Mulholland Drive

[Don Corleone]

For those of you who don't like David Lynch style psycho-thrillers, move on, you'll be bored silly by this thread. Due to the mature themes presented in this movie, I decided to open the discussion thread in the backroom, not the front.

Okay, I'm a big David Lynch fan. Huge. Have been since Twin Peaks all those years ago. Somehow, I never caught this tale. Riveting. Visually beautiful and stunning. Bizarre. Unfathomable. These are just a few of the words that come to mind after having watched it last night.

I've got some questions and want to test some theories on people who've actually seen the film. If you've seen it and care to discuss, drop a line. Remember, in psycho-thrillers, every detail matters, so liberal use of spoiler tags please everyone.

[drone]

I watched it a few years ago for the first time, I really need to watch it again. There are so many details I missed, and it's very hard to keep track of everything that's going on.

Even without a second viewing, I thought it was a pretty good movie. Lynch is pretty good at throwing curves.

Edit-> for those interested, IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0166924/

[Lemur]

I think it was supposed to be another TV show, but there was some sort of dust-up with the studio, so Lynch chopped it down into a self-contained movie. I should probably check my facts before I post, but that's what I remember.

[Bijo]

I found it an interesting play when I saw it a few years ago. There was something with this film that made me dislike it but it's too long ago to precisely recall why.

[Lemur]

Here's the relevant info. It helps explain why the movie feels like a beginning, as opposed to a dramatic arc.

Originally conceived as a television series, Mulholland Drive began life as a 95-minute pilot for a series on the ABC network. The series was produced for Touchstone Television. The network was unhappy with the pilot and decided not to place it on their schedule. Rumours emerged that ABC's decision was due to the violence in the pilot (the decision came in the wake of the Columbine High School Massacre in Colorado). Lynch told Premiere Magazine in 2000, "All I know is, I loved making it, ABC hated it, and I don't like the cut I turned in. I agreed with ABC that the longer cut was too slow, but I was forced to butcher it because we had a deadline, and there wasn't time to finesse anything. It lost texture, big scenes, and storylines, and there are 300 tape copies of the bad version circulating around. Lots of people have seen it, which is embarrassing, because they're bad-quality tapes, too. I don't want to think about it."[1] The script was later rewritten and expanded when it was decided to transform it into a feature film.

[Beirut]

We can handle David Lynch in the Frontroom. We're friendly - not wussy.

How about having this discussion with spoiler tags instead of PMs?

[Don Corleone]

Well, I did find elements of closure in it. But you had to really look, so I understand Lemur's point that it was a big beginning to something, but nothing in totality.

But a couple of key points I'd like to discuss, and more importantly, would like answers to:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

-Who was the cowboy and what was his actual role? If the popular interpretation of the story holds, he's Betty/Diane's concsience. If so, why would he show up in a psychic crisis of Adam (the director?)

-Again, in juxtaposition of the 'it was a fantasy view backwards of a jilted lesbian lover... what role did the mafia play? What was the point of the ejected espresso?

-What was the significance of the bum behind the diner? I know, he's supposed to represent Diane/Betty's evil side, but he seemed to exist independent of her actions.

-Go to Wikipedia, look up the movie and see the 'hints' David Lynch offered. I find them more confusing than the film itself. Do you think he likes to play with his less intelligent audience members such as myself that 'just don't get it'?

-Honestly, I never think of myself as all that smart or all that dumb. But this film has me leaning towards the latter, thinking I might have spent a little too much time in North Carolina, because honestly, I felt embarrassingly stupid trying to discuss the movie with my wife afterwards, and it was my pick. I'm usually much better at David Lynch-ish stories. Am I losing it? Can you grow dumber as life goes on?

[doc_bean]

I don't think David Lynch creates movies where everything means something. His movies are a bit of a Rosarch (sp?) test, you can view them how you like.

I didn't care too much for MD though, it felt too much like another Lost Highway to me, and the lesbian sex is just gratuitous.

[Beirut]

I don't think David Lynch creates movies where everything means something. His movies are a bit of a Rosarch (sp?) test, you can view them how you like.

Interesting, and well put.

...and the lesbian sex is just gratuitous.

I can't imagine non-gratuitous lesbian sex being of either a higher morality, quality, or watchability.

Go David!

[Fragony]

Good movie, especially because it has lesbian sex with Naomi Watts. Scene in the theater is best. Also a Lynch-fan, so it's kinda weird that my favorite Lynch movie is so unlynch, 'The straight story'.

