On the recent "Lost Highway: Special Edition" DVD, I listened with interest to David Lynch talking about his script to screen process. He talked about the process for each film being the same but that the ideas are different and you just follow the ideas through, so "Lost Highway" is made up of all the "Lost Highway ideas".

I mulled this over for a day or two and then started to think if that's the case then how do the "Lost Highway ideas" differ to the "Mulholland Drive ideas" and this is what struck me, they don't differ much at all. Isn't Diane's creation of Betty and Rita in her deranged imaginings more similar than different to Fred's escape into the world of Pete and Alice?

Then I started to think about Leland / Bob, again similar "ideas" float through "Twin Peaks" and "Fire Walk With Me". So, what is this common idea that seems to strand itself through Lynch's work? I could even see it in the relationship between Jeffrey and Frank in "Blue Velvet" and it seems to be a battle between the superego (being the internalization of the conscious extenuated by rules, conflict, morals, guilt, etc.) and the id (being the source of psychological energy derived from instinctual needs and drives).

In recent stories the id in Leland, Fred and Diane triumphs, whereas in "Blue Velvet" Jeffrey is able to fight his urges to become like Frank in relation to Dorothy. Has anyone else hit upon this core Freudian motif in Lynch's work?

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CCC, What are you saying? I didn't get that at all.

Exy, this is something I've been thinking as well, but the conflict between LH/MD/TP ("id" winning) and BV (David beating Goliath) is something new to me. Thanks for this one! Great stuff.

Btw, David beating Goliath, hmm. Wasn't there some articles and stuff that would kinda indicate that Jeffrey in BV is very much like DL -> David beating Goliath, David as in Lynch?

I mean, from that assumption this whole thing could be taken to many directions, for example, after ELEPHANT MAN and especially DUNE (Goliath) Lynch was able to fight his urges to start a new big project and return to the setting he knows best. Is that why Jeffrey is able to fight Frank in Blue Velvet? :)

i agree with your theory applied to diane and fred, but i don't think it's the case with leland.

diane and fred make an surreal "id dream" because they can't make one of reality as it would be supressed by their superego.

however i don't believe leland was able to control bob. bob was not part of him so it had nothing to do with psychological levels. i know one would argue that leland had the drives for incest and violence towards his daughter but i don't think he did. it was all the work of bob. if he is responsible for those drives i guess it was bob's job to get his id out. as you can tell i really go through a whole thought process while typing. but i'm still 50/50 about this because i am not sure if leland was portrayed as a metaphor of how people can be posessed by evil or an actual type of thing.

but anyway i agree that the struggle between id and ego is recurring in lynch's work. i think the message through most of his films is to be aware of one's id and express it, but supress it to the level (that one must find) where it should be controlled to the point of a let's say utilitarian morality. 

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Lynch doesn't think of it or cojectures on. He does it, period. That's the greatness of his art.   This doesn't stop people from doing interpretation based on external sciences or theories, but I think it's quite reductive to compare them.

"Did they scoff the whole damn Smörgåsbord?" (Audrey) 

"Gimme a donut!" (Coop)

Have you seen the interview on the "Lost Highway" DVD, or "Pretty As A Picture"?  David Lynch can be quite informative about his creative process at times and I only compared "LH" and "MD" after I heard him say that each film was comprised of its own ideas. 

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Good brains you got there, boy!

Of course Lynch can be quite informative about his creative processes. He is bound to answer in some way. But he finds his own way to answer the questions you've got for him (how many film-makers do that?). Often he becomes even more intricate answering than how he is during the creative process of a film, do you know what I mean? As a matter of fact the sentence "Each film is comprised on its own ideas" is quite tricky and, sardonic, I would say.

We can't help but compare the main characters of LH and MD. It's evident and has been really talked about in this years. It's a pity the board had to be reset, you could have been nosing around in the old stuff and get more informed about the theories made upon his works. Plus, it's no wonder if Lynch repeats himself. It's quite usual for an artist to make the more or less same thematical proposals. And don't forget that LH is quite ambiguous and messy, while in MD Lynch achieved a more solid and shiny matter. So it's not like LH and MD are identical.

"Did they scoff the whole damn Smörgåsbord?" (Audrey) 

"Gimme a donut!" (Coop)

a lot of this has to do with unaware subconscious influence on creativity. i also experience this making music and just thinking of any ideas for stories.

i notice from interviews that he is oftentimes unaware of prior influence being portrayed in his work. he realizes many things post-production. like in the season one extras, micheal whatever LMFAP says he overheard him saying". i bet that is what i really meant by that" during a session of editing. this is in no way a bad thing because lynch definately has some of the most original elements in film and art today. plus this kind of conflict probably happens to all artists. 

