Embracing mystery with David Lynch
The filmmaker knew that our desire to comprehend is intimately tied to our desire to control.
David Lynch as FBI agent Gordon Cole in the 2017 Twin Peaks reboot (Source image: Showtime)
There is a scene in David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: The Return in which FBI Deputy Director Gordon Cole (played by Lynch himself) turns to his colleague after a bizarre encounter and says flatly, “I don’t understand this situation at all.” These words have probably escaped the lips of millions of viewers of the filmmaker’s work over the past 50 years. And yet, so many of us continue to love his enigmatic stories, from his early-career, avant-garde film Eraserhead to his incomprehensible final film, Inland Empire. I was among those who were deeply grieved when he died in January.
The original Twin Peaks series debuted on primetime television 35 years ago this week. I am too young to have experienced the mania for its original run, or for most of Lynch’s theatrical debuts. But I’ve devoted much of the last two years to studying Lynch for various projects. As I fell in love with his vision of the world, I asked many questions. Chief among them: Why?
Why do films filled with such darkness feel so full of hope? Why do his characters feel so real, despite Lynch’s spotlight on the artificial? And why are these confusing, Lynchian (yes, his films are so uniquely surreal that he earned his own adjective) stories so meaningful for so many viewers?
