David Lynch：Where I found the Cinema

這篇文章寫於北京清華交換時，是『影視欣賞』這門課的導演研究。

回家後看到一張David Lynch的CD，封面上的帥哥很明顯不是右邊這位悲傷老兄。但也許這是我之所以在一張有Ridley Scott 、Francis Ford Coppola 、Terrence Malick、Quentin Tarantino、Stanley Kubrick、Woody Allen、Christopher Nolan、Wes Anderson、David Lynch 的選擇名單裡直覺選擇他的原因。

最近有個朋友因為興趣去修了電影的課程，在印象中我還當她是名看個「衝鋒陷陣」就會哭得悉哩嘩啦的小女孩，沒想到現在已經是一名為了電影修課的女神了，也太誇張。但覺得那時這種看電影的態度好美、好真。
我也想要把我對電影最認真的一段時間做個記錄：用我的方式、選最適合我方式的主題。每個當下都要認真過活唷，>.^。

David Lynch

Dream, Reality and Stage

Abstract

        I saw three David Lynch’s films in total. They are The Elephant Man(1980), Lost Highway(1997) and Mulholland Drive(2001). These three films reveal the path of his seek for the humanity. He tries to disclose the darkness behind daily life. Although we may have heard that “Life is a routine. That’s why we have to read, in pursuit of abnormal lives.“, in David Lynch’s film, life is not only a routine, butit also contains a sexual desire which will finally lead to violence and aggressive behavior to others. David Lynch was an independent director. He produced his film with a small team from the very beginning of his career. The team included his long cooperated music composer Angelo Badalamenti. Wining many awards with his special style and form can’t help him win the main production company’s favor. Finally I will conclude the similarities of these four works and point out the meanings of his films from dreamperspective. As the last part, it will speak of some concept of psychology by explaining the Freud view of dream.

Path of his films

        Elephant Man was based on a real English person called John Merrick. The black-and –white film started from a filthy circus where John Merrick was found by a kind doctor. He was took care of by the doctor secretly until the doctor well examined the English and show his work, “Elephant Man” to his academy colleagues. The Elephant Man became wilder known after population found him a gentleman who can read and write. Unfortunately, during the night at the ward, an evil door keeper would sell the chances ofwatching Elephant Man to people from lower social class. They mocked and mistreated him and left him with insults. During the day, Dr. Treves introduces John to people from higher class in spite of that those people just came for Elephant Man’s reputation. Except for the interaction with people from various classes, John’s life had nothing different from the life in circus until he met Mrs. Kendal. He finally understood the feeling of love when Mrs. Kendal’s lips became his salvation of sin on his

lips. Compared to her mental salvation, Dr. Treves’s confession when he abandoned all effort of finding John, “you can’t go after him. You’re needed here by your patients. You did everything in your power. Remember that, Treves. Everything in your power.”is a betrayal. And from the scene, Dr. Treves seemed to know where John is. He seemed watching John being tortured. He cleaned up the window in order to look inside, but we audience couldn’t see anything inside. What we see is Dr. Treves himself. Director told audience how hypocritical the doctor is by the confession. At the near end of the movie, the director uses the change of DOF to remind the audience that these two roles are no longer trusted each other like before.

        In The Elephant Man, David Lynch usedwhite film to redefine beauty and ugliness. The doctrine style also displays the story in a cleaner way, and thus contrasts how complicate the humanity can be. The only element appeared in Elephant Manwhich repeatedly exploited by Lynch in following films is smoke. We will talk to it later. It’s worth mentioning that Elephant Man and The Straight Story are the only two movies showing the light side of the humanity. According to Lynch, these two films are so different from other films he’s directed that he admitted their meanings are very important to himself.

        Lost Highway is the movie I could understand best after seeing Mulholland Drive. One can easily recognize David Lynch’s style which, in my opinion, is similar to Magic Realism in literature.The story is about a jazz musician who killed his wife. Although the time in the film is forward, I think the events appeared in film is backward orderedso that the film revealed nothing new or worth expected. It’s merely a review of one’s life.

The narratology is switched between two characters, the jazz musician and a young car repairer by the prison guard one day suddenly find the jazz musician who supposed to be in the cell was replaced by another lad. I believe so because we can take musician as lad and map the wife to the woman seducing the lad according to these two women’s picture. And both men have many similaritiessuch as their favor of darkness and their psychological condition. The lad is the innocent projection of musician, otherwise he is the early life of musician.The lad, Pitt, is the good kid. He used to have a excellent repairing skill and a stable relationship. Pit is an innocent man because he was deprived of the power to change the real world. So I made a chart to contrast the twoparallel worlds.

