“I need to get to the desert”: Transcendence, Liminality and Lynch’s Los Angeles

Introduction

This article explores transcendence, liminality and abjection in David Lynch’s "Hollywood triptych" of Lost Highway (1997), Mulholland Dr. (2001) and Inland Empire (2006), arguing that Lynch’s characters achieve transcendence through their engagement with liminal spaces and encounters with abjection. Before exploring these themes in Lynch’s triptych, a brief synopsis of each film will be provided.

In Lost Highway (1997), Fred Madison (Bill Pullman), a saxophonist, receives anonymous videotapes of his and his wife Renee’s (Patricia Arquette) home. His paranoia escalates as he is confronted by more videotapes, possible evidence of his wife’s infidelity, and the appearance of the Mystery Man (Robert Blake). Fred is arrested for Renee’s murder and whilst in prison, transforms into Pete Dayton (Balthazar Getty) and leads a completely different life as a mechanic. Pete and Fred’s paths cross in a violent, surreal web of intrigue culminating in Fred’s endless journey down a dark lost highway.

In Mulholland Dr.(2001), aspiring actress Betty (Naomi Watts) arrives in Hollywood. Whilst staying in her aunt’s apartment, she meets Rita (Laura Harring), a woman with memory loss. They try to solve the mystery of Rita’s life by piecing together memory fragments. This journey takes them to the mysterious Club Silencio, after which Betty and Rita both disappear. The narrative then follows Diane Selwyn (Watts), a struggling, depressed actress living in the apartment Betty and Rita investigated, consumed by fantasies and flashbacks of her co-star and former lover Camilla (Harring). Enraged by Camilla’s rejection, Diane hires a hitman to kill Camilla. Once the hit is complete, Diane has a psychological breakdown and is terrorised by hallucinations, ultimately shooting herself.

Inland Empire (2006) follows actress Nikki Grace (Laura Dern) as she begins work on a new film titled On High in Blue Tomorrows, a remake of an unfinished Polish film said to be cursed after both leads were murdered and the film fell into obscurity. During filming, Nikki begins to experience strange synchronicity, and life starts to imitate art. As she loses her grip on reality, nightmarish, fragmented and increasingly unhinged events ensue, forcing Nikki down a rabbit hole from which she may never escape.

The work of David Lynch embodies the opaque, residing in the liminal margins of landscapes, dreamscapes and society. The characters within Lynch’s narratives are similarly marginal, occupying spaces that are neither waking realities nor dreams, following story arcs that result in transcendence. These journeys rarely result in happy endings but do allow for transformation, as this essay argues, through confrontation with the abject and by entering liminal spaces.

Liminal landscapes: Los Angeles as a site of becoming

Liminality is slippery, a concept that speaks simultaneously to something that is, and is not, a border, a state of in-between. When we speak of the liminal, we may speak of the physical or psychological, a movement from one place to another or from one state of mind to another (Freundl Kirst 2023). Individuals in such liminal places are

neither what they used to be nor are they what they will become, but at the same time they are both of those things, living in an in-between state of indeterminacy and ambiguity at the interstices of social structure where identity is destabilised and open to reconfiguration in novel and potentially revolutionary ways. (Banfield 2022, 611)

This in-between state is central to Lynch’s oeuvre, particularly his Hollywood triptych. A liminal period provides time and space for transition through disorientation, chaos, and being “faced with the unholy and sacred experience of the unknown” (Freundl Kirst 2023, 147).

Tied to this sense of ambiguity is abjection. Defined by Julia Kristeva as a human reaction like vomiting or horror to the threat of a breakdown in meaning (Kristeva 1982, 2), the abject is a recurring theme in Lynch’s work, often explored in tandem with nostalgia, creating a nightmarish and uncanny scenario. Think of Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) discovering a severed ear in his idyllic hometown in Blue Velvet (1986) or the sequence in Mulholland Dr. (2001) in which Diane and Rita attend Club Silencio, at first entranced by the old Hollywood glamour of the theatre and moved to tears by the performance, before growing increasingly disturbed when they find a box in Betty’s purse. The camera’s focus on Betty and Rita emphasises this growing shift into the abject, their faces slowly becoming slack with uncertainty when faced with a further twist in the tale. The abject is often used by Lynch to explore and interrogate this relationship with nostalgia and the nature of the human condition. Abjection is a liminal space in which meaning collapses, in which the distinction between self and other is lost. It threatens the symbolic order and so threatens our sense of self in a traumatic confrontation. As such, the abject is always the dangerous, unstable Other in comparison to the safe, mundane Self. As Kristeva notes, “the abject does not cease challenging its master” (1982, 2), leading to a “strange draw” of the abject (Fisher 2013, 8). Abjection is a relative concept, one that is affected by socio-cultural variation, but the essence remains the same. It is the negative response to a perceived threat in meaning.

