I have tried to understand Lynch. I love challenging movies. But I am absolutely convinced now that to understand this guy's movies, one needs some sort of hallucinogen or something. His stories are so complicated and make no sense. There I said it. I dont get him.
shareBlue Velvet, Elephant Man and The Straight Story are extremely straightforward. The three that most people have trouble with are Mulholland Drive, Lost Highway and Inland Empire, but even they aren't impossible.
Mulholland Drive has a very set interpretation that makes perfect sense on second viewing, which I recommend. Lost Highway is a bit trickier. There's an interpretation that pretty much makes sense, but doesn't entirely fit. As for Inland Empire, I'm on my fourth viewing and only about 10% the way to understanding it, and even that may be an overstatement. Still love it though - Lynch's style is just brilliant whether it's understandable or not, at least in my opinion.
MD is tricky until you figure out within whose consciousness the narrative occurs. LH is muddier because Lynch and Gifford started with the premise that Fred does in fact actually turn into Pete. The ambiguity in the movie is pronounced. As for IE...it's beyond me...
shareThere really isn't a sure way to understand his work, and when you think you have it down, he'll throw in a curve ball. Not to mention that even though there usually is a specific meaning to films and the imagery, he normally doesn't talk to much about it to let you make up your own mind on it.
shareThat's kind of the funny thing about Lynch. There are no real answers to his movies. They're meant to be subjective, and every viewer has their own interpretation of what his work means. I've seen Mulholland Drive so many times I've lost count and I still can't explain most of it. I've considered theories ranging from it being a story of guilt and redemption (one which I have discussed in detail on my blog: http://hitchcocksworld.blogspot.ca/2014/04/the-meaning-of-mulholland-d r-sort-of.html) to ones that suggest that we're not even seeing the same two people between the first part and the last act (when Rita opens the box), but that basic theme (showing the darker side of Hollywood filmmaking) is a brilliant one and something that I find very interesting.
I have a blog now! http://hitchcocksworld.blogspot.ca/
A good place to start:
Lost Highway - Fred/Pete: “I like to remember things my own way . . . not necessarily the way they happened.”
Mulholland Drive - Betty/Dianne: ”I just came from Deep River Ontario . . and now I’m in this dream place . . you can imagine how I feel.”
Inland Empire - Nikki/Sue: “Damn! This sounds like a dialogue from our script!”
As for Eraserhead . . any dead but squirming chicken will do.
His movies are no more to be understood than an abstract painting.
It's the overall "feel" the movie gives you that matters.
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I think there's a story about how he couldn't answer a question about the meaning of one of his movies to some interviewer. He himself doesn't even know the meaning.
shareWhen I was younger I tried to understand the world. The more I learned though, the more I realized that there is much that doesn't make sense. If you look at only a part of it you may find clarity, but taken as a whole it loses focus.
Lynch films are like that. Pieces of them resemble traditional storytelling, which does in fact attempt to provide a logical, linear, meaning to the events that unfold. But when you try and assemble all of the pieces together, it falls apart.
It's not that they attempt to make sense and fail, or that they are too complicated to be understood. It's that they are intended to NOT be logical. They are intended to disallow someone from forcing them into a box where things make sense.