The Passion of David Lynch

by Nochimson, Martha P.

• ISBN13: 9780292755659
• ISBN10: 0292755651
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1997-11-01
• Publisher: Univ of Texas Pr

Summary

"This is the best book on David Lynch that has yet been published. Nochimson's book is essential reading for anyone interested in contemporary cinema." --Brian Henderson, Professor, State University of New York at Buffalo Filmmaker David Lynch asserts that when he is directing, ninety percent of the time he doesn't know what he is doing. To understand Lynch's films, Martha Nochimson believes, requires a similar method of being open to the subconscious, of resisting the logical reductiveness of language. In this innovative book, she draws on these strategies to offer close readings of Lynch's films, informed by unprecedented, in-depth interviews with Lynch himself. Nochimson begins with a look at Lynch's visual influences--Jackson Pollock, Francis Bacon, and Edward Hopper--and his links to Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles, then moves into the heart of her study, in-depth analyses of Lynch's films and television productions. These include Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, Wild at Heart, Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet, Dune, The Elephant Man, Eraserhead, The Grandmother, The Alphabet , and Lynch's most recent, Lost Highway . Nochimson's interpretations explode previous misconceptions of Lynch as a deviant filmmaker and misogynist. Instead, she shows how he subverts traditional Hollywood gender roles to offer an optimistic view that love and human connection are really possible.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. xiii
Introduction: David Lynch at A (feminine) Glance, Or Her Eyes Were Moving, but She Didn'T Know It	p. 1
Portrait of the Director as a Surfer in the Waves of the Collective Unconscious	p. 16
Just Met the Good Witch	p. 46
Seeing Something That Was Always Hidden	p. 99
The Stream Flows, the Wind Blows	p. 123
Please Remember, You Are Dealing with a Human Form	p. 148
If You Are Falling in Space	p. 173
Coda the Passion of David Lynch: The Lady Or the Highway	p. 199
Appendix: Industrial Symphony No. 1: The Dream of the Broken Hearted	p. 217
Notes	p. 225
Bibliography	p. 255
Index	p. 261
Credits for ILlustrations	p. 272
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.