When it comes to film-making, directing, acting, music or his visual art, David Lynch has a unique style that is not easily summarized. He’s best known for his surrealistic approach incorporating meticulous sound design and a host of dream imagery that has earned the distinction of being uniquely “Lynchian.” His cinematic style and the rationale for his idiosyncratic creativity is explained in “An Excellent Video Introduction to David Lynch: The Treachery of Language.”
His relationship with words
It’s made clear that Lynch’s perspective on both written and spoken words show a troubled relationship. They’re forms of communication but he sees their potential impact on any creative venture. They an easily embellish, enhance or taint the original intention of a masterpiece. This tells us that David Lynch fully understands the power of words and how they create feelings, emotion, ambiance and impression. He’s careful about the way that he incorporates language into his films and other creative endeavors because of his keen awareness of how words can shape and influence.
Earlier allusions to the treachery
One of Lynch’s earliest works is a short film called “Alphabet.” It’s a surrealistic short, filled with rich and dark imagery and surrealism. The villain in the story line is the alphabet, which haunts a young boy in his dreams. The alphabet is represented in vulgar visual images. They are transformed into words that become the stuff that our worst nightmares are created from. The symbolism of the short suggests that words and the letters that form them are powerful and can bring about disaster. Agreed, it’s a pessimistic view of language, which can also be used for beautiful purposes, but Lynch found it necessary to showcase the more negative aspects of the letters and the words that they are used to form.
The video takes a deep plunge into more complex aspects of words and language. The bend of perspective has its points, but is it worth viewing? Stays with it until the end because there are some priceless jewels of knowledge embedded within the strangeness of the video. It’s up to each of us to mine the treasures that just may change the way that we think about language.
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