I’ll Test My Log With Every Branch Of Knowledge – Thoughts On Perception And The Films Of David Lynch

This was my art degree dissertation. Originally it was going to be something quite different but the tutor assigned to me was quite set in her ways and we got into massive arguments every time we met. In the end the essay became a defence against her narrow world view. She had no confidence in my writing abilities; she assumed that because I held opinions at variance with her own that it meant I simply could not write. She got quite a shock when the dissertation was awarded the highest mark anyone on the degree had ever been given.

I typed this up again from the original and in doing so have been frugal in making changes – I was tempted to re-write the whole thing but there’s so many things I could add I would never have stopped. I settled for correcting some grammar, spelling and bad sentence structure. I also decided to leave in some of the bad grammar and sentence structure simply because it still needs it to sound like me thirteen years ago.

I’ll Test My Log With Every Branch Of Knowledge

Thoughts On Perception And The Films Of David Lynch

1997

Introduction

‘Yoda sits on a large root, poking his gimer stick into the dirt.

Luke turns to see a huge dead tree, its base surrounded by a few feet of water,

Giant twisted roots form a dark and sinister cave on one side.

Luke stares at the tree, trembling.

LUKE: There’s something not right here. I feel cold, death.

YODA: That place… is strong with the dark side of the Force. A

Domain of evil it is. In you must go.

LUKE: what’s in there?

YODA: Only what you take with you.’

(Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan, 1979)

A beginning is a delicate time. In his collection of essays named ‘Travels in Hyper-Reality’ the semiologist Umberto Eco expresses the opinion that:

‘variability of interpretation is the constant law of mass communications.’

Eco, 1987

This essay was originally intended as a discourse on the state of fine art and what I felt to be its lack of success as the relevant language through which culture can be expressed (and whether it ever had or ever could really fulfil this role). A comparison of fine art to cinema, a mass communicative form which embraces fine art concepts and techniques but reaches a much larger and well trained audience, was to be used to this end. When this was narrowed further to a study of the films of a director whose work has interested me for many years and who was trained as a fine artist (a painter, something he still does), it became apparent that the scope of the essay would have to be much larger and the focus of it could not be a critical examination of his work but a critical examination of the criticism of his work and following from there, the interpretations which can be made from any piece of artwork, film or otherwise, which brought me close to my original intent.

Complex arguments over the authorship of work and the responsibility of interpretation have become the larger concern and the main difficulty has become editing down or rather selecting, which material to use or not use, something which is somewhat hampered by the very subject matter that I am dealing with. Excuse this essay if it seems to rush past subject areas that would seem to deserve a deeper look; in order to get the correct overview of the works and subjects under discussion I have had to be ruthless in the length of subject discussion.

I will refrain as much as is possible from expressing opinion regarding Lynch’s work and instead will attempt to focus on its perception, trying to create a discourse of learning and debate rather than conjecture. This is not to say that there are not very specific arguments in this work, but as with my previous essays I have absolutely no intent of entirely proving my point; whilst I cannot help but reach some conclusions I am all too aware of the fragile nature of conclusive arguments. Rather I would like the reader to have been made aware of some facts that they may or may not have known before, or made to think by the construction of an argument or debate that they may not have thought of in that certain way before.

Chapter One

When it comes to defending his movies, Lynch doesn’t bother. In Lynch on Lynch, Chris Rodley states his frustration at interviewing Lynch and gaining little more knowledge than before;

‘Even when Lynch seems aware of the precise, personal meaning of certain sequences, he often responds with a ‘don’t know/won’t tell’ combo… Lynch is unwilling to assign specific words to images or sequences in his movies simply for the purpose of explanation or justification. He clearly believes this to be an irrelevant and unnecessary part of the creative process.’

