Fall 2024 Film GU4111 section 001

Auteur Study: David Lynch and The Americ

Auteur Study: David Lynch

Call Number 16056
Day & Time
Location
M 10:10am-12:40pm
508 Dodge Hall
Points 3
Grading Mode Standard
Approvals Required None
Instructor Dennis Lim
Type SEMINAR
Method of Instruction In-Person
Course Description

The course explores the work of David Lynch, one of American cinema’s most singular figures. We will consider Lynch’s narrative features, experimental shorts, and TV series, as well as his painting, photography, and music. One of our aims is to situate Lynch within (and alongside, and against) Hollywood and other cinematic and artistic traditions, while also suggesting connections, overt and otherwise, to a range of filmmakers and artists who have come after him.

At the heart of our investigation is Lynch’s distinctive sensibility, which is at once easy to recognize and hard to define. By looking closely at his use of cinematic language, we will ask how Lynch’s films achieve their particular effects, and how they might give form to the desires and fears of their times. Drawing on multiple frameworks — including politics, place, gender, race, surrealism, spirituality, trauma, psychoanalysis, narratology, language, and architecture — we will examine the contradictions at the heart of the Lynchian aesthetic and its relationship to the myths, icons, and taboos of postwar America.

Web Site Vergil
Department Film
Enrollment 16 students (17 max) as of 4:06PM Wednesday, December 11, 2024
Subject Film
Number GU4111
Section 001
Division School of the Arts
Open To Schools of the Arts, Barnard College, Columbia College, Engineering:Undergraduate, GSAS, General Studies
Section key 20243FILM4111W001