David Lynch’s American Dreamscape: Music, Literature, Cinema

by Mike Miley

How are David Lynch's films as much in dialogue with literary and musical traditions as they are cinematic ones?

By interrogating this question, David Lynch's American Dreamscape broadens the interpretive horizons of Lynch's filmography, calling for a new approach to Lynch's films that goes beyond cinema and visual art to explore how Lynch's work engages with literary and musical works that have shaped the American imagination. As much as Lynch stands as a singular artistic voice, his work arises from and taps into the cultural zeitgeist in a way that illuminates not only his approach to creativity but also the way works interact with each other in an age of mass media. From children's literature to teen tragedy ballads, Nathanael West and Cormac McCarthy to folk music and mixtapes, David Lynch's American Dreamscape investigates the cultural frequencies Lynch's films tune into and positions Lynch's work as a conduit for American popular culture, a medium or channel through which the subconscious of American life finds its way into full view.
The book expands upon this approach by discussing how artists such as David Foster Wallace and Lana Del Rey graft Lynch's affiliative, cinematic sensibility onto their own projects. Reading their work as intertextual engagements with Lynch's films further illustrates the versatile interactions among creators and audiences to generate more works, readers, and readings.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction, Music

283 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 6, 2025

Reviews

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Genius. Deepens the mystery of Lynch rather than trying to explain it away. A brilliant book.

[Ivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

okayyyy

[Frank Vasquez · Rating 3 out of 5]

reviewing this as someone still working through filmography of Lynch, as well as Twin Peaks. Solid read, definitely informed and informative, confirming and exploring intratextuality as part of Lynch's oeuvre was definitely validating, for me, but more importantly this work reinforces the thing about Lynch I've come to enjoy so much: there's so much to discuss and share and enjoy and explore, be horrified by and revolted by, question and answer but never decide or judge. That being said, this work lost me in the conclusion. Not a Wallace or del Rey fan, and, maybe I need to finish TP, but what? was that conclusion for?

[John Bleasdale · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing book