Week 17: Mulholland Dr.
-A sign in the darkness
David Lynch’s Mulholland Dr. is one great mind game. Here is a movie that challenges the viewer to not sit passively and watch the events unfold on the screen, but to be actively engaged. It is a film in which you never can quite remember what comes next. As soon as it is over you want to rewind it and watch it again, because you obviously missed something. The film truly defies genre. It is a mystery, a thriller, romance and noir, all while also being a concept film. You think you have it figured out and then all of sudden you remember a certain scene and double back on yourself. It's a movie that forces the viewer to think- what a marvelous concept.
The plot cannot be easily summarized. I will do my best. The movie surrounds several seemingly unrelated but interconnected storylines. Betty (Naomi Watts) is a gorgeous, plucky blonde that just arrived in Hollywood from Deep River, Ontario. She is enthusiastic and excited about being in the big city for the first time. She always has a grin on her face but something about her always seems a little "off". She arrives in Los Angeles and stays at her Aunt Ruth’s House. Her landlady Coco (Golden Age star Ann Miller) gives Betty the key to her Aunt’s apartment, along with some privacy. As Betty is unpacking, she finds a beautiful brunette (Laura Elena Harring) taking a shower. At first, Betty thinks the brunette must have had an arrangement with her Aunt- after all, it makes little sense for someone to walk into a stranger’s house, strip off their clothes and use their shower.
This brunette was involved in a car accident on Mulholland Drive. The beginning of the film shows the brunette, still nameless, in a back of a limousine. A man in the front of the limo pulls a gun on her and then all of a sudden the vehicle is rear-ended by speeding teenagers. The brunette survives with a case of amnesia and stumbles to Betty’s Aunt’s home, where she squats. The brunette has no idea who she is, how she got to the house, or why her head is bleeding. She looks up at a vintage movie poster of Gilda starring Rita Hayworth, and decides that Rita is as good of a name as any. This is the name she uses when Betty finally realizes the brunette is not supposed to be in the house.
Together, the two women try to figure out who “Rita” really is, Nancy Drew style. The only thing that Rita can remember is Mulholland Drive. Betty decides to make an anonymous call to the police to see if there was an accident reported on Mulholland. Sure enough, there was an accident. This answers little.
As Betty and Rita are enjoying coffee and conversation at the local Winky’s (more on Winky’s later) a waitress comes to the table to drop of the check. The waitresses name is Diane. This sparks a revelation in Rita- she remembers the name Diane Selwyn. Could this be her name? The two women find the name in the phone book and call the number. We see the phone ring in an undisclosed location, on a table next to a red lamp. No one answers. The two women decide to pay a visit to the address in the phone book. After being accosted by a women that appears to know Diane (and not like her too much) they find Diane’s apartment. There is a rotting corpse inside. Who is the dead woman? Who is Rita? No one ever thinks to ask who Betty is.
Another seemingly unrelated storyline involves a filmmaker named Adam Kesher (Justin Theroux). Kesher is directing a picture entitled The Sylvia North Story and is in the process of recasting the lead actress. There is clearly something going on behind the scenes here, because the mob is deeply interested in who gets the part. An ominous dwarf named Mr. Rogue (Michael J. Anderson- best known as Samson from HBO’s short lived Carnivale) appears to be running the show and giving instructions to mobsters to accost Kesher. When Kesher is brought into a production meeting with the executive producer, the Castiligani brothers (Dan Hedaya and Angelo Badalamenti) are there as well. The mobsters demand that Kesher hire a particular girl, Camilla Rhodes (Melissa George), for the lead in his film. Kesher at first refuses, but the mobsters put the pressure on by cutting off all of his credit. Eventually Kesher is summoned by The Cowboy (Lafayette Montgomery) who is threatening- and more than a little disturbing, in his cool confidence. The Cowboy tells Adam that he must hire Camilla, and that if he does good he will only see The Cowboy once again. If he does bad- he will see him twice.
-The look in the eyes is knowing.
These are only the exposition arcs of the two main storylines in Mulholland Dr If you purchase the film on DVD, there is a laminate inside the case.
It is labeled- “Mulholland Drive- David Lynch’s 10 Clues to Unlocking This Thriller”
- Pay particular attention in the beginning of the film: At least two clues are revealed before the credits.