Rodley, 1997

Many critics interpret this lack of cohesive dialogue as Lynch’s ‘genius’ gambit; by saying as little as possible in a mysterious manner he can inflate the aura of artistic genius around himself. Whether this is true or not is irrelevant; many critics berate him for this obvious machination whilst others embrace this image and praise it as part of him. For the purpose of this essay everything Lynch is quoted as saying will be taken with a liberal pinch of salt. Whether this image, project or not, correct or not, is true is not the concern; it is its existence which promotes discussion. Some critics choose to plant him firmly in the mainstream because of this view. In Parkett magazine’s article ‘(Why) Is David Lynch Important?’ the novelist Kathy Acker says that

‘it is undeniable that in TV and film Lynch has made an impact on media-Hollywood culture… his work, at least his zeitgeist, fits in with the demands of the reigning powers. But whether Lynch’s oeuvre has affected the arts and cultures of the various communities and tribes is the only interesting question. Because, for me the McDonald’s culture of the United States can go to hell.

…the only art that now matters is that which has a cult following and the only culture, that which is provincial.’

Parkett, 1991

Acker puts Lynch on the other side of the artistically acceptable fence from herself, placing him firmly within mainstream Hollywood culture because of his perceived `genius’. Is it purely her opinion that distances this or has she some exclusive access to a certain truth that guides her? In the same article the writer and curator Lynne Cooke talks about Lynch’s films in very different terms;

`…in each case a classic genre provides the vehicle for an unexpectedly rich and haunting reconstruction via a fascinated savouring of the intimate details and peculiarities of homespun America. Far more than simply revelling in the craziness, perversion and disturbance below its conventional surfaces, Lynch examines it by way of a fresher metaphor.’

Parkett, 1991

Two separate opinions, or readings, of not only Lynch’s films but his intentions are presented for us and we can only take them in sincerity. Is one necessarily right and the other totally wrong? If Lynch has created his films with certain subtexts and ideas, cinematic or social, how can they possibly be read in such different ways?  And if Lynch is failing to communicate his singular vision directly then can he truly be the auteur some critics accuse him of being?

In `Film Theory: An Introduction’ Robert Lapsley and Michael Westlake talk about the displacement of the `auteur’ theory by a wider reading of cinema’s social function. They define auteurism as

`…the belief that cinema was an art of self-expression and that its great directors were as much to be esteemed as the authors of their work as any writer’

Lapsley and Westlake, 1988

But cinema is difficult to pin down as `fine art’; it is a highly collaborative process, ensuring that a singular vision is an almost impossible task; surely this affects the `purity’ of the artist’s message. But like other fields of art it has its own pre-set rules which govern its interpretation and the role in which its makers are cast.

Annette Kuhn talks of how

`Spectators, as part of their socialisation as cinema-goers, build up an understanding of how to read films, so that the act of reading may eventually become automatic and taken for granted.’

Kuhn, 1982

It is not such a great leap to imagine that this argument can be said of art criticism in general. Arguing about the intent and responsibility of filmmakers concerning the reading of their texts, Kuhn goes on to say that

`It cannot be emphasised too strongly, however, that in concrete situations institutions and texts do not operate in isolation from one another…’

Kuhn, 1982

Whilst she is talking about the institutions of society and the institutions of film affecting the content of motion pictures it can again be applied to criticism and representation as a whole. Whilst criticism cannot exist independently of film it influences filmmaking to the point that the reading of a film depends as much on past readings/criticism possibly more than the filmmakers intent, As Kuhn says,

`The cinema-goer’s purchase of a ticket at the box office buys the right… only to look at a series of images projected into a screen.’

Kuhn, 1982

How we interpret that series of images does not depend solely on the series of images itself, which are retained in memory and therefore instantly subjective and subject to further change but also on a person’s class, gender, political leanings, sexuality, education and any other number of very individualistic traits. To assume that we will all take the same message from a single series of images would be incorrect, though broad bands of perception through different groups can be estimated; a socialist may see a political subtext to a work that a politically inactive person may not or a feminist may read a meaning not obvious to a non-feminist.

