Mulholland Drive (film)
Giving the film only the tagline "A love story in the city of dreams",[15] David Lynch refused to comment on Mulholland Drive's meaning or symbolism, leading to much discussion and multiple interpretations."[26] Philip French from The Observer sees it as an allusion to Hollywood tragedy, while Jane Douglas from the BBC rejects the theory of Betty's life as Diane's dream, but also warns against too much analysis.The clues are: Media theorist Siobhan Lyons similarly disagrees with the dream theory, arguing that it is a "superficial interpretation [which] undermines the strength of the absurdity of reality that often takes place in Lynch's universe.'"[40] Critic Gregory Weight cautions viewers against a cynical interpretation of the events in the film, stating that Lynch presents more than "the façade and that he believes only evil and deceit lie beneath it.Popular reaction to the film suggests the contrasting relationships between Betty and Rita and Diane and Camilla are "understood as both the hottest thing on earth and, at the same time, as something fundamentally sad and not at all erotic" as "the heterosexual order asserts itself with crushing effects for the abandoned woman.As Lee Wallace suggests, by planning a hit against Camilla, "Diane circumvents the heterosexual closure of the industry story but only by going over to its storyworld, an act that proves fatal for both women, the cause and effect relations of the thriller being fundamentally incompatible with the plot of lesbianism as the film presents it."[49] Betty Elms (Naomi Watts) is the bright and talented newcomer to Los Angeles, described as "wholesome, optimistic, determined to take the town by storm,"[30] and "absurdly naïve.One film analyst asserts that Betty's previously unknown ability steals the show, specifically, taking the dark mystery away from Rita and assigning it to herself, and by Lynch's use of this scene, he illustrates his use of deception in his characters.[61] Hence, Diane is the personification of dissatisfaction, painfully illustrated when she is unable to climax while masturbating, in a scene that indicates "through blurred, jerky, point of view shots of the stony wall—not only her tears and humiliation but the disintegration of her fantasy and her growing desire for revenge".[64] Camilla Rhodes (Melissa George, Laura Elena Harring) is little more than a face in a photo and a name that has inspired many representatives of some vaguely threatening power to place her in a film against the wishes of Adam.Referred to as a "vapid moll" by one reviewer,[65] she barely makes an impression in the first portion of the film, but after the blue box is opened and she is portrayed by Harring, she becomes a full person who symbolizes "betrayal, humiliation and abandonment",[30] and is the object of Diane's sexual obsession and frustration.[69] One analysis of Adam's character contends that because he capitulated and chose Camilla Rhodes for his film, that is the end of Betty's cheerfulness and ability to help Rita, placing the blame for her tragedy on the representatives of studio power."[70] Minor characters include The Cowboy (Monty Montgomery), the Castigliani Brothers (Dan Hedaya and Angelo Badalamenti) and Mr. Roque (Michael J. Anderson), all of whom are somehow involved in pressuring Adam to cast Camilla Rhodes in his film."[73] Through Lynch's juxtaposition of cliché and surreal, nightmares and fantasies, nonlinear story lines, camera work, sound and lighting, he presents a film that challenges viewers to suspend belief of what they are experiencing.[38] Many of the characters in Mulholland Drive are archetypes that can only be perceived as cliché: the new Hollywood hopeful, the femme fatale, the maverick director and shady powerbrokers that Lynch never seems to explore fully.Anderson, who has only two lines and is seated in an enormous wooden wheelchair, was fitted with oversized foam prosthetic arms and legs in order to portray his head as abnormally small.Film critic Franklin Ridgway writes that the depiction of such a deliberate "cruel and manipulative" act makes it unclear if Camilla is as capricious as she seems, or if Diane's paranoia is allowing the audience only to see what she senses.[62] In a scene immediately after Betty's audition, the film cuts to a woman singing without apparent accompaniment, but as the camera pulls backwards, the audience sees that it is a recording studio.[34] Author Valtteri Kokko has identified three groups of "uncanny metaphors"; the doppelgänger of multiple characters played by the same actors, dreams and an everyday object—primarily the blue box—that initiates Rita's disappearance and Diane's real life.