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[SPOILERS!] Mulholland Drive: Who is the dreamer?

  
  

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Down
14:38 / 02.12.01
Mulholland drive is a movie about dreams(see the purple pillow at the beginning)... the first part of the movie is about the Diane's dream.
But what about the second part?Diane selwin has a blue key too(like rita in the fist part) so she is in a dream too.Blue keys and boxes are like...well dreamgates.
But who is the last dreamer? The man in the "Winkie's" at the beginning of the film(the one with the heart attack)? The dirty homeless in the backyard? Or perhaps Diane selwin dying in her bedroom, on the purple pillow(it's my point of view)? The woman(?) with the blue colored hairs in the theater? Or someone else...?


[ 03-12-2001: Message edited by: The Return Of Rothkoid ]
 
 
The Return Of Rothkoid
07:50 / 03.12.01
Valor: I edited your post to put "spoilers" in the title, as I don't think that this flick's come out in the UK on general release yet...

Also: don't know if it's any help, but there's an extensive story here analysing the movie...
 
 
Down
08:43 / 03.12.01
Thank you for this interesting link, Rothkoid .
 
 
The Return Of Rothkoid
08:43 / 03.12.01
Cheers, valor! Just out of interest - did the film live up to your expectations for Lynch? A friend of mine who's a big fan of his work was rather disappointed in this film.

They're currently looking for a new home, but LynchNet have info on the film here.
 
 
Down
16:54 / 03.12.01
Yes! I love "blue velvet" and "lost highway" ."Mulholland" is the kind of lynch 'film i like.
With this movie he achieves what he began with "blue velvet":communication through flashes of sensations rather than linear logic.he guides us slowly and smoothly to a breakdown in our casual perception of life by a progressive overwhelming of sensations.It's not chaos ,it's not pretentious experimental movie(like frenchs like it!! ).It's another kind of logic.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
22:03 / 05.01.02
The thing about Mulholland Drive is: there's a fairly obvious explanation for everything. But it's such a depressing and upsetting explanation, we'd rather cling to the weirdness and try to figure out an alternative...

"Time to wake up now, pretty girl..."
 
 
The Return Of Rothkoid
01:33 / 06.01.02
I agree with Flyboy: after seeing it this afternoon, I thought it was all pretty much laid out there. The story's simple, and relentlessly depressing, once you've pieced together what's happening.

I felt it was very similar to Lost Highway in terms of structure, though a lot easier to follow. He seems to have been tightening things up a bit, though; it's certainly not as ponderous a film as LH was; though it's also not as effective, in some ways. Darker? I don't think so, really; then again, there seem to be more concessions to watchability in MD; there's more humour, for example, and it fairly zips along.

Oh, and it has Billy Ray Cyrus in it. Fucking yes!

Valor; I don't know if dreaming would be the best term for what the main character is doing. I found it to be a movie of reinvention, of daydreaming/fantasising, perhaps - in the face of reality and terror and the aftermath of one's acts.

The blue box could signify a transition from reality to the imagined; a convenient tool to show that we're "through the looking glass" at any given time, but I think it's a bit more than that, given that it ends up with the homeless guy. (Who, I think, has more than a little in common with the "Engineer" character in Eraserhead) I need to think a bit more.

Oh, nice to see a big "fuck you" to Hollywood in there, too. All over the place, really...

[ 06-01-2002: Message edited by: The Return Of Rothkoid ]
 
 
rexpop
22:10 / 06.01.02
The plot summary at IMDB is probably the best description of who is dreaming who, and actually makes most of the film make sense (with the exception of the alley bit at the start which still makes no sense to me).
http://us.imdb.com/Plot?0166924
 
 
The Natural Way
10:06 / 07.01.02
I fuckin' loved it. Neat little analysis, but be careful you don't reduce it too much, eh....

Oh, BTW, I've just spent the last hour and a bit hunting down the soundtrack in the west end. Eventually stumbled across the last copy in the lickle HMV in Covent Garden. If yr thinking about trying Picadilly or Oxford street, don't bother. S'not there.

