ENTERTAINMENT

What was behind David Lynch’s unique approach to cinema?

A moldy, mutilated ear on a patch of suburban grass full of crawling ants. An adult human was decapitated and replaced with the face of a grotesque baby alien. An extra-dimensional room completely covered with red curtains, which houses a giant, a dwarf, a bunch of nerves, and a dead girl.

David Lynch’s filmography was full of the evocative strangeness of such images. The pioneering director, actor, musician and painter died last week at the age of 78 of emphysema caused by years of smoking.

His trademark deviation from Hollywood storytelling, through surrealist imagery that disrupted the spatial and temporal universe of the film or television series, proved so uniquely influential that the style earned the title “Lynchian”.

The flavor of his craft came from his belief in putting forward an uncompromising point of view which he, very famously, could not explain. “People want to make an intellectual understanding of (cinema). And when they can’t do that, they get frustrated, but if they allow it they can come up with explanations from within… what something is and what isn’t, and they can agree with their friends Or you can argue with your friends. But how can they agree or argue if they don’t already know this?” He wrote in his autobiography, Catching Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity,

David Lynch, center, poses with actors Laura Elena Harring, left, and Naomi Watts from his film 'Mulholland Drive.'

David Lynch, center, poses with actors Laura Elena Harring, left, and Naomi Watts in his film ‘Mulholland Drive’. Photo Credit: AP

arouse sympathy

His work demanded from the audience a process of feeling rather than understanding. His use of silence, words, sound design and color came together with the intention of generating a specific experience for each member of his audience. In a world of understanding, with few logical, linear, or coherent conclusions to be drawn, empathy was the most easily accessible component of Lynch’s art.

Lynch introduced Surrealist cinema into Hollywood, an art movement that, since its inception in the 1920s, deified woman and made her a mysterious object of desire, a canvas on which to project ideas and suggestive scenes. (See: Hans Bellmer’s) doll), rather than beings with internal complexities that are worth exploring in their own right.

Lynch doesn’t necessarily fall into this category. Mulholland Drive, Widely regarded as his magnum opus, the film is on the surface a neo-noir about an amnesiac woman, Rita (played by Laura Harring), who falls in love with Betty (played by Naomi Watts), Who is another woman who is helping him solve his mystery. who is that. An hour into the runtime, and perhaps two hours into considering the film’s ending, one comes to a general conclusion that the film portrays the fractured psyche of a woman traumatized by the structural inner workings of Hollywood and the effects of sexual exploitation through the casting couch. Is. ,

Naomi Watts and Laura Harring as Betty and Rita in a scene from 'Mulholland Drive'

Naomi Watts and Laura Harring as Betty and Rita in a scene from ‘Mulholland Drive’

In a scene now famous for its disturbing implications, a terrified, more human Betty, who is in a different realm, identified as Diane Selwyn, sits on a couch and sobs profusely to herself. Makes happy. This scene can be interpreted as a representation of women’s complex relationship with pleasure, especially in a field like Hollywood, where the #MeToo movement in 2017 reinforced the notion that actresses were withheld opportunities in exchange for sexual favors. Are.

Watts’s performance evokes pain and confusion in the audience, while the story draws attention to the inevitable struggle of presenting oneself as feminine; How much of someone’s sexuality is their own choice? The blonde-brunette pairing of Watts and Haring, interpreted as a part of Diane’s psyche, represents an internal Madonna-whore complex.

Lynch’s sympathetic view of women allows her to deploy recognizable tropes without overshadowing a woman’s individuality. Blue Velvet’Dorothy Vallance (played by Isabella Rossellini) is, at first glance, a typical damsel in distress; A distressed woman was tortured by her insane husband. And yet, when she encounters Jeffrey Beaumont (played by Kyle MacLachlan), she pulls a knife on him and forces him to kill her and surrender to her.

In 1986, when the film came out, this portrayal of Valens was criticized as misogynistic by veteran film critic Roger Ebert. “…when you ask an actress to endure those experiences, you must keep your side of the bargain by putting her in an important film,” he commented in his review.

Isabella Rossellini as Dorothy Vallance in a scene from 'Blue Velvet'

Isabella Rossellini as Dorothy Vallance in a scene from ‘Blue Velvet’

However, in hindsight, both of the film’s main female protagonists, brunette Valance and blonde Sandy (played by Laura Dern), are postmodern parodies that criticize the two categories into which women are classified; The quintessential nice girl, Sandy, is overly sweet and naive, while Valens is an imitation of Gustave Flaubert. Madame Bovary, She appears sexually empowered because she wants to His subservience.

Valance is a reflection of the trauma endured by women who are driven to sexual acts of self-destruction and takes a nuanced look at the complexities of sexual dynamics between the genders.

dissection of femininity

Lynch’s most comprehensive exploration of a woman’s personality can undoubtedly be found in his deeply influential collaborations with Mark Foster, twin Peaks. The television series, whose first two seasons aired in 1990, was one of the first works in mainstream television to incorporate auteur direction. The show is driven by the mystery of who killed Laura Palmer (played by Sheryl Lee) and, as it unravels, viewers learn about the man beneath the mangled body washed up on the shore in this small town , who was tragically the queen returning home. Robbed of his youth.

Laura is viewed by the people of Twin Peaks as an ideal girl, an icon of American girlhood. As the episodes progress, we see her self-destructive escapades and turbulent relationships with her mother, best friend, lover, secret lover, and cocaine. Lynch once again shatters the rosy image of American suburbia, this time with a special focus on the nuclear family. Laura was the victim of incest committed by her father Leland (played by Ray Wise), and is portrayed as such; Hunt. While Lynch and Foster continue to glamorize her destructive tendencies with strobe lights and nudity, they ultimately attribute said tendencies to her father’s abuse.

Sheryl Lee as Laura Palmer and Kyle MacLachlan as Dale Cooper in a scene from 'Twin Peaks'

Sheryl Lee as Laura Palmer and Kyle MacLachlan as Dale Cooper in a scene from ‘Twin Peaks’

Here, these characters are rendered sympathetic with a delicate nuance. As it turns out, Leland was also sexually abused by his grandfather. Although this explains his continuing the same abuse, it in no way justifies it. Leland is still portrayed as the embodiment of Satan, and is revealed to be the culprit.

In the final scene of the spinoff film, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With MeWhich depicts Laura’s last day on Earth, Laura, now dead, appears in the Red Room, where various characters from the show visit from time to time. An angel comes to her and she begins to cry and smile with relief. The detective who uncovered the mystery, Dale Cooper (again played by Kyle MacLachlan), stands next to her, hand on her shoulder, a look of sympathy, not really understanding, but understanding.

In a turbulent world of sexual abuse, constant objectification, idealization of personality, death was the supreme act of kindness that Lynch could bestow on his most polarizing starlet.

(Tags to translate)David Lynch(T)Mulholland Drive(T)Blue Velvet(T)Twin Peaks(T)Kyle McLachlan
#David #Lynchs #unique #approach #cinema

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *