David Lynch: The Treachery of Language 

“The word is now a virus....Modern man has lost the option of silence. Try halting sub-vocal speech. Try to achieve even ten seconds of inner silence. You will encounter a resisting organism that forces you to talk. That organism is the word.” - William S. Burroughs

I find that in life, you have pre Eraserhead life and post Eraserhead life.

"someone once said, language was invented to lie." -- terence mckenna

“Because the name is the thing . . . To speak the name is to control the thing." - The Rule of Names, Ursula K. Le Guin

That was awesome. An actual essay?!?! On RU-vid?! That was well edited and taught me something I didn't know?!?! Thank you very much Grace Lee xx

I thought I was maybe "at capacity" for David Lynch videos, but you've proven me wrong. This (ironically) puts into words so many things about his work that I've always loved but never really been able to articulate. This was an oasis in a desert of half-baked theories about Judy and alternate dimensions in "Twin Peaks: The Return", that are just exhausting at this point. From now on I'm going to show this video to anyone who asks what I like about David Lynch.

Words are like a haircut. They shape and define boundaries giving the overall impression one wants to express but theres often a lot lost in the process leaving so much on the floor to be swept away.

This reminds me of 'defamiliarization' in Russian formalism. "The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and not as they are known. The technique of art is to make objects ‘unfamiliar,' to make forms difficult to increase the difficulty and length of perception because the process of perception is an aesthetic end in itself and must be prolonged." ~Viktor Shklovsky

Mr. Lynch wants us to wake up before the alarm goes off.

This was terrific Grace. My favourite thing you've done thus far.

This is so, so good. It's like a thesis all by itself. Thanks so much for putting in all this work. It makes for a really fascinating and informative video

The world is never at capacity for good David Lynch videos. This one is the best I've seen, bar none x

Possibly the best video on Lynch! I love how he ridicules the words, especially in his paintings. I agree that they become two seperate things, taken apart, in his works. That's what I love, since it doesn't narrow down the perception for the viewer. This was a terrific video!

something I found interesting is where 'Gordon Cole' originates from - a character from Wilder's Sunset Boulevard. In the film, Gordon Cole is a man who works for Paramount Pictures who's looking to rent an old car for a movie, the car that belongs to Norma Desmond, an old silent film star. However, when Norma Desmond receives the call (from Gordon who wants to rent her car and nothing else) she thinks that she's being called because people want her again. Even the act of calling someone on the phone for a completely unrelated reason can cause things to spiral and make expectations mount. I haven't seen Sunset Boulevard in a while so I may be getting this wrong but I think that's why Lynch chose 'Gordon Cole' as his character's name, because words can be dangerous.

Hands down one of the best video essays on Lynch I've ever watched! Excellent analysis!

This was wonderful! Lynch is one of the great uncompromising artists of our time and you did such a great job at analyzing his approach and themes while preserving his ambiguity, which is what makes him an iconic and unforgettable filmmaker.

I think most of the world has yet to discover the Greatness of Lynch. I have been a ponderer for more that thirty years .I only increase my Awe for all thing Lynch. Sadly most can never ponder.And will miss the Lynchian Journey .Thank you for your Contribution.

This brings to mind the Cowboy character in Mulholland Drive. When he meets the film director, Adam, at the ranch in the hills, he is full of analytical, almost legalistic menace. He is unusually deliberate in his delivery of words. They are chosen with deep, logical precision and structured as orders to be followed without derivation. Commands. This is so atypical of Lynch's dialog that the Cowboy comes across and disturbingly formal and threatening. Perhaps this belies a deep distrust by Lynch of people who have mastered words and live, bounded, by their analytical structure. Lawyers, studio heads, the controllers and puppeteers of our world, weaving words to trap, enslave and direct others.

