Visionary filmmaker David Lynch, the man behind Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive and The Elephant Man delivered BAFTA’s annual 2007 film lecture.

A singular film director with a more diverse body of work than he is often given credit for, Lynch gave our David Lean Lecture on 27 October 2007 at 195 Piccadilly. A true American original, for more than 40 years he has remained on the artistic cutting edge of filmmaking, establishing a cinematic language of his own that famously combines an ambiguous narrative style with unsettling imagery.

The more abstract a thing gets, the more varied the interpretations. But people still know inside what it is for them.

A multi-nominated talent

Lynch’s surreal first feature Eraserhead took years to perfect and became a classic on the 70s midnight scene. It paved the way for the BAFTA-nominated The Elephant Man (1980) and the seminal nightmare-in-suburbia Blue Velvet (1986). He was responsible for the cult TV hit Twin Peaks in the 1990s, and has since then developed his unmistakably abstract filmmaking style in Lost Highway (1997), Mulholland Drive (2001) and INLAND EMPIRE (2006).

Watch the video of Lynch’s lecture where he talks in depth about his past films and inspirations with interviewer Jason Barlow below:

David Lynch gives the David Lean Lecture in 2007