One of my goals for this semester was to broaden my film repertoire. Shocking as it may be, given that I write a film column, there are endless classic movies I haven’t seen. This fall, my target was renowned director David Lynch, who passed last year. Over his nearly 60-year-long career, Lynch made 10 feature-length films and several television shows, including the critically acclaimed “Twin Peaks.” He’s well known for his weird movies — for lack of a better word.
Lynch’s films are almost always exceedingly confusing, with stories told out of order and actors playing multiple characters. Sometimes, things that feel like they should be addressed never are. Take the baby-headed doll in the background of “Blue Velvet,” for instance, which we can glimpse in the corner of the frame but is never fully shown, and which nobody in the scene seems to notice. You feel like you’re going crazy as things that warrant recognition, that are honestly very disturbing, are deemed unimportant by the characters.
All of this creates an extremely unsettling vibe that carries through the screen and lingers in the mind, long after the movie is over. It’s always absurd, usually scary and generally brilliant.
For some people, this isn’t enough. They want answers; they want to understand every last detail, and once they do, they become insufferable. They think that their understanding and knowledge of the film makes them better than the casual moviegoer, and proceed to rub it in everyone’s face. To make matters worse, you’re not supposed to have to Google the answer; you’re somehow supposed to get it on the first watch. Movie-watching then turns into a competition for who can explain the most esoteric aspects of a Lynch film, for who can prove themselves smarter than the rest of us
I’ll give it to you straight: This mindset is outright dumb. Not only is it an unproductive way to view Lynch’s work, it’s also not what he wanted or intended. “When it comes down to explaining things, I stop,” Lynch said in an interview with Filmmaker Magazine. “With most films … there’s no room to dream or to find your own interpretation,” he said.
I fully understood this recently when I finished watching his three-hour masterpiece “Inland Empire” The 2006 feature is considered Lynch’s most confusing film, and for good reason. Unlike his other movies, which, although really weird, have some semblance of a plot, at no point while watching “Inland Empire” did I feel I had a good understanding of what was going on. The most aware I was of what was happening was when somebody started talking about taking a “bus to Pomona,” and then Laura Dern went through a door marked 47. Was it coincidence? Who knows. But other than that, I was lost.
Naturally, at the end of the film I looked up an explanation, and oh, was that a mistake. It took another 45 minutes to debrief, and not only was I almost more confused than when I started, but the explanation didn’t add to my enjoyment of the film. Knowing the alleged plot was interesting, sure, but looking back, I wish I’d stayed ignorant. My new knowledge almost felt like a reduction of the film, demystifying the aspects that had captured me while watching. Seeing it all written out wasn’t enlightening, just vaguely disappointing.
Not only did it take away the magic of the film, but it also stole from me the experience of deciding for myself what the movie meant. Sure, it’s frustrating to not understand something, and it can even make you feel a little stupid, but the reward is in the struggle, and in the epiphany you finally reach. Or maybe you never reach it, you never understand, but even that is better than being force-fed an explanation from the internet.
It is true that in some of Lynch’s work, there is a mystery to solve — spoiler alert: We do, at some point in “Twin Peaks,” find out who killed Laura Palmer — but even in these works, the best parts are those left unexplained. In fact, when Lynch tries to give too much context, his work starts to feel clunky (see: his 1984 “Dune” adaptation). The most memorable part of a Lynch film isn’t the plot but the nightmares that surround it. It’s the owls not being what they seem in “Twin Peaks”; it’s Mr. Roque in “Mulholland Drive”; it’s the rabbits in “Inland Empire.” It’s every time you feel like pausing the movie and running it back, forcing yourself to stay and figure out what in the world is going on.
There is no one right explanation for what happens in a Lynch film, and even if there is, that’s not what we should be focusing on.
We watch his films not because we want to understand everything perfectly, but because we crave the experience of discovery; we want to be confused, we want to be lost and we want the euphoria of clawing our way back into reality when it’s all over.
In an interview with Chris Rodley about his 2001 release “Mulholland Drive,” Lynch summed up his thoughts on the matter: “I think people know what ‘Mulholland Drive’ is to them, but they don’t trust it. They want to have someone else tell them … That’s the beautiful thing, to figure things out as a detective. ”
There is no one right explanation for what happens in a Lynch film, and even if there is, that’s not what we should be focusing on. When you finally emerge into the sunlight of the credits at the end of a Lynch film, you’re left with a profound feeling of something. Finding out what someone on Reddit thinks the plot was doesn’t necessarily help you process that something. Instead, discover what the film means for you. What will you take with you when you emerge from the darkness? What meaning will you create out of the madness?
Maggie McAteer SC ’30 spends too much time going down rabbit holes on Wikipedia and scrolling through Letterboxd reviews for movies she hasn’t seen. Catch her at the local AMC every weekend to make the most of the A-List subscription draining her bank account.