Roland Barthes first proclaimed `the death of the author’ (Appignanesi & Garratt, 1995) in 1967. He was stating plainly that the reader of a text had the final say over how they created meaning from the text; certainly that reader’s cultural background and ideas will influence this but so will the authors. It is a unique combination of the two which truly creates meaning. Even Barthes initial statement is open to interpretation and may not mean he same thing to a reader as to its author. Does this mean that artists and critics alike are trapped by the very work that they produce/critique? Can a genuinely balanced effort be made to read a text?

In a similar way but in a much broader sense Derrida talks about meanings including and implicating the reader or observer of them. He states that

`There is nothing outside of the text.’

Appignanesi and Garrat, 1995

Indicating his belief that nothing can exist for us without a structured system of meaning but that meaning is not just inherent in languages or images but in the interaction between them and those who perceive them. What this can be boiled down to for the sake of this argument is that there is never just one meaning because of the inherent difficulty in relating the meaning of a text to those conditioned through and by other texts which in relation to each other may produce unique structures.

The next chapter will study the differences in meaning to be taken by various parties from one David Lynch movie, in an attempt to prove that intent and interpretation are not precise. During the course of this it will continue to question his motives and persona as a filmmaker and/or artist.

Chapter Two

Apart from rare interviews and press conferences at film festivals Lynch does not make much effort to talk about his work much less defend it from criticism, which he still feels as acutely as anyone. In fact, Lynch’s reason for becoming a filmmaker was his famed `hatred of words’. His ex-wife Peggy Reavey states that

`He didn’t talk the way a lot of artists do. He would make noises, open his arms wide and make a sound like the wind. The Alphabet (a short film) was a way of expressing his frustration with the need to be verbal. This film talks about the hell of a person with a non-verbal nature.’

Rodley, 1997

Again, this backs up the interpretation of Lynch as struggling artist, desperately trying to communicate his ideas in the only way he can. But is Peggy Reavey’s interpretation of her ex-husband’s work any more clear or correct because of her presence at some of its creation, or because her personal relationship with Lynch? And does she mean to communicate the message that this writer has just read from her words or is that meaning tampered with by the author of the book in which it is presented?

Lynch’s fourth film, following on from the financial and critical catastrophe of Dune (1984) was Blue Velvet (1986). Blue Velvet is the story of a young man who becomes embroiled in the seedy underbelly of what appears to be typical, small town, safe America. It repeats some of Lynch’s seeming obsessions with the hidden world beneath the surface of society but introduced a polarity between good and bad that becomes increasingly blurred throughout the film. This was carried through to much of his future work, most notably Twin Peaks. Lynch first uses the focused character of evil that repeats through his other films here; in Blue Velvet it is Frank Booth, a psychopath, sadist, torturer, kidnapper, cop killer and drug killer. The Frank Booth archetype becomes split between the crime boss Santos and the amoral, Bobby Peru in Wild At Heart, Killer Bob in Twin Peaks and the Mystery Man in Lost Highway. They all seem to represent different aspects of evil and mystery, sometimes with a supernatural overtone but always with a solid link. Blue Velvet very obviously plays with mainstream Hollywood genres, using familiar narratives and stereotyped characters. What Lynch does with these familiar aspects is what is interesting about Blue Velvet, whether it is seen in a negative way or not and of all Lynch’s films up to that point it is the one with the most levels of interpretation. The rest of this chapter will examine the different readings of Blue Velvet and attempt to discern some pattern. I do not mean to do the authors of the following articles a disservice by breezing through their work; rather the limits of space force me to choose extracts carefully and sparsely.

In an article in Neoformations, Barbara Creed approaches Blue Velvet from a Feminist perspective, concentrating on what she sees as a blatantly psychoanalytical film.