[34] Mulholland Drive's ending with the woman at Club Silencio whispering is an example of Lynch's aural deception and surreality, according to Ruth Perlmutter, who writes, "The acting, the dreams, the search for identity, the fears and terrors of the undefined self are over when the film is over, and therefore, there is only silence and enigma.Lynch sold the idea to ABC executives based only on the story of Rita emerging from the car accident with her purse containing $125,000 in cash and the blue key, and Betty trying to help her figure out who she is.[88][89] Objections included the nonlinear storyline, the ages of Harring and Watts (whom they considered too old), cigarette smoking by Ann Miller's character and a close-frame shot of dog feces in one scene."[92] The album progresses much like a typical Lynch film, opening with a quick, pleasant Jitterbug and then slowly delving into darker string passages, the twangy guitar sounds of '50s diner music and, finally, the layered, disturbing, often confusing underbelly of the score.[97] Film music journalist Daniel Schweiger remarks that Badalamenti's contribution to the score alternates from the "nearly motionless string dread to noir jazz and audio feedback", with "the rhythms building to an explosion of infinite darkness.[39] With the use of multiple languages and a song to portray such primal emotions, one film analyst states that Lynch exhibits his distrust of intellectual discourse and chooses to make sense through images and sounds.The website's critical consensus reads, "David Lynch's dreamlike and mysterious Mulholland Drive is a twisty neo-noir with an unconventional structure that features a mesmerizing performance from Naomi Watts as a woman on the dark fringes of Hollywood."[5] Edward Guthmann of the San Francisco Chronicle called it "exhilarating ... for its dreamlike images and fierce, frequently reckless imagination" and added, "there's a mesmerizing quality to its languid pace, its sense of foreboding and its lost-in-time atmosphere ... it holds us, spellbound and amused, for all of its loony and luscious, exasperating 146 minutes [and] proves that Lynch is in solid form—and still an expert at pricking our nerves".The very things that failed him in the bad-boy rockabilly debacle of Lost Highway—the atmosphere of free-floating menace, pointless transmigration of souls, provocatively dropped plot stitches, gimcrack alternate universes—are here brilliantly rehabilitated."[36] A. O. Scott of The New York Times wrote that, while some might consider the plot an "offense against narrative order", the film is "an intoxicating liberation from sense, with moments of feeling all the more powerful for seeming to emerge from the murky night world of the unconscious".[110] In New York, Peter Rainer observed, "Although I like it more than some of his other dreamtime freakfests, it's still a pretty moribund ride ... Lynch needs to renew himself with an influx of the deep feeling he has for people, for outcasts, and lay off the cretins and hobgoblins and zombies for a while.
Mulholland FallsDavid LynchMary SweeneyAlain SardeNeal EdelsteinTony KrantzNaomi WattsLaura HarringJustin TherouxAnn MillerRobert ForsterPeter DemingAngelo BadalamentiLes Films Alain SardeLe Studio Canal+Universal PicturesUniversal FocusBAC DistributionCannessurrealistneo-noirmysteryLos Angelesamnesiavignettestelevision pilotStudioCanal2001 Cannes Film FestivalAward for Best DirectorJoel CoenThe Man Who Wasn't ThereAcademy Award for Best Directorgreatest films of all time100 Greatest Films of the 21st CenturySight and SoundIndieWireLA Film Critics AssociationMulholland DriveDeep River, OntarioRita HayworthSunset BoulevarddowntownRebekah Del RioCryingDan HedayaMark PellegrinoBrent BriscoeMichael J. AndersonBonnie AaronsMonty MontgomeryLee GrantJames KarenChad EverettRichard GreenMelissa GeorgeGeno SilvaBilly Ray CyrusLori HeuringJeanne BatesPatrick FischlerEarly life and workJennifer LynchFilmographyEraserheadThe Elephant ManBlue VelvetTwin PeaksThe ReturnWild at HeartLost HighwayThe Straight StoryInland EmpireDiscographyBlueBOBThe Air Is on FirePolish Night MusicCrazy Clown TimeThe Big DreamThought GangCellophane MemoriesBibliographyImagesCatching the Big FishGenealogies of PainRoom to DreamDale CooperLaura PalmerSheriff Harry TrumanShelly JohnsonDonna HaywardAudrey HorneMaddy FergusonBenjamin HornePhillip JeffriesWindom EarleLeland PalmerLog LadyThe GiantThe Man from Another Place / The ArmTommy HillBobby BriggsFrank BoothUnrealized projectsAccolades receivedCultural impactFrequent collaboratorsDavid Lynch FoundationsymbolismChristian Science MonitorDavid Sterrittdream analysisdamsel in distressChicago TribuneThe GuardianThe SunTime OutRoger EbertJonathan Rossnon-sequitursPhilip FrenchThe Observerparallel universesMöbius stripepistemologicalRobert Sinnerbrinkdiegesis