David Lynch is the surreal director behind some of American cinema’s most enigmatic films. From his early surrealistic
Eraserhead (1977) to his most recent short films like WHAT DID JACK DO? (2017), his works have gained a mystic
reputation, even leading film theorists to coin the term ‘Lynchian’ when describing other works. However, nobody has done
it like the man himself. But how does the man do it?
Dreamy imagery is a stylistic choice that permeates throughout Lynch’s filmography.
Speaking to BAFTA, Lynch once said: “You work so hard, after the ideas come, to get this thing built. All the elements to feel correct, the whole to feel correct, in this beautiful language called cinema.
“The second it’s finished; people want you to change it back into words. It’s very, very saddening. It’s torture. When things
are concrete, there are very few variations in interpretations. But the more abstract a thing becomes, the more varied the
interpretations. But people know inside what it is to them.”
Most of the director’s movies have a dream-like quality. They don’t follow conventional film rules or logic. Take Mulholland
Drive (2001), where a majority of the story is commonly interpreted as taking place in a fantasy, dreamland and the second
part of the film breaks down that dream and plunges us into reality. Or the Mystery Man in Lost Highway (1997), a film that
is not dissimilar in style and story to Mulholland Drive.
In one of the most popular scenes from Blue Velvet (1986), perhaps the most mainstream of Lynch’s cinematic works, Dean
Stockwell’s character Ben dances around lip-syncing to Roy Orbison’s In Dreams, the scene itself being reminiscent of one.
Not much later in the film, the song is played again as Frank pulls Jeffrey out of the car as a woman dances atop it. Surreal,
dreamlike and uncanny.
But it is in Twin Peaks (1990) that Lynch’s dream imagery takes full form, with Agent Cooper using his dreams of the Red
Room to help unfold the central mystery. The line, “We live inside a dream”, which fans have speculated on for years, also
shows up in Fire Walk With Me (1992) and Twin Peaks: The Return (2017).
Also prevalent in both Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet is Lynch’s exploration of American Suburbia’s dark underbelly.
Blue Velvet sees teen Jeffrey investigating a nightclub Singer, Dorothy Vallens, and her connection to gangster Frank Booth.
In Twin Peaks, Agent Dale Cooper enters an idyllic northwestern town to investigate the murder of the local homecoming
queen, Laura Palmer. It’s a place where everyone has their own mysteries.
Both texts pull back the curtain and expose small-town secrets. Blue Velvet opens with a, yet again, dreamy sequence of
suburbia before a man drops onto the ground while watering his lawn and the camera leads us into the ant-ridden ground.
Lynch is one of the greatest directors ever and his work will continue to be analysed for decades yet.
Featured Image Credit: Showtime
He/Him
Arts Editor 24/25
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