Mulholland Drive
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a silence dream?
>>By Michelina (Monday, 2 Dec 2002 14:48)
what happened.........i can't figure this out?
>>By daph (Sunday, 22 Dec 2002 19:58)
Some female actor is visiting some city. Then a car accident and a lot of strange things happen... My favorite movie in 2002.
>>By mg (Monday, 23 Dec 2002 19:37)
does anyone else get the feeling that the blonde girl that stays at her aunts
some how becomes the brown haired girls ex lover that died
n whats up with the cowboy how many times was he seen?
>>By cameo (Saturday, 18 Jan 2003 09:52)
I've seen the movie and like just about everyone else, you will have your own take on the movie. I have the DVD movie and I'm disappointed that
David Lynch censored or gave in to censorship of certain parts of the movie. If he felt that strong about, he should have never showed the movie like that at the theatres. There will always be explotation, no one can control that. David Lynch exploited movie fans, I like movies and independent films, however when censorship enters the picture, no pun intended, you have given up part of your artistic values.
>>By what the hec (Monday, 20 Jan 2003 17:14)
IF YOUR STANDARD OF MOVIES IS DIS-JOINTED NON STRUCTURED WAFFLE THEN THIS IS A WINNER... TO ME IT IS LIKE HAVING MUSIC PLAYING THAT LACKS ANY FORM OF TIMING, TO HOLD ONE'S INTEREST OR A PAINTING THAT LEAVE'S THE THE FRAME AND IS HALF PAINTED ON YOUR LOUNGE WALL ...I UNDERSTAND WHAT WAS TRYING TO BE ACHIVED HERE, BUT BELIVE IT TO BE A BIGGG MISS..
>>By THE KING IS NAKED (Tuesday, 21 Jan 2003 21:34)
I just watched this movie last night and I am soooo confused. I didn't understand any of the ending. At first I thought they were all acting parts of different films. I didn't understand what the homeless person had to do with any of the film. And a few others for that matter. And then to see the old couple slipping under the door..... I'm sorry this became derranged.
>>By JESSE (Friday, 24 Jan 2003 20:24)
Having seen a number of David Lynch's films, I was able to follow his plot. But I criticize him for the traditional "lesbian killer." I watched it with my gay friend John right next to me, and all I could think of at the end was how badly people like him are too often portrayed in films.
>>By redcatdave (Saturday, 25 Jan 2003 14:03)
Well since it was david Lynch, I never tried to comprehend it from the start.........................the only thing to keep in mind is that it was meant to be tv-series - a Twin Peaks for the new millennium (so a lot of threads were never fully worked since you only have so much time in a movie)
>>By DeeCeeMike (Friday, 7 Feb 2003 21:37)
ok... is anyone able to explain this movie to me? or is it just impossible to explain
>>By btucks (Monday, 10 Feb 2003 04:06)
nevermind... I've figured it out.
It's the blue box...
>>By btucks (Monday, 10 Feb 2003 04:53)
I have been tring to figure out this movie all day! All I have come up with is that the blue box had something to do with starting a new life, but somehow these people's old lives caught up with them in the end. Other than that I am clueless!
>>By confused (Thursday, 6 Mar 2003 23:27)
I think most of the confusion from this movie comes from the fact that it was originally supposed to be the pilot for a twin peaks esque series. Hence, why the first 2 hours seem like a story and the last hour and a half seems so disjointed. He tried to tie up everything that was supposed to take seasons to tie up in that last hour and a half.
>>By someguy (Thursday, 13 Mar 2003 16:47)
This is my theory on the movies feel free to flames etc.
For 1, Camilla dies at start.
Dianne/Betty is the same person, when Dianne arrives in Hollywood she is always thrown to the side. She then finds a friend in Camilla of whom she promptly falls madly in love with , the 2 old people were the folks she spoke to on the 'real' time she arrived in Hollywood.
After much heartache of always being in Camilla's shadow and never making it in the movie buisness she becomes run down, she becomes very dependant on Camilla.
When she finds that Camilla does not even want her anymore she becomes crazy 'fatal attraction stylee' and cannot live without her, after going to the big movies party she finds this is the last straw and decide's to have Camilla 'hit'.
For the most part of the movie i believe it starts with Dianne speaking to the 'Hitman' and then finding the key of which is the symbol Camilla is dead. After realizing this means her only friend/happiness is dead she starts to halucinate/dream the perfect life i.e. getting the part in the movie and also the girl (Camilla with Amnesia), she dreams she is an amazing actress and a person everyone would love to know (no i did not say anything about being lesbian).
The Movie does show some scenes of things that actually happen i.e the director returning home to find his wife with the pool man, although i believe for the most part to be of her hallucinations, however these are based on real people/events i.e the directors mother (Coco) being the manageress of the apartment complex, she also dreams that her plan to kill Camilla was foiled by the accident and this was mixed in with her memories of arriving at Hollywood.
Some of the movie was just a 'red herring' i.e. the box etc these were just symbols of how her mind was working at the time and how messed up she was.
