FILM 1051 University of Cincinnati David Lynch’s Films Audiovisual Study

David Lynch’s Films Audiovisual Study

FILM 1051 - Introduction to Film and Media Studies

University of Cincinnati

March 2, 2024

Abstract

This paper explores the aesthetic importance, artistic

style and appeal as well as other aspects of David

Lynch’s three films Eraserhead, Lost Highway and

Inland Empire basing on Michel Chion’s ideas and

perspectives as well views of other critics and film

enthusiasts with regards to Lynch’s use of sound in the

films. It used the case study method to analyse the films

Eraserhead, Lost Highway and Inland Empire from

different time frames of Lynch’s career as a filmmaker.

It was able to establish the various contributions,

experimentation of Lynch on sound as an integral part

of the visual film as well as introduce ways in creating

messages with the use of sound or sound effects and

background.

Introduction & Rationale

This study will explore the role that theories of sound

and music usage play in the aesthetics of the film. To do

this, I have chosen in particular David Lynch who has

introduced his own understanding of the symbiosis

between audio or sound effects and film in a very artistic

and particular manner. David Lynch is one of the most

experimental and innovative film directors of his time.

His films had been described as fantastic and real,

romantic and perverse, postmodernist, surrealist and

deviant, all at the same time. His movies are complex

and elaborated to the detail, his use of symbolism

enables us to see the world in a strange, new-found

perspective contrary to the rest of humanity, through

Lynch’s eyes.

This study will focus on 3 of the films of David Lynch,

one from his early period — Eraserhead, one from his

middle period — Lost Highway, and one of the most

recent ones — Inland Empire, and see how he has

evolved through time. I believe that analysing his films

in such a manner will help to understand the message

that he is trying to pass on to the world through his

eccentric, shocking and poetic style where he applies

metaphors to show a beauty that can at times be seen as

brutal.

I find David Lynch’s films very interesting for several

reasons. One of them is because he never talks much

about his movies. He had mentioned in several

interviews that he does not want to give any detail into

the meaning of things, especially if something is

abstract. He wants to show how much you are able to

express without actually having to talk about concrete

things. This is exactly the way he wants to express his

art to the audience.

There is another reason that I have chosen these films.

Today, sound is still a generally disregarded component

of a film. Many industry productions do not give sound

or audio enough importance and it would be left as a

last-minute component of the whole production process

with inadequate planning, if not used as a way to

compliment the imagery.

Taking into account that Sound Design is a quite recent

concept which developed in the 70s, growing with a

more demanding complex visual design, there was a

mandatory need for higher quality sound effects to

accompany it. According to Mark Mancini (1985), it is

possible to say that sound designers are the director’s

ears and call them “Aural artists” (page 360).

The sound film generally understood as a motion picture

with synchronized sound, or sound technologically

coupled to image had its first known public exhibition

of projected sound in Paris in 1900. Decades would

pass, however, prior to the introduction of a reliable

synchronization that was commercially practical. It was

said that the first commercial screening of movies with

a fully synchronized sound was in New York City in

April 1923. The early years after the sound was

introduced in films with fully synchronized dialogues

had these called “talking pictures” or “talkies” with the

first feature-length movie as “The Jazz Singer” released

in October 1927.

The early 1930s saw the talkies become a global

phenomenon securing United States’ Hollywood as one

of the world’s top and most powerful cultural and

commercial systems. Elsewhere including Europe, the

new development was taken with suspicion by many

filmmakers and critics who were already heavily

influenced by silent movies. They worried that a focus

on synchronized dialogue would lessen the impact of

soundless cinema. Japan had the popular silent films

integrated with live vocal performance and talking

pictures were slow to take root. However, in India,

sound was the transformative element that led to the

rapid expansion of the nation’s Bollywood film industry

which today is considered the most productive in the

world.

Research Objective

This paper shall try to present the aesthetic importance,

artistic style and appeal as well as other aspects of David

Lynch’s three films Eraserhead, Lost Highway and

Inland Empire basing on Michel Chion’s ideas and

perspectives as well views of other critics and film

enthusiasts with regards to Lynch’s use of sound in the

films.

Research Questions

This case study will answer the following questions:

1. What are the highly observable and unique

characteristics of David Lynch’s movies based on

the three films?

2. How did the employment of sound — plain,

effects, as well as other techniques and recordings

that came with the films — affected the overall as

well as partial presentations of the films?

3. What are the advantages gained by Lynch’s films

in employing the sounds he had in his mentioned

films?

Importance of the Study

In bringing about to define as well as highlight the

sounds employed by David Lynch, some forms of new

standards, as well as measurement and techniques, will

be established that could provide further development in

the soundtrack, effects and sound manipulation in film

production.

Likewise, learners like me as well as those interested to

delve into the field may find insights that could be useful

and practical to the improvement and experimentation

of sound in film production. Inspiration may also be

derived from this close analysis of David Lynch’s films

that could perpetuate more experimentations and

standards in the future of filmmaking.

Background

Sound and Film Development

As in every other science or art innovation, sound design

was not always readily and widely accepted, at least not

from the beginning. There always has to be a learning

process, established strong theories and also a change of

generation for the new waves of creativity to be

completely established and accepted.

Since Western Electric developed the “Vita Phone”

(first 33 1/3 reversible turntable with an incorporated

microphone, improved non-distortion amplifier and a

good quality loudspeaker with the synchronising

system) and released the first movie with synchronised

music and sound effects in partnership with Warner

Brothers: “Don Juan” in 1926; Countless experimental

and technical innovations have since arrived and

become a standard for most or many in the film and

entertainment industries, there is being so much

development and improvements in technology, although

the mind of the film community does not grow at a

proportional level.

David Lynch

David Lynch is easily well-known amongst his

passionate followers as a total artist. Born David Keith

Lynch on January 20, 1946 (Ankeny, 2008) Lynch is an

American filmmaker, painter, composer, video artist,

and performance artist who have pegged the following:

Filmography features Eraserhead (1977), The Elephant

Man (1980) of which he was nominated Best Director

and Best Adapted Screenplay in Academy

Awards, Dune (1984), Blue Velvet (1986) of which he

was nominated Best Director at the Academy

Awards, Wild at Heart (1990) of which he won Palme

d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk

with Me (1992), Lost Highway (1997), Straight

Story (1999), Mulholland Drive (2001) of which he was

nominated Best Director, and Inland Empire (2006). His

short films include Six Men Getting Sick (1966), The

Alphabet (1968), The Grandmother (1970), The

Amputee (1974), The Cowboy and the

Frenchman (1988), Industrial Symphony No. 1: The

Dream of the Broken Hearted (1990), Lumière:

Premonitions Following an Evil Deed (1996), Darkened

Room (2002), Boat (2007), and The Short Films of

David Lynch. His TV and digital works include Twin

Peaks (TV series, 1990-91), American

Chronicles (documentary television series, 1990), On

the Air (TV series, 1992), Hotel Room (TV mini-series,

1993), Rabbits (Online series, 2002), Dumbland (Online

Flash animation series, 2002), and Rammstein:

Lichtspielhaus (video “Rammstein”, 2003) (Papillon,

2008).

Lynch has been nominated several times for Academy

Award as Best Director for The Elephant Man, Blue

Velvet and Mulholland Drive (Ankeny, 2008).

Likewise, he has won awards at the Cannes Film

Festival and Venice Film Festival and is best known for

his movie Blue Velvet and as the creator of the Twin

Peaks television series (Ankeny 2008).

Lynch attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts

(PAFA) while a resident at the Art Museum

neighbourhood. He made a series of complex mosaics in

geometric shapes called “Industrial Symphonies”.

During this time, Lynch has started work on films and

his first-ever was done in 1966, the Six Men Getting

Sick said to have won the institution’s annual film

contest (Ankeny, 2008). H. Barton Wasserman

commissioned him to do a film installation in his home

afterwards but it resulted in a completely blurred print

of which Wasserman simply dismissed, allowing Lynch

to keep the remaining portion of the commission. It was

said that the amount was used to create The Alphabet

(Papillon, 2008).

Through years of passion film-making, Lynch employed

a distinctive and unorthodox approach to narrative film

making which critics have called “Lynchian”. The

films’ characteristics are surreal, almost always

nightmarish as well as featuring dreamlike images with

detailed sound accompaniment (Ankeny, 2008). Since

Eraserhead is considered his debut, he has maintained a

strong cult following although a majority of his films

have not achieved commercial success (Papillon, 2008).

