"A woman in trouble"

In her monograph Inland Empire (Fireflies Press, 2021), film critic Melissa Anderson explores meaning (or the impossibility thereof) in the David Lynch film of the same title. We talk everything from Laura Dern (a LOT of Laura Dern), to the Hollywood nightmare of trying to "make it in the movies," to the contradictions of film criticism, to the (a)political legacy of Lynch's work.

Melissa Anderson is the film editor of 4Columns. From 2015 to 2017, she was the senior film critic for the Village Voice. She is also a frequent contributor to Bookforum.

Tyler Thier is a faculty member and administrator in the Department of Writing Studies & Rhetoric at Hofstra University. He regularly writes and teaches cultural criticism, and his scholarship is concerned with malicious rhetoric and dangerous media—specifically, extremist manifestos.

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