Lynch may be the filmmaker of ethics' obscenity par excellence, but we can also trace this idea from Lacan's reading of Antigone through Sethe. In the noir mode of filmmaking, the demands of the ethical almost always occasion defiance of the law (lower case 'l,' as in 'legal') which Lynch took to the most exacting extremes. RIP.
lacan was a loyalist pervert with dreams of destroying the family to develop infantile dependence on a cult ideology. lynch's obscenity is exactly the same trash narrative as the war on drugs. the only thing that's extreme in both is an obsession with following one law in favor of another. and it's all recycled from sketchy places.
Great article as always. Lynch seemed to have a pulse to the *weirdness* of desire, and the way he used the logic of dreams to convey that ad-infinitum relationship was powerful. He reminds me of a Lacan who thought there *really could be a sexual relationship,* that humanity could get over its "one true failure," that we could all Really love each other beyond the imaginary. I think Twin Peaks did that really well. Powerful as always!
Reading this article made me feel the same discomfort as watching those scenes from Wild at Heart or Blue Velvet. Your analysis shows how power operates beyond physical violence, manipulating fantasy and extorting an empty consent that amplifies humiliation. The Bobby Peru scene perfectly illustrates how symbolic control can be even more devastating than the act itself. Your insights on the ambiguity of desire and the subversion of gender roles add a deeply unsettling layer to this dynamic. Thank you for forcing us to confront what we’d rather avoid.
Yeah, Lynch's centering and exposing radical evil and the deceptive normalized veneer of conventional morality reveals his longing for the assertion of true goodness. The clarity of his vision of evil makes impossible to read his assertion of true loral rectitude as naive or Pollyanna.
I love thé fact that for all the weirdness beloved by David Lynch, his most subversive presentation was about an old man who followed the rules, in The Straight Story. That’s a fitting memorial to the irreplaceable Lynch.
Lynch is primarily the author of the style of presentation made possible through the technical realization of images and the atmosphere on set. His writers made the content. Zizek seems wholly unaware of that.
You, sir, are mad! And I thank you for it. Wonderful to read you always. I love Chesterton’s quote: "keep in some sense before the mind the fact that civilization itself is the most sensational of departures and the most romantic of rebellions. When the detective in a police romance stands alone and somewhat fatuously fearless amid the knives and fists of a thieves' kitchen, it does certainly serve to make us remember that it is the agent of social justice who is the original and poetic figure, while burglars and footpads are merely placid old cosmic conservatives happy in their immemorial respectability as apes and wolves. The police romance...is based on the fact that morality is the most dark and daring of conspiracies."
Love this…the discussion brings to mind the ‘Dark Knight’ and ‘Rorschach,’ in popular discourse as archetypal “ethical subjects” vis-à-vis the ‘conservative’ habits of ‘state.’ However, perhaps these are pop representatives are inadequate to the Lynchian analogy insofar as the characteristic ‘mask’ belies a duality of consciousness in which Lacan’s phallic function is exhibited apophatically to the feminine function of the state of social ontology in a sort of role-reversal…The mask is absurd, perverted, and ridiculous, but trembling with hyperactive obscenity, in its own right…(the condom and other prophylactics of unsupervised life?). Although, on the other hand perhaps in moving beyond good and evil in subverting formal expectations of aesthetic relations of symbolic representation Lynch explored the ‘mask’ of form in a similar way. Considering related archetypes brings to mind Vidal’s character (and his “dark and daring ethical conspiracy”) from Pan’s Labyrinth as a kind of self-deluding, primitive ethical subject (the sort of child-like narrowness and ‘pureness’ of the character’s moral vision seems to “mask” a more diffuse and perverse conspiracy of social justice).
An apt quote from Nietzsche’s Gay Science (2010): “Last words. — One will recall that the emperor Augustus, that frightful man who had as much self-control and who could be as silent as any wise Socrates, became indiscreet against himself with his last words: he let his mask fall for the first time when he made it clear that he had worn a mask and acted a comedy — he had played the father of the fatherland and the wisdom on the throne well enough to create the proper illusion! Plaudite amici, comoedia finita est!”
Nietzsche, F. (2010). The gay science: With a prelude in rhymes and an appendix of songs. Vintage.
lynch's ethics are trite conservative nonsense packaged into your wildest fantasies about getting to hurt children. every ethical turn in every moment of his movies and music are done in order to reinforce the idea that the americana family is the lost beacon of cultural survival. get a fucking grip
Lynch may be the filmmaker of ethics' obscenity par excellence, but we can also trace this idea from Lacan's reading of Antigone through Sethe. In the noir mode of filmmaking, the demands of the ethical almost always occasion defiance of the law (lower case 'l,' as in 'legal') which Lynch took to the most exacting extremes. RIP.
lacan was a loyalist pervert with dreams of destroying the family to develop infantile dependence on a cult ideology. lynch's obscenity is exactly the same trash narrative as the war on drugs. the only thing that's extreme in both is an obsession with following one law in favor of another. and it's all recycled from sketchy places.