Yahboo sucks.
 
 
The Return Of Rothkoid
10:27 / 07.01.02
[offtopic]
How much didjer pay? I'm considering purchasing, and the cheapest I can find it online is £12. I know it's about £15 in the shops...
[/offtopic]
 
 
The Natural Way
10:46 / 07.01.02
16 quid. I don't think it's gonna get a lot cheaper: there's a lot of demand.

The guy in Tower said they'd be getting some more in on Wednesday....
 
 
The Planet of Sound
14:08 / 07.01.02
I saw it yesterday; jolly good. Yes, it's about dreams (both nightly kind and aspirations - Hollywood) but also about mental incoherence, brain damage, aphasia, apraxia, agnosia. Remember the film kicks off with 'Rita's concussion; much of what we experience is a typically Lynch attempt to explore her (or Betty's?) confused mental state where identities and facts are blurred and warped.

All this and gratuitous sex too! Marvellous...
 
 
The Natural Way
14:28 / 07.01.02
Didn't think the sex was gratuitous at all.
 
 
The Return Of Rothkoid
14:54 / 07.01.02
Not if you view the story a certain way, no.

I do think the IMDB thing is a little reductionist. The Salon article linked above is kinda closer to the truth; but I thought it was easy enough to decode without recourse to a lot more information - it's pretty much all Diane/Betty's story, as far as I can see...
 
 
Twig the Wonder Kid
15:15 / 07.01.02
It was Diane concocting a fantasy to relieve her guilt over having her ex lover murdered.

It was Camilla/Rita reliving her rise and fall following her death.

It was the invention of the young man in the cafe who's dreams were coming true.

It was a shared dream space everyone could visit, just like in the movies.

It was all of the above.

Fan-fucking-tastic.
 
 
The Natural Way
06:42 / 08.01.02
I was talking about the Salon article. The other one was just plain crap.
 
 
The Return Of Rothkoid
06:42 / 08.01.02
A little offtopic: how's the soundtrack stand up on its own?
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
15:38 / 12.01.02
(Not checked out any links, or anyone else's analysis yet, so...)
I came out of the cinema, had this discussion in the pub afterwards. I figured it was the homeless guy's dream. ("There's a man in back of here... he's the one who's doing it"- this seemed to be a key line, in the way that Fred saying "I like to remember things my own way... how I remember them. Not necessarily the way they happened" was in Lost Highway).
then I woke up this morning thinking the homeless guy could be the director guy later in life...
BUT the scary old people part, and the repetition of the script line "but my parents are upstairs" kind of threw me when I thought about it... as did the very end... Possibly she's dreaming about him, as a wish-fulfilment thing?
Oh yes, I liked this movie. Like "Lost Highway", I'm still thinking about it a week later. (Though "LH" STILL has me going years on.) That's GOTTA be value for money. You pay your fiver, you get so much more than just two hours' entertainment.
OK. So the Twin Peaks dwarf-that-speaks-backwards/Man From Another Place correlates to the "I'm at your house" guy in LH... as far as I can tell... (only he's nastier). Is the Cowboy in Mulholland Drive the same thing?
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
16:01 / 12.01.02
Just checked out your link, Rothkoid... had a whole heap of shit which had never occurred to me...

As with Lost Highway, I figure this is gonna be a film which rewards repeated viewings.

And, as I said before, I loved every second of it. It's weird, though... as I came out, I was thinking "hmmm, not quite as dark as LH", but on reflection... again, as I said, that's what I loved about LH...

Hmmm...

But... any comments on my whole Twin Peaks dwarf/white-faced Lost Highway guy/Cowboy parallel?

I was also (which kind of fucks my whole theory up, but still) reminded, by the "he's the one" line in MH, reminded of the guy at the beginning and end of Eraserhead, who flicks the switch, and who I always thought was supposed to be God when I was a kid...

Edited to add... I should possibly get out more.
 
 
The Natural Way
14:36 / 13.01.02
Soundtrack?

