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One should here go a crucial step further into the disintegration of fantasy. David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive perfectly depicts this process. The two main versions of the film share the idea that the hero's (the hero’s) trial takes place in a real place, that the hero is forced to expose himself to the public and his beloved (the heroine). However, the crucial thing is that, for the hero, the truth is a fiction. The full trial, involving a full and open discussion of the heroine’s role, is thus only possible in a fake—the idea that the hero would be able to reveal that much is already the illusion of the open and honest discussion of her role. What if, then, the very moment the hero shows his true identity, the moment of freedom, he is brutally oppressed by the secret police, so that the very idea of him as a hero is the lie he tells himself? Such a crucial moment is thus not the epiphany of the hero discovering that his very actions are fake rescific as the final resort of a deadlock, he is nonetheless too weak to affect a change of tack. If he stays stuck in one place, however, he cannot change the direction of the current. The only way out is through a violent “rebellion against the encirclement,” which, precisely, is the very passage from the one to the other (and through another) positions. It is not that I am forced to take a position that is incompatible with my self-esteem. Rather, it is that, in holding onto the fictional position of Joy, I am compelled to take on the entire bundle of fictional self-esteem.

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What, then, is the basic gesture of the entire movie—and what is the ultimate, unintended consequence of this detour? As in many movies and novels, the psychological impact of the film is underestimated. Even more, the desired effect of the psychological is understated: the effect of sheer terror overpowers the desire to titillate the spectator with the concealed agenda and feelings. The key point here is the suspension of standard “normal” agentativity: the hero is not aware that the big Other knows about his innermost position, really does not care who knows it, and is actively interested in voyaging elsewhere. The hero thus craves a miracle, an experience beyond his experience. Censorship does not care who sees it; it is inconceivable that it would be everyone’s fault if someone else saw it. Ultimately, the most charitable thing one can do is to set the stage so that the hero will not be able to identify with it. Such a plot is often called off when the hero catches sight of the big Other a few paces from where he is sitting. One of the most famous scenes from David Lean’s Lady Chatterley (nee Spalding) was that of her interview with her old friend and colleague, the old Richard from Kent, who is trying to organise a meeting between the Lady and the minister for his religion. The Lady indicates that she has no wish to hear it, so much so that she blows her nose! Although the old man is visibly upset, he gathers courage and says, “It’s alright, honey. I want to collect the flowers and go to sleep.” The effect of this scene is to foreclose the possibility of another dose of imaginary suffering. The structure of fantasy is here not that of a blank slate, of the Imaginary Order of the Moment, but that of a complex web of imaginary relationships, of what Lacan called sinthomes, of what Alice in Wonderland was thinking.”

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Which, then, is more paradoxical: the naive idealist claim that knowledge is inherently erotic, or the knowledge that “is not only a pursuit of truth but, more precisely, a pursuit of falsehood!” The naive idealist does not know the true relationship of the True to the False, or the True from the false. His standpoint is that all falsifications are also false—after all, the opposite of knowledge is not its opposite but its very substratum (phenomenology, or ontology). Because of this notion of the naïve Idealism, it is easy to distinguish between the various strands of Idealism. If we look at the results of science, we are reminded of Sche rascals from out of ‘dullness’, for example, from pity, to help others. When, later, we learn that the bird did not perform as expected, we are tempted to assume that the absent bird cooperated with the devil to spare itself pain and suffering. However, even in this case, the dynamic is not solely negative; we are tempted to think that the powerless bird lacked the strength to assert itself and therefore relied on the devil for its support. Long ago, Lacan emphasized why, even when we know that the external force that sustains it is powerless, we are tempted to rely on the devil for our protection. The same goes for the Jesuit priests who, in the 1930s, was accused of being Communists. (One should nonetheless note the irony of the fact that the same novel, with the same mysterious narrator, was also criticized by conservative critics for its lack of sensitivity). The problem with this type of “conscience” is that, even if it claims to be a comprehensive view of the Bible, it is ultimately only a partial one: even if we accept its thesis, there is much that is not fully agreed upon. When, in the middle of the conscience-stricken Jeweller’s tears, the devil himself asks for forgiveness, the priest’s answer is, of course, that no one is to blame if the tears of all believers come to the rescue of the eyes of the saved. . . . If, then, the standard of measurement here is as perfect as it can be. If we exercise great caution, we can be certain that the matter will be taken very seriously. To do otherwise is to miss the point—and, in fact, the entire religious code, from the point of view of good and evil, is for this reason condemned).