I wouldn't call myself a huge David Lynch nerd, but at the same time I've seen enough of his stuff to be a bit above a causal fan. (For the record the main things I've missed by him are Eraserhead, Wild at Heart and Inland Empire, though the latter isn't due to any lack of effort in trying to track it down.) I watch him in the same manner that I think a lot fans do: I have a solid grasp of probably a third of what is going on, spend a lot of time speculating on the next third, and am plesantly bewildered by the remainder. Since the intereptation of his stuff is not always easy (though sometimes it is) I like seeing what various critics have to say.
But it seems like there are a bunch of positions that his critics agree on more out of a group consensus than from anything in Lynch's work itself. For example when describing the Lynchian people will often say something like "One key feature is that there is always darkness with the light. Lynch shows us that no matter how good something may look on the surface, it actually is hiding great evil and that this is just part of life." It seems like the most frequent refernece made to illustrate this is the opening scene of Blue Velvet, where an idyllic 50's esque midwestern America is shown. Then a man has a stroke and the camera goes undergound to show the vermin lying just below the surface. See here.
But this is the opening scene of the movie, and it is revisited in the ending. See here. We get nearly the exact same shot of the fireman going by in the idyllic neighborhood, but after this instead of seeing the insects underground, we see Dorothy reunited with her child. Just before that, we see a robin eating a bug. This had been set up earlier in the movie (through Sandy's dream) as a symbol of good overcoming evil. The movie isn't being at all shy with broadcasting the message that "there WAS a dark evil underneath the surface, but now it has gone away." This corresponds to two events in the movie: first, and most obviously, the ruthless criminal Frank has been killed and his tyranny over the community (and Dorothy in particular) is over. Second, the main character Jeffrey is relaxing and enjoying his environment. In the beginning of the movie he was shown to be uncomfortable in the small town locale and throughout the movie he struggled with the idea of his curiosity just being an excuse to get involved in darker things. Now that he has seen and overcome real evil, he is able to appreciate the good of his humble existence.
A pretty far cry from the supposed Lynchian notion that evil is equal to good, and that all that seems to be good is really evil. (Another big problem with this idea is The Straight Story: the only lurking evil in that movie is the regret that comes with old age about not being able to change your mistakes.) Now certainly Lynch often does visit the theme of darkness and evil, and in many cases evil, or at least despair, seems to triumph. But the message I've always took from this is that evil is a challenge that must be overcome. Jeffrey Beaumont was able to overcome, and so was Dale Cooper (eventually.) But in Mulholland Drive and Lost Highway we instead see examples of characters who are unable to overcome their darker impulses. While both of those films are somewhat impenetrable even for Lynch, I think it can be agreed that their respective protagonists refuse to confront reality. This, then, I think is the point Lynch is making: it's not that darkness is inevitable or unconquerable. It is that we must admit its reality and confront it for it to be defeated.
Though I'm getting a little off topic here. It's impossible to know exactly what Lynch himself meant, since he wants the audience to form their own interpretations. But there are certainly wrong intereptations and viewing Lynch as pro-evil would be one of them.
Let's look at something a bit more objective. It's commonly said "Twin Peaks season one was great, but season 2 was a disaster with few if any redeeming qualities." But the people who say this generally love Fire Walk with Me and the third season of Twin Peaks. Not only that, but they love the mythology surrounding those things. But most of these things were not introduced until season 2, including the black lodge. Sure, Coop had his famous dream in the third episode, but his investigative methods suggested that this may have just been his subconscious speaking to him about things he had not yet consciously connected (i.e. the same thing as his rock throwing method.) And this is basically how the dream was treated throughout the first season. The dream took place in a room with red curtains not because it was an otherworldly location with actual red curtains, but as a hint towards the red curtains in Jacques Reanault's cabin. The ominous shadow of a bird could be taken as a reference to the myna bird Waldo. Everything the dream Laura says connects back to some aspect of the murder. It wasn't until season 2 that it became a truly otherworldly location.
Let's consider some other things only introduced in season 2, but considered as classic parts of the lore:
And that's all without getting into several of the great character moments of season 2, such as the absolutely touching sequences between Major Briggs and Bobby (which would have a huge payoff in season 3.) Now I'm not saying that season 2 was all high art; it has several plotloines which are dumb and annoying even by soap opera standards (particuarly the stuff surrounding James.) And I can see the argument that while revealing Laura's killer was not a bad idea, it was done too soon in that the show had not properly prepared a reason for Cooper to stick around and the show to continue, leading to several episodes of wheel spinning. But to be honest, there's a lot of dumb soap opera stuff in season 1 as well, and the show is much more blatant about its soap opera connections there. (It seems like characters are constantly seeing mirrors of reality in the soap within a soap "Invitation to Love.") My point is this: there's no easy way to divide out the "good stuff" into one season and discard the rest, at least not without doing something like stopping after a certain episode, and hence never getting to Fire Walk With Me or the return. You can talk about how much better things could have been if Lynch had had a more direct input throughout, if there had been less executive meddling, etc. But the same things could be said of season 3 (where even Lynch himself complained about not being able to do longer shoots at places like the Fireman's mansion.)
I think people try to dismiss season 2 because it makes them feel smarter than the average viewer. "I like this show, but I'm refined enough not to like the crap they tried to shove down the throats of the common masses." It also gives an easy way to dismiss the problems that everyone recognizes. If you are just talking with similarly minded critics, without actually watching the show, it gets very easy to convince yourself that this all makes sense.
But this sort of attitude also pushes people away from more complex analyses. For example, take Lost Highway. The most common interpretation is that the whole thing is a fake story that Fred is telling to himself to avoid dealing with the fact that he murdered his wife. I certainly think that there are aspects of this in the story, but there's still quite a lot to dig into beyond that. For example:
The idea that Fred is deluding himself is a key used to begin the intereptation of the movie, but it is often used by critics as though it were the end of the discussion. This ties back into the real problem with finding out who killed Laura Palmer: both audiences and critics took that knowledge as the end point of the show, even though there was obviously a lot that could still be learned about Twin Peaks in general and the murder in particular (David Lynch even made an entire movie about that.) Similarly viewing Blue Velvet as just a statement that evil always lurks beneath what seems to be good is an easy way to wrap things up and to not have to deal with them.
While I can't be certain of anything with Lynch, I suspect that this is the reason that he hates giving explanations. He doesn't want easy answers both because he thinks that they are unrealistic, but also because he knows that once an "answer" is found that people will stop examining the story. (Shades of the rants in later Umineko games about how whodunnit fans are satisfied knowing the culprit and method of murder, even if the motive and fallout of the murder are still unknown.) Whatever else, Lynch definitely makes films that are meant to make you digging deeper, and this is only possible if things can't be nicely wrapped up in a single sentence.
July 4, 2022