Lynch started to focus his attention away from fine art

and on film by 1970 after winning a $5,000 grant from

the American Film Institute to produce The

Grandmother, the story of a neglected boy who

cultivated a grandmother from a seed. The short film

introduced many elements that would become Lynch

trademarks. Already, the film was accompanied by

disturbing sound and surrealistic imagery that focuses

on subconscious desires through nonlinear story-telling

(Papillon, 2008).

Lynch moved in 1971 to Los Angeles to attend the

M.F.A. studies at the AFI Conservatory where he was

granted $10,000 to use on his first feature-length

film, Eraserhead. However, the budget was not enough

to complete the film so that Eraserhead was filmed

intermittently until 1977 (Woods, 2002).

The film was released through the efforts of the Elgin

Theatre distributor Ben Barenholtz and soon became a

cult classic that launched Lynch as an avant-garde

filmmaker.

After Eraserhead, Lynch directed The Elephant Man, a

biopic of deformed Victorian era figure Joseph Merrick

which became a huge commercial success. The Elephant

Man also established Lynch as a probable commercial

Hollywood director. It was said that George Lucas

offered Lynch to direct Return of the Jedi but Lynch

apparently he refused (Nochimson, 1997).

Lynch directed two De Laurentiis-financed projects, the

Dune and Blue Velvet. Blue Velvet was said to have

introduced Lynch into the mainstream as a huge critical

and commercial success (Hughes, 2002). The film also

introduced some of the common elements of Lynch’s

works such as abused women, the dark underbelly of

small towns as well as the use of vintage songs as

background music. The film today is still considered as

one of the greatest as well as influential American films

ever made (Hughes, 2002)

In the late 1980s, Lynch collaborated with television

producer Mark Frost for Twin Peaks, which was about

a small Washington town that is the location of several

bizarre occurrences. The show centred around the

investigation by FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper played

by Kyle MacLachlan into the murder of a popular high

school student and the series also achieved cult-

following.

Lynch also had a comic strip The Angriest Dog in the

World that featured a chained dog in a yard full of bones.

It was syndicated in alternative publications from 1983

to 1992 (Hughes, 2002).

His 1997 film Lost Highway co-written by Barry

Gifford and starring Bill Pullman and Patricia Arquette

was a commercial failure but its soundtrack of popular

rock artists/bands David Bowie, Marilyn Manson,

Rammstein, Nine Inch Nails and The Smashing

Pumpkins brought new sets of Lynch audiences.

Lynch has won two times France’s César Award for

Best Foreign Film and served as President of the jury at

the 2002 Cannes Film Festival. He also had won the

Palme d’Or in 1990 and received a Golden Lion award

on September 6, 2006, for lifetime achievement at the

Venice Film Festival (Papillon, 2008). Lynch has been

honoured by the French government with the Legion of

Honor as Chevalier considered as the country’s top

civilian honour. He was conferred Officier in 2007

(Ankeny, 2008)

Theoretical Background & Methodology

Early studies relating to the sound dimension in film

emerged during the 80s. Film theorists were then

focusing on the ways that representation worked out, in

which levels it could be decomposed, in the ground in

which it was, and drawing the boundaries around it.

In analysing Lynch films I will be mainly using Michel

Chion’s theories on Audio Vision. Chion is a French

composer, who was Pierre Schaeffer’s assistant, as well

as a critic, chronist, writer and teacher in different

universities. He published many studies and several

theoretical books studying cinematographic sound and

its aesthetics. He was the first person to theorize and

argue against the idea that sound is not as important as

the image, and to show through his numerous articles

and books how important is the interaction of the image

and the sound in creativity, psychology and aesthetics of

the film.

Chion absorbed Schaeffere’s ideology, such as

“Acoulogie” a theory that describes sounds as objects,

but he was still considering the contradictions that can

arise in the area of research and creation. This discipline

analyzes how one hears a sound in all its aspects.

As he describes in his AudioVision the image is

enhanced with the sound in a way that creates an

audiovisual illusion, this is why it is called added value

(Chion 1994: page 5). If they are not together they turn

into an abstract independent form, with different

meanings, but together they cause a stronger impact on

the message reception.

The human voice recording is of tantamount importance

in this context of “added value to the text.” It is treated

like a solo instrument (Chion 1994: page 5) we say that

cinema is ‘vococentic’ and the main aim of the

synchronism in the image was originally to focus on

speech synchronisation and the major purpose was to get

the best sound quality possible in order to understand the

words spoken. This will be turning vococentrism into

verbocentrism. Voice always calls our attention before

any other noise, once we have good fidelity and

consequently a good understanding of speech, we will

be able to focus our attention on other sounds and music.

When the image speaks by itself, it is what we call

ventriloquism, meaning that we can gather what it is

happening without the need for words.

There is so much Chion did to understand the theories

of aesthetics of sound and voice in cinema.

As human beings, we are very much influenced by the

sounds of the world around us. Most types of sounds

have emotional connotations (Västfjäll, 2002). These

connotations will influence the way we perceive sound.

By stimulating our auditory system, either by everyday

sounds or by music, we unconsciously generate

emotional responses. This added to the visual

experience makes for a more interesting film

experience.

This will be the basis for my multiple case study. I have

chosen among all the David Lynch Filmography 3 films

of different periods of his career to try to gauge his

development as an artist and the appropriations of his art

to aesthetics of films.

Eraserhead: was his first movie and probably the most

surrealist post-modern movie of his entire Filmography.

At this production he was:

 writer

 director

 editor

 producer

 music department:

o sound effects

o special effects

 production designer

 art director

Lost Highway (1997)

 writer

 director

 Actor

 music department:

o composer: additional music

o sound designer

o sound re-recording mixer

Inland Empire (2006)

 writer

 director

 editor

 music department:

o sound designer

o sound re-recording mixer

o soundtrack writer:

 “Ghost of Love”,

 “Polish Night Music No. 1”,

 “Polish Poem”,

 “Walkin’ on the Sky”

o performer:

 “Ghost of Love”,

 “Polish Night Music No. 1”,

 “Walkin’ on the Sky”

o cinematographer

o camera operator

o art department: construction team, sound

designer and sound re-recording mixer.

“Sound energy transformation”

“Another perspective on how sound works d on looking

at the relationship between the film, the theatre and the

audience. The 3 unidirectional sequential stages:

Where the sounds are coming from, how are deliver, and

the effect that has upon perception and sensation.” and

“ have all the different parallel levels of qualities the

sound is transmitting to the audience:

 Physical: The mechanical, electronic, technical

aspects interacting with our bodily, biological

functions.

 Emotional: Story, emotional identification with

the character of their goals, creating empathetic

reactions (like laughing or crying)

 Intellectual: structural, aesthetic considerations

that are the most often conveys verbally in the

context of human interaction.

 Moral: ethical or spiritual perspectives and

dilemmas alerting us to possible choices beyond

our own personal fulfilment or survival.

All these parameters help to define the function of sound

design in telling the story of the film.” (Sonnenschein,

David, 2001).

Timeline

 From now to the end of January I will focus on

reading the books I had already selected as well

as looking for new articles if relevant.

 I will book a tutorial every 2 weeks to have a

follow up of my work and make sure that I am

going in the right direction.

 I will watch the movies I have chosen taking notes

of the most relevant uses of sound & image.

 Draw a map of those symbologies identified in

the movies and try to find the theoretical

approaches of Chion and other theorists.

 End of January I shall structure the project and

write about the history of film and sound

aesthetics origins.

 Dedicate 2 weeks to each film to theorize about

all the findings.

 March:

o Written a conclusion and how Lynch can

be influencing new moviemakers as a

pioneer of this metaphoric use of sound and

how he has revolutionised through his

career and what aesthetic apportation has

brought over to the Film.

o Explain why other moviemakers are not

using these aesthetical theories

o Proofread & tidy up the project.

The Case Study as a Research Method

Case studies are one of several ways of doing social

science research or a research strategy often said to be

used involving in-depth and a limited number of

variables or the subject. Likewise, a case study could

provide an understanding of a complex issue or object

as well as extend and add strength to what is already

presented in previous research. Yin (1984, p 23) defined

it as “the case study research method as an empirical

inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon

within its real-life context; when the boundaries

between phenomenon and context are not clearly

evident; and in multiple sources of evidence are used.”

Some critics, however, argue that the study of a small

number of cases offer limited reliability of generality of

findings while some others dismiss it as useful only as

an exploratory tool. Despite these, researchers still use

the case study research method, often with success as

carefully planned and crafted studies bring out practical

and useful insights for real-life situations, issues and

problems.

This paper s chosen the case study method for the same

reason that a focus on a limited subject, and that is the

sounds employed by David Lynch in only three of his

films, could bring out insight to style, appeal and

effective use of sound in movies.

