David Lynch 's Film Research From The Perspective Of Psychoanalysis

David Lynch, who is regarded as a representative personage of contemporaryfilm, is a master director of independent film in the US. Since the late1970s, hisworks have been famous for strange and obscure plots and he himself strolled outaround mainstream system with his unique characters. Movies of David Lynch weredifferent from others with their glorious, loom, strange and black humor style.Dreams, illusions, subconsciousness were his ways to reveal desires of human nature,following psychological analysis of Freud; he demonstrated psychological symptomsof anxiety and depression of modern people. The signs of his movies were stylesbetween reality and surreal, strange atmosphere, mysterious characters, vague lights,closed space and camera mode of tracking; thus, a new term “lynchian” was createdin film industry which was used to summarize his strange story structure, unusualnarrative clues, irony and exaggerative methods and his unique personal charismagiven off from his works. In his forty-year creation career, only twelve feature filmsand a teleplay were filmed, though it is not a large number, each work contained hisserious thoughts about movie art and human nature.The introduction mainly discussed the background and origin of this task, fullyteased research status and value; briefly explained the relationship betweenpsychoanalysis and movie; at the same time, it also put forward the research clue andinnovation due to the current character of non-systematic and non-integrity.Chapter one mainly gave a summary of film art creation of David Lynch. Thosestrange and complex subconscious elements can always raise people’s reading interest.However, his movies were another matter. Thus, his growing environment andexperiences become a sally port to study his creation intention.Chapter two mainly discussed the study on themes of David Lynch’s films viathe psychoanalysis view. Through interpretation of his works, we can find that filmitself was an adventure of the hero to dream land, and a process to re-recognizehimself. Although seeing from a deeper level, all movies reached this point; raremovies can show so drastically and directly. This chapter analyzed special expression of themes of David Lynch’s films from three aspects including dreams andsubconsciousness, Oedipus complex and Lacan’s theory of mirror of specific films.Chapter three mainly discussed narrative styles of David Lynch’s films viapsychoanalysis view.“Lynchian” is a unique label of his films. Characters of loveethics films, detective films, gangster films, road films, black films, musical films,fairy tales and myths were all commonly seen in his films. He dismantled andrecombined films of Hollywood and those classic narrative elements, according to hisown instinct, amalgamated similar expressionism and surreal, which made his workslook normal but present non-logical, non-reasonable compound mode like dreams andended up creating his own film “type” which is independent from Hollywood.Chapter four mainly discussed the influences and inspiration of David Lynch’sfilms on modern film industry. With current trend of homogenization of film making,David Lynch used his special dreams, elements of subconsciousness to secretlydemonstrated content of culture and society which was to be conveyed by Hollywoodfilms. If we say “inception” of Nolan was to create a dream by video, then, films ofDavid Lynch let people surpass dreams in a disrupt world to review beliefs and valueofAmerican society, rethink society and history from ego.Of David Lynch’s film making, he abandoned traditional narrative methodswhich require plot, time and space and realistic logic of characters’ relationship;provided more “possibilities” while “reason” was lack. Via his works, people can seea film maker’s act spirit, loyalty to his art belief and instinct, and convey it through allpossible art media, his idea and attitude are worth thinking and learning for every artchaser.