- Notice appearances of the red lampshade.
- Can you hear the title of the film that Adam Kesher is auditioning actresses for? Is it mentioned again?
- An accident is a terrible event — notice the location of the accident.
- Who gives a key, and why?
- Notice the robe, the ashtray, the coffee cup.
- What is felt, realized, and gathered at the Club Silencio?
- Did talent alone help Camilla?
- Note the occurrences surrounding the man behind Winkie's.
- Where is Aunt Ruth?
You know you are in for a mindbender when the director is forced to give you clues before viewing the film. I still have not yet mentioned the man behind Winky’s, who seems to be a monster but may also just be homeless. I have said nothing about the mysterious blue key that “Rita” has on her when she wakes- or the blue box that it appears to open. Nor have I mentioned the mysterious nightclub “Silencio” in which Betty and Rita realize that all may be an illusion. I have written no words about the realizations that come in the last 45 minutes of the film. Mulholland Dr. is a movie to be seen and experienced. I had not seen the picture in many years and when the credits began to roll all I could think about was the plot. Now, days after seeing it again, all I think about is its mastery. This is a beautiful film, Lynch’s masterpiece. David Lynch has had is share of good movies (Blue Velvet, Eraserhead, The Elephant Man) as well horrible ones (Lost Highway) but Mulholland Dr. is in a class of its own. It is hypnotic from start to finish.
The film was originally positioned to ABC as a television program. Each week, viewers would take an hour long trip to Mulholland Dr. where “nothing would be as it seemed.” I have read (although I can’t verify this) that the first portion of the film actually is the television pilot. ABC rejected Lynch’s work as too complex- too strange for the medium. I suspect they still had a sour taste in their mouth over Twin Peaks, Lynch’s great television series that, while a cult success, never achieved much in ratings. This was in the year 2001. Ironically, ABC’s next hit show would be Lost, another cult phenomenon which is just as complex and mysterious as Mulholland Dr most likely would have been.
I don’t know for certain if Mulholland Dr would have been an effective television series. There is simply too much going on, and the revelations in the final act need to be experienced in relatively quick succession after the first act. I have a hard enough time trying to understand what the hell is going on in context to what I just watched thirty minutes ago, let alone nine weeks. ABC’s refusal to air Mulholland Dr was certainly a blessing in disguise. Lynch partnered with French production company Studio Canal and made the story into a feature length film. It is now one of the great movies.
I would have loved to have seen the look on the audience’s faces when the film premiered at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival. Certainly viewers were mystified, but the Grand Jury gave David Lynch the coveted Best Director prize that year. Sometimes you don’t have to understand art to realize that it is magnificent. Lynch was also nominated for Best Director that year by the Academy (he lost to Ron Howard for A Beautiful Mind- an inferior film).
Lynch is also to credit for the discovery of one of this decade’s best actresses: Naomi Watts. A virtual unknown from Australia at the time of filming, Mulholland Dr. put Watts in the spotlight. She was nominated for Best Actress at the 2001 Oscars and for some time was considered the front-runner. It is without a doubt one of the great female roles of the last decade. Watts is superb when she is on screen. In the beginning her performance as Betty is grating and quite annoying. Once those revelations start rolling in during the film’s final act, we begin to realize that Watts is perhaps the most powerful actress working today.
And so, I am forced to discuss the film’s final act. I suppose a SPOILER ALERT is in order.
The entirety of the first two hours of the film is a dream. The Naomi Watts character is named Diane Selwyn. Diane was a struggling actress living in Los Angeles that got a bit part in Adam Kesher’s The Sylvia North Story, because her lover- Camilla Rhodes (the mysterious brunette played by Laura Elena Harring’s character) won the lead. Diane is madly in love with Camilla, but Camilla does not reciprocate. Camilla eventually leaves Diane to pursue a relationship with both Adam Kesher and a mysterious blonde (Melissa George- who in the dream portion of the film was portraying Camilla Rhodes).
Camilla invites Diane to a party at Kesher’s home on, you guessed it- Mulholland Dr. At the party Camilla rubs in her relationship with Adam, and Diane meets Adam’s mother, Coco (Ann Miller). Diane also spots nefarious characters at the party, including the Castiligani brothers as well as the mysterious cowboy. When she explains her roots as a Jitterbug champion from Deep River Ontario, the guests look at her and laugh, almost in a form of pity. Camilla continues to ignore her, infatuated with both Adam and the blonde.