Yin (1984) proposed six steps to follow in doing a case

study which shall be taken in conjunction with this

study:

1. Determine and define the research questions. In

this process, I had to establish a firm research

focus on David Lynch and his use of sound in

making films. Through the guide questions

posted in chapter 1, I was able to limit my purpose

on the research topic.

2. Select the cases and determine data gathering and

analysis techniques. The approach I have chosen

has been to include one film from Lynch’s early

works, another film during the middle of his

career, and one of his few latest works. Through

this process, I have amply sampled David

Lynch’s works using the time and gap

parameters. With these three works, I will try to

analyse how the sounds used were presented

through the understanding of Michel Chion.

3. Prepare to collect the data. In preparation, I have

listed down and bought the films I needed.

Likewise, I started gathering book materials about

Filmography, sound and film, movie reviews,

among other things.

4. Collect data – In collecting data, it is necessary

that I have to watch the films several times. At the

time, I started taking down notes which I find to

be unique about the film, specifically on the use

of sound in films as well as literature about David

Lynch. Reviews about the films would also be

useful as these would give me an overview,

comparison, and more sweeping information

about the techniques, appeal, and aesthetics

applied by Lynch on the said films.

5. Evaluate and analyse the data. The whole process

of reviewing the films and placing in relevant

data, observation and collating all materials made

me evaluate the data and analyse them. The

evaluation I would make will also be compared to

the rest of the reviews I can gather about Lynch’s

works.

6. Prepare the report.

The Films and their Accompanying Audio

Phenomenal art to some and extremely absurd to others,

David Lynch’s Eraserhead still is one of the

groundbreaking independent films to emerge within the

thriller/horror genre. Following a very vague plot

base, Eraserhead presented a surreal mix of confused

and uncanny characters, an atmospheric dreamscape

almost like a mad psychoanalysts vision and a string of

weighty messages about sexuality, identity, brutality,

and loss. In fact, filmmaker/auteur David Lynch aptly

and often described this feature-film debut, Eraserhead,

as “a dream of dark and troubling things.”

The film is situated in a seemingly, post-apocalyptic

landscape – almost like a deserted and decrepit

industrial town. We find the disintegrating locale,

sparsely inhabited by people who are left with no other

alternative option for shelter. This setup reveals how the

tale accepts the decay and bleakness of a nightmarish

landscape together with the cold and sterile atmosphere.

In this milieu, we find Henry Spencer who just learned

over dinner that his girlfriend, Mary, just gave birth to

an offspring believed to be his. Like natural progression,

the parents of Mary pressure Henry into marrying their

daughter. Also upon the elders’ insistence and as typical

of any marital set-up, Mary and the peculiar worm-like

creature offspring must soon move into Henry’s

apartment. But the inconvenience that the strange

offspring is causing – loud cries and incessant outbursts

– made Mary, the mother, decide to abandon the

prospect of marriage, moving in and being a family with

Henry. Thus, she assumes the role of sole caregiver and

parent to the infant but eventually is weakened by the

burden of responsibility.

Despite this, Henry insists on taking a share of the

parenting for the sickly child. This ordeal will

eventually take Henry to his limits. As the sickness

escalates, the inexorable cries pop Henry’s patience

meter to hit over the top. A moment of madness and

violence ensue, causing him to cut the offspring’s wraps

and stabs them to death. This event, though gruesome

and brutal, shatters his world but at the same time

releases him to his vision-woman in heaven.

Laced through this narrative are dream sequences that

preview surreal, grotesque and almost perverse images

that take viewers to a darker and bleaker world which

evidently displays the obsessively introspective tone of

the film. Seemingly all too linear and banal, the story of

Henry surprisingly presents bizarre twists that shatter

the usual familiarity.

His visual metaphors are also the gems embedded in the

strange flashes of images and unlikely sequences. Like

for instance, the radiator as Henry’s vision for heaven,

the sexless woman, the worm-like creature that is his

son. At the onset, the radiator image will seem left of

centre, but as the film progresses its relevance is made

more prominent. Lynch, in Eraserhead, takes viewers

back and forth, the real and the surreal, and makes the

experience leave a viewer a bit displaced.

And though there seems to be very little happening

within the narrative, there is always that seemingly

momentous event about to come. And the cues are

delivered by the characters, keeping the viewer-in-

adventure, back on track. This has been commented on

as a way to deciphering Lynch’s impenetrable

production. Coherence is without a clear narrative

format, but quite internal allowing dream-like images

and fantasies to represent a number of things at one

single moment or event with unclear meaning and

sometimes invalidating preconceptions. It was said that

Lynch has found ways “to capture the processes of

dream consciousness with remarkable precision,”

(Kaleta, 1995, see Appendix for more details).

On another note, another film critic observed

that Eraserhead is about corruption-the corruption of

the natural world and of man as a part of that world. At

the root of this corruption is man: the human mind, or

intellect, or consciousness-that part of man which

causes him to perceive himself as apart from the rest of

nature, a separateness which causes him to believe that

he is free to interfere with and alter nature in any way he

desires, with impunity,” (Godwin, 1985, refer to

Appendix for details).

In the film, Henry ends up killing the burdensome child

and then killing himself. This final act creates the

conceptual statement of the story. Henry, or man, in the

general sense, is the creator and destroyer of himself and

all the other elements around him – i.e. the baby, the

place he inhabits, et cetera.

The Sound Story

As a spectator, the most apparent audio layer in this

debut outing, obviously, was the constant “hum”

provided by the room tone. Perhaps, in Chion’s Audio-

Vision, it may very well refer to the “territory sound or

ambient sound” that envelopes a scene or inhabits a

space. The hum has defined the room of Henry which is

the location of most of the scenes in the film. Not only

was it successful in providing an ambient landscape for

a dark and dreary industrial habitat.

It also created a metaphor for the drone-like cycle in

which life is lived there– continuous and disturbing all

at the same time. As a counterpoint, Henry’s dream-like

encounters with the lady in the radiator was aurally

presented with melodies and lyrics. As an audience, it

made a sweet impact on me and reinforced the idea of

the “alternative life” and the possible options out of his

present reality. Music and melody played a vital element

to draw this difference as well as the grotesque but

friendly image of the white lady on stage.

Worth mentioning too is the sound textures that Lynch

used to highlight, for example, foreboding events, like

the appearance of the worm-like creatures in Henry and

Mary’s bed. Prior to the actual scene, Mary was twisting

and turning in the squeaky bed and she would also grind

her teeth and rub her eyes incessantly. Sound effects

highlighted these movements and helped build tension

to the climax of the scene applying most of the

acousmatic, audiovisual contract, materialising sound

indices, as well as anempathetic sounds described by

Chion in his paper.

David Lynch did not only manifest his brilliance in the

picture but also magnificent artistry and technical skill

in the sound department. Adding another layer to the

lushness of the film narrative is the element of sound.

Eraserhead, shot in superb, atmospheric black and white

is remarkably enhanced by an intricate and

expressionistic soundtrack.

Aurally, most apparent in the film Eraserhead was the

background noise that was not supported by visual

images aptly described by Chion as acousmatic. This

noise or sound was utilized not to reinforce and support

visual images but instead created a layer of texture that

suggested an industrial scenario and the presence of

disfigured machines. Since one of the trademarks of this

cult film is the random and highly unusual imagery, it

may appear to the viewer that the scenes happening one

after another have nothing to do with each other.

However, the audio layer creates a different set of

dynamics for the film as it carries a strong narrative

altogether as author Michel Chion describes as “a

precise function, propelling us through the film, giving

us the sense of being inside it, wrapped within its time

span,” (Chion, 1995)

Though never visually identifiable, the audio content of

the film is always an active element – responsible for

creating the atmosphere, the tension, or drama, the

intensity and the action, grief and relief as a form of

choreography. In many ways, this has affected (me) the

viewer as it has emotionally hit the lead character Henry

throughout the film creating an understanding and

immersion between the character and the viewer.

“Room tone” was an aural phenomenon that was also

introduced to the audience of Lynch’s films. Room tone

as described in Chris Rodley’s book Lynch on Lynch is

the “sound of silence that you hear in between sentences

and spoken words.” (Rodley, 1997) Though subtle and

almost close to none, the effect of this soundscape is a

feeling of isolation and tension, an imaginary

discomfort and distance. This same silence also brings

for a mood set for introspection, for thinking and, even,

dreaming.

This strong aural texture was able to reinforce the

nightmares and dreams that were playing through

Henry’s mind. This also helps the viewers deepen their

understanding of the narrative.

“This dream theory allows one to gain some

understanding of the importance of an audio narrative,

for if the film is the depiction of a dream then the

imagery is going to be disjointed and almost

nonsensical… There is no sense of surety in narrative

conventions.” Kenneth Kaleta (1993).

