The worlds of David Lynch: how a director creates films with a unique magnetic atmosphere

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

A guide to the creative techniques of the master.

David Lynch is one of the brightest representatives of independent cinema. Over the years of creativity, he has developed his own unique language, which completely immerses the viewer in the worlds of his work. Many of Lynch's films are built on the same author's techniques that allow you to create a unique liveliness and at the same time surrealism of the action.

Real world

Aside from the director's early work and Dune, which he took on filming just to get funding for the more personal Wild at Heart, Lynch loves to shoot in realistic, small-town settings. In part, these are memories of the town of Missoula, Montana, where he was born. But in many ways, this technique helps the viewer to feel closer to the characters.

Lynch characters may find themselves in strange situations and even encounter mysticism, but they are all ordinary people. In the movie Blue Velvet, the main character, played by Kyle McLachlan, is an ordinary young man who decided to become a detective. The heroine of "Mulholland Drive" performed by Naomi Watts dreams of becoming a famous actress, like many Los Angeles residents. And in "A Simple Story" the whole plot is devoted to how an elderly veteran goes to his brother.

Realism is emphasized by the time and place of action. The entourage of the distant past can be seen only in the painting "The Elephant Man". In the rest of Lynch's films, the heroes are always contemporaries of the viewer. The most striking example is the TV series "Twin Peaks". The director specifically looked for the setting of a typical town in the northwest of the United States, and then “populated” it with stereotypical characters. Here you can see a simpleton who is fond of fishing and his domineering wife, a police officer who has never seen a murder, a cunning family of businessmen, a teenage bully, a daughter suffering from her father's inattention, and other heroes who are easy to meet in real life.

The other world

But David Lynch doesn't stop at portraying life realistically. By drawing the viewer to the screen with familiar images, he tries to make him look at people and their actions from a different angle. And then the mystical component of his work appears.

Lynch mysticism is not just an attempt to scare the viewer, as the authors of horror films do. It shows the mirror image of our world through the supernatural. The so-called black wigwam plays an important role in the plot of Twin Peaks. The other world, where "those who live on the doorstep" live - the evil counterparts of man. And everyone must endure a meeting with his double, that is, to realize all the evil that he has committed.

In other works, mystical elements also serve to show a person his fears. The image of a creepy child in Lynch's debut film "Eraserhead" can be interpreted as a fear of responsibility. In Mulholland Drive, the heroine comes up with her own world, where her destiny develops successfully. But the echoes of real life, in which everything is not so rosy, erupt in the form of nightmares.

In Lynch's films, the real world is usually separated from mysticism. And visually it is displayed very clearly. For example, red curtains often play the role of a border. In Inland Empire, where the heroes are filmed in the film and at some point turn into their characters, the transitions between the worlds are shown either by walking through a door or looking through a burnt cloth. And in the third season of "Twin Peaks" and "Lost Highway" the role of such a passage is played by the night road along which the heroes travel.

Broken world

Another distinguishing feature of many of Lynch's paintings is the non-linear and complex plot. Many of his paintings can be interpreted ambiguously, and the action is either divided into two halves, as in Highway to Nowhere, or jumps along thematic and time lines, as in Inland Empire. At the same time, the director himself claims that all his plots are built on the basis of classic cinematographic techniques. You just need to unravel the action, and then all events will line up in a logical sequence.

But since the author does not provide clear explanations for his work, fans come up with dozens of interpretations of "Inland Empire" or the finale of the third season of "Twin Peaks". Lynch's complex films should be watched several times, because knowing the plot, you can pay attention to small details and minor characters. And then try to grasp the meaning of what he saw.

In contrast to the intricate plots, David Lynch occasionally shoots very simple and straightforward pictures. In the films "The Elephant Man" and "Wild at Heart" the action is quite unambiguous. But this is most clearly illustrated by the painting "A Simple Story" (the title can also be translated as "Straight Story"). There is no mysticism, ambiguity and tangled destinies in it. There is only an elderly hero's ride on a lawn mower.

