David Lynch Swerves: Uncertainty from Lost Highway to Inland Empire

by Martha P. Nochimson

Overview

Beginning with Lost Highway, director David Lynch “swerved” in a new direction, one in which very disorienting images of the physical world take center stage in his films. Seeking to understand this unusual emphasis in his work, noted Lynch scholar Martha Nochimson engaged Lynch in a long conversation of unprecedented openness, during which he shared his vision of the physical world as an uncertain place that masks important universal realities. He described how he derives this vision from the Holy Vedas of the Hindu religion, as well as from his layman’s fascination with modern physics.

With this deep insight, Nochimson forges a startlingly original template for analyzing Lynch’s later films—the seemingly unlikely combination of the spiritual landscape envisioned in the Holy Vedas and the material landscape evoked by quantum mechanics and relativity. In David Lynch Swerves, Nochimson navigates the complexities of Lost Highway, The Straight Story, Mulholland Drive, and Inland Empire with uncanny skill, shedding light on the beauty of their organic compositions; their thematic critiques of the immense dangers of modern materialism; and their hopeful conceptions of human potential. She concludes with excerpts from the wide-ranging interview in which Lynch discussed his vision with her, as well as an interview with Columbia University physicist David Albert, who was one of Nochimson’s principal tutors in the discipline of quantum physics.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780292762060
Publisher:	University of Texas Press
Publication date:	03/15/2013
Pages:	295
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Martha P. Nochimson has had a distinguished academic career, teaching at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University and serving at Mercy College as the creator and first Chair of the film program. She is the author of five previous books, including The Passion of David Lynch: Wild at Heart in Hollywood.

Table of Contents

• Preface. Critic on Fire
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction. The Perplexing Threshold Experience
• Chapter 1. Lost Highway: "You'll Never Have Me"
• Chapter 2. The Straight Story: "And You'll Find Happy Times"
• Chapter 3. Mulholland Dr.: An Improbable Girl in a Probable World
• Chapter 4. Inland Empire: The Beginnings of Great Things
• Afterword. A Summary: Living Large Among the Particles
• Appendices: In Their Own Words
  • I: Fragments from My March 18, 2010 Interview with David Lynch
  • II: Excerpts from My Interviews with Professor David Z. Albert
• Notes
• Bibliography and Filmography
• Index

What People are Saying About This

Eric G. Wilson

Taken as a whole, this book is nothing less than a revelation of a new David Lynch. I want to say the true David Lynch, so convincing are the book’s claims, so well-substantiated and explained. I’ve studied all these films obsessively over the past ten years and have written extensively about two of them. But I never saw the profound meanings the book so powerfully discloses. The focus on the physics of Lynch is a true paradigm shift in our understanding of the director. Nothing will ever be the same in Lynch studies again.

Joseph Kickasola

To grant Lynch agency and study him as Nochimson does—through his lens—is not to indulge in sloppy hagiography, but to know something of his remarkable vantage point on the mysteries of existence. . . . Nochimson is stretching herself beyond film studies into a realm where few film studies academics have dared to go. She is up front about the excitement and dangers of this approach, but she also makes an outstanding case that—with Lynch—such stretching beyond every conceivable boundary (be it academic or ontological!) is essential. . . . This book will likely be the standard for studying Lynch’s later films.

Editorial Reviews

[David Lynch Swerves] keenly observed a radical shift in Lynch's style, one which began to incorporate quantum physics and Vedic philosophy into the very narrative fabric of his work.

25 Years Later

The richness of Nochimson’s writing, the thoroughness of her interpretation, and her assured stance in opposition to the canon of Lynch criticism to date all make David Lynch Swerves a must-read for anyone interested in the films of David Lynch. Or, for that matter, the state of film criticism in American culture. If criticism at its best is a form of revelation, then this is practically a new gospel.

House of SpeakEasy

[David Lynch Swerves] keenly observed a radical shift in Lynch's style, one which began to incorporate quantum physics and Vedic philosophy into the very narrative fabric of his work.-- "25 Years Later" (2/9/2020 12:00:00 AM)

The richness of Nochimson's writing, the thoroughness of her interpretation, and her assured stance in opposition to the canon of Lynch criticism to date all make David Lynch Swerves a must-read for anyone interested in the films of David Lynch. Or, for that matter, the state of film criticism in American culture. If criticism at its best is a form of revelation, then this is practically a new gospel.-- "House of SpeakEasy" (8/7/2014 12:00:00 AM)

From the Publisher

The richness of Nochimson’s writing, the thoroughness of her interpretation, and her assured stance in opposition to the canon of Lynch criticism to date all make David Lynch Swerves a must-read for anyone interested in the films of David Lynch. Or, for that matter, the state of film criticism in American culture. If criticism at its best is a form of revelation, then this is practically a new gospel.

House of SpeakEasy - Charles Arrowsmith

Descriptions such as surreal, hallucinogenic, abstract imagist, strange, symbolic, unsettling, disorienting, and unconventional seem to pepper mainstream interpretations of director David Lynch's work. Here noted Lynch scholar Nochimson (The Passion of David Lynch: Wild at Heart in Hollywood) argues that his oeuvre necessitates less an understanding of psychology than of physics—or more precisely, of quantum mechanics. She posits that the nonlinear chronology and shapeshifting in Lynch's more recent films (Lost Highway; The Straight Story; Inland Empire; Mulholland Drive) are less a New Age romanticizing of physics than they are an intentionally cyclical and multidimensional representation of consciousness and totality. Lynch draws this understanding from his study of the Maharishi, while Nochimson reconciles its principles with those of Columbia University physicist David Albert. VERDICT This new take suggests that signature Lynchian devices unsettle because they represent a model of physics that stands akimbo to a linear interpretation of the universe. The book succeeds in making more sense of Lynch's more puzzling works and will find an appreciative audience among fans and film students. Recommended.—Benjamin Malczewski, Toledo-Lucas Cty. P.L., OH

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