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I don't remember where I post this, but I once published here a translated interview they made with David when he came in Rome a month or so ago.

He was asked if he liked Fellini and answered that he felt inspired by many of his movies, which are often connotated by carnivalesque atmospheres (and we all know there is a capture in INLAND EMPIRE with a trained horse being raised by a sort of Emcee in a circus).

Lynch has also been chattering about fantastic worlds and being amused by how one part of a film can relate to another of it that's totally different (this is a feature we can find in both MD and LH, but I have reason to believe he is talking about INLAND EMPIRE which, as we all know, includes parts shot in the U.s. and other shot in Poland).

"Did they scoff the whole damn Smörgåsbord?" (Audrey) 

"Gimme a donut!" (Coop)

Peolple make such a big fuss over the non liner narratives of LH and MD.  But think about it-  when anyone has an idea about a story, who thinks of it in sequential order?  There's an idea, followed by other ideas and then you fit them together.  It seems to me that David may put the parts of the story together as it occurs to him, not chronologically.    

"Did they scoff the whole damn Smörgåsbord?" (Audrey) 

"Gimme a donut!" (Coop)

I don’t have an issue with non-linear stories at all.  I just think that from “The Usual Suspects” to “Memento” to “Donnie Darko” that the device is pretty played out, especially when the “trick” of the audience going “Oh… I see... it’s non-linear!” at the end of the movie tends to leave it redundant on subsequent viewings. 

Lynch is a good linear story-teller, as shown in “Elephant Man”, “Blue Velvet”, “Wild At Heart” and “Straight Story”, but he tends to use flash backs a lot and visualisations of inner thoughts / dreams of his characters. 

I just hope that “Inland Empire” isn’t going to depend entirely on the same "trick" shtick but when I hear that whole characters only exist in its protagonist’s dreams I do wonder how many more times he can pull this off, especially when this time we don't even have a sumptuous celluloid experience to indulge in.

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You know, I tend to agree with you, Exy. I am not sure what to expect from Inland Empire, but since it is by David Lynch I am really looking forward to it and also because it is his first feature film using the DV format, which is exciting in and of itself. I also found your opinions on "Non-linear" films interesting and yes there are films that excel in this style of storytelling, but it does seem to be used much more now and it isn't a "fresh" idea anymore and now filmamkers run the risk of repeating someone else's "trick" because it is more commonplace. I would like to see something different out of Inland Empire, be it a linear or non-linear structure but with the premise being "a woman in trouble and it's a mystery" not sure if we are going to see anything new, but Lynch's ability to immerse the viewer in whatever world he creates should make it an enjoyable journey nevertheless.

"Every day holds a new beginning and every hour holds the promise of an Invitation to Love." 

Well, with the fact that INLAND EMPIRE is a very experimental movie, shot in dv, without a script, taking place half in Poland and half in Los Angeles with a cast half american and half european, possible carnivalesque themes and references of many kinds to the world of celluloid, the big presence of stars like Jeremy Irons, Laura Dern and Harry Dean Stanton, I think all thist stuff makes the movie already and probably the movie doesn't even need a plot to be great and original. It IS going to be original.   It's just this long wait that makes us doubt on everything...

I just would like to know if it's going to be at Cannes 2006 in May, so that Italian distributors can notice and be quick releasing it here, GODDAMMITT!!!

"Did they scoff the whole damn Smörgåsbord?" (Audrey) 

"Gimme a donut!" (Coop)

Slavoj Zizek is a Lacanian theorist that has a lot of fun with Lynch. mainly, Hitchcock, but yes. The ideal ego and the primitive urges of the real have a lot to do with it.

Lynch says he was inspired to LH by OJ Simpson, of all people. What, psychologically, allows a man who just killed his wife to go golfing?

 Here Zizek talks about ego.superego and A Few Good Men, Casablanca and Apocalypse Now

http://www.lacan.com/zizraphael.htm

(You don't really need to know Lacan inside out to get the drift. Zizek is relatively easy to read.) 

All stories are a battle between superego and id. Imagine a film where you only had superego or Id. It would be, respectively, boring and pointless chaos.

All films and all moments of life are this battle. From Baywatch to Lynch.

But not all films are constructed to shed light upon this battle. Maybe that's what you meant. 

The set of ideas to each film seem to be connected to how the elements of Id or weirdness enter the plot. Dream. Time Travel. Fiction. Translocation. Transformation. Possession. Memory loss. Death.

BTW I think the coffee drinking in the film INLAND EMPIRE is taking the p1ss out of himself. Probably the same in Mullholland drive.