User:Moni3/Mulholland Drive

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Obsession works marvels in the name of productivity, but not so much for sleep or peace.

I have a habit, for some reason, of knowing about something and storing it away, not paying attention to it, then somehow encountering where I find it consumes me. It leaves me wondering, why in the world did I not read this book, see this movie, hear this song, or view this piece of art when I could have enjoyed it years ago? I suppose instead, I make up for lost time in zeal and fascination. Such is what occurred when I saw Mulholland Dr. on March 22, 2008.

I went to work the next day, at my job I was not enjoying, doing mundane things that I didn't care about much. When in the afternoon I started to think about the movie. It happened the next day, too, in the afternoon. So I went home and watched it again. Thus began a cycle of watching, thinking about it, watching it again, for days. I tried simultaneously to learn more but shield myself from the proliferation of information that seems to abound about the film. I started with its article here, which was a mishmash of (mis)interpretation and unreferenced original research. Watching it and thinking about it not only didn't answer my questions, it seemed to make the cycle more intense. So I did what anyone bordering on the obsessed would do: I jumped over that wall and read every last thing I could put my eyes to, and became the principal author of the article, adding 40 kilobytes of information within seven days.^[1] Someone liked your film, Mr. Lynch. Enough to work out exorcise its effect and images, to the point of exhaustion.

It's not uncommon for me to disagree with the opinions I put in the articles I edit, but the glaring omissions in what I read about this film demands restitution. I know, in order to respond to the articles I read in more prestigious scholarly film journals, I should be using much more formal language, but not with this film. Its interpretation is entirely dependent upon individual perception. I can only write this from my own perspective and experience.^[2]

[edit] One week

Few other pieces of art, film, or literature have infected me the way this movie has. I realized I liked it after the first viewing, but after several days of thinking of it, I could almost hear the electric arcs between my neurons that indicated just how much I was involved in thinking about it: zzt. pop! It's a rare and sometimes wonderful (sometimes not) occasion to find something that sparks like that. ^[3] In one week I read everything that is cited in the article, and a bunch more I didn't add.

How did you know, Mr. Lynch, that I have dreams like Dan does? For years I had the same dream of being in a house - or many houses in many dreams. But in each house was a room in the center in which something exists in it I am terrified of. I don't even know what or who it is, but I'm so horrified that I can feel the breath being squeezed out of me when I think about passing the door. What's locked in the middle of my brain that scares me to such a point I can't even approach it?

I have watched this film dozens of times, desperate for an answer at first, about what it means. But I began to realize that figuring out what really happened was not as important for me as sorting out how it made me feel: heartbroken, inspired, deeply moved by its beauty and poignancy, and dare I admit it - aroused.^[4] After so much thought, all the reading I did, writing the article, and watching the film another couple dozen times, I came to a peaceful conclusion toward the end of my editing frenzy, that the film is exactly what I want it to be. Much of my emotional turmoil came from feeling that the film represents one reality - which it does to many people - and my reality did not fit theirs. I like mine better.^[5]

[edit] Dreams

What I found most dream-like about this film was its flowing from one scene to the next apparently unrelated scene, like a stream of consciousness. As if I walked through a hall with many rooms, and as I turned around to see where I came from, all I could see was the erosion of a memory, and the room I was just in melt into the room where I am now. Much like waking up after a dream, interpreting this film uses the same kind of brain patterns, where I'm making a peanut butter sandwich the next day and I get a flash of something that I dreamed of last night, stop, hold the knife and turn around to tell someone how odd it was, but realize it left me and I can't really explain it anyway. Many times I thought I made brilliant connection only to have it dissolve, like a word I can't remember.

The film is of course about dreams, the ones we have while sleeping, and the ones we would love to fulfill. I read Freudian analyses on the film that interpreted Betty as Diane's projection of what she can't be or have. This interpretation did not make sense to me, because of my own experience with my dreams. I never forget who I am in my dreams; my identity is never lost or confused. Only the places I go, the people I speak with, and the emotions involved in my interactions are puzzling. Dream analysis is an intensely personal thing. To understand what I am dreaming, I have to identify what I am feeling and work from there. The principal emotion involved in the dream is the purpose of it. This is how I approached how to understand what this film means.

I cannot speak about what dreams mean for other people because they are not my dreams. I find it difficult to believe what others tell me my dreams should mean. Likewise, I am skeptical of generally understood symbolism in dreams. This is the reason that I am so sure of what this film means, but this is also the reason why it can mean this to me, and not for others. All I can do is suggest what I think your dream means. You have to be the judge of how accurate my suggestion is.

[edit] Desire

Desire is a major theme of the film, from what I read (and from what I knew before reading). Diane's desire for Camilla and professional validation. Camilla as the object of desire. Betty's desire for Rita. Rita's desire to know who she is. Adam's desire for creativity. But the key to knowing what this film is about is in only one person's desire. Yours.

