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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

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

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13:58 / 04.02.02

Yeah.
Sorry if my above post makes out that I'm opposed to reading/formulating different interpretations - on the contrary, bring 'em on.

I just think looking for the 'truth' is kind of silly when it comes to Lynch..

Murray Hamhandler

17:13 / 04.02.02

Okay. I've seen it thrice now (twice in the past two weeks) and here I go.
The second time I saw it, pretty much all the pieces of the plot fell into place for me. My interpretation, which seems to be the interpretation of many, is that the first two thirds are indeed a dream/psychotic re-imagining of life prior to that moment in time. The last third is a series of flashbacks interspersed w/horribly depressing and uneventful present. The plot itself is terribly pedestrian, when you boil it down to it's essence. It's done in such a novel way, though, w/a complete lack of typical Hollywood contrivance (no sledgehammer visual cues that tip one off to the presense of a dream sequence or flashback, for instance) that it seems completely fresh. I think that the most novel element is the externalizing of Diane's internal turbulence, without which we would probably feel no sympathy towards her. I can totally see this movie being done by a hack, in a completely pedestrian style, and making it a USA Original Movie. Anyway.

Showing us Diane's internal life brings theme to the forefront, once you get past trying to figure out what's going on. Obsession (w/love and/or Hollywood), being chewed up and spit out (by one's love and/or the Hollywood system)... I find it interesting that Diane's subconscious seems to be trying to rationalize her actions and make her realize that external forces that affect her life were ultimately beyond her control. That idea's still a little unformed in my head. Maybe I need to see it a fourth time.

Oh, and it got better every time, by the way.
Arthur Sudnam

20:23 / 04.02.02

But aren't there a couple of scenes that just completely fuck up the idea it's Diane's dream? Like the Cowboy saying, 'wake up now, pretty girl' - is that part of her dream, or real life? Or the burned up homeless person with the box, the inch-high grandparents coming out of it and terrorising Diane - is that supposed to be part of the dream?

As stated elsewhere, I like to think of it as a remake of Hellraiser.

12:44 / 05.02.02

quote:Originally posted by Dread Pirate Crunchy:

As stated elsewhere, I like to think of it as a remake of Hellraiser.

Yes!! It's so obvious!

The Natural Way

12:48 / 05.02.02

Yeah (I thought the same thing after I reviddied Hellraiser t'other night) but w/out the leather and delicious pain.

15:01 / 05.02.02

As I went into a mad occultic reading of the film in an earlier posting, relating this film more to Twin Peaks esoteria, I agree with the idea of reading Hellraiser into it.

Murray Hamhandler

17:01 / 05.02.02

But aren't there a couple of scenes that just completely fuck up the idea it's Diane's dream? Like the Cowboy saying, 'wake up now, pretty girl' - is that part of her dream, or real life?

That, to me, was about the only sledgehammer clue as to what had been going on in the first part of the movie. Yeah, I took it as the end of Diane's "dream" or hallucination or whatever, interrupted by the knocking on the door. The cowboy, like so many characters and places in her dream, are things that her subconscious refigured from her "real life". The cowboy, as we know him from the first part of the movie, never existed per se. He was just some funny looking guy who passed through Diane's peripheral vision at the traumatic party. Which I'll get back to in a minute.

Or the burned up homeless person with the box, the inch-high grandparents coming out of it and terrorising Diane - is that supposed to be part of the dream?

Okay. This, I think, is an extention of the externalization of Diane's internal world. I didn't take these things literally after I saw it this weekend. If the first two-thirds is a dream where we see the things that Diane's fevered brain cooks up in sleep, then some of the things that we see in the last third are things she imagines are real in her conscious world. The homeless person is maybe an externalization of the horrible thing she's done. The box perhaps is something that dreams go into and harsh reality comes out of. The old people, despite how they're refigured for the dream, are her parents. At the end, she's haunted by what she perceives as her failure in her parents' eyes (failure to make it in Hollywood, sinking so low as to have another person killed). It's too much to bear, so she kills herself.