Love it, actually. Nicely eclectic - ranging from the heavy jazzy drums of the opening sequence, to ethereal, sweet sixties love ditties, to the downright sinister and brooding (and somewhat reminiscent of the synthy tunes in Twin Peaks) Mulholland Drive theme itself - but somehow, inspite of its tendency to veer off on strange, disparate musical tangents, something holds it all together. The whole thing's imbued with a kind of creepy integrity.....

Can't listen to it at night: my mind keeps wandering to a bed in a black room, smoke rising all around....

I think having seen the film does add an extra spooky frisson to the album, but I'm sure I'd dig it anyhoo.

[ 13-01-2002: Message edited by: Guns 'n' Runces ]
 
 
yawn - thing's buddy
17:23 / 18.01.02
saw it last night.

the cowboy was hilarious! those clothes, man.

the theatre - wow

the 'audition' - brilliant.

also: I thought lost highway was 'tighter'.

finally: 'followed through' walkng through my mum and dads 'victorian garden' after midnight.

those tiny custodians. yesssssssssss.
 
 
autopilot disengaged
12:50 / 20.01.02
just to further muddy the waters - here are David Lynch's Ten Clues for Understanding Mulholland Drive:

1) Pay particular attention to the beginning of the film: at least two clues are revealed before the credits.

2) Notice appearances of the red lampshade.

3) Can you hear the title of the film that Adam Kesher is auditioning actresses for? Is it mentioned again?

4) An accident is a terrible event... Notice the location of the accident.

5) Who gives a key, and why?

6) Notice the robe, the ashtray, the coffee cup.

7) What is felt, realised and gathered at the club Silencio?

8) Did talent alone help Camilla?

9) Note the occurrences surrounding the man behind 'Winkies'

10) Where is Aunt Ruth?

from ...
 
 
The Natural Way
08:22 / 21.01.02
...And, if all that fails, try Tibetan method.

It's interesting, after the cussing Lost Highway received, how most of the critics seem to dig on Lynch's new thing (esp when, stylistically, it shares so much in common w/ Highway - dislocated identity, fractured narrative, etc). I know it's a cliche, but....has it just taken them this much time to catch up?

[ 21-01-2002: Message edited by: Sgunnice Runcheon 'n' ]
 
 
Rev. Wright
13:55 / 21.01.02
Go on state the obvious, Will
Ok
I fucking loved this movie!
Well done Will
Thanks

I've read the articles explaining what they thought was going on and they are most probably correct, but I can't help thinking of my own reading, based on my Lynch experience. For my crimes I will submit some of the ideas upon the altar:

Much like tha tbackdrop of Twin Peaks, Lynch has a very interesting way of expressing the occult. In Twin peaks as in Lost Highway and somewhat earlier films there are two forces at play Good/Bad. The spirits of these, especially bad, are known to feed on the emotions of humans, a la Bob's use of Laura's fear to power his activities, such as opeing a portal to the Black lodge. The Demon in Lost Highway also plays with Human souls, and traps sould to do his bidding.
In Mulholland Drive the motifs of the Red Curtains, snokes, flickering neon/light are signals of the Supernatural as before.

So in my reading, Diane/Betty is a fresh soul trapped, escorted to Hollywood by The Dark(tramps) ones minions. She is caught into a cycle of lost personality, similar to Laura Palmer and seduced by Camilla/Rita who is another trapped soul, but aspiring minion.

The Cowboy is either an Angel or Guide, attempting to warn Adam of his involvement with powers beyond his control. The power struggle involving other Dark lords, ,linked to the movie industry. Do we see the cowboy in the film three times and notice that Adam is now caught up with Camilla, did he do wrong?

Wake up little girl.
Is it not time for her soul to leave this body and ascend?
The first body they find is that of the singer in Silencia, Diane/Betty now takes her place, this is represented by the shot f the mike at teh end. The club is run by another spirit/demon, the blue haired woman.

The Log lady and the Psychic are similar characters?

The dreamer, who goes to the Winkies, is he also psychic and can see the events taking place within Hollywood and the demons activities?