First-rate. Solid grounding, compelling, convincing - challenging... gives us so much to keep in mind while watching his work, doubting the power of words, listening to the dialogue rhythms

I crush on Lynch so bad, the older he gets the more I adore him 💕

This is friggin phenomenal. Good lord.

excellent

"Between the idea and the reality, between the motion and the act, falls the shadow." -TS Eliot

Very well done. I have been writing poetry for over 40 years, and i have always tried to somehow make the words in my poems become more than what would at first seem to be indicated by each words meaning. BURN THE WORLD TO SAVE THE WORD!

The combination of visuals and words are so fitting. I love this video

I just love him. I wish there were more David Lynch’s. It makes me sad that his art is finite. He will be gone one day. As much as he won’t discuss his work, I could listen to him talk all day.

Only 11m and more intriguing than every 1h+ video essay on this website. Keep doing what it is you do

Whenever I'm thinking about how to do a video essay, I go back to this. SO. GOOD.

"the reconfiguration of meaning as it travels from one state to another - from thought to description, from feeling to image". So well written. love your style of analysis.

This is one of the most intelligent video about David Lynch that I’ve seen on RU-vid: good job!

So much work was put into this video. Feels like essential homework for connecting threads of thought between Lynch's gallery and film work.

Am always pleasantly surprised to find a new video essayist that I am impressed by. Can not wait to watch more of your videos.

There is an interesting video of Lynch hanging out with Mark Cousins. They are discussing the film A Straight Story, and Cousins remarks that the camera in an exterior scene looks down on everything, suggesting a special meaning in the placement. He asks Lynch why he chose that particular angle, and Lynch, who looks momentarily irritated, replies "because it felt correct". The signified and signifier. Lynch paints a telephone, and then writes telephone over it. We view those two objects and create the third in ourselves...the concept. I don't think this is unique to him, but universal to all visual arts. It's a form of conjuration that begs explanation when there shouldn't be one. I think that's why he avoids it, because the concept is unique to the person who views the objects arrangement. Or something. Nice video:)

This video essay itself is a work of art! Fabulous editing and wonderful mouthwords.

you take your video essays to a whole other level, they are art. dang.

Very well done! You've earned a sub. This is easily one of the best Lynch videos that I have had the opportunity to watch. Thank you for your hard work.

This is brilliant. I love Lynch's work so much and you just helped me to really understand why.

One of my favorite videos I can't stop thinking about it! Thank you for this incredible view at art

The world is certainly not at capacity of THIS KIND of David Lynch videos! Very insightful, well researched and documented - wonderful job. One little wish remains: let some pieces of footage play a little longer and give yourself (and us) a breather from time to time :)

Excellent video, but I was surprised that you left out a scene which perfectly illustrated your point: the cameo by Jack Nance in "Wild at Heart" where he lectures Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern on how they imagine his dog when he uses the word "dog," but that their mental image of the dog is deceptive since he hasn't told them what type of dog he has. Followed by Nance barking and some sort of magical flash.

Intriguing analysis. And the montage clarifies your ideas nicely. Well done.

One of the best videos I have seen on Lynch. Really helps put into perspective his "Modus Operandi".

Yesterday in the middle of the night, I couldn't sleep. I was thinking about David Lynch's "Mulholland Dr." and was amazed by his daylight jumpscare of the homeless man/woman in the movie because it was so *perfectly encapsulated as a nightmare.* Or the grandparents in the movie that caused Diane to commit suicide, I looked them up, but when I did, something happened. I didn't think about it before, but when I looked up the grandparents, I felt different. Before I searched the situation on Google, I thought of them as Diane's madness and I felt kind of weird and scared because of it. However, when I read about the grandparents online, I didn't really feel that way anymore. Whenever I *name* a situation, it just stops being beautiful. Today, this video was recommended. I pressed it even though I didn't get the title, and it all made sense to me. David Lynch is such a genius, and I admire him and his work. I don't think that there ever will be a writer and a director like him. David Lynch is like his own film genre.