Beautiful and frustrating Mr. Lynch made a film so deliberately ambiguous that the theories proliferate about what it really means. I think Roger Ebert said it best: "There is no explanation." Indeed - it's whatever you want it to be. This was gloriously illustrated by all the conflicting and contradicting summaries, reviews, essays, and interpretations I read. I certainly know what it is, because it is what I want it to be. If this is a frustrating response, it is because the desire overwhelms not to be confused, be out of the loop, or be made to look like a fool.

[edit] Betty

I think the best way to approach interpretation of the film, is to explore how you perceive the characters. Perhaps Betty is the the litmus test for your desire. If you see Betty as mentally challenged and annoying, you will be predisposed to relating to Diane's misery, and using that as a base for reality. ^[6] I want to know why no one seemed to accept Betty's chirpy optimism at face value. Almost all that I read–from some very learned people^[7]–instantly assumed Betty was unreal. Movies are made about extraordinary people and events.^[8] Why would it be beyond belief for a movie to be about a perky girl sleuth? Irony, thy name is...^[9] Lynch himself is often written of as a walking time warp, stuck in the 1940s. His own biography on the Mulholland Drive website reads, in entirety: "Born in Missoula, Montana. Eagle Scout". Betty is certainly an easier character to believe than some others who have appeared in Lynch films.

Lovable goofballs are much more lovable when they look like Naomi Watts. Well done, Mr. Hitchcock Lynch. Laura Elena Harring challenges you not to objectify her. Go on. Try.

I saw Betty as a lovable goofball, reminiscent of Laura Landon in her naïvetée and then Nurse Cherry Aimless when she went out sleuthing. Until the audition. Thank God for the audition. She has moxie. Now I really like her. Now I'm rooting for her. I want her to have what she wants, and apparently what she wants is Rita. She's a perky goofball with moxie and good taste.

Have people always been so cynical on mass scales across borders and languages, or is cynicism in film and literature a relatively recent phenomenon? I know that there are many things that are too good to be true, and it's difficult to reconcile any sort of positive interpretation in a film that portrays such a sad and shocking ending. Naomi Watts strongly identified with Diane due to her own experiences in Hollywood. I wonder, if she saw the movie fresh today, with some success–with a child–would she have the same interpretation she did?^[10] But also, I live very far in distance and culture from Hollywood, which is another benefit that allows my interpretation.

[edit] Rita

Rita may also prove a test for desire. Rita, in fact, is desire, and as a viewer approaches Rita, he or she may form opinions that affect how the movie will be interpreted. There was no casting coincidence on Mr. Lynch's part, to have Laura Elena Harring as his mystery amnesiac, and neither was the casting of Grace Kelly or Janet Leigh by Hitchcock. Such beautiful women can draw the viewer in hook, line, and sinker, or be completely unbelievable solely due to their appearances. Beauty, I find, creates intense emotion that can range and vacillate between desire, competition, and the remembered pain of rejection. A viewer's experiences with beautiful women may color his or her approach to Rita's character.

If desire for Rita is what is experienced by the viewer, she may be believed on sight, rather like a beautiful woman who gets out of traffic ticket simply by smiling. Then one's own approach to the desire may impact how one sees Rita's relationship with Betty. If the viewer does not wish for Rita to be with Betty (placing him or herself in Betty's position instead, or rejecting the possibility that Betty and Rita should be together), it is easier to believe that they are, in reality, a very dysfunctional couple. Or, if the viewer is sympathetic to the relationship, it is more pleasurable to imagine that Rita and Betty are the basis for reality, and Diane and Camilla are not.

Conversely, viewers may have their own experience with the double standards society offers extraordinarily beautiful people, and instantly assume she has pretenses that are not to be trusted. The gender of the viewer isn't necessarily important in determining one's approach to Rita, because both men and women may feel competitive with her, or may feel a hint of what it was like to be mocked by people they felt were somehow superior in appearance, financial wealth, or popularity. High school affects many of us long after we leave it. If Camilla played by Harring is more familiar than the sweetness exhibited by Rita, this might be a clue.

I admit that I found such a conventionally beautiful woman, receptive to assistance, nice, and very sweet, to be a revelation. I found Camilla to be the cliché, and hoped that the film had a way of turning Camilla on her ear. I very much wanted Rita to be true, and she is for me.

[edit] Imaginings

Here it what gives me my biggest clues about what the film is about. Because I identified so strongly with the nightmare, the scene with Dan and Herb going to inspect what really is behind Winkie's, and Dan's death of fright at realizing what he feared was, in fact, true, the film's storylines are an allegory to this scene.

The next scene most closely associated with this allegory was the one of Rita and Betty finding the body of the dead woman. Laura Elena Harring's horrified grunt-scream has got to be the most naturally sounding expression of shock I have ever heard. The entire scene is the definition of disturbing. That Betty muffles that sound, but holds Rita - not to chastise her, but to steady her - is significant. They run from the apartment and their images split apart from a sight (a belief, or a premonition) so jarring that their minds are not able to stay within the bounds of their bodies.

