The Museum will be closed on Easter Friday 29 March and Easter Sunday 31 March. We are open as usual on Saturday 30 March.

Projections: David Lynch’s Blurred Identity Trilogy

A sold out 90-minute lecture followed by 30-minute group discussion filmed at the Freud Museum London on 22 August 2012.

Projections 1: David Lynch’s blurred identity trilogy

Making sense of ‘Lost Highway’,’ Mulholland Drive’ and ‘Inland Empire‘ can be a daunting task! These films by David Lynch have captivated and mystified audiences around the world; Freudian psychoanalysis offers a chance to decipher the American director’s luxurious cinematic dreamscapes. In the first of the Projections lectures, these titles will be considered as forming a ‘trilogy of blurred identity’, where the central character in each installment experiences a psychogenic fugue following the trauma of unrequited love within marriage and/or Hollywood. Special focus will be placed on Freud’s hydraulic model of desire in the search for meaning in these enigmatic films.

Projections 2: David Lynch, surrealism and psychoanalysis

Moving beyond the ‘blurred identity trilogy’, the second of the Projections lectures examines the artistic implications of David Lynch’s inimitable style, which marks the shared space between the investigative ‘desire to know’ in psychoanalysis, and the provocative ‘knowledge subversion’ in surrealism. This anarchic process emerges from the unconscious, a mysterious psychic terrain that Lynch accesses via the practice of transcendental meditation. Special consideration will be given to Lacanian concepts of mirror stage and linguistic alienation in the exploration of Lynchian technique, comprised of dream-logic that is turbulent and seductive in equal measure.

‘Projections‘ is psychoanalysis for film interpretation.‘Projections’ empowers film spectators to express subjective associations they consider to be meaningful. Expertise in psychoanalytic theory is not necessary – the only prerequisite is the desire to enter and inhabit the imaginary world of film, which is itself a psychoanalytic act. Please watch ‘Lost Highway’, ‘Mulholland Drive‘ and ‘Inland Empire‘ before attending sessions as there may be spoilers!

Mary Wild, a Freudian cinephile from Montreal, is the creator of ‘Projections.

 

 

 

Leave a Comment

Your email is never published nor shared. Required fields are marked *