Real World (with living burden and dark side of humanity)	Imagine or perfect world
Fred (jazz musician) and Renae	Pitt & Alice
Fred killed Renae and Boss	Pitt killed a harmless porn director
Fred solved the problem by kill	Pitt escaped from the problem with Alice

        In spite that Pitt lives in a rather perfect world, which he even didn’t kill anyone, he is the strongly opposed to the world (As he trembly mumble: ”I killed him”, what a coward, that’s what appeared on Alice’s face ) .

        Thus we found the vulnerable  boy on his way to discover the cruel world possess nothing but dream. But the cruel world can only be dealt with the adult who applies the more cruel measure. And that cruel man is indeed a grown up boy. The boy took away his dream, the girl. But he is doomed to suffer from the sin or the consequence of his pursuit of the dream after he has grown up. It’s not like the happy ever after fairy tale.

David Lynch’s film usually provides a strange and ugly figure who intentionally appeared in many transition. I sum up that in Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive, the figure represents the dark side of the role.

What’s more, it connects the different scattered section of plot together but in irrational way. David Lynch put the weird old guy at these two parallel worlds to explain that they are both restricted in the same time frame, and possesses the serial relationship. One can never find the musician and lad appeared at the same time. At the end of the film, the scene of fast passing by highway road appeared again like the initial scene. It proved my assumption that the film was a metaphor. Nothing new inside the movie, one can’t expect the movie to change the world, even the world inside the movie. The world existed when the movie is playing, and distinguished when movie stop playing. The movie just records the life and repeats it every time when one plays the movie.

        And finally here is Mulholland Drive, the most credited film. Wining three best movie awards and two best director awards, the movie begins with the mysterious smoke. Ha! It’s my last chance and very time to grab the idea of smoke.

Smoke has played the great role in Lynch’s films since The Elephant Man, when John was given birth, there is a misen-scene comprising of elephant and woman’s shaking head. Following the misen-scene is the smoke, and audience can hear the baby crying from the smoke. When night falls in the film, when the evil door keeper forces John to see himself in the mirror and makes his spirit split, the smoke arise. In Lost Highway, Lynch used sounds and light more than smoke. The flashing light appeared when Fed had a severe headache imply the transition of personality. In Mulholland Drive, the smoke appeared as the film started and imply space’s transition. When I look up the 

movie on the Interent, many argue that Camilla who lost her memory and be taken care of by Betty was Betty’s projection of Camilla in the real life. Betty’s jealous of Camilla’s achievement so that she can no longer love Camilla. This argument is strong. To my opinion, the things happened in the near end of the film are more irrational to me, such as the magical blue box and the weird homelessness looks like a abnormal existence. According to Freud, one’s ego exists in unconscious mind, which can only be observed by the active of dreams. The logic in dream or the logic conducted by ego is totally different from conscious mind. But one’s behavior is conducted by id, ego and superego, we can’t tell whether the behavior is occurred under consciousness or unconsciousness by a single act. I believe Lynch try to make the dream plot more like consciousness behavior and otherwise in reality part in order to blur the line of reality and dream. I believe he try to inform audience the daily routine can based on the nonsense mind or at least driven by the desire of that unconscious ego which behaves in ”irrational” way.

My favorite part of Mulholland Drive is the scene when Betty and Camilla sitting in the theater watching the singing on the stage. The singing was so marvelous and touching (indeed) that they both shedding tears. Suddenly the singer fainted but the singing keeps going. The singing is fake ! But is it? I believe Lynch try to say that performance is the art of letting audience enjoy. Believe every move although it might lie to you, because it is meaningful. Music plays an important role in Lynch’s film. As the modern director, and perhaps without mainstream production support, he must know how to affect people by a more sophisticate and primary way. The song “Rammstein” hits me immediately as I heard the sound like a train passed by the railroad. It sounds like something is going to hit me, very suitable for the confliction scene. The singing scene in Mulholland Drive put the music beyond the measure of affecting audience’s feeling, but it is metaphor and plot itself.

Here is my conclusion. First, Lynch film break the logic of plot, he deliver the idea that the power of ego is the irrational factor of daily life directly through the disorder narrating form. Thus the monotone of life will one day become the tragedy. Second, the power of music is the Lynch’s style. He tends to use smoke, light and music as a metaphor to imply the transition of certain element. Lynch is the brave director, and he is never easily satisfied with his way telling story. It’s hard to classify his style or form. “Can’t understand” may be the most notable mark of his film. But one thing for sure, Lynch will never stop digging into the darkside under the hollow and monotone modern lifestyle. But with his sharp narrating perspective ,Elephant Man and The Straight Story , one can assure the concern and the seek for warm humanity is the base of his directing.