Mulholland Drive (film)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Mulholland Drive | |
|---|---|
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| Directed by | David Lynch |
| Produced by | Pierre Edelman |
| Written by | David Lynch |
| Starring | Naomi Watts Laura Harring Justin Theroux Ann Miller |
| Distributed by | Universal Focus |
| Release date(s) |  October 12, 2001 (limited) January 4, 2002 January 31, 2002 |
| Running time | 146 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $15,000,000 (estimated) |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Mulholland Drive (often abbreviated Mulholland Dr.) is a 2001 psychological thriller written and directed by David Lynch. It stars Naomi Watts, Laura Harring and Justin Theroux.
It is noted for its strong use of alluring, surreal images, and plot, which has gained much speculation since the film was released. While being strongly acclaimed by many critics, and a moderate box office success, the film has achieved a cult classic status.
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[edit] Release
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Mulholland Drive premiered at the Cannes Film Festival to critical acclaim. Lynch was awarded the Best Director prize at the festival (sharing it with co-winner Joel Coen for The Man Who Wasn't There). It was named Best Picture by the New York Film Critics Circle, and even more notably was given a four-star review by critic Roger Ebert, who is known as one of Lynch's biggest detractors. Lynch was also nominated for a Best Directing Oscar for the film.
[edit] Synopsis
As the film begins, a surreal image of people doing the jitterbug is shown. Then, the scene switches to that of a young, dark-haired woman (played by Laura Harring) being driven down Mulholland Drive in Los Angeles late at night. She is threatened by two men inside the car with a gun; but before they can kill her, they get into a serious car accident when their vehicle is smashed into by a carload of drunken teenagers. The nameless, dark-haired woman suffers from a head injury and subsequent amnesia. The sole survivor of the crash, she wanders down the hill into L.A. and falls asleep in the vacant apartment of a vacationing woman. The next day, Betty Elms (played by Naomi Watts), a young and cloyingly perky aspiring actress who has just moved to Hollywood from Deep River, Ontario, moves in and discovers her. The dark-haired woman decides to call herself "Rita" after seeing a poster for the movie Gilda starring Rita Hayworth. Together, the two of them try to piece together exactly who she is and what happened that night.
Other strange things, at first seemingly unrelated, are happening as well. At Winkie's, a local diner, a man named Dan tells his companion Herb about a recurring nightmare involving a shadowy person living behind the diner. When Herb encourages Dan to confront his fear by exploring the diner's back lot, he encounters a shockingly ugly figure. Dan collapses from fright.
Film director Adam Kesher (played by Justin Theroux) finds his latest project — and soon thereafter, his life — being turned upside down by shadowy mobsters, who threaten him into hiring an unknown actress named Camilla Rhodes (played by Melissa George) to play the lead role in his new film. Adam refuses and finds himself suddenly bankrupt. That same evening, after checking into a seedy hotel, Adam has a bizarre meeting with a mysterious man dressed as a cowboy who tells him that he must give the role to Camilla Rhodes in order for things in his life to return to normal.
In another subplot, an incompetent hit man steals a "black book" of names and addresses, leaving behind a trail of dead bodies. He, as well as two detectives, are all trying to track down the dark-haired woman now known as "Rita".
Meanwhile, Betty goes to a Hollywood acting audition and performs brilliantly. After her audition, Betty catches a glimpse of Adam Kesher, who has just caved in to the mobsters' demands and hired Camilla Rhodes for his new picture. Upon returning home from the audition, Betty and Rita follow a lead to the apartment of a mystery woman named Diane Selwyn. This leads to the discovery of a rotting corpse, presumably a murdered Diane. Rita decides to disguise herself by wearing a blonde wig, fearing that the same people that harmed Diane are after her as well. Betty and Rita soon become lovers.
The film soon shifts gears and leaves these storylines behind altogether. After Betty and Rita attend a strange and eerie performance at a midnight theatre called Club Silencio, Rita opens a small blue box with a blue key; as a result, an entirely new reality suddenly emerges. Betty wakes up and finds herself a depressed and lonely failed actress named Diane Selwyn. Her former lover, an actress named Camilla Rhodes (now played by Harring), has abandoned her to pursue a life of riches and glamour by marrying a successful director, the same Adam Kesher who appeared earlier in the film. Feeling betrayed and filled with rage, Diane hires a hit man (the same hit man from the previous reality) to kill Camilla. After having received confirmation that Camilla has been killed, the tormented Diane kills herself as well.
