Whether you believe [Lynch is] a good auteur or a bad one, his career makes it clear that he is indeed, in the literal Cahiers du Cinema sense, an auteur, willing to make the sorts of sacrifices for creative control that real auteurs have to make—choices that indicate either raging egotism or passionate dedication or a childlike desire to run the whole sandbox, or all three.
— David Foster Wallace: David Lynch keeps his head (1996)
Synopsis: Clean-cut Jeffrey Beaumont realizes his hometown is not so normal when he discovers a human ear in a field, the investigation soon catapulting him toward a disturbed nightclub singer and a drug-addicted sadist.