World of music

Music is most often used to complement mysticism in Lynch's works. The director worked for many years with composer Angelo Badalamenti. It was he who wrote all the recognizable tunes in Twin Peaks, including the title track and Laura's famous theme. Later, Lynch himself became interested in music. And he personally wrote the soundtrack for Inner Empire.

But in addition to background music, the director often inserts performances by guest performers and bands into his films. Moreover, this often happens precisely in the mystical part of the plot. For example, in Mulholland Drive, Rebeca Del Rio sings a song in the heroine's dream.

And in the third season of the series, almost every episode ends with a concert of some collective. Moreover, very famous artists sometimes appear on the stage. For example, vocalist Pearl Jam or Nine Inch Nails.

Music and songs in Lynch's work do not just serve as a background for the plot. With their help, he creates new forms of contact with the viewer. In Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, the characters at a certain point find themselves in a bar, where the music is so loud that they cannot hear each other. To better reflect this situation, Lynch actually made the soundtrack too loud, and showed the text of the lines in the form of subtitles.

Twin Peaks as a Common World for All Films

Despite the fact that each work of Lynch is a separate story and he never tied them together, fans are looking for hints of a single world in his work. The director's penchant for mysticism and ambiguity opens up a lot of room for imagination.

In the series "Twin Peaks" the phrase repeatedly sounds: "This is the story of a little girl who lived at the end of the street." This refers to the deceased Laura Palmer, around whose murder the main plot is built. At the same time, at the very beginning of the film "Inland Empire", a stranger comes to visit the main character and says that she lives at the end of the street. And she is played by Grace Zabriskie, who played the role of Sarah Palmer - Laura's mother in the series.

Prior to the release of Mulholland Drive, Lynch talked about the idea for a series that begins with a scene in which Twin Peaks' secondary character Audrey Horne drives down Mulholland Drive. And at the same time, the film itself was originally conceived as a pilot episode of a multi-part project.

Naomi Watts at Mulholland Drive

Naomi Watts in Twin Peaks

But in the end, the main role in the film was played by the new actress Naomi Watts. And she also appeared in the third season of "Twin Peaks", and in the same image and even a blouse of the same color. Since part of the plot of Mulholland Drive takes place in a dream, and by the end of the series, mentions repeatedly appeared that everything that was happening was unreal, theories arose that part of the action was a figment of this heroine's fantasy. It remains to be seen whether it can be considered a coincidence that Agent Cooper's secretary (and, it seems, lover) in the series was played by the director's favorite Laura Dern. After all, this actress and Kyle McLachlan already had an on-screen romance in Blue Velvet.

Twin Peaks

"Eraser head"

The strange patterns on the floor, which can be seen in the black tepee, clearly repeat the surroundings of the movie "Eraser Head". And red curtains can be seen in almost every work by Lynch, starting with Blue Velvet. Usually they separate reality from mysticism, so we can assume that his various paintings are connected in this way.

The world of symbolism and meditation

However, in contrast to those seeking interpretation and connection in every Lynch film, there are other audiences. They believe that in reality the director only cares about the form and symbolism, and the content is thought out by those who watch the movie.

This version is supported by David Lynch's passion for meditation. He even wrote a book about it, Catch a Big Fish. Indeed, the director is very fond of slowing down the action, showing completely monotonous shots for several minutes that do not affect the plot. The most striking example is a scene from Twin Peaks season 3 where a janitor just sweeps the floor for two and a half minutes.

The same goes for landscapes, smoking scenes, or just plain meaningless conversations. And he does not even explain the meaning of the patterns on the floor repeating in different paintings, and the audience suggests that this may be a symbol of the brain or something else.

Therefore, there is a possibility that all the worlds of David Lynch are not meaningful in themselves, but the audience fills them with meaning. And this is also a great achievement - to make a lot of people search and find something, even if initially it did not exist.