[edit] Interpretation and allusions
Lynch has maintained his refusal to comment on the film's "meaning" or symbolism, leading to much discussion and multiple interpretations. A common interpretation, however, is that the first part of the film is a dream of the real Diane Selwyn (Watts), who has cast her dream-self as the innocent and hopeful "Betty Elms" (fashioned after a Winkie's waitress named Betty) and reconstructed her life, history, and persona into something like an old Hollywood movie, in which she is successful, charming, and lives the fantasy life of a soon-to-be-famous actress. The second half of the film serves to present the bleak reality of Diane's actual life, a life where her personal and professional wishes and desires have fallen tragically short.
[edit] Selected Cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Naomi Watts | Betty Elms/Diane Selwyn |
| Laura Harring (as Laura Elena Harring) |
Rita |
| Ann Miller | Catherine 'Coco' Lenoix |
| Dan Hedaya | Vincenzo Castigliane |
| Justin Theroux | Adam Kesher |
| Brent Briscoe | Detective Neal Domgaard |
| Robert Forster | Detective Harry McKnight |
| Katharine Towne | Cynthia Jenzen |
| Lee Grant | Louise Bonner |
| Scott Coffey | Wilkins |
| Billy Ray Cyrus | Gene |
| Chad Everett | Jimmy Katz |
| Rita Taggart | Linney James |
| James Karen | Wally Brown |
| Lori Heuring | Lorraine Kesher |
| Angelo Badalamenti | Luigi Castigliane |
| Michael Des Barres | Billy Deznutz |
| Marcus Graham | Vincent Darby |
| Missy Crider (as Melissa Crider) |
Waitress at Winkies (Diane/Betty) |
| Robert Katims | Ray Hott |
| Jeanne Bates | Irene |
| Patrick Fischler | Dan |
| Michael Cooke | Herb |
| Michael J. Anderson | Mr. Roque |
| Melissa George | Camilla Rhodes |
| Mark Pellegrino | Joe Messing |
| Monty Montgomery (as Lafayette Montgomery) |
Cowboy |
[edit] Production notes/Trivia
- Mulholland Drive is an actual road that twists its way through the Hollywood Hills in Los Angeles.
- The majority of the film was originally shot in 1999 as a 95-minute pilot for a television series on ABC. The network was unhappy with the pilot and decided not to pick it up as a series. Lynch filmed new scenes in late 2000 to transform the pilot into a feature film. Though the television footage was reworked somewhat, the pilot consisted of everything prior to the love scene between Watts and Harring, while the love scene and what follows is new material shot for the film.
- Laura Harring (Rita) is a former Miss USA.
- Naomi Watts (Betty Elms/Diane Selwyn) appeared in the Australian soap opera Home and Away. Coincidentally, Melissa George (the blonde starlet, Camilla Rhodes) and Elizabeth Lackey (the audition singer, Carol) also had roles in Home and Away.
- Latina singer Rebekah Del Rio plays herself at the midnight theatre, "lip-synching" an a cappella Spanish version of Roy Orbison's song "Crying".
- The movie features the final film appearance by MGM musical legend Ann Miller.
- The DVD release of the film proved controversial when Lynch edited it to obscure the full-frontal nudity of actress Laura Harring, allegedly at her request.
- The film is dedicated to Jennifer Syme, a former assistant to David Lynch, who died after a serious car crash in April 2001. Although some believe the car crash in Mulholland Drive is based on Syme, her accident took place after the film had completed its script and shooting production.
[edit] External links
- Official site, with trailer
- Mulholland Dr. at the Internet Movie Database
- Mulholland Dr. review by Roger Ebert
- Mulholland Dr. at Rotten Tomatoes
- Lost on Mulholland Dr., comprehensive analysis and resource center based on the Rotten Tomatoes discussions (above)
- Salon.com, analysis and explanation (warning: contains spoilers)
- 'No hay banda': A Long, Strange Trip Down David Lynch's Mulholland Drive, (warning: contains spoilers)
- Deciphering David Lynch's 10 Clues, found within the DVD (warning: contains spoilers)
- Mulholland Drive / davidlynch.de, includes interviews, reviews, audio press kit, deleted scene
- Mulholland Drive analysis by Eric Gans, Professor of French at UCLA
| David Lynch |
|---|
| Feature films |
| Eraserhead • The Elephant Man • Dune • Blue Velvet • Wild at Heart • Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me • Lost Highway • The Straight Story • Mulholland Dr. • Inland Empire |
| TV series |
| Twin Peaks • On the Air • Hotel Room |
| Other work |
| Short films • Industrial Symphony No. 1 • Rabbits • Dumb Land • The Angriest Dog in the World |
