Impossible David Lynch

Todd McGowan studies Lynch's talent for blending the bizarre and the normal to emphasize the odd nature of normality itself. In Lynch's movies, fantasy becomes a means through which the viewer is encouraged to build a revolutionary relationship with the world. Considering the filmmaker's entire career, McGowan examines Lynch's play with fantasy and traces the political, cultural, and existential impact of his unique style. He engages with theorists from the "golden age" of film studies (Christian Metz, Laura Mulvey, and Jean-Louis Baudry) and with the thought of Freud, Lacan, and Hegel. By using Lynch's weirdness as a point of departure, McGowan adds a new dimension to the field of auteur studies and reveals Lynch to be the source of a new and radical conception of fantasy.