The audio and visual relationship in the film allowed us

to see how Lynch sees a much deeper relationship

between the two elements. This peculiar, yet very

significant way of seeing / hearing results in impressive

effects that have defined a trademark of its own in

Lynch’s body of work.

Lynch characterizes himself as a “radio” tempting to

tune in to ideas and images and in his ‘divining’ process,

a form of contemplation has produced startling results.

(Rodley, 1997)

Uniquely, Lynch successfully played up the sound of

silence in Eraserhead and has created a representation of

the sound itself. Something so clear that even in its

absence it can define, set or even modify the visual

impact of the film. It reinforces the moving pictures and

shuttles back and forth, relaying between foreground to

background, through feeling and thinking, through the

real and surreal.

Lynch has just presented through his film Eraserhead,

the interaction and perhaps a deeper inter-relation of

sound and images. Michel Chion further expounds on

the relationship of these two elements: “one perception

influences the other and transforms it. We never see the

same thing when we also hear; we don’t hear the same

thing when we see.” Chion also concludes that people

have a natural tendency to bring together the images and

sound into one, to be able to make sense or meaning and

this one life theory extends to even in the way people

view films. As this fusion occurs, the interpretation that

is seen by one sense highly influences the one perceived

by the other (Cooley, ____).

Going further, another branch of sound is music. In the

film Eraserhead, Lynch will also be noted for having

found a lot of creative inspiration among American pop

songs. In fact, a very charming ditty “In Heaven” sung

by the woman in the radiator, is one of the most highly

remembered trademarks of Lynch’s debut film. Similar

to the way he prefers to lay in his sound, Lynch also

exhibits a kind of uncanny preference for his music bed.

A distinctive voice, a provocative mix, almost a certain

kind of abnormality is apparent. These elements were

observably embedded in a very melodic pattern, with a

strong emotional message as well as naïve sincerity.

Mazzulo (1995) aptly wrote, “On the final render, this

musical element is juxtaposed to a surreal

image/environment, which creates another layer of

tension and though strange – understanding.”

In Lynch’s peculiar attack in layering sound and music,

we are able to take a peek into the way he perceives

these elements — alone and together. He gives the

spectator another problematic outside of the regular

narrative, an area of discomfort that will push him to see

and re-imagine, interrogate and question the way we

view and interpret. As a result, this seemingly strange

way brings to fore a radical approach to viewing as well

as transformations to sound and music, not just one-

dimensional layer to film. Negation or anempathetic is

also very evident.

“Here, the perceivers bring external associations with

the songs into their engagements with the film. Of

course, viewers of a film by Lynch may indeed have

associations with the songs that he uses; the relevant

point, however, is that the context in which they are used

violently disrupts any such familiarity. Unlike films in

which popular music “grounds the entire narrative in the

everyday” and in which the viewers’ affiliation is

capitalized upon…” (Mazullo, 2005).

Though Eraserhead was crafted three decades ago, the

approach that Lynch employed in filmmaking much

more to his sound design is a very significant feat for

contemporary cinema. His technique of prolonged

silences, abstract noises, and use of music, is a technical

skill that brought forth a tremendous adventure in sound

and to this date, a constant challenge to those

filmmakers who are keen on developing and discovering

its significance in their own works. Through his unique

approach, visual experience is heightened by the one of

a kind sonic sensation. He has shown that meanings can

be altered and manipulated by sound vis a vis moving

pictures and that it can definitely bring more depth and

beauty to a plain visual feast. Most of all, sound and

image in the Eraserhead, was a breakthrough out of the

box approach that also carries the power to unleash the

spectators’ imagination to become more dynamic and

more engaged.

Lynch worked with Alan Splet in a garage studio that

was very small yet with a very huge console and two or

three tape recorders. Together they utilized and

extracted sound elements from various sound libraries

to achieve organic effects. Then they took the sound

materials to the console. In its pure form, devoid of

synthesizers and electronics the two made several

experimentations with the graphic equalizer, reverb, a

Little Dipper filter set for peaking certain frequencies

and also attempted to dip out or reverse or cutting things

together. Speed variation was also another device that

they played with.

Lost Highway

When David Lynch created Lost Highway in the

nineties, the gifted auteur did not get all positive

feedback from his critics. In truth, a great majority of

film experts have pinpointed its lack of coherence and

too much ambiguity in meaning. However, these are not

new but in fact, classic trademarks of a Lynch film. Still

in this outing, David Lynch showcased an array of

contradictory and jumbled images and throws his

premise to a dreamlike / trance adventure.

Fred Madison, the main character in Lost Highway,

lives nightmarish life. He is consumed by his anxiety,

his mind is racked by suspicion, paranoia. The cause of

which is the racing issue of the fidelity of his wife,

Renee. She is a dark-haired sex kitten decked out in

Betty Page-styled fetish attire. Sensuous as she may

appear to be, Renee is emotionally stone-cold and

distant. And despite the fact dark, good-looking,

talented thirty-something Fred can equally match his

wife’s oozing power looks, he falls short in their sexual

relationship. This predicament becomes a mindful

burden to Fred who also works as a jazz musician.

As if this dilemma is not enough, a strange twist adds up

to the already twisted thoughts of Fred. One day, the

Madison couple began receiving unmarked videotapes.

The cassettes were left by their front steps and contained

documentation of how the couple spend their nights

together. Freaked out and terrorized, the couple

immediately calls the authorities for help but the

investigation did not yield any evidence of a break-in

neither did it lead them to a suspect who would violate

their private space.

Unsettled by the violation of their private space, Fred

remains baffled, afraid and paranoid. This mind and

emotional trap get him falling into a twitchy, zombie-

like state. When the third videotape arrives, Fred sits

down to view it. To his shock, he frantically screams out

in horror upon seeing that the video reveals Fred looking

into the camera’s eye and beside him is Renee’s

savagely bloodied corpse. Tragic and disturbing, Fred

ends up as the culprit for this gory and terrifying crime.

For this case, Fred is sentenced to execution for the

murder of Renee. Immediately, he is put on death row;

a cramped and isolated primitive 19th-century-styled

prison cage. Try as he always would, Fred painstakingly

recounts what happened on the night he “supposedly”

murdered his very own wife. Non-stop insomnia,

agonising headaches and incessant hallucinations still

could not bring him to remember how this could happen.

In another bizarre twist, a new character emerges from

the prison cell. Just like Fred, Pete Dayton could not

recall how he mysteriously materialized in the cell to

replace Fred. Eventually, Pete was able to get out of

prison and live a normal life.

He is welcomed back to normal life and settled back to

his regular work routine at the auto garage. Mr Eddy,

who owns the vintage luxury car shop, delightfully

employs Pete. Mr Eddy whose shady profile includes a

close association with gangsters has a tarnished record

for having violent outbursts. One day, Mr Eddy brings

in for repairing a Cadillac from the 50s and Alice

Wakefield, the very attractive and seductive bombshell

that immediately catches Pete’s eye. Soon after, Pete

was doing his best work on Alice. The affair was furtive

but too intense to escape Mr Eddy’s attention. Noticing

the ire of danger is coming, Alice devises a plan to

escape and takes advantage of the heightened passion of

Pete to get things done.

However, Alice’s hasty plans go awry and everything

spirals toward disaster. Pete is horrified when he

discovers that his object of desire is a selfish mercenary

and a corrupt porn queen. In the fit of madness and

confusion, Pete’s story intersects with Fred’s as he re-

emerges from Pete. Another important character, the so-

called Mystery Man also plays a significant role, urging

Pete to kill Mr Eddy. The heat of action leaves the cabin

engulfed in flame and the spectator of Lost Highway,

with many questions.

Did Lynch really withhold the answers to keep to the

elusiveness of the plot? Or was it really a major flaw of

the picture. Perhaps, the state in which the film leaves

its viewers are the most critical points being marked by

reviews as a flaw and yet perhaps from the viewpoint of

Lynch, the author, it is an intentional proposition for

which he poses again his forward and sometimes bizarre

artistic philosophies.

The two stories happening in Lost Highway exhibit one

key storyline and that is the obsession of a man to

possess the wrong woman. The dualities are merged by

the similarities. Fred and Pete, though distinct characters

of their own, can now be understood as a representation

of man’s same self. Renee and Alice, as was portrayed

in the film by the same actress links this representation

back to the couple. Fred’s hallucination results in

encounters with the compliant temptress but ends up in

just the same, with catastrophic results.

Though many critics express their negative impression

on the bedlam of confusion that rests in the narrative,

Lynch argues narrative logic is not his foremost concern

and in fact, instead of the usual chronological story or a

linear plot, he utilized a theme and variation narrative

which is non-linear and uses the subject material as a

thematic source in developing variations on the central

theme, in the case of Lost Highway, mirroring (Rhodes,

1998).

