Freud/Lynch: Behind the Curtain

Product Information

Courtesy of Channel Four, I was able to begin making documentaries in 1983 and have been an independent filmmaker ever since. In the intervening 35 years I have produced and/or directed over 80 arts documentaries for television and contributed to over a dozen documentary series. These include award-winning films on Andy Warhol and Johnny Cash, as well as the series ‘The Genius of Photography’ and ‘This is Modern Art’. I first worked with David Lynch in 1993 while making a documentary about American independent cinema. In 1996 we began working on the book Lynch on Lynch, which was published in 1997 and has since been updated. I also worked extensively with the director David Cronenberg, making two documentaries about his work (one in 1986 and one in 1992) and well as editing the book Cronenberg on Cronenberg, based on years of recorded interviews. Unlike David Lynch, I don’t paint any more. He told me off about that. David Lynch is known for creating luxurious cinematic dreamscapes – infuriatingly beautiful mind puzzles in his signature surrealistic style. Three films in particular ( Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire) form his unofficial ‘blurred identity trilogy’, featuring characters who embark on bizarre inward journeys in search of lost selves. The central premise of this talk is that in each instalment of the trilogy, a psychogenic fugue follows the unconscious trauma of unrequited love. Psychoanalytic theory will be shown to illuminate Lynch’s iconic dream-logic, which is disturbing and beguiling in equal measure. Speakers’ Biographies This talk argues that the series Twin Peaks: The Return creates the expectation of Dale Cooper’s return as a fantasy figure capable of healing the wound of subjectivity itself only to show how he actually plays a crucial role in its perpetuation.

Freud/Lynch: Behind the Curtain - Freud Museum London

As the cinema foyer filled with the aromas of damn fine coffee, the animated discussions whirled before spilling out on to the street, so that passers-by catching a few fragments of conversation about the mysteries of Lumberton, the sinister underbelly of Twin Peaks, or the depravity of Bobby Peru could be forgiven for surmising that it was a convention of detectives (or perverts). With contributions from Olga Cox Cameron, Tamara Dellutri, Allister Mactaggart, Stefan Marianski, Richard Martin, Todd McGowan, Carol Owens, Chris Rodley, Jamie Ruers, Andrea Sabbadini, and Mary Wild. Why not puncture bafflement with playful speculation? Mulholland Drive proves surprisingly amenable to the dream logic explored by Freud in The Interpretation of Dreams, so let’s see where it takes us. 3. Andrea Sabbadini We hope you’ll enjoy delving in and getting lost in the Freudian and Lynchian dreamscapes, but do make sure to have a MacGuffin to hand to help you wake up again …

Lynch, who once told an interviewer “I love dream logic,” would surely agree with Sigmund Freud’s famous claim that “before the problem of the creative artist, psychoanalysis must lay down its arms.” But what else might the two agree on? this collection raises several important questions, pertinent both to psychoanalysis and an appreciation of Lynch. What are the implications of trying to interrupt trauma? To what extent is Lynch’s oeuvre an attempt to confront the malevolence of the Other? At what point do hysteric representations begin to hystericize the spectator? Can the free association of psychoanalysis be reconciled with the free association of transcendental meditation? By exploring these questions, the reader can begin to peer behind the Lynchian curtain and will, most likely, see quite a bit more than they might have expected to. The collection feels fresh and unquestionably offers more than just a rehashing of the popular psychoanalytic readings of Lynch.’

Freud/Lynch: Behind the Curtain - Medical Museums

Join us at the Freud Museum for an evening of Lynchian quirks in the former home of Sigmund Freud as we mark the launch of the new book: Freud/Lynch: Behind the Curtain (2022). I shall consider from a psychoanalytic perspective how Blue Velvet, dominated as it is by perverse relationships, presents us with ‘a strange world’ (a sentence repeatedly uttered by two of the film’s protagonists). I shall here focus in particular on the theme of voyeurism, which also implicates us as spectators, and on the symbolic significance of the cut-off ear, the film’s iconic and emblematic MacGuffin. Todd McGowan teaches theory and film at the University of Vermont. He is the author of The Impossible David Lynch, Only a Joke Can Save Us: A Theory of Comedy, Capitalism and Desire: The Psychic Cost of Free Markets, and other works. Why not puncture bafflement with playful speculation? Mulholland Drive proves surprisingly amenable to the dream logic explored by Freud in The Interpretation of Dreams, so let’s see where it takes us.With contributions from scholars, psychoanalysts, cinephiles and filmmakers, this collection of essays explores potential affinities and disjunctions between Lynch and Freud. Encompassing themes such as art, identity, architecture, fantasy, dreams, hysteria and the unconscious, ‘Freud/Lynch’ takes as its point of departure the possibility that the enterprise in which these two distinct investigators are engaged might in some sense be a shared one. David Lynch is primarily known as a filmmaker whose singular cinematic/televisual creations have held audiences both spellbound and perplexed over several decades. Yet he initially trained as a fine artist and has continued to work as such throughout his life, using a wide variety of media to express his unique artistic vision across various fields. In this paper I will suggest that Lynch’s work, in whatever medium, is best understood as that of a visual (and sonic) artist. As such, the perceived lacunae or unintelligibility in it may be understood or “experienced” in other ways and, further, that psychoanalysis may help to bring to light various aspects of his work which have hitherto been less explored than others. 10. Chris Rodley