Subverting the Mainstream: The Postmodern World of David Lynch

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5 word format

document in english

film studies

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published 19/11/2007

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Summary

During the first half of the twentieth-century, a movement known as “classical Hollywood cinema” thrived; this was the dawn of truly “mainstream” films. The movies created during this time operated largely within metanarratives; all-embracing laws which governed human behavior. These films utilized well-known plot structures and familiar characters to tell their stories. There was almost always a hero and a villain, and, in the end, the hero would inevitably get the girl. This was a decidedly modernist period in the realm of film. In the latter half of the century, the metanarratives of mainstream, modernist cinema began to face subversion at the hands of a new generation of filmmakers. One filmmaker who has lead the way in this fundamental shift in cinema is David Lynch. Lynch has, for nearly thirty years, stood out as a remarkably postmodern, independent filmmaker. He is largely responsible for ushering in a new breed of independent film, in which the simultaneous subversion and celebration of mainstream metanarratives creates endless cinematic possibilities. His films, most notably Blue Velvet (1986), Wild at Heart (1990), and Mulholland Drive (2001) have generated extreme controversy, dozens of awards, and a reputation as one of America’s most brilliant, offbeat directors. The stories these films tell are elaborately interesting, but what sets Lynch apart as a writer/director is the way he tells his stories. Lynch’s work is categorically postmodern, extremely controversial, and undeniably independent.

The world that David Lynch portrays in his films is both utterly fantastic and strangely familiar.
David Lynch's first successful film to showcase his uncompromising, unrivaled talent for storytelling was 1986's Blue Velvet.
The innovative storytelling behind Blue Velvet works largely do to its acceptance of modernist genre themes.
Many film critics took issue with the brutal violence and perversion in Blue Velvet; largely seen in the sadistic, psychotic character of Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper).
Lynch's world is simultaneously beautiful and disgusting, intoxicating and repelling.
What most critics of Wild at Heart failed to recognize was measure of parody that Lynch utilizes in the film.
Wild at Heart could be described as a shock-laden, intangible road movie with an under-the-surface love story, but nothing substantial on the surface.
While there is little violence in the Mulholland Drive, and the sex scenes are almost jarringly romantic, Lynch still relentlessly subverts the metanarratives of mainstream cinema.
Kenneth C. Kaleta surmises that, 'quite simply, the cinematic vision of Lynch is the landscape of the twenty-fist-century film?