The filmic oeuvre of auteur director David Lynch has a reputation among average spectators as being too “difficult” to understand. In particular, the Lynch films Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive are considered by the average spectator to be devoid of any real meaning. Spectator theory provides insight into the structures through which spectators find or fail to find meaning in films. Spectator theory explains that the average spectator has a set of schemas for “reading” and understanding film, and that these schemas are shaped by the conventions of popular Hollywood cinema. The films of David Lynch do not adhere to these conventions, and thus challenge the average spectator’s competency with regard to their ability to emplot a coherent and meaningful narrative from these films. In the case of Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive, the films present the spectator with multiple mysteries, yet never provide any solutions to these mysteries. If a spectator is to find meaning in Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive, then such a spectator needs an appropriate schema for interpreting these films. This dissertation aims to develop one possible schema which can be used to find meaning in Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive. To this end, the films Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive are shown to qualify as metaphysical detective films, a genre of narrative which playfully interprets the conventions of classical detective narrative. Under the neologism “transtextual detective” this dissertation traces the characteristics of a spectator who would assume the role of a detective figure, existing outside of the borders of the film text, and calling upon a diverse collection of texts and schemata to solve the mysteries identifiable in these metaphysical detective films. In order to test the applicability of the schema of the transtextual detective, the writer undertakes a demonstration of an investigation into the films Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive while assuming the role of a transtextual detective. The writer firstly indentifies the mystery of identity as a salient mystery in both films, before demonstrating how solutions to this mystery can be found in Lost Highway. / Thesis (MA (English))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013.

The filmic oeuvre of auteur director David Lynch has a reputation among average spectators as being too “difficult” to understand. In particular, the Lynch films Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive are considered by the average spectator to be devoid of any real meaning. Spectator theory provides insight into the structures through which spectators find or fail to find meaning in films. Spectator theory explains that the average spectator has a set of schemas for “reading” and understanding film, and that these schemas are shaped by the conventions of popular Hollywood cinema. The films of David Lynch do not adhere to these conventions, and thus challenge the average spectator’s competency with regard to their ability to emplot a coherent and meaningful narrative from these films. In the case of Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive, the films present the spectator with multiple mysteries, yet never provide any solutions to these mysteries. If a spectator is to find meaning in Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive, then such a spectator needs an appropriate schema for interpreting these films. This dissertation aims to develop one possible schema which can be used to find meaning in Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive. To this end, the films Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive are shown to qualify as metaphysical detective films, a genre of narrative which playfully interprets the conventions of classical detective narrative. Under the neologism “transtextual detective” this dissertation traces the characteristics of a spectator who would assume the role of a detective figure, existing outside of the borders of the film text, and calling upon a diverse collection of texts and schemata to solve the mysteries identifiable in these metaphysical detective films. In order to test the applicability of the schema of the transtextual detective, the writer undertakes a demonstration of an investigation into the films Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive while assuming the role of a transtextual detective. The writer firstly indentifies the mystery of identity as a salient mystery in both films, before demonstrating how solutions to this mystery can be found in Lost Highway. / Thesis (MA (English))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013.

Plusieurs films américains des années 2000 (Mulholland Drive et INLAND EMPIRE de David Lynch, The Virgin Suicides de Sofia Coppola, Memento de Christopher Nolan, The Pledge de Sean Penn, Broken Flowers de Jim Jarmusch et Zodiac de David Fincher) opèrent une remise en question de la fonction, du fonctionnement et de la représentation des indices sur lesquels s’appuient tant la littérature que le cinéma policiers. Ces films, qui reprennent certains codes du genre sans être tous à proprement parler des « films policiers », ont pour point commun de mettre en scène une enquête qui n’aboutit pas et qui se retourne contre l’enquêteur jusqu’à ébranler son identité. Ils font ainsi écho aux récits de détection dits métaphysiques (The Crying of Lot 49 de Thomas Pynchon, City of Glass de Paul Auster...) : l’indice, loin de permettre la clôture du récit, devient le moyen de son ouverture. À sa juste interprétation succède le foisonnement des lectures et des histoires possibles. Autrefois transparent, il se fait opaque ; de fluide, sa circulation devient accidentée – ce à quoi correspondent de nouvelles manières de le filmer. Les codes du genre policier visant à marquer l’indice tout en favorisant sa lisibilité et l’identification avec l’enquêteur (insert en gros plan, raccord-regard, faible profondeur de champ…) sont détournés selon diverses stratégies : inversion, exagération, etc. Celles-ci ont pour effet de déjouer les attentes des spectateurs et de les rendre inquiets en rétablissant l’incertitude fondamentale de la littérature policière, que le cinéma policier tend à minorer, tout en la mettant au service de projets esthétiques par ailleurs très différents les uns des autres. / A few American films released between 2000 and 2007 (David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive and INLAND EMPIRE, Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides, Christopher Nolan’s Memento, Sean Penn’s The Pledge, Jim Jarmusch’s Broken Flowers and David Fincher’s Zodiac) question the function, inner workings and representation of the clues on which detective fiction and film rely. These movies, which take up certain tropes of the genre without necessarily being detective films per se, all revolve around an investigation which is left incomplete and eventually turns against the investigator, to the point of shattering his or her sense of identity. They thus follow in the footsteps of metaphysical detective fiction (novels such as Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 and Paul Auster’s City of Glass), in that the clue, instead of bringing about the closure of the narrative, becomes the instrument of its open-endedness. Its one correct interpretation is replaced by a proliferation of possible readings and stories. Once transparent, it turns opaque; once fluid, its circulation becomes problematic – which leads to new ways of filming it. The codes that detective films use to point out the clue, increase its legibility and foster identification with the investigator (close-up insert, eyeline match, shallow focus…) are subverted through a number of strategies such as inversion and exaggeration. These aim to deceive the spectator’s expectations and to unsettle him or her by reinstating the fundamental uncertainty of detective fiction, which detective films normally tend to repress, and which is here incorporated into aesthetic projects that otherwise differ widely.