Anyways, somebody please explain me the creepy man scene in the restaurant because me so lost.

[Don Corleone]

Anyways, somebody please explain me the creepy man scene in the restaurant because me so lost.

The bum behind the diner? He reprsents Naomi Watts' tainted soul. The first scene that really happened (that wasn't part of Naomi Watts' 'dream') was her hiring the hitman at the diner, and that's when he got 'created'.

[Azi Tohak]

Best part: hot lesbians.

Worst part: everything else. The mind that came up with this crap is a danger to himself and society and should be locked up.

I think the same thing about whoever came up with the Saw movies, and Hostel and all the rest of this garbage.

But this thread does need some hot lesbian pictures.

Azi

[Puzz3D]

Well, I did find elements of closure in it. But you had to really look, so I understand Lemur's point that it was a big beginning to something, but nothing in totality.

It's an extremely tragic story about the disintegration of Diane's sanity due to the sexual abuse she suffered as a kid which Aunt Ruth (ruth means sorrow for the misery of another) knew about and the subsequent cover-up (silence) which the resultant low self-esteem prevented Diane from being able to handle the failed Hollywood career along with the personal loss of Camilla. The sexual abuse is very strongly alluded to by the painting of Beatrice_Cenci (1577 – 1599), who was sexually abused by her father, that Aunt Ruth has in her apartment at Haverhurst and which is clearly shown in the early scene where Betty talks to Aunt Ruth on the phone and also later in the movie. There is another allusion to it with the poster of Rita Hayworth, a famous sexual abuse victim. Dianne gives the name Rita to Camilla in her dream.

But a couple of key points I'd like to discuss, and more importantly, would like answers to:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

-Who was the cowboy and what was his actual role? If the popular interpretation of the story holds, he's Betty/Diane's concsience. If so, why would he show up in a psychic crisis of Adam (the director?)

The cowboy was someone that Diane saw at Camilla's dinner party and who, along with the gangster she also saw there who doesn't like espresso, are used in her dream to give Alan a bad time. In the dream, she has concocted a conspiracy theory as the reason she didn't get the part in the Silvia North Story.

-Again, in juxtaposition of the 'it was a fantasy view backwards of a jilted lesbian lover... what role did the mafia play? What was the point of the ejected espresso?

The mafia conspiracy was Diane's rationalization for why she lost out to Camillia on getting the part in Alan's movie. The dislike of the espresso by the gangster was in the dream because Diane had just been served espresso at Camilla's dinner party when she saw the man that she later used in the dream.

-What was the significance of the bum behind the diner? I know, he's supposed to represent Diane/Betty's evil side, but he seemed to exist independent of her actions.

No because Dan (compression of the name Dianne) represents Dianne's fear of her evil personna represented by the bum. The evil personna prevails over her fear represented by Dan dying. Dan is actually in the non-dream scene standing at the cash register when Dianne is talking to the hit man in the dinner. The bum is probably also someone she has seen in real life out behind the dinner. Her dream is populated by people and events she has experienced when awake, but their purpose is twisted to fit into the logic of her dream. The audition with Woody is a re-enactment of her sexual abuse. Most of the film is her dream, but the last part, after the cowboy says "time to wake up", is that mental state where a person is waking up and reality is starting to intrude on the dream fantasy. The two old people, one of whom may have been her abuser or helped cover it up, come out of her subconcious (the blue box) to torment her; released, most likely, by Dianne's sense of loss and guilt at having Camilla killed.

-Go to Wikipedia, look up the movie and see the 'hints' David Lynch offered. I find them more confusing than the film itself. Do you think he likes to play with his less intelligent audience members such as myself that 'just don't get it'?

As I recall, Lynch was prevailed upon to give these clues. He doesn't like to analyze his own films.

-Honestly, I never think of myself as all that smart or all that dumb. But this film has me leaning towards the latter, thinking I might have spent a little too much time in North Carolina, because honestly, I felt embarrassingly stupid trying to discuss the movie with my wife afterwards, and it was my pick. I'm usually much better at David Lynch-ish stories. Am I losing it? Can you grow dumber as life goes on?

It's a very complex movie which requires considerable analysis to understand. While I didn't nearly figure out the film on first viewing, I did understand enough of it to see it as the very tragic story of a person unable to endure the pain of continuing with her life.