Back to that party...that seems to be where everything comes to a head. Most of the characters reconfigured for the dream pop up here. Diane sees the cowboy and the Castigliani brother and her subconscious makes -them- the arbiters of her fate. They are the ones responsible for forcing Adam to cast Camilla, possibly to even fall in love w/her, in Diane's dream. The blame falls solely outside of her and Camilla. I dunno. Still a bit on the undercooked side, that thought, but there's definitely something there.
Arthur Sudnam

19:35 / 05.02.02

If I accepted that the first part was a dream, I'd have to say it was a tribute to The Wizard of Oz. "And you were there... and you... and you!" When I was watching it, the first thing I thought about Betty was "she's acting exactly like Judy Garland as Dorothy" - and of course Judy has special resonances in a film about the traumas of Hollywood. Coco as the Glinda ("only bad witches are ugly"), Rita as the Scarecrow (amnesia="if i only had a brain"), Adam as the Wizard who could solve all their problems, if only he wasn't a powerless illusion having his strings pulled by the guy behind the curtains. Homeless weirdo, Wicked Witch of the West. Old folks as Aunty Em and - what was his name - the kindly old folks who reclaim her for the 'real world' in the end. Of course, I think I'd be stretching to find a Tin Woodsman or Cowardly Lion but obviously the argument still stands.

Murray Hamhandler

20:37 / 05.02.02

If I accepted that the first part was a dream, I'd have to say it was a tribute to The Wizard of Oz.

Well, it wouldn't be Lynch's first time (see: Wild At Heart), so I guess it's not completely out of the question. Your interpretation is as valid as anyone else's.
Arthur Sudnam

The Natural Way

06:47 / 06.02.02

I'll say it again: DREAM IS TOO LITERAL.

"And she dreamt the first bit and then it was all real.."

C'mon, please.

The whole thing's a collage - engrams and involutes describing the outline of an event/process that has no fixed location internally or externally. Yeah, we're viddying the mind of a heartbrocken murderer, but to reduce the events to a rigid space/place/time/meaning... I don't think it works.

08:20 / 06.02.02

I just think of interpretations as ways for individuals to get more out of films, so arguing about whose is best seems redundant - I just want us to pump out more of them. Even if I think some of them are stupid or reductive, I am glad to see so many competing/interacting theories in this thread. If it works better for you to think of it as a dream, cool; if it works better as a Wizard of Oz remake, cool; if it works better as a collage of fucked-up engrams, cool. I don't see much point trying to argue other people out of their interpretations, though (not that I haven't been guilty of this...)

The Natural Way

08:57 / 06.02.02

Actually, that's a really good idea and it ties in w/ something I was moaning about the other day re this site.

Cool.

More, more, more.

Murray Hamhandler

17:33 / 06.02.02

Thank you, DPC. Words out of my mouth and whatnot. If the interpretation seems as airtight as the dream theory seems to me, then I feel that it's valid. Doesn't invalidate anyone else's theory. And besides that, it's just a theory about the plot. If anyone feels that the dream theory somehow doesn't jibe w/other themes w/in the movie, let me know.
Arthur Sudnam

09:27 / 07.02.02

I think that Muholland Drive is whatever we want it to be. We all see it differently. In our own way. I think it's a work of art, and should be viewed accordingly. What do we want to get from it?

Can we really know exactly what David Lynch was trying to express when he made it? Can we really know what Salvador Dali was trying to express when he made any of his paintings? Mulholland Drive is however we view it. We get whatever we want from from it. If we think it was a dream, it was. If we think it was all about symbolism, it was. If we think it had a complex yet crucial plot, it did. If we think it was an excercise in nonsense, it was.

The Return Of Rothkoid

09:27 / 07.02.02

quote:Originally posted by Rizla Year Zero:
His stories don't make sense - get over it.
See, that's where you're wrong. He's always suggested (and though I can't find the interview where he says it at the moment, specifically said of Lost Highway) that his movies are entirely logical if you approach them from a particular angle. LH was meant to be a very simple story if you had the right viewpoint on it.

Rage: I think that on a personal level, a film is whatever you want it to be, but that doesn't make it that, definitively. While we won't ever (unless we're buddies with them - I wish) know exactly what Lynch or Dali or whoever had in mind when they were creating, our take is personal opinion: it's not necessarily the way it's meant to be taken, or the reading that's right. But if it works on a personal level, then yes, it's fine. That probably applies to more abstract films like Lynch's, rather than straight narrative flicks, though.