Key to understanding abjection is to be aware that what underpins this response is the fear that arises when abjection threatens established order because it demonstrates how fragile that order is. This threat to order, to meaning, to the self is central in Lynch’s work, in the world of abject characters he builds. In Eraserhead (1977), for example, Lynch presents Henry Spencer’s (Jack Nance) threat to self through the bleak industrial environment he inhabits, using the abject figure of an increasingly unnatural infant to reinforce Spencer’s growing alienation. But for Lynch, “there is no negative Other and opposites are not hostile or irreconcilable; they just are” (Hudson 2004, 20).

In Inland Empire, Nikki’s role in a cursed production shines a spotlight on one of the most interesting aspects of Lynch’s triptych, the way he centres Hollywood as one of his most liminal and malevolent characters. Rather than existing as merely a backdrop, Hollywood instead takes shape as a supporting character. Geographic liminality is found in “transformative spatialities, the shapeshifting qualities of subjectivity in the in-between, and belonging or communitas as shared experience” (Banfield 2022, 611). Hollywood typifies this notion of transformative spatiality, as the creator of dreams and nightmares, magically menacing (Kenny, 2025). Los Angeles is a place characterised by duality; Hollywood dreams versus (often) harsh reality, glamour and decay, extreme wealth abutting incredible poverty. Lynch uses Hollywood and its role in the film industry to conduct a metaexploration concerning the concept of liminal thresholds; Hollywood, with its division in class and privilege, reminds us of the threshold that the city occupies. The inherent vice of the film industry, always awash with scandals, also contributes to this sense of beauty and decay. It is hard to imagine a more liminal space, built as it is on the inevitability of transitions, from unknown to movie star, fame to infamy, success to despair. It is a place built on the fragments of dreams that people hold of a better, more beautiful life).

This fragmented landscape speaks to Lynch’s abject nostalgia, to the ways that nostalgia, rather than being emblematic of naivete, is in fact a mirror to the cruelty of our unrealised dreams. This sense of nostalgia, of returning from our nightmares to a safe space, of creating a world in which these fears are assuaged, is what Hollywood is built upon even as it crushes starlet dreams to dust. Inland Empire (2006) represents this “ambivalent nostalgia” (Paraskeva 2012, 2) for the studio system of Hollywood, as the film draws the viewer into echoing soundstages filled with artificial set pieces. At the first rehearsal for On High in Blue Tomorrows, Nikki is disturbed by sounds coming from behind the set. Devon investigates, finding nothing. Later in the film, Nikki finds herself trapped behind the set and realises she was the one who caused the disturbance, presenting time and space as porous and nonlinear. This contextualises the labyrinthine scale behind the set, building a sense of the liminal and potential for endless landscapes that exist in Lynch’s Hollywood studio. It is also possible to see this potentially endless maze of backrooms and artificial corridors between set pieces as a metaphor for Nikki’s growing sense of instability. She traverses these spaces in tandem with traversing the various subplots that occur in the second half of the film, rapidly becoming both viewer and subject, an observer and participant in increasingly disturbing events. In this way, Lynch holds us in the liminal space between nostalgia and abjection, presenting "sugar-coated nightmares that pull on our heart strings and yank at our consciousness” (Kenny 2025, 119).

Lynch draws on surrounding areas as backdrops alongside his exploration of soundstages, including the vast opulence of Hollywood mansions. Nikki’s journey begins in the lavish mansion she shares with her sinister husband. A visit from a mysterious woman shatters the apparent safety of her home, allowing the insidious threat of the cursed production to enter the space. The finale of the film finds Nikki back in her gilded cage and the veneer of safety wealth provides. In Lost Highway, Fred flees the bright lights of Hollywood for the barren desert, uttering the inspiration for the title of this article, “I need to get to the desert.” This desperate rush into the wide and unforgiving expanse of desert results in its role as an unwavering witness to Fred’s breakdown. This witness is an indifferent one, as we are reminded that the desert, indeed, nature itself, is fixed; its rhythms and routines are unrelenting and unaffected by the actions of transient mortal visitors, including the malevolent man who scars the landscape. Fred is but a blip. The sun continues to rise and set, and all evidence of his time there will be erased. The small echo of Fred in the vastness of the landscape alongside the mass of life that occurs within the apparently arid environment also draws us back to the seething confusion and abject desires of the characters.