The issues of duality and identity in the film are nebulous enough to inspire those almost-brilliant connection moments. But the duality of happiness is what the point of the film is for me. Without sadness, we do not know what happiness is. Without loneliness, we could not recognize love. As the first part of the film introduces someone lost, and another in a new place, they become fastened to one another. How do you know what you're feeling is real and true? By viewing yourself as if you had lost it or never had it in the first place.

The most powerful scene of the entire movie took place in Club Silencio. Its effect is such that logically everything must lead to it, and everything that follows is a result. Rebekah del Rio's unbelievably moving rendition of "Llorando" could be a requiem, but I saw it as her challenge, as Herb encouraged Dan, to go there to see if it is true. It is the being behind the restaurant, the room in the center of my nightmare house, or what Betty and/or Rita are most terrified of. As if by magic, Betty finds the blue box - the gateway to her hell, and as they open it to find what it contains, they disappear.

What is in the box is what is most inexplicably awful to either Betty or Rita. It is an imagining of what the woman in the bed had to go through in order to place her there, rotting for days without notice. "Hey, pretty girl. Time to wake up," says The Cowboy. Get out of the box and imagine what this woman's life was like. And Betty, with her bright frame of reference, could only imagine what would kill her the most, the hardest. A life where nothing is anchored. A love that goes out unwanted, and this beautiful and sweet woman, Rita - now Camilla, a one-dimensional, social climbing vamp, who appeared not only to scorn Diane, but to be not really interested in Adam either. To say nothing of the professional stunting and rejection: all the dreams you've been encouraged to chase and fulfill come to nothing.

The moving composition by Angelo Badalamenti that plays several times was a clue for me. Each time it plays during a soaring happiness. First it plays when Betty gets out of the cab at the studio. Most effectively it accompanies the stunning, almost stupid surprise the struck not only the audience, and me certainly, but Betty and Rita when they kissed each other. Again it played when Camilla leads Diane up the hill, for one last perfect moment of possibility. What a painful, beautiful ache that moment causes. Lastly, it plays during the last shot. The last shot is the ghostly figures of Betty and Rita, beaming at each other, with that moving score once again. Wonderfully open to interpretation, it can be what could have been, or what is. Of course, I choose to believe it as what is.

The blue box appeared several times. First, in Betty's purse. Then, most telling for me, as the horrible figure behind the restaurant is turning it around in its^[11] hands over and over. This only strengthened the connection between fear and the blue box. Dan called this figure, "The one who's doing it", which I took to mean the cause of his nightmare. Occasionally I got a tidbit from crackpot theories that abound on the internet,^[12] that I found compelling, such as a screenshot of Diane reaching for the gun in her bedside table, and in the drawer is a bright blue object. Is it the box again? How fitting, if it is.

[edit] Rejection

This sucks and I don't want to believe it. Being able to do so is a rare luxury, made possible by the myriad possibilities the film presents.

I am a bit of a lucid dreamer. I don't always control my dreams, but I can wake up when I want to, or stop a dream if it becomes too frightening or desperate. "Enough," I usually think. "No more. Wake up," and I do. Dreaming, for me, is and should be pleasant, and I experience enough depression and anxiety consciously that I don't think I should do it in my dreams. I think this is the reason I remember so many of my dreams about the room in the house; I wake up from them because they are so unpleasant. This is why I think I am able to consciously interpret the film the way I want it. I choose not to interpret the film cynically. I feel almost hedonistic in this approach, but I am not rejecting the "reality" of general consensus of what the film means as much as I am enjoying my own interpretation of what it means to me.

Much of what I feared in the first week after viewing the film was what the interpretation of the events in the film have to say about the people we are. Because I like Rita so much, does that mean I am controlling and I like women to acquiesce to my desires? Am I as hopelessly naive as Betty appears to be at first? Most chilling, am I too much like Diane, lost in the shards of what I wish I could be? However, I have to admit my most lucid aspect of interpretation is the rejection of the idea that Betty and Rita never existed; that they are a fantasy projection of a weak-minded narcissistic loser, and what they shared never existed, and by suggestion (another dimension of the figure behind the diner) - never could. Have cultural depictions of lesbian relationships stalled in evolution to the point that the film released in 2001 reflects a pulp novel released in 1952? "Enough," I thought. "No more".

Maybe I'm a bit like Homer Simpson, who sighs relief when he moves his rear view mirror away from the sight of chaos he just caused in the wake of his horrible driving, to reflect a pleasant pastoral scene of grazing deer. Yeah, well. I don't care. David Lynch, I'm convinced by reading his interviews, thinks in images. Beautiful and frightening images. He has described standing somewhere and getting a vision of what to put in his films and just feeling it is right (clearly without having to explain why). Taking a page from Mr. Lynch, my worries about what the film means, and what it means about me, disappeared when I turned the interpretation into what I wanted it to be, and it felt right.

[edit] See also

• The film's Wikipedia article, if you haven't already read it.
• Comment on this essay.
• More about this weird essay writer.

[edit] Oh, yeah