15:47 / 07.02.02

All this that the film doesn't or can't make sense is pure foolishness. Lynch posted clues, for fuck's sake - obviously he has a very specific interpretation in mind. Watching the film with his clues in mind, the general structure - i.e. what is dream and what is not - is fairly obvious. There are still ambiguities, but the overall structure is hard to argue.

That being said, people's own unaided visions of what the film means remain as interesting as Lynch's explanation - they're all valid. Just don't try to tell me that Lynch didn't have something specific in mind when he made it.

Murray Hamhandler

16:03 / 07.02.02

Somewhere in the Twin Peaks box set, there's an interview w/Michael Anderson (Man From Another Place, Mr. Roque), and he recounts an anecdote about overhearing David Lynch as he watched dailies exclaim, "Yeah, maybe that's what I meant by that..."
Just thought you might be interested.
Arthur Sudnam

16:15 / 07.02.02

I've seen that. And there are definitely moments of that in Mulholland. But he and Frost always knew who had killed Laura, and why - they just didn't know how they were going to exress it.

The same holds true, i think, for Mulholland. He knows what the structure is, and what it means to the characters, while there may be details that are obscure even to him.

The Return Of Rothkoid

09:58 / 08.02.02

Indeed - after all, he's suggested repeatedly that he doesn't know why The Black Lodge from TP works so well, but just hooks in on the fact that it does. He reckons it came to him in a dream, and while he knows what it represents as far as the narrative goes, there's other aspects of it which're a little further out of reach for him.

09:58 / 08.02.02

Who cares what Lynch thinks?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

09:58 / 08.02.02

I remember reading an interview with him in which he said that while writing LH, he and Barry Gifford actually had totally different views on what the movie was actually about...
the beauty of movies like this is that your enjoyment goes on way past the two hours it actually lasts. Both times I've seen it (with different groups of people) I've said beforehand- "right, after this we're all off down the pub to argue about it". And that was/is, in some ways, one of the things that really makes it.

The Natural Way

09:58 / 08.02.02

No, no, no...who cares what WE think. You know, the post structuralist/death of the author thing is just as boring - I like mulling over what Lynch had in mind. I WOULD like him to tell me. I'm nosey, and I'd like to see how well the whole thing *works* w/ that knowledge in mind.

Videodrome, I should clear one thing up: I do think the film is ostensibly *about* a woman who arrives in Hollywood, falls in love and kills her lover, and I do think the 1st part is best described as "fantasy". But all this "she is wanking/dreaming and then she wakes up" business.....

The whole thing seems...haunted, somehow - all the heavily emotionally charged objects/spaces/beings/etc: the black bedroom, the box, Mulholland Drive.... The film...it seems as though someone's trying to work through something, a mind reworking an old trauma, devouring itself. It's all very "hungry ghost".

There is the sense of an absence; as though something is forced to play itself out, some violent, habitual process - a psychic scar that won't heal - but we know where it leads: Death. The absence looms over everything, and occasionally makes itself visible, as the cracks begin to appear in the cute, comfortable love story the deluded spirit clothes itself in.

And stuff.

09:58 / 08.02.02

Even if you asked Lynch what he meant, what would make you think he would have one clear answer? I mean it seems to me like he probably had as many ideas as the people in this thread at different times, even the same time..... sure the death of the author is boring (well, getting hit by a truck is pretty funny yagotta admit) but still, his list of clues looks like a joke at the expense of "it must make linear sense" types to me.

The Natural Way

09:58 / 08.02.02

Recently, in an interview (can't find the link so you'll just have to trust me) Lynch - and I know how unlikely this sounds - actually stated that he knew what his films were *about*, but that he didn't want to mess w/ his audiences interpretations of them. So there you go. Anyway, Jackie, I'm playing the spew theories/metaphors game...

09:58 / 08.02.02

...his list of clues looks like a joke at the expense of "it must make linear sense" types to me.

