A Tale of Two Psyches

Paper Summary:

This paper examines the semiotics at work within Lynch's film and how they construct a portrait of the protagonist's fractured and fragmented mind. It also traces the development of the light/dark female dichotomy at work in many of Lynch's films, including "Blue Velvet".

From the Paper:

"David Lynch's cinematic vision generally consists of a carefully constructed labyrinth laden with enigmatic characters and bizarre imagery all of which reflect a Manichean division between good and evil. Within this illusory realm of antithesis, the contrast between "light" and "dark" female characters (denoted by hair color, et. al.) is often at the narrative's core. Lynch establishes this rift in his 1986 masterpiece Blue Velvet, a film that exposes the disturbing, depraved criminal underworld that exists beneath a suburban town's banal facade. He then expounds upon the idea in his more recent work, Mulholland Drive. While the "light girl" and "dark girl" both play integral roles each film, their depictions differ drastically. Blue Velvet portrays these two female archetypes vying for the affection of Jeffrey Beaumont, a young man as curious as he is naive. In Mulholland Drive, conversely, Lynch eliminates the male character from this equation. The light girl and dark girl are lovers engaged in a same sex relationship on the outskirts of Hollywood."

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