The desert in Lost Highway acts as a mirror for Fred’s growing mania and as a doorway to the liminal, acting as a harsh and uninterested observer as Fred transcends his everyday life. The hostility felt in that landscape is the projection of Fred’s fears and his own murderous rage. This is particularly evident in the desert scenes in which Fred, encouraged by the Mystery Man, kidnaps and murders Mr Eddy/ Dick Laurent (Robert Loggia). The desert provides a blank slate for Fred’s rage, a dispassionate eye to the violence of Dick’s murder. The vast emptiness of the desert allows Fred to express his rage without restriction, to rage and slash under cold stars. In the final scenes of the film, the lost highway he travels represents the nihilistic view that belief in nothing may result in “a shattering experience of absolutely everything” (Wilson 2007, 113) as the viewer sees Fred, pursued by flashing lights, screaming into the endless darkness of the desert. Mulholland Drive continues to centre the significance of roads and highways for Lynch, as the characters orbit the titular road. Mulholland Drive is both a temporal and metaphorical space, acting as a fragmentary link between Betty/Rita and Diane/Camilla. It also provides a panoramic view of the city below, allowing the viewer to bear witness to the scale of the Hollywood machine. Much like Sunset Boulevard (1950), in this view Mulholland Drive acts as a profoundly sad meditation on how dreams turn to dust (Andrews 2004, 26). Inland Empire (2006) takes this further, showing Hollywood’s seedy underbelly as Nikki flees down Hollywood and Vine, passing ambivalent faces who offer no help.

Transcendental triptych: The new site of ‘the beyond’

As Lynch’s characters step into the liminal, confronting the abject in often violent encounters, they surpass the boundaries of their current reality, transcending mundane circumstances and moving towards uncertain new frontiers. Transcendence derives from the Latin transcendere, which means “to climb beyond” (Skjoldager-Nielsen& Edelman 2014). Thus, a quest for transcendence is a quest for something more, to venture beyond the boundaries of our current state. This ties in with the in-between nature of the liminal, of spaces in which change occurs. It is also a liminal concept, moving fluidly across cultural and historical moments, reflecting philosophical and religious connotations.

Transcendence can be split into two facets, self- and spiritual (Sode & Chenji 2024). Self-transcendence refers to “extending one’s boundaries beyond self-interest while maintaining self-worth and situational awareness” (Sode & Chenji 2024, 2). According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, self-transcendence is the peak of human motivation, allowing us to pursue self-actualisation and personal growth (Sode & Chenji 2024). It is correlated with increased life meaning (Widodo 2021) and helps act as ballast against life’s challenges (Schnitker et al., 2018). Spiritual transcendence relates to “surpassing the limitations of the self to establish connections with profound entities such as nature, universal consciousness, or a higher power” (Sode & Chenji, 2024, 2). Much like self-transcendence, spiritual transcendence is correlated with various facets of wellbeing, including reduced depression and stress (Sode & Chenji, 2024). The positive benefits of transcendence were often explored in relation to Lynch’s own practice, as a vocal devotee of Transcendental Meditation. These benefits are emphasised in various philosophies, including Taoism and Buddhism, that suggest spiritual transcendence is key for liberation from suffering and achieving enlightenment (Sode & Chenji, 2024). Whilst both forms of transcendence involve moving beyond established boundaries, spiritual and self-transcendence differ in that self-transcendence focuses on extending the boundaries of the self through engagement with others, through altruism and interconnectedness (Schnitker et al. 2018), whereas spiritual transcendence relates to connection with a larger force, such as nature, a higher power (Emmons et al. 1998) or universal consciousness.

However, it would be difficult to suggest that the characters in Lynch’s triptych experience the positive benefits of transcendence. Instead, these characters career towards sites of liminality that serve as backdrops for “excessive drives and identities in crisis” (Britt 2023, 160). These characters experience “transformative frontiers that go far beyond mere thresholds or lines in the sand” (Britt 2023, 160). Perhaps it is because these transcendental journeys are so inwardly focused that positive results are out of reach. Fred pursues his paranoia alone, apart from brief meetings with the Mystery Man. Betty is accompanied by Rita, an amnesiac who therefore acts as a blank slate for the projection of Betty’s ideas and desires. Nikki is also alone in her journey down the rabbit hole, with only brief interactions with others along the way.

