (1992)
This wordless short sees Lynch exercising pretty vast freedom, telling a noir-inflected glamorous-woman-in-trouble story intercut with the pseudo–“Who Killed Laura Palmer?” mystery “Who is Gio?” There is a great shot in this of a guy sort of doing an Elvis-ish, Risky Business–ish dance move and then disappearing into thin air.
Opium by Yves Saint Laurent (1992)
All warm reds and golds.
Background by Jil Sander (1993)
Lynch goes full Vertigo with the use of color in this minute-long spot, titled “Instinct of Life.” Clouds of smoke are lit up green and purple, there’s a live panther in the mix, and the music sounds pure Badalamenti.
Sun Moon Stars by Karl Lagerfeld (1994)
This might be the most ’90s work Lynch ever made. There’s something so ethereal, celestial, Pure Moods about the imagery accompanying Daryl Hannah’s breathy little nursery rhyme. The way she’s washed out and overlit, staring upwards at and superimposed onto the night sky, is like a counterpart to how Lynch films Naomi Watts layered onto sunny L.A. palm tress in Mulholland Drive.
Fahrenheit by Dior (2004)
Hedi Slimane + David Lynch = makes sense.
Gucci by Gucci (2007)
David Lynch and “Heart of Glass” is a perfect combo. There’s a cute glimpse into his commercial-making creative process in the behind-the-scenes video for this one.
Fashion & Beauty
Revital Granas by Shiseido (2008)
Vibey.
Lady Blue Shanghai for Dior (2010)
This 16-minute short starring Marion Cotillard was more or less entirely conceived by Lynch, the only requirements being that he feature Shanghai and the Dior bag being advertised.
Beauté by Christian Louboutin (2014)
This looks like the “leaked photo of heaven” everyone was sharing on Twitter.
Coffee
Georgia Coffee (1993)
These four little minisodes were filmed after Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me for the Japanese canned-coffee brand Georgia, reuniting the OG Twin Peaks cast for a little mini-mystery about Cooper and the Gang tracking down and freeing a Japanese woman, Asami, from the Black Lodge. It’s super corny but also very sweet and still has some cool filmic touches, like when the Log Lady flicks a switch causing a jarring lightning flash. Agent Dale Cooper is totally in his element acting like, essentially, a cartoon cereal mascot, as he turns down hot cups of joe in favor of the canned stuff.
David Lynch Coffee (2011)
Possibly Lynch’s most beloved ad, he was his own client for this one, because it’s for his own private-label coffee line. This will always be the best Barbie movie.
Cars
Honda Passport (1997)
If only more car commercials were this mysterious.
Nissan Micra (2002)
Obsessed with a floating pair of blue lips going, “S I M P O L O G Y.” The art of simping.
Citroen Xsara Coupe (2002)
It’s hard to find an embeddable clip of Lynch’s very American car commercial for a very French market, but it’s cute and worth a watch.
Gaming
PlayStation 2 (2000)
In launching the PS2, Lynch got something amazing out of Lynch with “Welcome to the Third Place.” Lynch gives this whole thing a Surrealist, collage feel that makes this mythical “third place” almost like a counterpart to the Black Lodge. Too weird? Take your sensitive ass back to Nintendo.
PSAs
Clean Up NYC (1991)
Makes New York in the early ’90s look almost like his nightmarish vision of Victorian London in The Elephant Man.
American Cancer Society (1993)
Some say this Lynch spot raising awareness for breast-cancer detection is lost media, but Reddit believes the above bootleg might be the PSA in question.
Interstitials
Michael Jackson Dangerous Teaser (1991)
Lynch goes for a different flavor of Surrealism in this teaser video from Michael Jackson’s Dangerous VHS tape, channeling Salvador Dalí as he turns the album art into a moving painting. This is exciting and fun, and has Lynchian touches like a ringmaster, industrial backdrops, and some bright-blue lighting. This feels like something that would play in the start-up to an educational CD-ROM, if that makes sense.
SciFi Channel: “Ever Wonder?” (1997)
Lynch directed four interstitials for the SciFi channel, and each communicates so much in so little time. The best of them is “Nuclear Winter,” which is genuinely unsettling and harkens back to his early black-and-white shorts. The others play more like live-action Far Side comic panels, only not that funny. I could not find the fourth of these.
For Your Health
Alka-Seltzer Plus (1993)
Lynch directed two commercials for Alka-Seltzer Plus cold medicine, one of which has a striking balletic opening image of hockey players gliding on a rink in a darkened arena.
Adidas (1993)
This ad is awesome. It has a simple premise: runner hits a wall, represented by a literal wall, and breaks through to achieve a runner’s high. But Lynch goes wild with digital imagery here, warping the runner and throwing in imagery like scorpions and a screaming mouth to represent what it feels like when I, personally, do cardio.
Clear Blue Easy Pregnancy Tests (1997)
There’s a fascinating Entertainment Weekly article from around the time these ads were released in 1997, featuring this exchange between copywriter Lisa Mayer and Lynch: “I said to him, ‘Mr. Lynch, you were attracted to this because it involves the psychological torture of a beautiful young woman.’ And he said, ‘Yes.’”
According to the story, Lynch pranked the actress, Marisa Parker, by having her take a pregnancy test on set “so he could tape her real-life reaction. The twist: Lynch switched her results with those of a pregnant crew member.” According to the article, Parker found it funny.
Not for Your Health
Barilla (1993)
A cheeky, goofy-as-hell pasta ad in which Gérard Depardieu cooks pasta for a girl who fell off her scooter, causing an elderly couple to eerily applaud and a Toto-looking dog to bark its approval. Then, a sexy lady drives by and falls off her Vespa, and Depardieu goes in for the kill.
Parisienne Cigarettes (1998)
Lynch saved some of his best-ever commercial filmmaking for the thing he loved most of all.