This makes evident that the theme manifested itself on

many levels as seen in the devices such as duplication,

repetition, and opposition of the lives and characters of

Pete and Fred. Even in the aspect of sound via dialogue,

Lunch has experimented on these devices as well. The

same design took effect quite noticeably in the character

of the Mystery Man who repeats the same dialogue as

he appears in the lives of Fred and Pete.

The Sound Story

Upon viewing Lost Highway, it is striking that it opens

and closes with the imagery of the road, the yellow

dotted lines that flicker rapidly in the darkness as cars

zoom past. It is a metaphor for man’s journey to himself

and his dark side. And the reflection recedes and rest in

the rearview mirror where drivers are reminded that his

uncanny double might emerge from a distance. This

very powerful imagery poses a challenge for Lynch’s

sound skills.

The fast-paced image on the screen is even made more

exciting by the audio accompaniment with the use of

materialising sound indices, use of hard and fast rock

music. As an introduction, it already created a high

emotional impact that put me at the edge of my seat.

This articulates very well the successful usage of music

with images. Also in the ending chase scene, music also

played a significant role in intensifying the moment.

However, Lynch also played with layers toward the end

where the car collides. The actor is seen screaming in

fear, while music is the one that blasts in full volume,

the scream was almost “unheard” perhaps in the bottom

of the layer– but the quality or the impact of it aurally

was still apparent. Towards the end, the music fades out

and the scream on the last few frames go up. It was a

play of dynamics/volume that fully captured the blasting

ending. Throughout the film, a melodic pattern is also

layered with a sound effect that becomes a motif in

“suspense”.

The characteristic of Lynch is his striking images and

excellent sound design that are upfront audiovisual

contracts. For Lynch, sound and music are elements that

act as binding agents in the production of his films. They

are like the finishing in interior decoration, the icing for

a pastry chef’s gourmet cake. It is also a window that

makes visible pictures that are invisible. “When you see

your picture you start building sounds that amplify a

mood that has already started, and then when all the

elements are together the thing jumps and it becomes a

kind of magical,” Hasall (2002) noted.

Also quite notable in the sound design of Lynch’s films

would be his collaboration with composer/musician

Angelo Badalamenti. Badalamenti has been part of

Lynch’s many film projects and many of their

collaborations have produced surreal but effective and

magical results. Lynch and Badalamenti have ventured

into many experiments and openly explored various

possibilities of progressing the art of sound. They have

also allowed each other to break tendencies they have as

artists which carved an opening to see new avenues in

the creation of sound.

Lost Highway is an example where Lynch and

Badalamenti have collaborated musically, but have

ended up with a soiree into sound design, which

enforces Lynch’s notion of sound effects as a musical

score, but also makes Lost Highway unique. The lack of

a Badalamenti musical motif in some way generates a

new emotion for those familiar with Lynch’s films, in

that the ear will be more aware of something missing,

which allows the pre-existing songs used in the film to

be heard with full effect.

For example, David Bowie’s ‘I’m Deranged’ (used at

the beginning and end of the film) appears to be an ode

to the plight of the film’s protagonist, Fred Madison,

whilst ‘Song to the Siren’ by This Mortal Coil highlights

superbly the passion and mystery between Alice and

Pete. But throughout the film, it is Badalamenti’s

abstract and subverted pieces that convey the overall

mood of the film and carry the twisted narrative as has

been suggested by Hasall (2002).

In Lost Highway, we become witness to how Lynch’s

appropriates varying sounds to be able to come up with

an alternative narrative for the viewer; this he hopes

would be an audio narrative that will work hand in hand

with the visual story yet at the same time unfold a story

from a different, often abstract perspective.

In Lost Highway, the presence of American pop music

can also be felt. Albeit, in typical Lynch fashion, the

songs featured more or less were not used the way a

regular Hollywood film would. For instance, the way he

utilized the song “This Magic Moment”—a pop hit in

the 60s music charts, Lynch opted for the song to be re-

rendered by Velvet Underground frontman, Lou Reed.

The new texture from Reed’s vocals combined with the

new musical arrangement for the song was key for it to

capture the emotional landscape of Lost Highway and

encapsulated the existential essence of the film. Seen

with more impact, the song lies right at the scene where

Pete sees the alternate-reality version of his wife and is

made more dramatic in seductive slow motion. Right

away, the sound and the image are together positioning

the narrative perhaps not in a logical manner, but it

distinctly captures and sets the mood for the riveting

moment that is most vital to the story.

More than just to update the sound of the 60s pop ditty,

Lynch opted to use Reed’s version to be able to give

more depth and insight to the cultural progression of the

times. Via this quasi-minimalist rendition, Lynch is

presenting a musical symbol that would most

appropriate the changes in time and space that the

characters undergo. Much more, he is also embedding a

commentary on transformation. At the level of the story,

Pete’s radical evaluation of his grim past and on the

more cultural level, the new rendition of the song is

poking viewers to question the history of this American

pop classic, which was created at a time, when pop

culture was also in a major transition as noted by Rhodes

(1998).

Lynch and Badalamenti achieved with utmost clarity via

sound design and score the aural complement of a

tumultuous and hard to pin down the complex plot.

Badalamenti’s compositions formed the backbone of the

film’s audio content, sometimes altered and

incorporated throughout the sound design of the film. It

became a seamless audio interface that was found in

many experiments and collaborations. And though it is

an undertone, Badalamenti’s work remains a significant

layer and texture to the whole creation. Regardless of

placement, it is still a significant content without which,

will cause the final mix to falter.

It was suggested that the drones and pervading darkness

of Badalamenti’s music in Lost Highway is entirely

uncharacteristic of his orchestral themes and sweeping

synthesizer orientated pieces of Blue Velvet and Twin

Peaks. Lynch’s experimental techniques have

influenced as well as scattered away Badalamenti’s

music and transformed it into a texture that befits the on-

screen imagery. Lynch was said to have described it as

having a modern noir feel to it (Rodley, 1997).

Scenes of darkness within the character Fred Madison’s

home are given extra depth by the malevolent drones of

Badalamenti’s subverted score; they act texturally as an

accompaniment to that particular scene. Lynch

describes this process thus, “When you see your picture

you start building sounds that amplify a mood that has

already started, and then when all the elements are

together the thing jumps and it becomes a kind of

magical,” (quoted from Hasall, 2002).

Interestingly, Badalamenti has allowed Lynch to

redirect the usual functions of music in film.

Traditionally, background music is mainly utilized to

heighten suspense or romantic mood in the background

sound. The relevance of these sounds in the picture in

truth does not really have any corollary sounds in reality,

only, it becomes an aid to the emotional impact of film

and animation. These melodic sounds can relate to the

moving pictures in either an analogous or a

complementary way.

It can be, for instance, a slow and languid score that will

be analogous to scenes that typifies grief, sadness and

sorrow. There are scenes and images of sadness on one

hand that can be heightened by contrast with upbeat wild

and blaring music as well. This so-called phenomenon

is labelled as simultaneous contrast or what Chion calls

anempathetic sound. The rule of simultaneous contrast

(often used in colour theory) states that whenever two

things are seen or heard simultaneously, the differences

between them are emphasised.

If red is seen next to green, the red will be perceived as

being more intensely red and the green more intensely

green than the same two colours would be perceived

seen next to a neutral tone. Similarly, scenes of sadness

will be perceived as more sorrowful when accompanied

by joyful music than they will if accompanied by no

sound or an emotionally neutral sound. This relationship

between sounds and scenes is sometimes referred to as

complementary, polyphonic, or contrapuntal (Sound as

film Language).

Lost Highway opens and closes with the imagery of the

road, the yellow dotted lines that flicker rapidly in the

darkness as cars zoom past. It is a metaphor for man’s

journey to himself and his dark side. And the reflection

recedes and rest in the rearview mirror where drivers are

reminded that his uncanny double might emerge from a

distance. This very powerful imagery poses a challenge

for Lunch’s sound skills.

Critique, Michel Chion demands that we do not only

view Lynch’s films but also hear them, as a layer of

virtuoso is also being showcased in the aural front. That

in fact as we see the visuals unfold before our very eyes,

another layer to watch out for is the sound that

accompanies every scene unfolding. The conscious

effort we put into listening will make a world of a

difference and will help further understand the artistry

of the filmmaker. David Lynch once said of the sound

work he has rendered for Lost Highway:

“Half the film is a picture, the other half is sound.