just wanted to let you know.. i love your videos and this one was the first one i've watched on your channel. i admire how you explored david lynch's relationship with language (words). it seemed to me that david lynch's name has become almost synonymous to anything surreal or weird to the point that when a work of art is said to be "lynchian" then it is intended to mean (merely?) that it's nonlinear and possessing a bigger than life kind of surreal quality, and i've somehow felt that wasn't doing enough justice. but i love how you dug into his early work (which i didn't know about!) and this love-hate uneasy relationship he clearly has with words, naming, letters/characters, speech, the whole mysterious dimension/package of language. thank you for inspiring me. this video's somehow become part of a recurring thing in the back of my head.. like any great movies are.

lynch is fascinating. one of the greatest artists of our generation. excellent analysis of his work.

This is lovely. Thank you for making it! Eraserhead is, I think, my favorite of his. He’s so interesting.

Reminds me of Lacan's Real and Symbolic, especially Zizek's version. The Symbolic "slices" into the Real and makes language to represent it, language itself being of the Symbolic Order. Good vid.

Ah man. Delicious. This touches on a concept I'm always thinking about and trying to convey with endless notes, comments, essays ...aware of the irony the whole time, yes.

David Lynch has such a beautiful mind

As always Grace, you've absolutely killed it. I'm not really a Lynch fan but you captivated me. I need to watch his short films. I still can't believe you haven't blown up as a channel.

Honestly don't remember when I saw the video for the first time but every time I come back it's amazing to be reminded how much of my work is like that of David Lynch. I absolutely love his work and his fearlessness of not even budging an inch to say anything that could draw his work into perspective. If he wants you to know something, it WILL be there and he won't waste a minute rubbing it under your nose. It's up to you to find out what you want to know and if it leads to madness, so be it.

I'm absolutely in love with this video. Thank you for making and sharing it.

This channel is dope. How have I only just discovered it today??

I can't figure out exactly what to say about these essays that make them so engaging for the viewer, which I guess is almost ironic considering the subject of the video lol. Another great video man, you are my absolute favorite essayist on the platform!

Consider me subscribed. Now to use a bunch of those dreaded WORDS: Terrific video! You are remarkably adroit in clarity and provide incredibly insightful, fresh perspectives here. Not to mention it's an enjoyable watch given how well made and deeply considered it is. As an obsessive of Lynch and subsequently Lynch interpretations, I can tell you not all interpretations are made alike. Some people really reach for bizarro or all-too-tidy answers but what you're saying is gold. That was...excuse me...A DAMN FINE VIDEO!

Lnych also uses every word or image as an endless symbol, like "doors" to the personal and collective unconscious, mostly hellish, or at least bizarre. Love it !

I come back to this one a lot. Such a great video essay, incredibly well researched and very engaging. Probably the best video on Lynch I’ve seen (god knows I’ve watched a lot of ‘em). This whole channel is an absolute gem. Great stuff Grace 👍

Absolutely... lovely.

This video is truly phenomenal. You deserve so many more subscribers!! x

Well, as a Lynch fan I'm speechless... Great video and happy anniversary...To many more videos and years!!!

Good essay, nice use of visuals (I like the references to Lynch's art). I found how Lynch changes the meaning of things to be interesting. From making In Dreams (a calm charming song about dreams and love) into Candy Coloured Clown (a warning of dreams being corrupted and darkness). Love Letters becoming a bullet from a gun. A place with many rooms not being the Great Northern but the Black Lodge. I could go on. The idea that normal or beautiful can be changed into something insidious or dark seems to be a common theme in David Lynch's work. And well done and keep up the good work.

Excellent job with this video. It was quite informative, gave a unique perspective on the topic, and has fantastic presentation. But the part that really blew me away: handcrafted subtitles. Thank you so much for taking the time to add them. They are a great help.

Thank you for this video. You have opened my eyes to seeing Mr. Lynch's work in a new light.

Phenomenal!!! Thank you for this! I will be watching this again and again.