As Kristeva suggests, the abject is edged with the sublime (Fisher 2013). But that which is abject, whilst it may tie to the transcendent, also resides in the muck of earthly experience and transcendence, which has often been tied to the religious, has been secularised by modern society (Sode & Chenji 2024). Fisher suggests that the abject presents us with a “crisis of transcendent authority,” presenting a “question of how one might exist in a world knowing that – to occupy the very place of man - is to face the abandonment of the world by God” (Fisher 2013, 10). Abandonment by God feels appropriate when considering the lives of the protagonists in Lynch’s tryptic. This results in the need to confront a world “deprived of the guarantees afforded by the former safe havens (or consolations) of religion or transcendental philosophy” (Fisher 2013, 12), resulting in“politico-religious suspension of the ethical” (Zizek 2009, 478).

This godless existence ties to Lynchian notions of morality and goodness. As Kristeva posits, the abject is defined by the Subject in relation to the Other. This often results in the Other being perceived as evil for “what is evil if it is not precisely the horrifying appearance before the subject of something it considers abject?” (Fisher 2013, 12). Evil abounds in Lynch’s work, from the Mystery Man in Lost Highway to the pervasive Machiavellian machinations of shadowy producers and studio executives in Mulholland Dr.and Inland Empire, leading to a sense of abject evil permeating the lives of the characters. Johnson (2003) suggests that Lynch follows an “intrinsically American moralistic obsession with the ideas of innate depravity, a Zoroastrian notion of goodness and evil, and the schizophrenic concept of innocence as both an ideal state and a treacherous, ultimately corrupting vice of the wickedly naïve” (3). This concept of good versus evil has been embedded within the American psyche since at least 1692 when Cotton Mather sermonised about the shadowy hills of the New World, occupied by Satan and his legions, to justify the Salem witch trials (Johnson 2003, 3). Lynch continues this legacy of evil in his triptych with specific characters, including The Mystery Man, but also with a pervasive sense of wickedness that permeates these narratives. This concept of wickedness lurking just behind the scenes is central to Lynch’s abject nostalgia. In his Hollywood triptych, nostalgia becomes a noose for the protagonists. Lynch’s nostalgia and indeed nostalgia generally remind us that the halcyon days these characters hark back to, yearn for, and drive themselves to madness over are fictitious. Fred yearns for the relationship he had with Renee before he became consumed by paranoia; Diane fantasises about a future with Camilla. For Nikki, this nostalgia is tied to reproduction, to Hollywood’s incessant and increasing desire to manipulate nostalgia for profit. Nikki becomes drawn into a cursed production of a remake, replicating and recreating scenes from a lost film, ultimately being consumed by the ill-fated legacy of a production that should have been left to ruin.

Abjection is the result of the subject coming face to face with the other, as the other holds the subject hostage (Fisher 2013). Transcendence here is tied not to self-excellence but to the ‘pathology’ of the subject’s obsession with the other (Fisher 2013). This obsession with the Other is a recurring theme in Lynch’s triptych, often explored through the use of doppelgangers. Doppelgangers trigger our sense of the uncanny through their mimicry, resulting in feelings of unease and fear. The doppelganger can symbolize a hidden self, one that manifests suppressed desires, or highlights the conflict between good and evil, reflecting the duality of light and darkness, the double face of the human coin... These elements are present in all three films as Fred/Pete, Betty/Diane, Rita/Camilla, and Nikki/Sue Blue all express hidden desires in their alternate personas. For example, Diane yearns to be the joyful, idealistic, successful Betty, who is loved by the mysterious and captivating Rita. Nikki yearns for her movie role and for romance with Devon. Fred wishes to be completely certain of the fidelity ofRenee’s love. But none of these dreams are possible, and so it is necessary for a double to step in, to achieve these dreams or to reshape reality into a new form. But as we see in the finale of all three films, this doubling cannot last, and all characters must face their truth. For Fred, this results in an endless journey down the lost highway towards oblivion, for Diane, suicide, and for Nikki, life in a luxurious prison with a violently possessive husband.

It is interesting to consider the concept of transcendence within the context of the Hollywood setting, as capitalist desire replaces what Durkheim referred to as the collective representation of religion(Gil-Gimeno & Aguiluz-Ibargüen 2024). The secularisation of transcendence has allowed for the self-and spiritual elements to be co-opted into the gold-tinged glamour of the silver screen. As Durkheim (1995) suggests, “…the god of the clan, the totemic principle, can be none other than the clan itself, but the clan transfigured and imagined in the physical form of the plant or animal that serves as totem” (208). What is Hollywood if not a totemic reflection of our collective desire for transcendence beyond the ordinary? To return to the desires of Lynch’s characters, we see how, in tandem with their doppelgangers, their abjection is reflected in their antagonists. Renee/Alice is the embodiment of Fred’s lustful possessiveness, Rita/Camilla reflects Diane’s greedy ambition, and the cast of sex workers and abused people Nikki meets on her journey all reflect her fears surrounding the possibility of her life outside of her husband’s mansion, free from his jealousy but also lacking his protection.

