Yesterday BoingBoing pointed to an article on The Psychologist Online by Huw Green that argues that David Lynch’s work, particularly Inland Empire, is an accurate depiction of what it’s like for someone with a psychotic illness to encounter reality.
I immediately thought of last week’s episode of FilmCouch, in which I used Lynch, a new documentary about the filmmaker, as a point of entry to talk about his recent work. I compared Mulholland Dr. and Inland Empire to recent films penned by Charlie Kaufman, namely Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I argued that Lynch’s films are far more effective due to the fact he, unlike Kaufman, refuses to provide the viewer with the necessary tools to keep track of the breaks in narrative convention.
Green’s article points out nearly the same thing (without the comparison to Kaufman). Measuring Lynch’s effect on the viewer, Green says:
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