It is generally recognized that there is a division in David Lynch’s films between personal films and more commercial projects—this division is most often invoked when talking about the 1980s when Lynch made the majority of his commercial films in order to have the chance to make a personal film. But this division is flawed because it does very little to explain what separates commercial films from personal films. Beyond the division between The Elephant Man and Blue Velvet, this division is no more illuminating than if it had been completely arbitrary. Where in this personal/commercial division does a film like The Straight Story fit? Or Wild at Heart? Or even Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me? A much more fruitful division is that between what I term Lynch films and Lynchian films. A Lynch film is simply a film directed by David Lynch. In the feature film category, there have been ten films total which meet this requirement: Eraserhead, The Elephant Man, Dune, Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, Lost Highway, The Straight Story, Mulholland Dr., and Inland Empire. Of these films a full fifty percent are “merely” Lynch films. The other fifty percent are Lynchian films.
It has been argued that the major focus of Lynch’s films has been on the hidden darkness lurking beneath the surface of small town America, but this interpretation seems to have arisen from Lynch’s peak of popularity with Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks where hidden darkness is clearly a prominent theme—there appears to be little evidence for this theme throughout the body of Lynch’s work. Removing the stipulation of small town America from the theme does make for a more compelling case; however, in order to make it fit all the personal films of Lynch, darkness must be defined too broadly. While darkness is a major part of all of Lynch’s films, it is going too far to claim that any form of darkness lurking below the surface constitutes a Lynchian film experience.
Commonly associated with Lynch films are the use of bizarre images in an opaque way. This is a universally recognized attribute of Lynch’s films and I see no reason to challenge the view. Although Lynch’s films vary wildly in the use and opaqueness of the images (see The Straight Story versus Inland Empire), it is simply blindness to argue that this does not exist in every Lynch film. Every Lynch film involves bizarre and opaque images. Likewise, every Lynchian film contains darkness in some form or another. But the presence of this darkness is not enough to mark a film as Lynchian as this darkness is present in nearly every Lynch work. What marks a film as Lynchian is a specific use of darkness and imagery.
The Lynchian film is a representation of a subjective experience. Closely affiliated with a single character, the Lynchian film presents a world that is a reflection of the character’s mental and emotional state. It is out of this subjective limiting that the darkness and imagery of the Lynchian film emerges. Inevitably, the focus of the film is experiencing extreme psychological trauma, which leads to nightmarish develops in the world, as the world acts as a mirror to the character’s experience. The reason for the trauma can be minor or major, caused by the character themselves or some other outside actor. Whatever the cause of the trauma, the horror of the experience intrudes upon and transforms the world. Most prominently in the Lynchian film, the transformation of the world is experienced as an alienating experience in which the character disassociates itself from the world either through complete illusion that is broken down throughout the course of the film, or through a distancing of the self from the world by making the world something foreign.
In a continuum of films running from least Lynchian to most Lynchian, Lynch’s films run: The Straight Story, Dune, The Elephant Man, Wild at Heart, Blue Velvet, Eraserhead, Lost Highway, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, Mulholland Dr., and Inland Empire. Inland Empire in particular is exciting because it appears that Lynch may be evolving away from what I am calling the Lynchian film to something more focused on a web of disparate narratives overlapping and intertwined. Only time will tell what direction Lynch will move next. But because of the possible transitional nature of Inland Empire, it does not serve as the best example of the Lynchian Film—this honor falls on Mulholland Dr. Further, the most enlightening example of a non-Lynchian film is not The Straight Story, but instead Blue Velvet, which shares many traits with Lynchian films yet fails to be a Lynchian film itself.
Mulholland Dr., like Lost Highway does a fairly clear job of separating one world from the other, but like that less successful film, Mulholland Dr. immediately again blurs the line between the worlds making it unclear what the reality of the film truly is. Mulholland Dr. does a good job of representing both varieties of Lynchian films. In the first three-quarters of the film, the viewer is given a clearly delineated world from the last quarter of the film. At the same time, as the last portion of the film seems to reveal some of the reality of the majority of the film, it calls itself into question by being an almost purely subjective account shown through memory. The last sequence of the film with its threatening seniors and silent audience of one throws even what might seem to be reality into doubt. The inability to fully separate the different worlds of the story is an important aspect of the Lynchian film as it goes a long way toward unifying the two varieties.
The first variety of Lynchian film—disassociation from the world through creation of an alternative—is represented by Lost Highway, Mulholland Dr., and Inland Empire, although I’ll refrain from discussing Inland Empire because of its difficult status. As can be seen in Mulholland Dr., the hallmark of alternative world variety is that they breakdown and give way to the style of the second variety of Lynchian film. The second variety of Lynchian film—distancing from the world by making the world something foreign—is represented by Eraserhead, and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. What separates the second variety from the first—which inevitably breaks down into the second—is that there is no attempt at separation in the second variety. Instead, all disassociating components are included in the world. These components can serve to change the image of the world, but they don’t completely sever the character’s connection to the world.
In Mulholland Dr., the majority of the film is played out in a fantasy world where the problems of reality are transformed into clichéd mysteries that have to be solved. But because of the involvement of reality in the fantasy, the elements of reality slowly take hold and destroy the fantasy world. In the final section of the film, the main character is forced to face reality, but through the subjective devices of the second variety of Lynchian film. In the second variety, reality is faced, but the subjective experience emphasizes the traumatizing elements until they overwhelm the reality of the world. In truth, the second variety of Lynchian film always overcomes the first variety, but the emphasis of the elements is important.
Blue Velvet is not a Lynchian film because it fails to take on a subjective quality in anyway. Although it shares imagery and story traits with Lynchian films, the point of view of the movie is the major determining factor. Perhaps if the film had been told from Dorothy’s perspective, Blue Velvet would be considered differently. The fact remains that Blue Velvet remains merely a straightforward story. The dark elements, the bizarreness that infests it, are merely elements of a story that have no connection to an individual’s perspective and so fail to invest the story with any true terror. Alone, Lynch’s imagery and tropes fail to have a strong impact. It is only in attaching his bizarreness to a subjective perspective that Lynch succeeds in conveying and form of darkness. Still, whether a film is merely made by Lynch or Lynchian is not the major determining factor in whether that film is good or bad, successful or a failure. It is the combination of Lynchian elements that ultimately determines the quality of the film itself independent of its status as a Lynchian film.