How Do You Define 'Lynchian'?: An Exploration of David Lynch's Cinematic Style

The Mulholland Drive director has a cinematic and narrative style all his own, which pushes boundaries and creates imaginative, otherworldly images that stay with audiences long after the screen goes black. Other films, as well as clothes, people, towns, and more have been described as "Lynchian", but what the hell does that even mean?

"Lynchian: a particular kind of irony where the very macabre and the very mundane combine in such a way as to reveal the former's perpetual containment within the latter." - David Foster Wallace

---

The worlds that David Lynch creates in his films are completely familiar, and yet entirely foreign. They're nightmarish renditions of reality -- the not-quite-right small town American dream. The first quote in the video sums up nicely what it's like trying to explain what Lynchian is:

"The paradox of the Lynchian sensibility is that it is at once easy to recognize and hard to define."

There's plenty to say about the literary and visual aesthetics of a Lynch film, but that's not quite what being Lynchian is all about. In other words, Lynchian can be used to describe films with similar odd images and similar macabre themes, but it can also be used to describe places, clothing, a feeling, even an entertainer's performance. It's a tone, a sense, an atmosphere, or experience that you fully understand, but can't quite describe.

So, if you ever need to explain to someone what Lynchian is, any of these answers would probably suffice:

• It's like being dropped into the middle of someone else's dream.
• It's like the real world, only people speak backwards and the sun rises at night and sets in the morning.
• It's what avant-garde would look like if it was personified as a sociopathic serial killer trying really, really hard to not to kill again (but failing pretty bad).
• It's a woman's crimson lips, a highway at night; it's red drapes and a spotlit stage.
• It's an inescapable small town in America.
• It's eery detachment and a crushing blow.
• It's ostensible -- you'll know it when you see it.

How would you describe Lynchian? Let us know in the comments below!

Source: Keyframe