The Blue box, with which the demons stores his minions. Rita enters the box upon her successful moission, Betty at this point is drawn into the demons new reality, via her sexuality. Is sex the food, rather than fear?

All roads lead to the employment of Demons, with each of them attempting to out wit the other. Thus Camilla/Rita is assisted from the attempt on her life, by the car accident, and sent on a new mission.

I know its probably futile to create a reading like this, but I can't help it.
Now do I brace myself for the worst.

[ 21-01-2002: Message edited by: Will 'it work' Wright ]
 
 
lentil
14:50 / 21.01.02
Was going to write a really long post but have just been told i can leave the office so will just bash one off b4 going home: I didn't think it was about anything as much as making films, telling stories, and what happens to characters when they are just fictional constructs? You have a range of stock film characters who can be played by different actors. the more defined someone's role is the more two dimensional they become. what a banal post.
 
 
The Natural Way
06:42 / 22.01.02
I don't agree w/ that at all. If the film was simply an excuse to demonstrate the relative permeability/transparency/interchangeability of "fictional constructs", then...well, ummm...what can I say? Very cheap. If that was the case, I'm not sure the film would've held me emotionally at all. I mean, okay, Mulholland drive does demonstrate the things you describe, but it does a whole lot more than that. The murder "narrative" (although, I hate the word "narrative" in this context - the film is more like a web, a collage of emotion/situation/identity that somehow describes/infers a terrible event - the *geometry* of a murder) is very strong - I'm not sure why yr not picking it up.

[ 22-01-2002: Message edited by: Sgunnice Runcheon 'n' ]
 
 
lentil
07:11 / 22.01.02
I think what I was disagreeing with was more the idea that the film had to be understood in terms of 'dreams' or 'reality', it seems reductive to try to identify one strand or another as being the authentic narrative. I'm not trying to say that it was only about the use of fictional constructs; as you said, it wouldn't have held me emotionally if that were the case. That was the first thing that struck me after leaving the cinema, though, and it does impact on the emotional content: both of the leading ladies are originally seen in positions of searching for an identity to assume (actress, amnesiac), and in my opinion are the most rounded/believeable during that section. The cold factuality of their change in identity is tragic and brutal in its sudden diminishing of possibilities, and adds a horror to their disposability/transparency in the later part of the film, both in terms of their manipulation within the narrative by the shady echelons of Hollywood, and their manipulation in the cinema by Lynch.
"It makes me wish I'd been nicer to my characters. If I'd known they were going to come back to haunt me I would have made them all twenty year olds with bodies like Michaelangelo's David", to badly paraphrase Peter Milligan
 
 
The Natural Way
07:51 / 22.01.02
Mmmm, I like that post. Yes, yr right, the diminishing of possibility is sooooo harsh. From the Hollywood horizon to black murder rooms.....nasty. And yes, I agree, reducing the film (or parts of it) to a "dream" etc is a little too....literalistic, for me. A bit simple. Lynch uses the language of dreams to describe his environments, but it doesn't necessarily follow that "the first half is Diane reimagining her past", etc - as though the film were a linear, progressive series of events: woman wanks over murder inspired by jealousy and then kills herself - rather, as I mentioned before, I prefer to understand Lynch's films as a web (or a collage) that serve to describe the overall geometry/structure of an event/process. It does seem interesting to me, however, that the 1st section is all A to
Bish storytime: it does suggest a desire to negotiate some kind of order, some kind of structure, out of the chaotic emotional landscape that begins to reveal itself as the cracks start to emerge in the narrative. It does illustrate a desire to work through something. The film is, if you like, the autopsy of a Hollywood fantasy, mapped across the body of a woman - the "heroine".

[ 22-01-2002: Message edited by: Sgunnice Runcheon 'n' ]
 
 
videodrome
01:42 / 29.01.02
Just come from seeing it a second time, with an opinion fairly revised. I was the one Roth mentioned way back at thread-start who didn't like the film, and while I still feel that it's flawed, I think I must have been asleep the first time.

