David Lynch Blue Velvet Analysis
Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, Blue Velvet and my understanding of Media & Culture through David Lynch's lenses.
Introduction
David Lynch was born in 1946, in a small American town which is quite similar to settings he reflected in his movies. He directed more than 40 short and long movies which got various reflections from his audience. In this short essay, I will focus on his later works, specifically Blue
Velvet, Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive. The reason behind this selection is not popularity of this movies among the cinema fans but the abundance of symbolic expressions embedded in these films. Symbolic expression and dream-like narration of this movies brings them a revolutionary quality. When I was watching Lynch's films, I always
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People are quite content with their lives and they can deal with their regular jobs in their gardens in peace. We see people happily firemen who salute happy people which are working on their garden. Streets reminds a tranquil picture of a view. Then, we see a man who is watering his flowers on his garden where his wife watching TV in their house with a happy face.
Than, something devilish happens. We could understand something is going to be unexpected since both angles of the camera and ambivalence of the movie changes. Lynch zooms into the grasses and we see a hose which is used for watering, tangles and simultaneously awkward sounds cover peaceful ambivalence the happy music on background. Then, we realize man who watering the garden suffers a heart attack, where cameraman brings us to the grasses again and we see not the beauty but black filthy bugs which are moving in the darkness (Yılmaz, 2004, p.83). Lumberton is a town that base camp for an adventure of imagination, a place where you can come and be refreshed with a cup of hot coffee in a familiar place (Chion, 1995, p.83), but darkness still embedded in
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Imaginary constructions such as “femme fatales” and “masculine heroes” de-constructed throughout the film, and reminding us that fantasies are not as innocent way out of reality since they may hurt more than reality when we realize it is impossible to have it. It is similar to Fred's recognition that he will never “have” Alice.
Mechanical production of the art object may end up death of “aura” as Benjamin (1970) proposed, but popular culture finds another way to fill this gap with audience itself. Popular culture become popular only through identification with the characters on screen or embracing imaginary idols, space and fantasies presented to people. In my reading, Mulholland Drive was giving a warning to audience by emphasizing imaginary nature of the culture: “It is all illusion”. Culture industry reflects contradictory dichotomies such as good and evil, spiritual and material, moral and immoralor elegant and banal with a clear distinction. However, Lynch emphasizes the ambiguities of this distinctions by explaining stories of people who swing between good and evil, moral and immoral and so
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