The Cinema of David Lynch

Edited by Erica Sheen and Annette Davison

David Lynch is an anomaly. A pioneer of the American 'indie' aesthetic, he also works in Hollywood and for network TV. He has created some of the most disturbing images in contemporary cinema, and produced startlingly innovative work in sound. If the consistency of his 'vision' suggests he might be approached as an auteur, defining that vision raises many questions. The essays in this collection push toward a fuller account of the cultural and technological contexts within which his works developed during the 1980s and 1990s, and of his intense engagement with the creative and working practices of the industry. They offer an up-to-date range of theoretically divergent readings that demonstrates not only the difficulty of locating stable interpretative positions for Lynch's work, but also the pleasure of finding new ways of thinking about it. Films discussed include Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, The Straight Story, and Mulholland Drive.

Notes on ContributorsIntroduction: American Dreams, Nightmare Visions, by Erica Sheen and Annette Davison1. The Essential Evil in/of Eraserhead (or, Lynch to the Contrary), by Steven Jay Schneider2. David Lynch and the Mug Shot: Facework in The Elephant Man and The Straight Story, by Joe Kember3. Going Into Strange Worlds: David Lynch, Dune and New Hollywood, by Erica Sheen4. Mysteries of Love: Lynch's Blue Velvet/Freud's Wolf-Man, by Sam Ishii-Gonzales5. Blue Velvet Underground: David Lynch's Post-Punk Poetics, by Nicholas Rombes6. Laura and Twin Peaks: Postmodern Parody and the Musical Reconstruction of the Absent Femme Fatale, by John Richardson7. Twin Peaks, Weak Language and the Resurrection of Affect, by Sheli Ayers8. 'In Dreams…': Gender, Sexuality and Violence in the Cinema of David Lynch, by Jana Evans Braziel9. 'Up in Flames': Love, Control and Collaboration in the Soundtrack to Wild at Heart, by Annette Davison10. Weird or Loopy? Specular Spaces, Feedback and Artifice in Lost Highway's Aesthetics of Sensation, by Greg Hainge11. Beyond Boundaries: David Lynch's Lost Highway, by Anne Jerslev12. 'All I Need is the Girl': The Life and Death of Creativity in Mulholland Drive, by Martha P. NochimsonFilmographyBibliographyIndex