The post-perspectival: screens and time in David Lynch's Inland Empire

Abstract

Taking Anne Friedberg's notion of the post-perspectival as the point of departure for her analysis of David Lynch's digitally shot and edited Inland Empire from 2006, Anne Jerslev argues that the film deconstructs continuous time and coherent space by constructing multiple planes of representation, multiple layerings of screens and, hence, multiple and fractured modes of perception. The article further suggests that the film's enigmatic structure might best be understood with reference to a new media genre like the website with its hyperlink structure. Finally, the article discusses how a sense of ubiquitous surveillance coalesces with the screen logic.Author BiographyAnne Jerslev (PhD) is Professor of Film and Media Studies at the Department of Media, Cognition and Communication, University of Copenhagen. Anne Jerslev has published and edited books in Danish and English and published dozens of articles in journals and anthologies in Danish, Scandinavian languages, German and English. Her first book was titled David Lynch i vore øjne (David Lynch in our eyes) (1991); it was published in German in 1995 under the title David Lynch—mentale Landschaften. After the Lynch book she published books about cult movies, youth and media and media and intimacy. She has edited two volumes in English, Realism and Reality in Film and Media (2002), where she contributed a piece about Lars von Trier's The Idiots, and Performative Realism (co-edited with Rune Gade (2005)). Her latest edited volume (co-edited with Christa Lykke Christensen) is Hvor går grænsen? Brudflader i den moderne mediekultur [Are there no limits? The crossing of boundaries in contemporary media culture] (Copenhagen 2010). She is currently editing a volume about “Impure Cinema” together with professor Lúcia Nagib from the University of Leeds, which will appear in 2013. Her own contribution to the book is an article about David Lynch's Interview Project.