He is a genius director in the film industry, the most revolutionary and original pioneer of contemporary images, and a painter and musician who illuminates contemporary art with a strange light. His creations tear apart the logic of reality and subvert genre narratives. He has won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, was nominated for the Best Director Oscar three times, and won the Oscar Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019... In order to commemorate this world-renowned and unique film master, the Shanghai International Film Festival (6.13-6.22) has set up a special "Into David Lynch's Dream" unit, which includes his 7 representative feature films, all of which are 4K restored versions, as well as a documentary about Lynch.
Among them, the 4K restored version of Mulholland Drive was selected for the Cannes Classics Restoration Unit in 2021, becoming one of Standard Studios' first demonstration works in UHD; and the 4K restored version of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me was supervised by David Lynch himself when he was alive; the 4K digital restoration of Inland Empire, which was also supervised by him, reproduced the effect of Lynch's shooting with Sony PD-150. In addition, the documentary David Lynch: An Artistic Life is a supplementary reading for understanding Lynch's creative aesthetics, providing a path to understand his grotesque aesthetics.
So, please follow David Lynch and go through the mist of the screen into the world of desire, memory and surreal dreams.
Interpretation of the Aesthetics of "Lynchism"
Lynch's lens is never content to record reality, but to crush reality and reassemble it into a fantasy dream. The industrial noise and silicone viscera in Eraserhead show low-fidelity aesthetics; the highly saturated red and blue contrast in Blue Velvet alienates the rural town into a violent theater; Inland Empire abandons the texture of film, uses DV noise and frame skipping to dissolve the actors' bodies into digital fragments, allowing Laura Dern to complete a nervous breakdown in nested time and space. This audio-visual aesthetic is a directional explosion of the audience's sensory system: when the monster behind the wall of the cafe in Mulholland Drive flashes, all attempts to solve the puzzle with reason collapse instantly.
Lynch's works always question: Is reality just a collective illusion? Diane in Mulholland Drive reconstructs her life with dreams, twisting the betrayal of her lover and the frustration of her career into the detective adventure of Betty and Rita. The sweetness of the first half and the bloodiness of the second half form a mirror image, just like the eternal struggle between "ideal self" and "real trauma" in Lacan's theory. This narrative split reaches its peak in Lost Highway: the jazz musician who killed his wife "transforms" into a mechanic in the cell, and identity replacement becomes the ultimate metaphor for escaping guilt. Lynch's dreams never provide comfort, but push the audience into the maze of memory - just like in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, Laura Palmer's diary is a death notice, reflecting the shadow of power that crushed her.
In Lynch's lens, Hollywood is not a dream factory, but a meat grinder that devours souls. The audition scene in Mulholland Drive is the cruelest meta-film allegory in film history: Naomi Watts's instant switch from sweet to crazy reveals the industry's objectification logic for actors; the power network behind the ear-cutting case in Blue Velvet alludes to the collective schizophrenia behind conservatism. Even a tender biopic like Mr. Streeter's Story hides the tragedy of agricultural civilization being crushed by industrialization - when the rusty red lawn mower drives through the cornfield, every inch of movement is a silent protest against the speed of modernity.
Lynch's films refuse to be domesticated. When critics used Lacan's theory to interpret Diane's impasse of desire in Mulholland Drive, he said while stirring his coffee in an interview: "Interpretation is the audience's funeral, and my job is to give them a gorgeous wake." This provocation runs through his creative career: Eraserhead attempts to fight the Hollywood industrial system at a very low cost; Inland Empire attempts to use improvisational shooting to undermine the authority of the script; even in the documentary David Lynch: An Artful Life, he refused to analyze himself, and only let the fragments of childhood memories rot quietly on the canvas.
David Lynch never stops creating gaps between reality and dreams. While other directors are busy building narrative buildings, he focuses on blasting all rational foundations - just like the mysterious man whispering in Lost Highway: "Your home... is now in my hands." Perhaps this is Lynch's ultimate declaration: movies are not answers, but a never-ending questioning. Today in 2025, when we stare at the cross-cutting of the nuclear mushroom cloud and New Mexico in 1956 in the third season of Twin Peaks, we can still hear the whisper from the depths of the screen: "Welcome to the desert of reality."
The screening list for this unit is as follows:
Eraserhead 4K (1977)
Highlights: Where Lynchism Begins
Eraserhead is David Lynch's first feature film. He served as director, screenwriter, and editor, creating this completely alternative cult masterpiece at a very low cost. The film focuses on the absurd nightmare experienced by the young Henry in a small town like an industrial wasteland - from the depressing and dilapidated apartment, the irritable and twisted wife, to the birth of a deformed baby, he seeks spiritual escape in an almost self-destructive way. This work constructs a suffocating surreal world with strange black and white images and industrial noise. The style is bold and avant-garde, and it shocked everyone as soon as it was released. This may also be the most "Lynch" work, from which we can see the prototype of his subsequent creative concepts.
BLUE VELVET 4K（1986） BLUE VELVET
Highlights: A pioneering work of small-town thrillers, a classic in film history
College student Jeffrey returns to his hometown because his father is seriously ill, but finds a cut-off human ear in the countryside. This strange incident leads him to Sandy, the daughter of a policeman. The two secretly investigate and the clues point directly to Dorothy, a nightclub singer. Jeffrey sneaks into Dorothy's apartment and witnesses the weird ritual of the gang leader Frank using blue velvet as a prop, gradually uncovering the rotten power and criminal network under the glamorous appearance of the town. The film uses the contrast of bright colors and morbid narrative to construct an allegory of the collapse of the "American Dream": insects crawling under the blue sky and green grass, the growing pains of an innocent boy falling into the abyss of desire... Together, they constitute Lynch's ultimate questioning of the darkness of human nature. Lynch was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director for this film.
