Why did the Oscars spend more time mourning 007 than David Lynch, one of the greatest artists to ever live?

A murmur of confusion spread across social media during last night’s Oscars, as Margaret Qualley started to high kick to the Bond theme, shortly before musicians Lisa, Doja Cat, and Raye emerged to warble “Live and Let Die”, “Diamonds Are Forever”, and “Skyfall”. Did James Bond… die? Permanently, this time? News that 007 has been relinquished into the clutches of Amazon certainly doesn’t bode well for the super spy’s future – unless you’re particularly enamoured by the idea of a “young M” spin-off – but a 10-minute eulogy for the guy seemed a little bit much.

The Oscars does seem to have a chronic attachment to Bond tributes – the franchise was already “celebrated” on stage in both the 2022 and 2013 ceremonies – but this year, perhaps more than any other, there were other figures more deserving of our screen time. The magnitude of talent lost in the past year has felt especially painful. Gene Hackman’s death, only three days ago, was the latest shock. Opening the annual “in memoriam” segment, Morgan Freeman, his co-star in Unforgiven and Under Suspicion, spoke beautifully about his friend, an actor who approached his craft with unfailing honesty, who embraced his characters’ thorns, and found within them a radiant spirit.

I began to choke up a little. Hackman was a difficult loss, certainly, but this year had seen the death of the most pivotal artist in my life and in the lives, I know, of many others: director David Lynch, who netted dreams and put them up on screen. Lynch not only showed us the limitless potential of film as a medium, but of hidden worlds inside our own, of light within impenetrable darkness, and of love living deep within the jaws of evil.

Isabella Rossellini, star of Lynch’s Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart, and his former partner, was sat in the audience. There for her nomination for best supporting actress for Conclave, she was wrapped in blue velvet in tribute to Lynch, and had invited as her guest Laura Dern, one of his most significant collaborators, Rossellini’s co-star in Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart, but also of Inland Empire and Twin Peaks: The Return.

This is it, I thought. They’ll come on stage and talk about this great artist, in that loving, compassionate way those who knew him are inclined to do. Maybe Lisa, Doja Cat, or Raye will come back out to perform Roy Orbison’s “In Dreams” as featured in Blue Velvet. Maybe they’ll turn the stage into Twin Peaks’s Red Room. Won’t that be nice? But then, the “in memoriam” montage struck up to the morbid strains of Mozart’s “Requiem”, and Lynch received… 10 seconds of screen time. Can we call that a travesty? Because it sure feels like one.

Lynch was never awarded a competitive Oscar in his lifetime. He was nominated four times and received an Academy Honorary Award in 2019. His speech was a short note of thanks, followed by these words, directed to his new trophy: “You have a very interesting face, good night.” That’s the way the industry works. These prizes are, primarily, for those who colour well within the lines, not those who ignore them and create new shapes.

But his influence on the films celebrated on Oscar night is undeniable, in ways small and large – the way he could render ordinary life as a fairytale (hello, Anora’s Cinderella story); the way he visualised the primitive sins at America’s heart (hello, the surrealist flourishes of The Brutalist); and the way he already adapted Frank Herbert’s Dune (hello, uh, Dune: Part Two). Lynch’s spirit was in that room, and so for his legacy to barely receive a squeak of recognition flew in the face of a ceremony otherwise centred around the dignity of artistry and craft.

Sean Baker, while accepting the best director award for Anora, one of his four wins, made a passionate call for the preservation of cinemas, “a communal experience you simply don’t get at home”. Host Conan O’Brien did the same, via the comedic route, with a skit in which he pretended to devise a new concept of streaming to be held in a single location where you don’t have to hold the screen (“the building holds it!”). One of the best choices of the night saw the stars of the nominated films in the oft-dismissed categories of Best Costume Design and Best Cinematography take to the stage and pay direct tribute to the craftspeople behind them.

There were multiple triumphs that seemed to champion individual creativity over corporate might – not only was it a good night for independent film, with Anora’s five awards, but also Latvia’s Flow. Directed by Gints Zilbalodis on the free and open-source software Blender, the feline-focused flick won Best Animated Feature over Disney’s box office juggernaut Inside Out 2 and DreamWorks’s The Wild Robot. Meanwhile, the night’s most powerful win, for documentary No Other Land, which sheds light on the destruction of Palestinian villages in the West Bank by occupying Israeli forces, won its category despite still not having a distributor in the US.

And, yet all of this must contend with the fact the Oscars are produced by the ABC Network, who are owned by Disney, which accounts for the ceremony’s dancing Deadpool, despite Deadpool & Wolverine receiving precisely zero nominations – and goes some way in explaining the prolonged Bond tribute. Of course Disney would rather see the financial value of Bond, an audience draw and a testament to the power of franchises, take precedence over such trivial things as meaning or emotion.

Lynch worked within the mainstream but never fit comfortably into it. Because of that, he’ll remain an emblem for every Sean Baker, Brady Corbet, or Coralie Fargeat – to name some of the directors behind this year’s Best Picture nominees – who continue to fight to create personal art within an increasingly hostile system. The Academy may have failed Lynch, but his ultimate victory lies in every speech that calls for truth in art, and the art in truth.