"The Devil's in, and can't get out": Re-addressing the Work of David Lynch (Introduction & Chapter 1) (original) (raw)

SEMIOTIC PSYCHOANALYSIS OF MULHOLLAND DRIVE AND UNCANNY MOVIE DIRECTOR DAVID LYNCH

Arzu Çevikalp, 2020

This article aims to give information about director David Lynch and his psychoanalytic techniques, which are related to subconsciousness of audiences. It can be observed that David Lynch, who uses metaphors, metonymies and symbols through moving to semiotics based on semiotic scientific analysis, is intertwined with psychoanalysis by revealing his uncanniness and therefore benefiting abundantly from Lacan and Freud. Since his world is quite dark and complex, observing his films and understanding the language of symbols in addition to analyzing his films are essential. Each symbol has its equivalent, which not only constitutes the structure of his films, but also leads the audience to dreams imagination. Each scene of his films is part of a separate film language, and the pieces combine in order to give a linguistic integrity. David Lynch, who is an auteur, opens new windows to the visualization of aesthetic and visual codes in the minds of the audiences. He pays attention to characters’ and objects’ entering frames and frames. Like Mulholland Drive, Lost Highway and many more, he creates a system within his films, which is used in analyzing the system, and the aim is animating the mind.

The Film Paintings of David Lynch: Challenging Film Theory

2010

Aimed at both Lynch fans and film studies specialists, The Film Paintings of David Lynch addresses Lynch's films from the perspective of the relationship between commercial film, avant-garde art, and cultural theory. Individual Lynch works - The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, Lost Highway, The Straight Story, Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire - are discussed in relation to other films and directors, illustrating that the solitary, or seemingly isolated, experience of film is itself socially, culturally, and politically important. The Film Paintings of David Lynch offers a unique perspective on an influential director, weaving together a range of theoretical approaches to Lynch's films to make exciting new connections between film theory, art history, psychoanalysis and cinema.

Surface attraction: hyphological encounters with the films of David Lynch

2006

How does one turn a cinematic passion into an academic thesis? This is the question that runs through my work, which is both a labour of love and a series of love letters. Does one, can one, tell the truth about one's love object? Written in solitude about the darkened passions of the cinema, and the commodified reenactment via DVD and video, it seeks to locate this body of work, organized under the signifier David Lynch, within a broader cultural history of film and art, rather than, as so many chronologically based studies have done, to assess the individual films and then collectively to remark upon the auteur's signature. Instead, it seeks to experience again, or anew, the ontological strangeness of film within the saturated market place, and observe how, in this body of work, the normative framework of the North American film industry is disturbed from inside by a practice which explores and critically examines the creative potential of the medium within the constraints...

Whose Story is This? The Non-existence of the External Gaze in David Lynch's Films

IAFOR Journal of Media, Communication & Film, 2018

The tendency to eschew a coherent narrative has been very common especially since the 1990s and a certain approach to narration has become observable within postmodern cinema: the viewer is denied access to the truth and realities concerning dramatic structure and characters, either during part of the narrative, or throughout the entire movie. For instance, Stuart Mitchell (1999) points out that in David Lynch's Lost Highway, as Lynch himself points out, the dream/dreaminess is neither a fantasy nor a delusion but something intrinsic to the character, thus what we watch is essentially the story of the main character and it is realistic according to his logic. Analysing the David Lynch's Lost Highway (1997), Mulholland Drive (2001) and Twin Peaks: The Return (2017), this article will discuss how any attempt by the viewer to achieve the truth and to distinguish reality from fantasy may be fruitless and how the filmic or fictional reality may result undistinguishably from so-called material reality. I argue that the viewer moves and stumbles with the gaze of the camera which reveals that the reality is something constructed, and that the objective reality of an external gaze doesn't exist.

A Critical Analysis of David Lynch's 'Eraserhead' (1977): Whose Dream is it After All?

RESEARCH REVIEW International Journal of Multidisciplinary, 2019

'Eraserhead' (1977), directed by David Lynch, has intrigued and interested film critics for decades. A cinematic puzzle, David Lynch successfully creates a surreal and dystopian world through Eraserhead. With its twisted plotline and ambiguous subject matter, very few cinema enthusiasts have successfully maneuvered through the movie's diegesis. Lynch, who is largely considered the best postmodern filmmaker of all time, manages to create a reel enigma through 'Eraserhead'. This paper makes a dedicated attempt at deconstructing the movie using the auteur and psychoanalytical film theories. It also finds out the ingrained themes used by Lynch in designing the nightmarish and hallucinatory world of 'Eraserhead'. In doing so, the paper critically dissects all the cinematic elements used by the auteur. There is also an ingrained objective to highlight the psyche of the director in making this cinematic quagmire.

Memory, Identity and Desire: A Psychoanalytic Reading of David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive

Akser, Murat. Memory, Identity and Desire: A Psychoanalytic Reading of David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive. CINEJ Cinema Journal, v. 2, n. 1, p. 58-76., 2012

This is a reading of David Mulholland Drive through psychoanalytic approach of Lacan from the perspective of formation of fantasy and shifting identities. Lynch constructs his films consciously choosing his themes from the sub(versive/conscious) side of human mind. Previous attempts to read Lynch’s films are fixed around the idea that Lynch is using film genres to create postmodern pastiches. Mulholland Drive has been analyzed several times from different approaches ranging from gender to narratology . Elements of film noir, musical, caper films can be identified in Lynch’s films. This detailed textual analysis intends to rationalize Lynch’s narrative structure through Lacanian terms in reference to Zizekian terminology.