I don't buy that. He takes his stuff pretty seriously and has never been one to make fun of people who like his work and are interested in discussing it. Indulging them has always been another matter...
The list of clues makes me think he's pretty into the attention the film's been getting, and someone convinced him that throwing people a serious bone wouldn't hurt. I think he's excited that people are cativated enough by this to discuss it at length - it's the same effect Twin Peaks had and very likely what he would have liked to generate through the Mulholland series. And while he doesn't make fun of his fans, every bit of attention the film gets is just another stick in ABC's eye.

But who cares what Lynch thinks? Well, since he made the film, I'm curious, but ultimately it doesn't matter much. I just think it's foolish to assume that the guy had no idea what he was making and that the film has no structure or intended meaning.

10:22 / 08.02.02

He managed to do it once again. Create post viewing discussion regarding the meaning of his work. We can't escape the delight of postualting on meaning, its a narrative addiction.

The Natural Way

10:58 / 08.02.02

I am blinded by revelation.

05:39 / 10.02.02

i saw this again last night and wanted to point out a couple of things...

after betty and rita disappear, there's a shot of diane sleeping on her bed in the same position she was in when betty and rita found her dead (does that make sense?) cut to the cowboy opening the door and saying his line - 'time to wake up, pretty girl,' or whatever it is. cut back to diane, same position, but dead this time - you can tell by the colour of the skin on her leg (green and scaly when she's dead). cut back to the cowboy, closing the door. cut back to diane, alive again. WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

i'm not sure but i think the film adam is working on in the first half is 'the sylvia north story' - which is the film diane says she met camilla on in the end bit. (you hear the name in the scene where he's auditioning actresses, somebody yells it in the background but it's hard to make out - definitely 'the (something) story'). this seems to support the dream/wish fulfilment story.

however, even if the first part is a dream that doesn't mean it isn't real - ala twin peaks where you eventually find out that cooper's dream from the pilot is something that actually happened to him in the black lodge 25 years later. there are certainly spooky things happening around diane, i.e. the homeless monster, box, old folks.

another new theory, they are at silencio fucking freaking out when this weird blue light washes over everything and then they find the box, disappear, diane's story happens... the last shot of the film, after diane shoots herself and the room fills with smoke, is back at silencio, blue lights flickering, then up the blue-haired woman to say 'silencio'. what if the diane parts are the dream - maybe betty's while she's spasming in the audience? see also the above 'just cause it's a dream doesn't mean it isn't real' thing...

then there's the 'part of the same universe with twin peaks and lost highway' theory which the lynch fanboy in me wants to push...

20:01 / 10.02.02

One other thing; the guy who introduces the woman who 'sings' at Silencio also runs the cheap hotel Adam stays at.

22:34 / 10.02.02

Some here might find it interesting to read the screenplay for the original pilot. It gives a good idea of where the series might have gone, and of the reworking that was done for the feature.

10:08 / 11.02.02

quote:Originally posted by Dread Pirate Crunchy:
One other thing; the guy who introduces the woman who 'sings' at Silencio also runs the cheap hotel Adam stays at.

And the bloke with the amusing moustache who comes out from behind the curtain when the singer collapses appears somewhere else in the film too, though I can't remember where.. or, er, oh, what's what you were refering to wasn't it .. sorry..

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

08:43 / 15.02.02

A friend of mine saw it yesterday, and decided it was all about them running out of electricity- the key, the box, the hitman shooting the hoover (cos it was flagrantly using a diminishing resource)...
bollocks, but fun.

Videodrome (great name, btw- my fave Cronenberg movie), can you post that link again? I couldn't get it to open, and I'd LUURVE to read that.

The Return Of Rothkoid

11:35 / 15.02.02

quote:Originally posted by Moominstoat:
bollocks, but fun.
Hmmm. Maybe not. Electricity (or the lack thereof) is a pretty important motif in Lynch's films; it shows up in many of them - yer friend could well be onto something...

12:46 / 15.02.02

Here's the screenplay link again - managed to bugger it (empty link) the first time. Sorry.
http://davidlynch.topcities.com/mdrive/mdscript.html

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

07:02 / 16.02.02

Oh yeah... he also cited the light flickering at the paddock (and indeed in pretty much every other Lynch movie). I brought up the guy with the switch at the beginning/end of Eraserhead.
Cheers, videodrome, I shall try and print that out at work tonight.

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