`David Lynch’s film Blue Velvet threatens to make interpretation redundant, so openly does it flaunt its Freudian themes and narratives’

Creed, 1986

This is her opening line. Who is she addressing? When I first saw Blue Velvet I was completely unaware of Freudian theory and my interpretation of the film did not embrace this notion at all. Creed is talking to a reader who she assumes has a similar learning to herself and is aware of the same issues and therefore likely to read the same meanings into the text that she has read. Not only this, she is so sure of her reading of Blue Velvet as Freudian that she assumes it was David Lynch’s sole intent to have the film read in this manner and talks of the redundancy of interpretation. Why? Because she has got the one and only interpretation of the film right?

The basic argument of Blue Velvet as a Freudian text is well backed up by a straightforward Freudian reading. It’s reading as an oedipal drama, where the young Jeffrey Beaumont fucks the symbolic mother figure (Dorothy) and kills the symbolic father figure (Frank Booth) is easy to accept. The figure of Frank, as mentioned earlier, is one paralleled in later Lynch films. In Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, Laura Palmer’s killer is her own father, who has been possessed by the symbolic figure of Killer Bob, under which guise he has been abusing her for years. In Blue Velvet Frank can easily be seen as the father figure, reacting to Dorothy’s mother figure when acting in a sexual/violent situation.

` surface knowingness and playfulness, the ironic tone and insistent parody of family values, mark Blue Velvet as a post-modern text. It also displays the expected generic pastiches of film noir, melodrama and pornography. The send-up of Freudian themes…suggests a deliberate trap for the earnest or unwary theorist.’

Creed, 1986

It would seem that we are learning more about Barbara Creed than Blue Velvet; she locates the film within the post-modern, seems well acquainted with film theory as well as psychoanalytical theory and she is beginning to talk about interpretation as a whole instead of presenting an interpretation of the film directly. Here she is stating that the film is about interpretation; the insinuation is that Lynch is trying to bluff us into ignoring dangerous subtexts of the film by presenting certain issues and then running away from them and saying that the film is about film itself or has no interpretation anyway.

Lynch again fails to pinpoint any meaning when he is questioned about the film. In Lynch on Lynch Chris Rodley directly quizzes Lynch about Blue Velvet, psychoanalysis and interpretation;

`Rodley: I remember talking to a film theorist/lecturer at the time of the film’s release. Over the years she has done a lot of work on psychoanalysis and film and her response to Blue Velvet was “the filmmakers are doing it for themselves!” In other words, the movie had almost made her redundant. It didn’t have a subtext. It was all on the surface, in plain sight.

Lynch: It’s all there, yeah (laughs.)

Rodley: The movie does seem to display or illustrate, almost perfectly, certain Freudian concerns and theories – and in one extreme, undiluted way. Was that intentional?

Lynch: Let’s put it this way: my reasoning mind didn’t ever stop and say, “What the hell am I doing?” That’s why I keep saying that making films is a subconscious thing. Words get in the way. Rational thinking gets in the way. It can really stop you cold. But when it comes in a pure sort of stream, from some other place, film has a great way of giving shape to the subconscious. It’s just a great language for that.`

Rodley, 1997

There are several things at work in this extract. We can see the similar interpretation of Blue Velvet expressed and also the issue of interpretation again, so we can say that the film had a similar meaning for two critics with psychoanalytical and film theory backgrounds which Lynch does not deny. But when Rodley says `It was all on the surface, in plain sight` and Lynch just laughs and says `It’s all there, yeah’ we can also see Barbara Creed’s point about the film being a `deliberate trap for the earnest or unwary theorist`; she goes on to talk of the film putting itself `beyond’ analysis and specifically talks of it in terms of `it’s own surface`. The film is not beyond analysis, of course and only by reading the text in terms of a specific critical school of thought could this be put forward; but it is just as relevant for Creed to go beyond analysis of the film’s structure and look at its relation to other films in an historical context, it’s relationship to its `author’ and it’s relation to interpretation as a means of reading film as a whole.

