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Please note: this 6 hour course, which took place over 3 days, with Mary Wild has already taken place. Tickets are for recording access only. You will receive your individual access details in the Eventbrite confirmation email, you have access for 1 month.
American surrealist filmmaker David Lynch captivates and mystifies audiences with luxurious cinematic dreamscapes, creating glorious puzzles for the mind and heart of film fans. Three titles in particular (Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire – his unofficial ‘blurred identity trilogy’) feature characters embarking on perplexing paths in search of lost selves.
In this 3-part online lecture series, Mary Wild will deconstruct the unforgettable Lynchian triptych from a psychoanalytic perspective, the central thesis being that in each instalment a psychogenic fugue follows the unconscious trauma of unrequited love. The framework of interpretation will include Sigmund Freud’s hydraulic model of the mind, Jacques Lacan’s mirror stage, and Carl Jung’s concepts of persona/shadow to illuminate Lynch’s iconic dream-logic, which is disturbing and beguiling in equal measure.
Advanced viewing is optional; brief bespoke video montages will be screened
Session 1 – Lost Highway (1997): A jazz saxophonist murders his wife and is sent to prison, where he inexplicably morphs into another man and begins a new life.
Session 2 – Mulholland Drive (2001): An amnesiac woman and an aspiring actress search for answers across Los Angeles in a twisting venture beyond dreams and reality.
Session 3 – Inland Empire (2006): As an actress begins to adopt the persona of her character in a film, her world starts to become nightmarish and surreal.
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. MARY WILD, a Freudian cinephile from Montreal, is the creator of PROJECTIONS.