They’ve got to work together. I keep saying that there

are ten sounds that will be correct and if you get one of

them, you’re there. But there are thousands that are

incorrect, so you just have to keep on letting it talk to

you and feel it. It’s not an intellectual sort of thing,”

(Hartmann, 2008).

“No element, in other words, serves more forcefully as

depiction and commentary on the psychological

dimension of the authentic self-experience”… These

songs, whose cultural function is largely understood in

terms of nostalgia and entertainment value, are revealed,

through a foregrounding of their uncanny sound, to be

implicated in this process of de-realization. As Zizek

puts it, but again with reference to music: “In Lynch’s

universe the psychological unity of a person

disintegrates into, on the one hand, a series of clichés,

and on the other hand, outbursts of the “raw”, brutal de-

sublimated real of an unbearably intensive, (self)

destructive, psychic energy. Mid-century pop songs for

Lynch, function both as the cliché and as the catalyst for

such brutal energy,” (quoted from Mazullo, 2005)

Inland Empire

Inland Empire opens with a woman and a man in a

hallway, then, in a hotel room in a Baltic country which

could be Poland. A deal has been made and both of their

faces are digitally blurred and obscured. Then, the

audience sees a young woman played by Karolina

Gruszka staring tearfully at a TV screen showing

women in rabbit mascots played by Naomi Watts and

Laura Harring. The scene segues to creepy, eerie and

nosy old woman neighbour Grace Zabriskie on her way

to new neighbour Nikki Grace played by Laura Dern’s

house. Nikki was married to a wealthy businessman

played by Peter J. Lucas and due to unspecified reasons

needed an outlet.

As she was an actress, she decided to return to acting

and at that time, was waiting for a casting call. The call

came, prior to the creepy neighbour’s nosy heard

rumour Nikki was going to play the role of director

Kingsley Stewart’s — played by Jeremy Irons — new

movie “On High on Blue Tomorrows” which per se is a

warning.

During the set, the director warned the cast of the gipsy

tale of the condemned or cursed script, which was Polish

of origin. Kingsley’s assistant, Freddie played by Harry

Dean Stanton, in addition, has claimed to have seen

someone lurking on the unfinished set. Nikki’s co-star

Hollywood heartthrob Devon Berk played by Justin

Theroux, himself a womanizer, was also warned. Fox

(2006) commented:

“Like MULHOLLAND DR. — which played with

many of the same visual themes, characters and ideas

and also unfolded in the Escher-like interior of the

haunted Hollywood dream factory — the film can easily

be read as one long dream dreamt by that very first lost

girl seen watching the empty TV screen. Or not, and it

doesn’t really matter. Lynch lays out a number of

oblique themes that may serve as keys to the film’s

hermetically sealed meanings, but it’s never entirely

clear where he’s hidden the locks. In the end, it’s best to

make peace with the film’s essential and deliberate

inscrutability…”

The film within the film progressed with the characters

blurred within several seemingly un-connected

narratives as reality merged with the reel. Nikki has lost

her role between the character she was playing and her

real self so that madness has started to build on her.

Other notable entrées to the film are the rabbit-head

family of three, a sitcom-like insertion from nowhere of

which the melancholic woman watches. It is in part

interpreted as promoting the other enterprises of Lynch

as much as it is a much-needed break of the heady plot

of the film, as much a distraction, a respite from

whatever it was she was crying about, as much as an

integral part of the woman’s viewing.

One has to recall, however, that rabbit was used in Alice

in Wonderland, as well as in Matt Groening’s Life in

Hell series, among other notable popular fiction. As

McWeeney (2006), wrote “I’d go so far as to call this a

masterpiece, a word I don’t throw around lightly. It feels

like a summation of an artist’s full career […]this is a

delirious high that will take days to wear off […]Enjoy

the way Lynch takes the notion of “it’s all a dream” and

demolishes it completely. Listen for Lynch’s hilarious

cameo as “Bucky,” a lighting grip. But more than

anything, indulge yourself in the pure cinema that

INLAND EMPIRE has to offer.”

Another narrative layer embedded in the movie is the

small group of partying young women, one dancing like

a robotic mannequin, two chattings, one asleep (and

would soon awaken) and another eating. This group will

re-emerge in another setting, most probably in

Hollywood California. This stuff could only be

interconnected with their presence and insertion as their

own, creating another story altogether which could or

could not be related at all to the central story of Nikki.

Travers (2006) noted that “INLAND EMPIRE is

arguably his most ambitious mind-bender yet — in a

futile effort to grasp what’s there and what isn’t.”

While it is left on the audience to understand as

perceived, challenges as to the interpretation and

connotation of what the scenes, images and sounds

actually want to arrive to make Inland Empire another

labyrinthine piece of Lynch. Even reviews no matter

how well-meaning they tried o serve as a warning to

potential viewers:

“There are, in the movies, few places creepier to spend

time than in David Lynch’s head. It is ahead of where

the wild things grow, twisting and spreading like vines,

like fingers, and taking us in their captive embrace […]”

Dargis (2006) wrote, and it seemed with trepidation.

(Refer to Appendix for details).

The Sound Story

One thing is easy to establish when it comes to David

Lynch and any of his films: a treat to a total artists’ piece

that uses a collage of mixed media: moving visuals and

a cornucopia of audio mixed integrally to produce one

which is indistinguishable from the other.

Inland Empire opens with a static sound accompanying

a light, then segues to an old needle on a vinyl disc,

zoomed in with the accompanying drone of

magnetisation that is what may be called by Chion as

audio vision where the acousmatic sound brings

constantly a series of effects, a feeling of melancholy

without actually showing any sad visuals as well as the

source of the sound. The soundtrack that followed added

a continuing sadness, of the David Lynch piece, that

lingered with the droning acousmatic sound while the

camera focusing on the black and white room. An abrupt

change of sound using synchresis, rendering the mental

fusion between the immediate silence and the visual to

feature three rabbit-heads inside their home followed the

teary-eyed woman scene. The changes occurred exactly

at the same time.

Nevertheless, a droning sound, almost, if not static in

perception came in during the time Grace Zabriskie was

introduced. Although it may appear that it is another

ordinary scene, it is an anempathetic sound that seems

to exhibit conspicuous indifference to the plot where

danger and eerie things start clouding up a rather fine

life for lead character Laura Dern, or Nikki.

It is very notable, though that certain sounds are used by

Lynch for every change of scene or mood. In areas

where the melancholic pretty face of the crying woman

was panned, the background music is played

acousmatically. Whereas a change of scene on the

rabbit-heads provide a deletion of all other sounds as

well as provision of canned laughter of background.

Stasis as sound in Inland Empire that provided a state of

equilibrium or inactivity caused by opposing equal

forces was often used to indicate anempathy as a guard

against too much anticipation of an impending thrill by

the audience. This was used in most scenario transitions

in the movie where the various collages of the present

life of Nikki to the small group of partying women to

the rabbit-heads were presented. This also adds

pathology as well as stagnation in the flow of the film.

An acousmatic sound described by Chion as a sound that

one hears without seeing their originating cause is well-

used in Inland Empire, from the beginning where there

was light, a needle on the vinyl, the monologue of

physically abused Nikki conversing with the

bespectacled overweight man.

Acousmêtre was used in several scenes such as when the

group about to take a shoot are having a preliminary

discussion as well as the scene in the theatre while Nikki

looks at the stage… a kind of invisible voice-character

with mysterious powers were heard. Certain continuity

and narrative, too, is achieved as the soundtrack returns

to its last cut when the video shows the same storyline

such as the film-making group of the director and staff.

This is also achieved with the woman crying. Then,

ultimately obvious are the deliberate disappearance of

background sound during the rabbit-heads appearances.

As Dargis (2006) observed, “…Most dance while lip-

synching “The Loco-Motion.” […] Each room brings

new moods, visual textures, threats and sometimes even

a crime, as well as such familiar Lynchian flourishes as

a buzzing electric light and velvety red curtains.”

All in all, sound pervades within the stories as an

integral part of the whole film. The removal of which

definitely would produce an entirely different meaning

as may be intended. As Rothkopf (2006) wrote,

“Mystery enshrouds David Lynch’s latest—which is a

bit like saying steam enshrouds the latest sauna. Inland

Empire comes well supplied with seismic audio

rumbles, blurry close-ups of lips and dark hallways, and

absolutely nothing to do with the California region that

lends it its name.”