Writing in Sight and Sound, Sean French makes no mention of Freud at all in his article. Instead he frames his paragraphs on Blue Velvet with references to other directors and artists.

`Blue Velvet is Lynch’s first film set in either present day or in a recognisable version of America. The setting, Lumberton, is a familiar kind of town, familiar from Frank Capra and Preston Sturges… Lynch himself…is like an amiable character that has wandered out of an Andy Hardy movie… In one camera movement a scene from Norman Rockwell becomes a jungle out of Douanier Rousseau.`

French, 1986

Whilst Creed reserved herself to arguing a certain reading and debating interpretation, French presents us with an opinion, as well as a straightforward movie buff’s referenced guide to where some of Lynch’s styles and ideas may have come from. French thinks Blue Velvet is an `extraordinary film…’ though it is only his judgement which backs this up. It is a much shorter article with no major political point to convey and written by someone who is openly appreciative of Lynch’s work.

In his article `Out To Lynch’ (the use of Lynch’s name in headline puns will be discussed further later) David Chute relies on large chunks of Lynch’s own words to illustrate the meanings of Blue Velvet. He does not argue against Lynch’s points; obviously this is another article without a particular political manifesto, or rather one which chooses not to have one, though it does tough on some aspects of interpretation. Rather than dealing with Blue Velvet’s brutal sex scenes from a Freudian or feminist point of view Chute discusses them from the point of view of an imagined audience that can only read the film from its surface.

`Some moviegoers will react to the brutalization of Isabella Rosselini in Blue Velvet with unalloyed disgust. Those sequences could invalidate the film for them. It is a peculiarity of the visceral way we respond to movies that we don’t necessarily assume that the disgust has been evoked intentionally or that the director shares this feeling. The person who staged the action, who dreamed it up, often becomes the object of the negative reactions it provokes’

Chute, 1986

Chute appears to club together all members of the viewing public quite happily; `the visceral way we respond’, `we don’t necessarily assume’ and pre-judges the reaction of the audience, already taking a defensive stand against  something he can obviously read into the film himself but imagines to be a mis-reading. Maybe this stems from the initial quote from Lynch which opens the article:

`Blue velvet is not a movie for everybody. Some people are going to really dig it, but we’ve experienced some negative reactions, too. We had a sneak preview in the valley that was a disaster. People though it was disgusting and sick. And of course it is, but it has two sides.’

Chute, 1986

The plain speaking colloquial Lynch covers himself from every side again.

In a Camera Obscura article based on a paper given to a Psychoanalytical Studies conference, Lesley Stern echoes Barbara Creed’s thoughts on Blue Velvet’s slipperiness when it comes to fixed interpretation. Stern states that Blue Velvet

`specifically poses interpretation itself as perverse.’

Stern, 1992

Whilst both Stern and Creed’s articles are well researched and often dense arguments about Blue Velvet’s context and content that contain many similar points they do vary in interpretation. For Creed the term Blue Velvet evokes a specific meaning;

`In pornography, “velvet” (often liquid velvet) is a generic term used to signify the interior of the vagina.’

Creed, 1986

And she relates it to the severed ear through which the camera travels at the opening of the film, taking both as the opening to places physical and theoretical. Perhaps it can also be taken as a metaphor for Frank using Dorothy’s own sexuality to brutalize and silence her. Stern takes the term more literally and relates it to the physical presence of the length of blue velvet used to gag the character of Dorothy and also her link to Frank.

`it is effectively a double bind and a running gag; it invites interpretation (to be identified as umbilical cord, fetish object and so on) and gags criticism (or interpretation).’

Stern, 1992

Whilst the main thrust of the arguments are the same there are obviously differences in the way that each writer has come to their conclusions. This would seem to run contrary, however, to the argument that the film `gags’ interpretation or shies away from declaring its meaning as anything other than postmodern pastiche. The mere fact of the existence of thorough and thought-provoking articles (as well as those of a shorter and more complementary nature_ proves that a film cannot stifle the discussion of its own meaning by simple means.