Devastated and angry, Diane hires a hit man (Mark Pellegrino) to kill Camilla out of jealousy. The hit man shows Diane a blue key, and advises that when the job is done the blue key will appear on Diane’s coffee table. Diane goes home, masterbates to Camilla, and falls asleep. Everything that we experienced before was Diane's dream.
Diane imagines herself as an innocent blond named Betty, and imagines Camilla as a weak and hopeless woman. The entire film uses dream logic. Betty will save “Rita” who is really Camilla, and force Camilla to love her. Diane creates roles for the nefarious characthers in her dream, imagining that Camilla only got the lead due to mob manipulation. Diane imagines herself a great, talented actress – when all actuality she has failed. The more abstract portions of her dream (including the confrontation between the man behind Winky's) are ways of Diane’s subconscious coping with the horrible act she has committed- killing a lover. The monster behind Winky’s symoblizes Diane’s anger. The dead body the two girls find (in Diane's dream) is a subconscious realization to Diane of what she will eventually become. The dream’s climax is at the club Silencio- most likely a venue the two women went to in their relationship. Diane realizes, while asleep, that it is all an illusion, and that the fictional dream will not change the reality of the situation. She slowly begins to wake. Upon waking, she finds the key on the coffee table, and lays in her bed crying. She finally shoots herself.
Maybe this is the real story, maybe it's not. Perhaps I am full of shit, as I am often told. No matter. This is what I think the story of Mulholland Dr. really is. Granted, there are parts of my interpretation that may be reaching. I still can’t really understand what the blue box is all about, or what the man behind Winky’s represents. I also still don’t understand why Diane would be going to great detail to dream about Adam, away from Camilla. I still have no idea what the Cowboy thing is about. Peace comes from not caring.
Before becoming a director, David Lynch was a painter. Much of his work was surrealist and abstract. I highly doubt that people had the nerve to approach him at Art exhibitions and ask him what his work “meant.” Why is it that we can accept multiple interpretations of Art, but not for films? After all, films are art. The beauty of Mulholland Dr. is that it is less of a film, more of a painting. Each viewer has their own unique experience. When researching the film for this review I found a video of Lynch doing a Q & A with an audience. An audience member asked Lynch what Mulholland Dr. was about.
Audience Member:
“We just watched Mulholland Dr Is there a specific message or theme? We were mesmerized by your picture, but we just were completely confused.”
Lynch:
"The idea tells you everything. Lots of times I get ideas, I fall in love with them. Those ones you fall in love with are really special ideas, and in some ways I always say when something's abstract, the abstractions are hard to put into words- unless you're a poet. These ideas you somehow know, and cinema is a medium that can show abstractions. I love stories, but I love stories that have abstractions. Cinema can show these abstractions- these "difficult to say in words" things. A lot of the times, I don't know the meaning of the idea, and it drives me crazy. I think we should no the meaning of the ideas, and I think about them constantly. When I was making Eraserhead, I had no idea what my ideas meant. I started reading the bible, and when I was reading there was a sentence. (I read that sentence) and said, 'Forget it' that is this thing (Eraserhead). I should know the meaning for me, but when things get abstract it does no good for me to say what it means. All viewers, on the surface, were all different; this is where intuition and inner-knowingness kicks in. You see a thing, you think about it, you feel it, and you sort of know something inside, you can rely on that. If you go after a film with abstractions to a coffee shop, and you are having coffee with your friends, someone may say something (their views on the film) and immediately you will say, 'No, No, No, that's not what that was about!' and your perspective comes out in discussion. So you do know what you think the film means, for yourself- and what you know is valid."
Well, there it is.
Review and Analysis by Shaun Henisey
David Lynch tries to explain Mulholland Dr.
Cast and Credits:
Betty: Naomi Watts
Rita: Laura Elena Harring
Adam : Justin Theroux
Coco: Ann Miller
Universal Pictures and Studio Canal present A David Lynch Film. Cinematography by Peter Deming. Music by Angelo Badalamenti. Produced, Written and Directed by David Lynch.
Running Time: 142 Minutes. Rated R for violence, adult langauge and situations, nudity and strong sexual content.