This was great, brought up some marvelous points. I think some of that fear of articulating the suggestive is manifested in the Transcendental Meditation practice of not speaking the mantra aloud, saying it outwith the meditation, or even speaking with specificity about what happens during an individual's own meditation. They use the word 'unbounded' to describe what is achieved in meditation, which I think ties into what you were saying rather nicely.

Thank you for reducing his work into an essay :D

Spot on. Very well put together!

loved this! really nice work!

Go head girl!!!! The best video i've seen in this year!!!!

The use and very limits of language are themselves unique and powerful. A lot of things only have meaning only because we give them their value. Ironically, the limits of language are horridly profound across the barriers that make them. Indeed, the more we try to describe a language using the very tools of language itself, it ultimately falls apart. To think we must use the very medium to describe it is what makes studying it all very tedious and confusing. I think the most pertinent example I can give is writing. I myself am a poet, though I dabble in stories and the like. Let me tell you how troubling it is to find a word or phrase that accurately defines what I think, let alone feel: terribly so. It's often impossible to literally put into words the way you feel or what's going on inside your head. It's like painting on a canvas with an insufficient amount of paint; you try and try to mix the right colours, but you just end up getting a messy void of pitch black paint. Once slathered on your canvas, it's not right. You don't like how it looks. It's imperfect. Even in creating such a metaphor, it's hard to accurately describe what I'm trying to. And that again is the limit of language. Your mind mixes and matches phrases to create lines that seem to just not work. I can't tell you how many times I've just let a poem idea sit there for days or weeks -- sometimes months at a time -- until I can manage to complete it. Strangely enough, I've also had moments of clarity and finesse where I can write a complete poem in 10 minutes or less (usually the latter). Language is truly an interesting thing to study. How it works, what it does, and even how it impacts the mind. The very connotations of words can completely change how we feel about a given sentiment or topic. It's one reason why the media is so good at manipulating the lot of us; a few simple buzzwords can immediately force us to fixate on just what they want us to. It's a neat trick, one that's also used in advertising and so on and so forth.

This is the best Lynch video essay I’ve seen.

Wow, incredible essay! This makes me understand so many loose ends in my 12+ years of watching, loving and interpreting David Lynch works.

Excellent film essay! I love Lynch's work, brilliant work here!

Not sure if it was intentional or not, but the slight distortion on the word "signal" was brilliant. What a fantastic video essay!

Wow you're really smart, this is one of the best-researched video essays I've seen -- what I'd love is if you could put all your references in the description!

The visuals/wordvisuals in this video are astoundingly used. AND you've done a video on House of Leaves? Sold! (& Subscribed)

Grace, you got It! Thank you so much.

First time seeing anything from this channel - obviously amazing stuff. Happy anniversary! Let’s celebrate with a sub.

I really love this video essay, the editing and presentation are fantastic!!! Thanks for posting!

This was fantastic, thank you so much for making this video!

This analysis is excellent. You deserve more views!

This was beautifully written, thank you.

I'm officially in love with this channel

AMAZING GRACE!!! Keep up the magnificent work! Happy anniversary XD hopefully theres many more in the future!

Thank you for making this video, I loved it

Very good!! Great job with the materials, heady...thanks...

Wow! Very, very well done! Fantastic work!

Well put Grace, David is such an inspiration, I avidly consume his shared visions.

Excellent analysis!

This is a really great video essay. I can't keep myself from watching it again and again.

Incredibly insightful. Wonderful work

Bravo! This is an outstanding essay on the national treasure we call David Lynch.

This is outstanding. Thank you!

Great video. Currently writing a video on Lacan’s notion of Lack regarding language and trauma for Wisecrack. Lacan and Mullholland Drive go together well. I recommend reading Don Patterson’s Orpheus, which is a ‘version’ of Rilke’s Sonnets to Orpheus and has a fascinating essay in the back on the nature of translations and the difference in ‘versions’. Keep up the good work!

Incredible video! Thank you

This was really well done! Thx!

Fantastic. Thank you. Please make lots more videos.

This is my favorite video on the whole youtube

Great video, very insightful

Really great piece!