There's been a lot here already and I'm tired so I'll keep this short. Haven't read the articles referred above because I wanted to hold off on other's interpretations. So if the following echoes stuff elsewhere, sorry.

For my money, the old people are Diane's ambitions/dreams. They escort her to Hollywood and mock her when she's in a lucid moment of self realization. Just as in LH, Lynch shows us the cracks in the delusion with the shot of the old couple looking decidedly maniac in the limo.

For the guy behind Winkies, I say it's not a guy at all. I'm going with Diane, had she lived. It's a semi-future, a point on every timelime. The bum is failure and that's why the nameless exec/writer/whatever fears it and why the direct confrontation kills him. The blue box, open and void of dreams, is what cinches this one for me.

[ 29-01-2002: Message edited by: videodrome ]
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
23:47 / 01.02.02
Yup, on a second viewing, I have to say the old homeless guy being Diane thing occurred to me too...
but what bugged me this time round, is the key (the second-half, more "normal" variant of the key)- the woman who she's swapped flats with comes round to get her stuff. the key is already there, on the table. this is before the hitman says he'll leave it as a sign.
I may have to go see it again tomorrow... ahhh, such is life...
 
 
videodrome
22:24 / 02.02.02
Even once you get out of the initial large 'dream', there's a couple other levels of narrative that jump around a bit. The blue key is in the 'present' one and then there's a flashback narrative level. These are indicated largely by the cups Diane is drinking out of as each scene is framed...hence one of Lynch's clues.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
07:15 / 03.02.02
Another couple of hours & I'll have the whole movie from Morpheus... THEN I'll be able to devote some serious time to getting my head round the motherfucker without repeatedly spending huge wadges of dosh on seeing it...
And in retrospect, I take back my initial thoughts when I saw it- I actually prefer it to Lost Highway, previously my favourite Lynch movie.
 
 
Jackie Susann
04:09 / 04.02.02
I just saw it, and I thought it was much more about time than dreams, reality, identity, whatever. [/wanker]

And didn't the homeless weirdo look like a fucked up version of Louise to you guys?
 
 
rizla mission
13:12 / 04.02.02
(please note - for some reason I can't access the 2nd page of this thread, so sorry if I'm re-stating stuff already said or getting in the way)

I saw Mulholland Drive the other night and to say I loved it would be an understatement.

Absolutely David Lynch's best film, and that's saying something.

And the fact that it's being inflicted on unsuspecting multiplex patrons who went in to see an 'acclaimed thriller' makes me want to jump for joy.

Mindblowing in the best possible way - stretching the Lynchian 'thing' to absolutely fantastic extremes..

BUT

I find it faintly hilarious that people are analysing this film like it's a mystery that can be solved. To me, the whole greatness of Lynch's films is that there is NO coherent explanation - they don't work on linear logic, trying to decode them like you would, say, Momento is absolutely pointless.

His stories don't make sense - get over it.

Rather than being some kind of conscious 'who's dreaming who' scenario, I think Mulholland Drive works ENTIRELY on dream logic - it IS a dream.

My pet theory (don't know how plausible it is, never read any interviews with the man) is that David Lynch's films (and I'm thinking Mulholland Drive, Lost Highway and Eraserhead here) are based directly on his dreams (or visions) rather than consciously created...

(My other theory is that the ever-present scary dwarf / cowboy / sinister agent of control characters are malignant ultra-terrestrials - the scary wee folk - manipulating the human protagonists in order to further their own mysterious and twisted ends .. but the less said about that one the better.)
 
 
videodrome
13:30 / 04.02.02
You're right in one sense Rizla, it is a dream. And that's why people's decodings are interesting. I don't think I'll ever know what was in Lynch's head when he made it, but I know what the film meant to me, how it's pieces ordered themselves in my mind, and if you don't want to hear us talk about it, don't be bothered to read the thread. The reason Lynch's stuff is so great is that each film is that rare piece of cinema that allows discussion to say more about each viewer than about the filmmaker.
 
  

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