After realizing that all her world had collapsed, mixed with her hallucinations, she sees the old people as a symbol of how her dreams felt when she arrived in Hollywood and 'the way it was meant to be', when they come under the door they are laughing hysterically at her ambitions and vision of a great life in Hollywood, showing her again how messed up her life really is and what has actually happened, this is too much for her and she runs into the bedroom and shoots herself in the mouth.
Well there you have my theory anyways ... i think they are both dead and that the town are reading papers over the death of a famous actress on the front page, the suicide of another lesser know actress called Dianne and a hit man that got caught and shoved in jail for the murder of the actress.
By the way i liked the 'It's weird to be calling myself' bit when Betty phones Dianne.
PS Oh Yeah, she got the name for Betty off the waitress in the cafe just before she went home, got up, found the key and hallucinated.
PPS The guy that had the dream witnessed Dianne hiring the Hitman and could not get it out of his head, hense the psychiatrist he visits the coffee shop with.
i would love to hear other theory's .... Hazey.
>>By Hazey (Sunday, 16 Mar 2003 06:03)
I think you pretty much nailed it, Hazey.
>>By Eken (Sunday, 16 Mar 2003 18:46)
I'm just in it for the lesbo scenes...
hubba hubba
>>By Blast (Sunday, 16 Mar 2003 22:52)
Hey you guys/girls know of any other movies like this??, that was a great movie to watch and i have seen like the Usual Suspects and The Game/Arlington Road and things but never anything like this, i watched Donnie Darko the other night which i enjoyed and was quite messed up also but great because you could go to bed and think about the movie all night, anyways if you know of lesser known movies plz email me and let me know about them, thanks
Darren@codename-haze.com , have a good night , Hazey
>>By Hazey (Tuesday, 18 Mar 2003 04:31)
The movie is not supposed to make any sense...it is not supposed to leave you with a storyline wrapped up in a nice package. It is a movie that plays off all your emotions, completion is irrelevant. Don't watch the movie and try to figure out what is going on...you are just making things more difficult. Watch it and feel. Thats all you are meant to do.
>>By archangel (Saturday, 22 Mar 2003 20:03)
liked the female 'pre-recorded' song section, nice tune. loved the way Rita looked at Diane before the kiss. found the movie just gibberish otherwise. why bother with any plot whatsoever...if you are going to freeform just supply the LSD at the door...like a bad novel where the other runs out of imagination near the end and can bring it together.
>>By bohem (Wednesday, 26 Mar 2003 01:22)
i believe a lot of what hazey said, but the old people to me represent like her parents or something. She was poor and never had any influence from parents and what not, and wants to be someone when she is a nobody. The old people, represented the good parents she wanted, and were all for her in the beginning, and she felt that by the end she wasnt pleasing them, especially after she had her friend killed, yet they were still forcing there good will on her. She new she could not succeed and thought she was letting them down, and knew they would be disappoointed with her course of actions, she felt that she would constantly be plagued by them, as they continued to come at her even sliding under the door, so her only way out was suicide to escape the guilt and thoughts that she always had.
>>By rosco (Monday, 31 Mar 2003 23:00)
I agree pretty much with Hazey and also with archangel, however I believe that she was dreaming indeed, but it was kind of a dream made by someone, that is what club Silencio represents, that is why the guy says: "there is no band and yet there is music", it is like saying it is all dream, it is not real and yet you can feel it. that is why at the beginning all of the phone calls, to check if she has fallen in the dream.
I agree of what the old people represent and I think, that the homeless guy is a symbol of what is real, it might be crap, but it is reality after all.
I think that th guy from the beginning is waking up from his dream, and the fact that he has to face reality just freaks him out, the guy that is with him, is like tec support inside the dream (vanilla sky???)
however, there are many things that won´t make sense,after all it is all about a dream, dreams don´t make sense
>>By ale (Friday, 4 Apr 2003 03:36)
You kno the dissabled guy in the chair in the glass room (the weird dwarf from twin peaks i think)... what the el does he have todo with the story?
As for the cowboy, he said if do bad you will see him two more times, you do see him two more times, breifly. Was he just a distraction or did he have a purpose? Also notice when they break into the house and find the blonde girl dead on the bed. notice that we find out later that it is Better who dies on the bed, yet when she sees the body it is the other girl who is in shock, and betty shows barely any emotion. >
>>By TopDog (Tuesday, 22 Apr 2003 20:35)
thanks for all your ramblings..... but too be honest... none of it makes any sense!! Give us a story we can follow and not all this pretensious waffle!!! Give us American Pie any day of the week!!!
>>By M and P (Monday, 5 May 2003 10:36)
I was freakin' baffled. I watched the DVD which had a bunch of clues from Lynch, but it didn' help. Interesting, but confusing. Am I a dumbass?
