"This stunning collection of twelve essays and an interview with Michel Chion can be likened to as many shock waves cutting through David Lynch's cinema and photography. Each and every one informed by critical methods up to speed with the work, the essays become, in the strong sense of the term, events. Some touch on electric attraction and breakage, others on the ghost-like nature of the cinema, others on creative abjection and fetishism. Written by experts, filmmakers and artists, all discern, as Chion notes in the final pages, the strong degree to which Lynch is a commanding auteur of our time. Francois- Xavier Gleyzon is to be congratulated for having engineered an explosive work that opens Lynch and film theory onto unforeseen lines of inquiry."--Tom Conley, Harvard University
"Francois-Xavier Gleyzon has brought together a brilliant set of critical essays on the iconic hero of lost forms, David Lynch. Probing, fearless and scrupulous, the volume stays close to the pained exactitude of an unrelenting oeuvre, strongly supporting its troubled and abjected areas, the glacial vocabularies and spectral prods that have made Lynch unbypassable, necessary and enduring."--Avital Ronell, New York University
"David Lynch in Theory takes us deeper into the heart of Lynch's art than the artist himself ever could, because it registers not only the seismic shudders and wild eclecticism of his studio practices, but traces the effects of his work on the sensoria of a brilliantly selected array of critical perspectives. This marvelous collection will be required reading for any further study of Lynch's art."--W. J. T. Mitchell, University of Chicago
"Francois-Xavier Gleyzon's new collection of essays on David Lynch makes a compelling case for the urgency of Lynch's work, today more than ever. These lucid interrogations of Lynch's unfolding oeuvre, including essays by some of the very best psychoanalytic and philosophical film critics, stitch together the pieces of a fantasy in which Eraserhead feels as contemporary as Inland Empire. Essential reading for scholars and students working in film and theory, and those of us whose waking dreams are haunted by snatches of sound and light from Lynch's singular art."--Kenneth Reinhard, UCLA
CONTENTS
FRANCOIS-XAVIER GLEYZON
INTRODUCTION: DAVID LYNCH’S SEISMOGRAPH 1
TODD MCGOWAN
THE MATERIALITY OF FANTASY: THE ENCOUNTER
WITH SOMETHING IN INLAND EMPIRE 8
GREG HAINGE
RED VELVET: LYNCH’S CINEMAT(OGRAPH)IC ONTOLOGY 24
GARY BETTINSON
ERASERHEAD: COMPREHENSION, COMPLEXITY,
& THE MIDNIGHT MOVIE 40
DOMINIQUE DE COURCELLES
“WAKING DREAMS ARE THE ONES THAT ARE IMPORTANT”
NOT BELONGING TO EITHER, SOUND & IMAGE, & TIME 58
SCOTT WILSON
NEURACINEMA 70
ALANNA THAIN
RABBIT EARS: LOCOMOTION IN LYNCH’S INLAND EMPIRE 86
JASON T. CLEMENCE
“BABY WANTS BLUE VELVET”: LYNCH & MATERNAL NEGATION 101
JOSHUA D. GONSALVES
“I’M A WHORE”: “ON THE OTHER SIDE” OF INLAND EMPIRE 117
REBECCA ANNE BARR
THE GOTHIC IN DAVID LYNCH: PHANTASMAGORIA & ABJECTION 132
LOUIS ARMAND
THE MEDIUM IS THE FETISH 147
ERIC G. WILSON
SICKNESS UNTO DEATH: DAVID LYNCH & SACRED IRONY 157
FRANCOIS-XAVIER GLEYZON
LYNCH, BACON & THE FORMLESS 166
GARY BETTINSON & FRANCOIS-XAVIER GLEYZON
DAVID LYNCH & THE CINEMA D’AUTEUR: A CONVERSATION
WITH MICHEL CHION 182
FILMOGRAPHY 188
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