That made absolutely zero sense. But I’m curious about one thing: if Lacan was really a ‘loyalist pervert’, to which regime are you referring?
Doubt you even know.
Great article as always. Lynch seemed to have a pulse to the *weirdness* of desire, and the way he used the logic of dreams to convey that ad-infinitum relationship was powerful. He reminds me of a Lacan who thought there *really could be a sexual relationship,* that humanity could get over its "one true failure," that we could all Really love each other beyond the imaginary. I think Twin Peaks did that really well. Powerful as always!
The Mr Eddy/Mercedes scene is in Lost Highway, not Blue Velvet.
But yeah, I'll miss him too.
i'd pay 89 cents for this opinion and an empty tuna can
Reading this article made me feel the same discomfort as watching those scenes from Wild at Heart or Blue Velvet. Your analysis shows how power operates beyond physical violence, manipulating fantasy and extorting an empty consent that amplifies humiliation. The Bobby Peru scene perfectly illustrates how symbolic control can be even more devastating than the act itself. Your insights on the ambiguity of desire and the subversion of gender roles add a deeply unsettling layer to this dynamic. Thank you for forcing us to confront what we’d rather avoid.
Yeah, Lynch's centering and exposing radical evil and the deceptive normalized veneer of conventional morality reveals his longing for the assertion of true goodness. The clarity of his vision of evil makes impossible to read his assertion of true loral rectitude as naive or Pollyanna.
Your best work is always at the intersection of your mind and Pop culture!
‘Your most profitable work…’ fixed it for you
I love thé fact that for all the weirdness beloved by David Lynch, his most subversive presentation was about an old man who followed the rules, in The Straight Story. That’s a fitting memorial to the irreplaceable Lynch.
Lynch is primarily the author of the style of presentation made possible through the technical realization of images and the atmosphere on set. His writers made the content. Zizek seems wholly unaware of that.
...Lynch wrote 3 out of the 4 films mentioned here?
Straight Story, truly Lynch’s most experimental film as he claims. Teeming with absurdist humor, dreariness, and transcendent sincerity
You, sir, are mad! And I thank you for it. Wonderful to read you always. I love Chesterton’s quote: "keep in some sense before the mind the fact that civilization itself is the most sensational of departures and the most romantic of rebellions. When the detective in a police romance stands alone and somewhat fatuously fearless amid the knives and fists of a thieves' kitchen, it does certainly serve to make us remember that it is the agent of social justice who is the original and poetic figure, while burglars and footpads are merely placid old cosmic conservatives happy in their immemorial respectability as apes and wolves. The police romance...is based on the fact that morality is the most dark and daring of conspiracies."
https://open.substack.com/pub/clementpaulus
Did he not sign a certain petition in 2009…?
https://open.substack.com/pub/clementpaulus/p/compiled-essays-liminal-abstraction?r=5c1ys6&utm_medium=ios
Love this…the discussion brings to mind the ‘Dark Knight’ and ‘Rorschach,’ in popular discourse as archetypal “ethical subjects” vis-à-vis the ‘conservative’ habits of ‘state.’ However, perhaps these are pop representatives are inadequate to the Lynchian analogy insofar as the characteristic ‘mask’ belies a duality of consciousness in which Lacan’s phallic function is exhibited apophatically to the feminine function of the state of social ontology in a sort of role-reversal…The mask is absurd, perverted, and ridiculous, but trembling with hyperactive obscenity, in its own right…(the condom and other prophylactics of unsupervised life?). Although, on the other hand perhaps in moving beyond good and evil in subverting formal expectations of aesthetic relations of symbolic representation Lynch explored the ‘mask’ of form in a similar way. Considering related archetypes brings to mind Vidal’s character (and his “dark and daring ethical conspiracy”) from Pan’s Labyrinth as a kind of self-deluding, primitive ethical subject (the sort of child-like narrowness and ‘pureness’ of the character’s moral vision seems to “mask” a more diffuse and perverse conspiracy of social justice).
An apt quote from Nietzsche’s Gay Science (2010): “Last words. — One will recall that the emperor Augustus, that frightful man who had as much self-control and who could be as silent as any wise Socrates, became indiscreet against himself with his last words: he let his mask fall for the first time when he made it clear that he had worn a mask and acted a comedy — he had played the father of the fatherland and the wisdom on the throne well enough to create the proper illusion! Plaudite amici, comoedia finita est!”
Nietzsche, F. (2010). The gay science: With a prelude in rhymes and an appendix of songs. Vintage.
lynch's ethics are trite conservative nonsense packaged into your wildest fantasies about getting to hurt children. every ethical turn in every moment of his movies and music are done in order to reinforce the idea that the americana family is the lost beacon of cultural survival. get a fucking grip