>>By Daddy Cool (Thursday, 22 May 2003 22:50)
Hazey has it half sussed (in my humble opinion). I'll leave out the points where I think she's right on, so cross reference our analyses. The whole film up to the opening of the blue box (on return from Silencio) is Diane's dream; the episode in Winkie's with the two men is a flashback to the time Diane was in the diner, with her positioning herself as the man who's afraid (he was standing at the cash register in reality, as we later see, so she had to invent a second man). The scary guy behind the wall represents her hatred and guilt and all the feelings that add up to her suicide. Adam is the scapegoat for Camilla's rejection of Betty so she imagines him being victimised. The cowboy and the scary guy are thus linked: one is the symbol of Diane's playful revenge, the other represents the crushing mental consequences of real revenge.
The dwarf/espresso man etc all symbolise a politically motivated Holywood that Diane blames for losing the part to Camilla in the first place. (Diane sees the espresso man, drinking espresso, at the party; the dwarf as has been rightly pointed out is harder to explain, though again it could be Diane's hatred projected as handicap). The 50s singing tests at the auditions held by Adam are again attempts to ridicule the whole selection process (and connect it subtly to the jitterbug contest that started it all), and this is contrasted by the very fine (imagined) audition Diane as Betty produces for an underdog director, a display of sympathy in her subconscious for a "better" Holywood she wanted to believe existed (though again this is complicated by the link with corny 70's soap opera as epitomised by the script and the actor she performs with).
Silencio - my favorite concept and scene of all - is both a projection of the silence Diane already anticipates in death, and the relationship of dreams to reality. There are so many connotations that can be read into that scene, but the one that stands out is the fantasy of continuing to "sing" - and thus live - after death. Rebekah del Rio's gorgeous voice - trumping Naomi Watts' acting and Laura Harring's body as the most beautiful thing in the movie - is the opposite of "silencio", it is the will to live, and the only force that can lift Diane out of her increasingly turbid dreamscape and back to reality (symbolised by her shaking and the blue box). When the blue-haired woman utters "Silencio" at the end of the film, it represents the end of Rebekah's voice and of the thing that voice represents - Diane's life; and even this gesture has a delicious complexity, echoing the sensuous post-coital murmurs of Rita and linking sex (specifically the sexual relationship of Diane and Camilla) with death.
Needless to say I cannot praise this film enough - as a musician I feel it is the closest any movie has come to being a piece of music in itself, and I'd like to point out that anyone who has criticised the dialogue or acting as being second rate has totally missed the point. Lynch is always being referential in some way and if he writes bad dialogue it's specifically to produce certain associations in the audience which prove crucial to piecing the puzzle together (or just giving us the pleasure of recognition). And as for those who are annoyed by his penchant for screwing around with narrative - fair enough, but it's an approach to cinema that really shows what the genre can do, and challenges our super-smart, seen-it-all before postmodern attitudes, while creating beautiful structures of sound, sight and symbols.
>>By TR (Sunday, 25 May 2003 21:08)
I just saw the movie and is so confused, what was real?, the DVD have some clues, but i can´t see any...maybe i have to watch the movie with slow motion and understand a bit in this way, no one talk about the music, i think is very nice music and the song when betty and Camille went to the teathre is so nice
>>By Spooky (Monday, 26 May 2003 19:33)
Hazey, you're all over this. The hallucination explains why Camilla becomes someone else (Rita), while the actress that gets picked for the movie over Betty is named Camilla Rhodes, even though she's obviously a different person than the real Camilla. That way, her true love can be with her, while her resentment toward Camilla can be displaced on someone else. The dream Camilla is the same girl who kissed the real Camilla at the party. She was angry at that girl, so in her dream, she made her the villain.
And yes, she did get the Betty name from the waitress, and that's why in her dream, the same waitress was named Diane. She switched names with the waitress in her fantasy.
The other thing is, when she showed the hitman the headshot of Camilla, she said, "this is the girl." This phrase was repeated in her dream when the headshot of the dream Camilla was shown, and when the director chose her. She took parts of reality into her dream/fantasy.
As far as other films like this, Lynch's last film was "Lost Highway." Very similar to this movie, in that the timelines appear very disjointed, and two apparently different characters played by the same actor (Bill Pullman) interact with each other in strange ways. Check it out.
>>By Rookie (Sunday, 1 Jun 2003 07:16)
This movie did make sense to me and to the people who watched it and didnt understand it then go watch it again becuase it makes sense it's just Lynch does a great job of hiding the obvious
>>By It made sense to me (Friday, 13 Jun 2003 07:14)
I just rented Mulholland Drive by chance not knowing what it would be about. After watching the film I was so confused, yet amazed. But here I am reading this website with everyone's reviews trying desperately to understand the confused joy I'm in. I want to thank especially TR and Hazey for their thoughts. Their insights have been deep beyond my thoughts. It's been a wild ride, and "Mull" has truly started a passion.... cheers!
>>By Mullholland Drive Fan (Friday, 13 Jun 2003 09:28)
This film is music and silence at once. It`s like 4,33 by John Cage. In silence there is always sound and in sound there is music. It is sooo intense!
>>By Nana (Thursday, 26 Jun 2003 19:14)
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