In praise of David Lynch metaphysical, poetic pilgrim’s tale

On January 16, eccentric filmmaker David Lynch passed away at seventy-eight. While Lynch was known for bizarre, experimental, and polarizing work, his 1999 film The Straight Story is one of the most beautiful and profoundly Christian films I have ever seen.

If you’re unfamiliar with Lynch, perhaps an overview of his first film—1977’s Eraserhead, a staple of midnight movie showings—will give you an idea of his aesthetic. Eraserhead’s protagonist is a man named Henry with an electrocuted Marge Simpson hairdo who lives in a weird post-industrial world. His girlfriend has given birth to a strange creature resembling an emaciated, limbless E.T., while Henry fantasizes about a singing girl with prosthetic chipmunk cheeks who lives in his radiator (sic). True to its title, Eraserhead ends with Henry’s decapitated noggin being turned into an eraser in a pencil factory. Oh, and there are flapping, bleeding cooked chickens.

Thus, filmgoers were surprised by The Straight Story. Inspired by real events, The Straight Story’s protagonist, Iowa resident Alvin Straight (Richard Farnsworth in an Oscar-nominated role), is a septuagenarian World War II vet who has learned that his estranged Wisconsin-based brother Lyle (frequent Lynch collaborator Harry Dean Stanton) has suffered a stroke. Aware of his brother’s and his own mortality, Straight wants to reconcile before it’s too late.

The catch is that, due to his poor eyesight, Alvin doesn’t have a driver’s license. Thus, he decides to travel the hundreds of miles to Wisconsin on a John Deere lawnmower. Whereas this unusual means of transportation may seem quirky or even goofy, The Straight Story is a serious film.

Although David Lynch, a lapsed Presbyterian, was involved in Transcendental Meditation, The Straight Story is replete with Christian themes and imagery. (It’s worth noting that Lynch was not involved in the writing of the movie, unlike almost all his other film projects.) After leaving his small town of Laurens, Iowa, Alvin passes the Shrine of the Grotto of the Redemption, suggesting that his journey is a pilgrimage. When participants in a bicycle race ask the Iowan Odysseus when he started his journey, he responds that he has been traveling his whole life.

The Straight Story therefore presents the vision of man as homo viator, constantly in motion in his journey towards eternity.

Despite the expected malfunctions resulting from traveling hundreds of miles across hilly county roads on a vehicle designed to cut grass, Alvin declines offers from kind strangers to drive him to his brother’s Wisconsin home. He wants to finish his journey as he started it, acknowledging that mortification is part of his penitential pilgrimage.

The Straight Story takes on the very Christian themes of forgiveness, reconciliation, and family. Alvin wants to redeem his past sins and sense of guilt. In the movie’s most emotional scene, he bonds with a fellow veteran over beer and milk (having kicked alcoholism with the help of a preacher, Alvin is a teetotaler) by tearfully discussing war stories. Alvin reveals a haunting secret from the war; while the tragedy he describes was clearly not his fault, his conscience remains tortured half a century later.

The memorable characters Alvin meets on his pilgrimage include a pregnant teenage girl who has run away from home. Sounding like a flannel and overall-clad Jesus speaking in parables, he compares the bonds of family to an unbreakable bundle of sticks; she gets the message and gives Alvin a tangible sign she has imbued his wisdom. In another scene, Alvin encounters a woman who keeps hitting deer with her car, her constant prayers through the intercession of Saints Christopher and Francis to no avail. Yet her latest antlered victim provides food for Alvin, whose budget is dwindling. Could this be Lynch’s take on the problem of theodicy?

Throughout his journey, Alvin meets many Good Samaritans without whom he would not have been able to reconcile with Lyle. Having grown up in the Midwest, I found Montana native Lynch’s depiction of Middle Americans as strikingly kind and helpful—more convincing than the Coen brothers’ irritating “you betcha” stereotypes in Fargo. Among the Protestant Alvin’s new friends are a Catholic priest; their discussion of his remorse and Alvin comparing his fraternal quarrel to the story of Cain and Abel recall the sacrament of penance, while the priest’s “I say Amen to that!” resembles an absolution.

Aesthetically, The Straight Story is beautiful. The undulating cornfields, grain elevators, and small-town hardware stores flood any Midwesterner’s heart with bucolic nostalgia. Angelo Badalamenti’s harmonica and fiddle-driven score, recalling a waltz at a barn dance, is gorgeous. Farnsworth perfectly captures Alvin’s simultaneous inner demons and angelic warmth.

Sadly, Farnsworth’s inner torment was not all simulated, as he was suffering from cancer while filming; a year later, he took his own life.

Although I don’t get David Lynch’s art house surrealism, I am grateful for his Straight Story, a metaphysical, poetic pilgrim’s tale of family and redemption. May he rest in peace.