Receiving Mulholland Dr.: ‘A Contemporary Film Noir Directed by David Lynch’

Film Matters ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 81-97
Author(s):  
Jonathan Monovich

Knowing David Lynch’s background as an Eagle Scout, this article explores that many of Lynch’s films and their protagonists, particularly Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) in Blue Velvet (1986), embody Eagle Scout-like heroes and serve as genre-like “Eagle Scout films.” These films and their protagonists have similarities with the film noir and western genres and their detective/cowboy heroes through their dealings with ethics, morality, and justice in sadistic worlds. In his genre-hybrid films, Lynch acts as an auteur in using recurring thematic preoccupations/stylistic tendencies, while exemplifying hostile environments offset by a central protagonist with an Eagle Scout-like set of morals.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Karine Rouquet
Keyword(s):  

Ce petit film, au-delà de l’héritage revendiqué du surréalisme, utilise des procédés comiques et fantastiques hybrides (création d’une chimère, narration disruptive, dialogues abusant du coq-à-l’âne et tournant à la fatrasie) qui relèvent de l’inversion carnavalesque décrite par Michaël Bakhtine et plus particulièrement de la Sottie, pièce satyrique en vers que l’on représentait au moment du carnaval. La référence aux Absurda de Érasme en serait la preuve. Dans cette parade bouffonne, David Lynch en Maître-Sot ou Maître es Folie s’amuse à court-circuiter les codes du film noir de la narration, comme de as propre filmographie, créant une esthétique turbulente propre à défier la plateforme disruptive sur laquelle il fait son entrée.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Beatriz Rauscher ◽  
Karine Rouquet ◽  
Nikoleta Kerinska
Keyword(s):  

Este curta metragem, para além da alegada herança do surrealismo, utiliza processos híbridos cômicos e fantásticos (como a criação de uma quimera, a narração disruptiva, os diálogos nonsenses voltados para a fatrasia), que retomam a carnavalização descrita por Michaël Bakhtine, e mais particularmente La Sottie, uma peça satírica em versos, de origens medievais, apresentada na época do carnaval. A referência ao Elogio da Loucura de Erasmo seria uma prova disso. Nesse desfile bufão, David Lynch feito um Mestre do Absurdo [1] se diverte colapsando os códigos da narração do film noir, como sua própria filmografia, criando uma estética turbulenta capaz de desafiar a plataforma disruptiva sobre a qual se faz sua estreia.


2015 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raluca Moldovan

Abstract The present study revisits one of American television’s most famous and influential shows, Twin Peaks, which ran on ABC between 1990 and 1991. Its unique visual style, its haunting music, the idiosyncratic characters and the mix of mythical and supernatural elements made it the most talked-about TV series of the 1990s and generated numerous parodies and imitations. Twin Peaks was the brainchild of America’s probably least mainstream director, David Lynch, and Mark Frost, who was known to television audiences as one of the scriptwriters of the highly popular detective series Hill Street Blues. When Twin Peaks ended in 1991, the show’s severely diminished audience were left with one of most puzzling cliffhangers ever seen on television, but the announcement made by Lynch and Frost in October 2014, that the show would return with nine fresh episodes premiering on Showtime in 2016, quickly went viral and revived interest in Twin Peaks’ distinctive world. In what follows, I intend to discuss the reasons why Twin Peaks was considered a highly original work, well ahead of its time, and how much the show was indebted to the legacy of classic American film noir; finally, I advance a few speculations about the possible plotlines the series might explore upon its return to the small screen.


2018 ◽  
pp. 38-53
Author(s):  
P. Rybina

The article focuses on the priorities in contemporary studies of cinematic adaptations. Looking at the various appropriations of this Shakespeare’s tragedy in art and indie movies, the researcher reveals how by underscoring the director’s visual imagination and the ‘power’ of a cinematic tradition one can revise the scope of adaptation studies. Concentrating on the signature elements of A. Kaurismäki’s and M. Almereyda’s cinematography, the author emphasizes the productivity of the audience’s ‘entrancement’ with the visual and sonic interpretation of the classical piece (through the use of the American film noir stylistics by Kaurismäki, and through Almereyda’s interplay of multiple on-screen realities). In the viewers’ memory, literary meanings are expelled rather aggressively by new cinematographic ones. Kaurismäki turns the tragedy into a tastefully stylized noir whodunit, while Almereyda went for a reflective narrative about neo-Hamletism at an age of expanding virtual realities. In her demonstration of how the directors achieved such effects, the author argues the priority of the cinematographic auteurship (including the case of collective auteurship) in the analysis of contemporary film adaptations.


1985 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. George Godwin
Keyword(s):  

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