“Sitting in front of a fire is mesmerising. I feel the same way about electricity. And smoke. And flickering lights.”1
David Lynch’s popularity with stoners and academics alike has meant that an enormous range of responses has been generated around his films. Yet how do you accurately contextualise someone who is ambivalent about the theoretical implications of their work? Here, I am interested in taking Lynch at face value. I approach him not as ironic or cynically motivated but as someone deeply invested in mediums—concerned with thinking through doing.
Having screened in August 2007 at both the Brisbane and Melbourne International Film Festivals, Lynch’s most recent film Inland Empire (2006) had many of his familiar motifs: the corruption of wholesome characters, narrative which blurs reality and fantasy, formal explorations of dark and light, scenes set in hermetic environments, etcetera. It also marked a significant departure from his previous work, producing a three hour experience that more closely resembled an engagement with video art than any of his studio films. In this sense, Inland Empire confirmed what many people have thought all along; that Lynch is primarily a visual artist who works within the tropes of cinema. Yet I would posit that he would reject the claim that he traverses boundaries between art and film, as such a statement would paradoxically place importance on creative categories.2 Whether it is filmmaking, painting, furniture design, publicity, cartooning, publishing, directing music videos, manufacturing coffee, promoting transcendental meditation, directing commercials, web design or sound design—everything that Lynch does seems to stem from the same creative source. This fluidity has been a typical trait of visual art practice since the 1960s.
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