The soundtrack used in the film and their artist/artists

are David Lynch – Ghost of Love, David Lynch

– Rabbits Theme, Mantovani – Colours of My Life,

David Lynch – Woods Variation, Dave Brubeck – Three

to Get Ready, Bogusław Schaeffer – Klavier Konzert,

Kroke – The Secrets of the Life Tree, Little Eva – The

Locomotion, David Lynch – Call From the Past,

Krzysztof Penderecki – Als, Joey Altruda – Novelette

Conclusion, Beck – Black Tambourine,

David Lynch – Mansion Theme, David Lynch – Walkin’

On The Sky, David Lynch and Marek Zebrowski

– Polish Night Music No. 1, David Lynch/ Chrysta Bell

– Polish Poem, and

Nina Simone – Sinnerman. These are a combination of

complementary music with Lynch showcasing an

almost similar pattern to Beck’s love for bass, drone and

funk while the others provide an apparent contrast but

nevertheless complementary to the rest of the tracks

included. McWeeney (2006) observed that,

“As low-tech as the visual end of the film is, the sound

design is incredibly sophisticated. The film’s score is as

much a sound effect as it is music that you actually

notice. It’s almost score as subtext, designed to affect

you without you actually hearing it. There are a few

places where the music actually leaps to the foreground,

like a dance number set to “The Locomotion” or, most

memorably, the incredible end credits that use Nina

Simone’s “Sinnerman” so well that I will never be able

to hear the song without picturing that sequence again.

But for the most part, the score just sorts of hovers right

at the edge of conscious hearing, getting into your head

and under your skin, adding to the almost unbearable

claustrophobia of the last third of the film.”

The added value of Inland Empire’s sounds proved the

hard work of Lynch on music scoring as well most

specifically with Ghost of Love. Overall, with the

complete list of the soundtrack, the listener-viewer finds

the expressive and informative value with which a sound

enriches an image, an Audiovisual Contract in the terms

of Chion which is an agreement that makes the viewer

forget that sound is coming from loudspeakers and

picture from the screen but an integral part of the scene.

But when it comes to the anempathetic sounds described

as music or sound effects exhibiting conspicuous

indifference to what is going on in the film’s plot, one

could point at Lynch’s scores as well as Beck’s

Tambourine Man and Little Eva’s The Loco-Motion

overlapping with other scenes of confusion. The rabbit-

heads, too, with its lack of relevant sound, specifically

the canned, out of timing laughter could at once provide

distraction on the narrative. But then, the viewer is

encouraged to perceive the film as a whole, not in part.

Lynch challenges the viewer to a reality of several

interconnected events happening at once that actually

have a direct and indirect impact on the self.

Discussion & Analysis

Eraserhead

The merging of two elements doesn’t quite guarantee a

formula for success. Sound and image combined and

synchronized can also be a double-edged sword for a

filmmaker. Once overused, sound can kill the beauty of

the image it is trying to represent or reinforce. Lynch

once was quoted saying, “Sound is almost like a drug. It

is so pure that when it goes in your ears, it instantly does

something to you.” On the other hand, if used properly

and appropriately, sound has the capacity to enrich and

vivify images presented in the film. It can even create

scenarios in our imagination that are not even presented

literally.

It is a merit of the language of film that it has created a

space for sound to unfold in itself yet ironically together

with the moving images. Therefore, sound, whether it be

ambient or music should be carefully layered into the

picture to create a more metaphorical use for it. This

manner allows the meanings to be more flexible and

productive. The less literal it is, the more it will engage

the audience into seeing the film in a deeper sense.

Then, it is therefore important to understand what can

sound do when put together as layers and layers to a film

image. Sound arranges itself in relation to the frame and

its content. Some are synchronized on screen and others

are left to float, on the surface or at the edges off-screen.

Overall, sound on film will always be classified to the

images that we see (Chion, 1994)

Lynch’s Eraserhead successfully fused the two elements

and even introduced a new way of seeing and hearing a

sound. There emerged strong and arresting

representation it has created vis a vis the actual scenes

and images as envisioned by the author of the film.

The process of how the sound design of Eraserhead was

made was also similarly pioneering. The result was a

sound as unique and distinct as the images in the film.

As Chion discussed, the audio and video together

resonate with the surreal and industrial feel of the entire

movie:

“… the figurative value of sound is in itself is usually

non-specific. Depending on the dramatic and visual

context, a single sound can convey very diverse things.

For the spectator, it is not acoustical realism so much as

the synchrony above all, and secondarily the factor of

verisimilitude (verisimilitude arising not from truth but

from convention) that will lead him or her to connect a

sound with an event or detail. The same sound can

convincingly serve as the sound effect for a crushed

watermelon in a comedy or for a head blown in

smithereens in a war film. The same noise will be joyful

in one context and tolerable in another. (Chion, 1994)

This process of creation reveals how Lynch pays high

regard to sound in the making of a film. Lynch was

quoted in Chion’s book saying: “People think of me as

a director, but I really think of myself as a sound man.”

Proof enough is the number of hours and labour he puts

into making this element as cohesive as possible. Lynch

personally believes that sound is responsible for

painting the “mood” within the scenes. It sketches

images in our minds, those we do not literally see on

screen and it can allow us to travel through space and

time.

Sound is also vital to a moving image as a brush is to a

painter. It delivers the poetic accent and emotive aspects

of a narrative in the same way lighting can highlight

mood thru tones. If lighting is dark and brooding in a

movie, then most likely, the audio accompaniment will

carry the same dark and brooding feeling. The sound is

a layer of an element that makes the undertones and

completes the vibe as the pictures recreate their own

reality and take the audience to a certain culture, place

and time. To the contemporary movie audience, the

sound is as important as lighting and carries some of the

same storytelling burdens as lighting.

On a utilitarian level, natural sound is as much a part of

the filmic record as natural lighting. Sounds of birds

chirping may document an outdoor scene as much

dappled light coming through leaves of trees. In

filmmaking, the director still has the liberty to decide

what kind of aural layering will work best to be able to

bring forth the kind of emotion and picture and narrative

that he intends. Again, Lynch would be a great example

of how he made use of sound a variated the levels and

its typical functions to be able to drive the major point

of his dark and dreary film, Eraserhead. He may have

not used sound in the conventional sense, yet he was

able to effectively make it a coherent element fused with

his surreal visuals.

Lost Highway

Lynch in Lost Highway as well as in his other films,

apply the technique of simultaneous contrast. There are

images in his films that are not necessarily in

congruence with the sound. However, it still becomes a

potent combination to articulate a mood or a tone or

emotion that the scene s trying to deliver. A choice like

this is made by the director in consideration of the other

elements still present in the picture: such are dialogues,

pacing and the natural tempo of the scene. Lynch as a

director, orchestrates this balance in order to hit the

emotional note.

Whether it is in Lost Highway, or Eraserhead, or his

other controversial works like Blue Velvet, and Inland

Empire, Lynch would always draw upon the diverse and

popular American music to lend his films a Lynchian

trademark of expressive sound signature that is

combined with the brilliant sound design for each

landscape.

Likewise, the prevailing musical motif was the hard-

edged rock that scores perfectly against the urban set

design and the psyche of dualities and alternating

realities. Incidentally, and not intentionally, the chosen

genre to represent the film has also a great significance

to the music trend during the time it was produced. With

artists like Marilyn Manson and Trent Reznor in the

soundtrack, Lynch also captures the sound of the times

not only in his film but also within the period of its

production. In so many layers, sound design Lynch-style

has touched on so many levels, within and outside of the

film of its origin. It is then proof that the relevance and

relationship of sound and image are to a great extent, can

go beyond the film’s narrative.

Lost Highway’s labyrinthine construction enables

Lynch to subordinate traditional cinematic concerns

with dialogue and plot to a visual language that

communicates moods and emotions. Although the

dialogue in the film is spare, the drama of a man driven

mad by his obsession with the woman he loves has an

extraordinary emotional vividness that is punctured by

more by the score and the ambient atmosphere. Lost

Highway is man’s nightmare…a bad dream that every

man would not dare want to have. And though it is a

scary ordeal for the softhearted, it is a grip, a pullback

reminder of the realities and the tyranny of logic that

takes a spectator to an adventure, a journey that leads us

beyond the reason and rational—a highway where we

can get ourselves deeply lost.

Perhaps, chaotic and to some, unfathomable, Lost

Highway, is still a testament to the seer in David Lynch,

his visionary ideas and virtuoso sound design. It is a

reference to man’s dual realities, the changing times and

the experimental breakthroughs of the period achieved

through effective use of sound and video.

Inland Empire

Already able to provide mastery on audio and video,

what is presented to the last film in this study of David

Lynch is a testament. The various elements of sound

from noise, silence, background music and the abrupt as

well as the subtle transition have provided the ability to

present a chronology, continue non-a linear series of

events as well as connect them fully to make one film

presentation is a feat. e

It is a matter of saying that success is achieved fully in

the Inland Empire where artist and administrator David

Lynch merged audio and video as an integral part of

each other in the film. But the process per se is another

contribution if not a development in the industry to

explore possibilities of sound use for a visual scene that

either is connected entirely, representative, or

opposition to the viewers’ as well as the characters’

feelings.