In this chapter I have attempted to reserve judgement on the authors and their articles in deference to the discussion of their meaning and even their necessity. In the next chapter I shall take a more critical approach to the critics.

Chapter Three

Whilst Blue Velvet attracts mainly Freudian attention, Wild At heart is the target for a more generalised field of discussion. Arguments seem to attach meaning/s onto the films narrative, characters and subtexts with such a broad stroke as to cover your every paranoia.

Several articles in particular attack Wild At Heart, or rather Lynch, for blatant sexism and racism. In an article that appeared in 1990 in East-West Journal, Sharon Willis draws a direct connection between Lynch’s name and his works. Considering it is an article mainly criticising Lynch’s movies making `shock tactics’ Willis does not mind using the shock tactics of journalism, right from the start of her essay:

`A recent issue of Movieline magazine… exploit(s) the semantic richness of the signifier “Lynch”. The magazine’s cover headline, “Wild At Heart: Love, Sex, Violence, Lynch,” …a fashion spread whose models are actors from Twin Peaks… “The Look: The Lynch Mob.” So that the title plays on possible titillating connections with Lynch’s signature. Chillingly enough, this advertising gimmick is only reading what Wild At Heart has placed up front, Lynch’s signature. The murder that opens the film is a “lynching” whose double entendre is imposingly obvious, as we witness a black man’s unaccountably vicious murder by a white man.

Shocking for its detailed brutality, this scene is all the more chilling for the utter silence of the narrative with regard to its cross-racial nature. In its apparent lack of concern for a racial determination of the violence, the film invites (whether consciously or not, it doesn’t really matter) the kind of glibly ironic dismissal of the historical resonances of the term “lynch”, with which the Movieline fashion section so casually plays.’

Willis, 1990

Willis accuses Lynch of shock tactics and very direct racism. She suggests a direct link between the filmmakers surname, Lynch, and the act of `lynching`, specifically the historical tradition in America of hanging black people (although Willis only links this to black males). David Lynch did not choose his surname and cannot be held directly responsible for journalists such as those working for Movieline magazine using his name in an article in such a way. Whatever meaning is attributed to it in this way is the responsibility of the journalist writing the copy, his editor and the reader (in this case another journalist, Sharon Willis). Willis talks about Wild At Heart inviting 1the kind of glibly ironic dismissal of the powerful historical resonances of the term “lynch”. Does this suggest that if the film had been directed by someone else, or that David Lynch had been David Smith that the scene could not invite a racist reading? She states that the film invites this dismissal `unconsciously or not, so it doesn’t really matter’. A conscious invitation, however, would suggest that Lynch is using the film to directly promote racism and that this is in some way due to him being named after the act of killing, whereas an unconscious invitation would suggest that the reading into the film (and the Movieline headlines) of a racist subtext was entirely the work of Willis herself, implicating her as the figure of racist stereotyping and prejudice. Willis cannot separate Lynch from the entire content, narrative and subject of his film, thus inviting the notion of Lynch as an `auteur’. She twice mentions `Lynch’s signature’; the first time she is referring to his name and the second time to his auteur style singularity. When she first mentions his signature she is really referring to his name, as if redefining his name as his signature will validate the argument that seems to suggest that Lynch would have chosen his own surname to use as a racist weapon.

