Brokenness and Hope: David Lynch’s Contribution to a Phenomenology of Anxiety in Mulholland Drive

In The Concept of Anxiety, Kierkegaard makes a powerful phenomenological distinction between fear and anxiety; one fears this or that thing, but one is anxious of “nothing.” Kierkegaard understands this terror before the nothing as a revelation of freedom. This is correct but incomplete. Anxiety does, indeed, transcend fear of this or that possibility to encounter possibility itself. But it also transcends guilt about this or that sin, to encounter sinfulness itself, or the general brokenness of the social injustices and cultural illusions into which we find ourselves always already thrown. We see this neglected aspect of anxiety masterfully revealed in David Lynch’s, Mulholland Drive. This film opens as a typical mystery plot, but the most important clue in the film is anxiety. The anxiety, which we and ultimately the protagonist, Betty, cannot evade, reveals the inescapability of her responsibility and her guilt in a murder. However, this anxiety also points beyond her personal responsibility for the crime to a deeper understanding of the structural distortions and illusions that permeate Hollywood culture and modern life more generally. In other words, it points us beyond an existential analysis of freedom to a hermeneutics of suspicion. Returning to the plot of the film with this philosophical turn in hand helps us to see past Betty’s guilt to the more important theme, the tragedy of her death.