Emotion is a strong factor in film narrative. Lynch

affected the emotion of both viewer and character using

audio and video in very surprising manners

incomparable to traditional and current standards. While

the film itself is drama and mystery which is very much

factual when taken as a whole, Lynch has exorcised the

psyche of both character and viewer to make the latter

relate and unite with the character.

While it cannot be easily acknowledged that the stories

— audio and video presented — actually happens to an

ordinary person, or individual, when taken as a part of a

bigger scenario that is the world, the viewer will be

surprised to analyse that these things actually happen

and affect him or her as a whole. The music, the sounds,

the silence, the droning, emptiness, the melancholy and

everything else in-between actually exists that make up

the conscious and unconscious part of the individual. Of

which cannot be at all achieved in the absence of a

defining as well as contrasting sound concocted by

Lynch.

Conclusion

The highly observable and unique characteristics of

David Lynch’s movies based on the three films include:

 His use of non-linear narrative in presenting both

audio and video.

 While certain sound or the lack of it usually

supported the emotion of the scene or the

character (audiovisual contract), sound or the lack

of it in Lynch’s movies were exploratory,

experimental in a sense that it is almost mystical.

In these instances, much use of added value, as

well as materialising sound indices, were very

evident.

 Other forms of sounds which Chion calls

anempathetic are also very useful in Lynch’s

three movies.

The employment of sound — plain, effects, as well as

other techniques and recordings that came with the films

— affected the overall as well as partial presentations of

the films as an integral whole. In the process of which

sound was eliminated during viewing, there is a lack of

understanding if not total disconnection to what is seen

on film. At most, the scenes are but visual collages

without a theme, accidental in nature and there is a lack

of connection if any is established at all.

The advantages gained by Lynch’s films in employing

the sounds he had in his mentioned films include:

 Coherence of the differing apparently varied

layers of visuals or scenes and characters that

were presented

 Exorcising deeper emotions, even the sub-

conscious of both character and viewer

 Mind-opening avenues that educate the viewer

about known and unknown realities as part of an

individual, acceptable or otherwise

 Growth and development in film narrative

elevating the medium from entertainment to a

higher form of art and psyche exploration.

As a whole, the aesthetic importance, artistic style and

appeal as well as other aspects of David Lynch’s three

films Eraserhead, Lost Highway and Inland Empire

basing on Michel Chion’s ideas and perspectives as well

views of other critics and film enthusiasts are as follows:

 provide the film production industry insight into

experimentation

 use of the conscious and sub-conscious avenues

to impact a chronology and narration

 integration of audio and video in varying levels of

relations that could be both apparent and hidden

to bring out a more effective presentation

 the exploration of both internal psyche and

external subconscious to impact the realities that

surround an individual, as a film character or

viewer, for humanity’s sake.

To conclude, Lynch is a total artist-administrator who

has introduced new ways to create and process film

narration and entertainment elevation with both heart

and mind. He creates visuals and sounds that challenge

not only his actors but his viewers to explore a reality

that exists but is somehow previously ignored by the

majority, which needs to be felt and acknowledged, for

the sake of art and the self.

Bibliography

Altman, 2005, Altman, Rick (2005). Silent Film Sound,

New York: Columbia University Press.

Ankeny, Jason (2008) “David Lynch”. Web.

Bordwell and Thompson, 1995- Bordwell, David, and

Kristin Thompson (1995 [1993]). “Technological

Change and Classical Film Style,” chap. in Balio, Tino,

Grand Design: Hollywood as a Modern Business

Enterprise, 1930–1939, pp. 109–141. Berkeley, Los

Angeles, and London: University of California Press.

Chion, Michel (1995) David Lynch.

Chion, Michel, (1994), Audio-Vision, New York:

Columbia University Press.

Crafton, Donald (1997). The Talkies: American

Cinema’s Transition to Sound, 1926–1931. New York:

Charles Scribner’s Sons.

Dargis, Manohla (2006). “The Trippy Dream Factory of

David Lynch.” New York Times.

Dibbets, Karel (1999). “High-tech Avant-garde: Philips

Radio,” in Joris Ivens and the Documentary Context, ed.

Kees Bakker, pp. 72–86. Amsterdam: Amsterdam

University Press.

Eyman, Scott (1997). The Speed of Sound: Hollywood

and the Talkie Revolution 1926–1930. New York:

Simon & Schuster.

Film Sound: Theory & Practice (1985) Columbia

University Press, New York.

Fox, Kevin (2006). “Inland Empire: Review.” TV

Guide. Web.

Gilmore, Dan (2004). “What’s louder than loud? The

Auxetophone.” Angelfire. Web.

Glancy, H. Mark (1995). “Warner Bros. Film Grosses,

1921–51: The William Schaefer Ledger,” Historical

Journal of Film, Radio and Television.

Godwin, George (1985) Review: Eraserhead, Film

Quarterly Vol.39, No.1.

Gomery, Douglas (1985). “The Coming of Sound:

Technological Change in the American Film Industry,”

in Technology and Culture—The Film Reader (2005),

ed. Andrew Utterson, pp. 53–67. Oxford and New York:

Routledge/Taylor & Francis.

Hartman, Mike. (2008). “Lost Highway, Soundtrack

Commentary.” Web.

Hasall, Phillip (2002), 50% Sound: The Films of David

Lynch. Web.

Hughes, David (2002). The Complete Lynch. Virgin

Virgin.

Kaleta, Kenneth (1993) Filmmakers Series: David

Lynch, Simon and Schuster McMillan.

Kellog, Edward W. (1955). Journal of the SMPTE.

Web.

Lasky, Betty (1989). RKO: The Biggest Little Major of

Them All. Santa Monica, Calif.: Roundtable.

Mancini, Marc (1985). Film sound.

Mazullo, Mark (2005), Remembering Pop: David

Lynch and The Sound of the 60s, American Music.

McWeeney, drew (2006). “Moriarty Visits David

Lynch’s INLAND EMPIRE And Lives To Tell About

It!!.”. Web.

Meyer, Leonard B. (1956) Emotion and meaning in

music. Columbia University Press Ltd., London.

Millard, Andre J. (2005). America on Record: A History

of Recorded Sound, 2d ed. Cambridge et al.: Cambridge

University Press.

Milne, Tom (1980). “Rouben Mamoulian,” in Cinema:

A Critical Dictionary, ed. Richard Roud, pp. 658–663.

New York: Viking.

Moritz, William (2003). Optical Poetry: The Life and

Work of Oskar Fischinger. Bloomington and

Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

Nochimson, Martha (1997) The Passion of David

Lynch: Wild at Heart in Hollywood. University of Texas

Press.

Papillon, Emmanuel. (2008). The Black Lodge.” Web.

Rhodes, Erick Bryant (1998) Review: Lost Highway by

David Lynch; Deepak Nayar; Tom Sternberg; Mary

Sweeney, Film Quarterly, Vol. 51, No. 3. pp. 57-61.

Robinson, David (1997). From Peepshow to Palace: The

Birth of American Film. New York: Columbia

University Press.

Robertson, Patrick (2001). Film Facts. New York:

Billboard Books.

Rodley, Chris (1997) Lynch on Lynch.

Rothkopf, Joshua (2006). “Inland Empire: Review.”

From Time Out New York Issue 584. Web.

Sponable, E. I. (1947). “Historical Development of

Sound Films”, Journal of the Society of Motion Picture

Engineers, vol. 48, nos. 4–5.

Schoenherr, Steven E. (1999). Motion Picture Sound

1910-1929. Web.

Sonnenschein, David (2001) Sound Design: The

Expressive Power of Music, Voice and Sound Effects in

Cinema. Michael Wiese Productions, Studio City, Calif,

Great Britain.

Spoto, Donald (1984 [1983]). The Dark Side of Genius:

The Life of Alfred Hitchcock. New York: Ballantine.

Storr, Anthony (1992) Music and the Mind. Maxwell

Macmillan International, Free Press, New York,

Oxford.

Travers, Peter (2006). “Inland Empire.” RollingStone.

Web.

Västfjäll, Daniel (2002), “Emotion in Product Sound

Design” Proceedings of Journées Design Sonore, Paris.

Woods, Paul (2002). Weirdsville U.S.A.: The Obsessive

Universe of David Lynch. Plexus Publishing. UK

Reprint edition.

Yewdall, David Lewis (1997 & 2003) The Practical Art

of Motion Picture Sound”. Focal Press, Oxford.

Students also viewed