In an article in Sight And Sound Amy Taubin expresses a similar view;

`…Wild At Heart is peopled with the director’s routine obsessions – anomalies (physical and otherwise), sadistic cruelty, sex crimes… the woman’s body is contested terrain but the conflict here is more insidious. In Wild At Heart the struggle over Lula and the journey are launched by the death of a black man… Later… a white woman screams “fuck me” to a black man who pulls the trigger on a white man sandwiched between them… this tradition, in which white supremacy is the unspoken subtext…’

Taubin, 1990

Again, Taubin quite blatantly accuses Lynch of promoting racism, to the extent of talking about the white supremacist movement and Lynch’s films in the same sentence, though she does not make the tenuous link to his surname that Willis does. She does state that the film is people with Lynch’s `routine obsessions’ – in the same way it is also people with his trademark characters; no one in the film is really that morally redemptive, even the main characters. She chooses to ignore that in the film most of the characters act in a very similar amoral way, whether black or white. Interestingly Taubin goes on to counterpoint the perceived racism/sexism in Wild At Heart with a scene from Ridley Scott’s Thelma And Louise, in which the main characters have locked a Highway Patrolman in his own car’s trunk. Scott then has

`a black Rastafarian cycling incongruously into the picture…’

Taubin, 1990

The trapped cop shouts for help,

`…only to have the Rasta blow back the exhaust of his spliff in reply. The American landscape has ceased to be the exclusive province of white masculinity.`

Taubin, 1990

It seems odd for Taubin to accuse Lynch of racism and then praise Scott for using the clichéd, clumsy and insulting stereotype of a black Rastafarian cycling through the American desert smoking dope (the only prominent black character in Thelma And Louise is Yaphet Kotto’s police lieutenant, a standard, `safe’ stereotyped casting for many black actors). As for the American landscape being reclaimed; as discussed earlier, Lynch is as much making a movie about movies; therefore about Hollywood and a very, white, heterosexual dominated society. Of course the American landscape (and especially the landscape of film and Hollywood in particular) is the exclusive province of white masculinity. Ridley Scott, of course, is a white, heterosexual male.

Lynch says of Wild At Heart that it is:

`… a violent comedy. Some scenes are a game with clichés. Wild At Heart has a lot in common with B movies film violence. I love those honest film-films which do not have any purpose other than being a film.’

Rodley, 1997

Again Lynch is relying on the excuse that a film is beholden to nothing but other films and therefore neither is he. Of course as discussed earlier this is not just his opinion or cultural stance. He is grating himself the broadest of artistic license. Whilst arguments can be made about the contents of his texts, we cannot argue against the contents of his thoughts and therefore his intent. If we do not take his sincerity at face value, it leaves us a very difficult task of judging the truth of an interpretative art.

Conclusion

In the excellent `Woman’s Pictures, Feminism and Cinema’, Annette Kuhn succinctly sums up the problem of authorship and interpretation;

`I have already advanced the argument that no set of meanings already inhabits a text, but rather a text is, in some measure at least, created in its reading or reception. If this is the case, then the whole area of reception becomes a political issue in its own right… Given the distinct nature of the film-viewing situation, this has highly specific implications for cinema. Nevertheless, to set aside completely both intention and textual organisation is perhaps too extreme a stance to adopt.’

Kuhn, 1982

This dichotomy is why I promised nothing in my introduction. Whilst texts can be read in a variety of manners and this relies on the author, the critic and the reader (amongst others), it would seem reasonable to want to lay the responsibility for interpretation at a single door.  It is not only political or class or gender differences that can sway interpretation; time can change the viewers eye for detail. I can certainly no longer watch Blue Velvet in all innocence as I once did; now it is loaded with many levels of meanings most of which I am not sure I fully understand. Barthes said that

`You can read a text for pleasure and sense… but you’re finally left with an enigma, a final sense which the text doesn’t express or refuses to surrender. A sort of unyielding thoughtfulness. It is like the thoughtfulness on a face which tempts one to ask… “What are you thinking?”’

Appignanesi and Garratt, 1995

It is not the individual genius of the artist which contrives or hampers interpretation but the unfathomable mind of the reader, poisoned by experience.

`AL (to Renee): Do you own a video camera?

RENEE: No. Fred hates them.

The Detectives both look at Fred.

FRED: I like to remember things my own way.

AL: What do you mean by that?

FRED: How I remember them. Not necessarily the way they happened.’

Lynch and Gifford, 1997