Within this transcendence lies Durkheim’s two states of life, the sacred and profane (Gil-Gimeno & Aguiluz-Ibargüen, 2024). These states are seen as separate, with “the condition of belonging fully to one is fully to have left the other” (Durkheim 1995, 37), presenting the concept of the liminal andabjection as “the sacred thing is (. . .) that which the profane must not and cannot touch with impunity” (Durkheim 1995, 38) leading to the need for a transcendent rebirth (Gil-Gimeno & Aguiluz-Ibargüen 2024) that results in feeling “possessed and led on by some sort of external power that makes him think and act differently than he normally does (. . .) It seems to him that he has become a new being (. . .) it is as if he was in reality transported into a special world entirely different from the one in which he ordinarily lives, a special world inhabited by exceptionally intense forces that invade and transform him. (. . .) (Durkheim 1995, 220). This transformation is evident in all three films, as Fred, Diane, Rita and Nikki bleed into the Hollywood artifice, claiming the fictional dreams of the silver screen as their own, creating new realities that transcend their daily lives. Fred and Diane, and by extension Rita, seek to transcend their abject realities, with Fred beginning a new life as young and hopeful Pete and Diane transforming into sweet and successful Betty. In contrast, Nikki embraces the abject, shifting from an orderly life in comfortable circumstances to a bruised and marginal waif, sinking deeper into the abyss of the Hollywood nightmare.

But whether the character embraces their abjection or seeks to minimize it, all are at risk of “psychic disintegration, radical meaninglessness, [or] madness” (Russell 2013, 143). The characters in these narratives are denied Turner’s explication of Manifest Destiny and American exceptionalism (Britt 2023), instead finding that the American dream is a nightmare. This is a recurring theme in Lynch’s work, and one that ties to liminality and transcendence, as dream logic and sequencing in these films serve as a metaphor for mental disintegration. But whilst the desert has occupied a potent space in Lynch’s work, what his Hollywood triptych reveals is the shift from the ‘new frontier’ as a geographic space, a place ‘out there’ to be discovered. Instead, that new frontier is now a psychic one; the space within has become a fertile site for exploration. It is suggested that this new frontier in the American psyche is influenced by this frontier spirit (Slater 2023) in a continued desire to “forge an identity that might be annihilated in the face of the unconquerable unknown”(Britt 2023, 174), driven by a desire and propensity for continual movement and staking claim. But this frontier spirit is not without cost, as a culture built on possibility and opportunity comes face to face with modern and postmodern realities driven by socioeconomic difficulties and stagnation. As Slater (2023) suggests, this may be the reason why America continues to look towards the horizon and refuses to acknowledge the horrors of its past, as slavery, genocide, and civil war mar the psychic landscape of a nation that refuses to explore the shadows. Lynch’s Hollywood is a prime example of this, an ever-churning machine that serves as a capitalist doppelganger for Babylon, creating artificial replicas of dreams. A quote from 1927 is as relevant in Lynch’s LA: “I stood on the heights of Hollywood’s hills and looked seaward and then toward the mountains. It is a stirring panorama, a drama in orchards, steel and stone, and brawn and brain and heart. And I was pessimistic enough to imagine that self-confident Los Angeles had forgotten Babylon...” (Macdonald 2017).

Conclusion

Lynch’s Hollywood triptych presents a powerful exploration of the possibilities that lie within liminality, transcendence, and the abject. All three films explore Lynch’s penchant for violence, madness, and the potent power of dreams. These films push us to dive into the liminal, to suspend our rational leanings and confront the abject. Lynch’s abject nostalgia couples the romantic notions of Hollywood with blood, murder, paranoia, and psychosis to create a liminal, transcendent looking glass through which we confront hope and despair. Lynch exposes the artifice of Hollywood as he embraces it (Kenny 2025), creating liminal landscapes that foreground soundstage sets and lawns kept alive by chemicals gasping in the heat as his characters gasp into their new frontier, forever changed. As the saying goes, you can never go home again, but in Lynch’s LA home is only a movie ticket away, and the screen awaits you, drawing you down into the soporific dreams of what could be.

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