Twin Peaks : Fire Walk With Me 4K (1992)
What to watch: A murder case with a predictable ending that reveals the most rotten truth in Twin Peaks
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me is a prequel to the classic series Twin Peaks created by David Lynch. It focuses on the last seven days of the life of the young girl Laura Palmer with an extremely dark brushstroke, tearing open the hypocritical veil that shrouds the town of Twin Peaks. The film unfolds from Laura's death flashback: during the day, she is a perfect high school student in the town; at night, she is extremely decadent and becomes a victim of her father Leland's desire for power and money. As Laura's secret diary is discovered, her double life is gradually exposed - from distorted family relationships, the drug network controlled by the gang, to the surreal illusions in the red room that foreshadow death, it ultimately points to a tragic ending like a sacrifice. Lynch uses violent audio-visual language to visualize Laura's pain into industrial noise, flashing lights and distorted faces, constructing a spiritual purgatory between reality and nightmare. The film was shortlisted for the main competition unit of the 45th Cannes Film Festival.
Lost Highway 4K (1997)
Highlights: David Lynch's most challenging surrealist suspense classic
The film uses fragmented narrative techniques and schizophrenia narrative perspectives to tear the boundaries between reality and dreams. The marriage of jazz musician Fred and his wife Renee is mired in suspicion and indifference until they receive a mysterious videotape sent anonymously - the video accurately records the details of their private lives and even gradually foreshadows Renee's death. When the videotape finally shows that Fred killed his wife with his own hands, he is arrested and imprisoned for murder, but strangely "transforms" into a young mechanic Pete in the cell, starting a cycle of violence and desire under another identity. Lynch uses a non-linear structure to interweave the truth of his wife's murder, identity replacement, gang conspiracy and supernatural symbols, constructing a brain storm about memory, guilt and self-destruction.
The Straight Story 4K (1999)
Highlights: Learn about Lynch's warm side
David Lynch's rare warm work tells a road epic about aging, redemption and family affection in a plain and simple way. 73-year-old farmer Alvin Streeter has almost lost his ability to move due to eye and leg diseases, and depends on his intellectually disabled daughter Rose for life. When he learned that his brother Lyle, whom he had not seen for ten years, was seriously ill and dying, he resolutely drove an old 1966 lawn mower on a 300-mile pilgrimage. Lynch abandoned his usual surrealist style and gazed at the vastness and desolation of the central plains of the United States with a minimalist lens, showing the bond of blood and the courage required for reconciliation in a slow rhythm. The film was shortlisted for the main competition unit of the 52nd Cannes Film Festival. Richard Farnsworth, who played Mr. Streeter, was nominated for Best Actor at the 57th Golden Globe Awards and the 72nd Academy Awards for this film.
MULHOLLAND DR .
Highlights: The most mind-boggling psychological thriller of the 21st century
On Mulholland Road late at night, the mysterious woman Rita lost her memory due to a car accident and hid in an apartment. She met Betty, an innocent girl who had just arrived in Hollywood to pursue her dreams. Betty took Rita in, and the two worked together to investigate the mystery of her identity, but were accidentally involved in various bizarre events: director Adam's casting, the conspiracy of the gang, and the rotting female corpse that appeared in the apartment. As the clues deepened, they gradually discovered that everything was related to the nightclub "Cialency" and a strange blue key. The murder of love and hate overlapped with the dream of self-destruction. Lynch took the audience into the mental maze with non-linear narrative. Through the dislocation of dreams and memories, he revealed the identity loss and disillusionment of desire brought by the dream-making mechanism of Hollywood. This film is hailed as "the most brain-burning psychological thriller in the 21st century". Movie fans have always used understanding this film as one of the criteria for measuring their viewing ability. The film was shortlisted for the main competition of the 54th Cannes Film Festival. Lynch won the Palme d'Or for Best Director for this film and was nominated for Best Director in the Oscars that year.
INLAND EMPIRE 4K (2006)
What to watch: David Lynch's most insane surrealist masterpiece
After actress Nikki took on the role of "Susan" in the new film, she discovered that the project had been aborted due to the mysterious death of the lead actor. In reality, she was controlled by her jealous husband; during the filming, her intimate scenes with actor Devin gradually got out of control. As Nikki indulged in the role, Susan's fictional life began to devour her real life. As Nikki shuttled through the maze of Los Angeles apartments, Warsaw slums and studio corridors, she was completely lost in the confusion of "who am I", and finally witnessed the annihilation of herself in the infinitely nested mirrors. Lynch used the grainy images shot by handheld DV, industrial noise and the distortion of jump cuts to tear the glamorous skin of Hollywood into pieces, exposing the protagonist's spiritual wasteland and helpless wandering under the interweaving of performance, marriage and power.
DAVID LYNCH: THE ART LIFE (2016)
Director: Jon Nguyen, Rick Barnes, Olivia Neergaard-Holm
Highlights: Explore the story behind the creation of Eraserhead
The film begins with Lynch's life after the birth of his youngest daughter in 2012. Through his paintings, sculptures and self-narration in his Los Angeles studio, it connects his growing up experiences in Montana, Idaho and Virginia. The strange sights Lynch witnessed in the vast forests as a teenager, the creative impulse under the repressive atmosphere of his family, and his fascination with decaying industrial cities during his time at the Philadelphia Academy of Art together constitute the roots of his surreal aesthetics. The documentary reveals for the first time the struggles Lynch had before filming his first feature film, Eraserhead - he was conceiving the script while doing carpentry in a dilapidated apartment, using low-fi equipment to capture industrial noise, and finally completing this cult masterpiece that established his style at a very low cost. The film team had participated in the filming of the behind-the-scenes documentary of Inland Empire.
Note: If the film list changes, please refer to the actual schedule.
