“City of nightmares”
An in-depth analysis of
David Lynch’s
MULHOLLAND DRIVE
© by Rob Ager 2008
(Text updated 10th June 2009)
Watch the video version or scroll down and read the more detailed text analysis
Part one
Part two
Part three
Part four
Contents
1 – THE DAVID LYNCH CHALLENGE
2 – PRODUCTION BACKGROUND
3 – BASIC DEVIATIONS FROM FORMAL NARRATIVE
4 – THE KEY TO REALITY
5 – DECEPTIVE APPEARANCES
6 – CRYING OVER YOU
7 – ROLEPLAY
8 – I DON’T KNOW WHO I AM
9 – THE TALENT FACTOR
10 – THE COLD SHOULDER
11 – ADDITIONAL NOTES
Opinions of David Lynch and his films are incredibly varied. His most conventional works, The Straight Story and The Elephant Man, give the impression of a director who has excellent formal narrative sensibilities, a disciplined technical style and a natural ability to communicate simple, but genuine emotional content. Then there’s the big budget sci-fi epic Dune, suggesting Lynch to be an arthouse alternative to George Lucas. And then there’s the larger body of Lynch’s work, consisting of cryptic narratives, which are sometimes so uncompromisingly vague that we find ourselves wondering if Lynch is simply throwing unrelated ideas together without even knowing what he wants to communicate.
It’s the cryptic Lynch that we’re interested in here. Like Stanley Kubrick, Lynch refuses to verify any particular interpretations of his more challenging films. He’ll discuss the technicalities of film making, but little more. He leaves us to ponder. He demands that we earn our appreciation of his work by surrendering our familiar narrative expectations. And if we are unwilling to do this then he has no qualms about leaving us frustrated and confused. Films like Eraserhead and Inland Empire are so challenging upon first viewing that the temptation to simply switch the film off is difficult to resist. However, with further viewings the confusion subsides into curious interest and even a sense of fascinated involvement.
I’ve been asked many times to start reviewing David Lynch films and so for my first outing I’ve chosen Mulholland Drive. This choice is based upon the film having emotional themes that are at least partially obvious, while at the same making use of Lynch’s trademarks - narrative dysfunction and rich symbolism.
Before cracking on with the analysis, I'll briefly cover some basic aspects of how Mulholland Drive came into being. Originally, Lynch envisioned the project as a television series. A large portion of the film, basically the first hour, was shot as a pilot, but was then unexpectedly expanded into a feature film. The script for the pilot has been published and is referenced several times in this review. Being that a television series was originally Lynch's intention, we can assume that he had plenty more ideas that would be fleshed out into a series. The process of condensing the intended series into a feature film may have bred several results that Lynch didn't intend. For example, certain symbols presented in that pilot episode may now exist in the film version without complete meaning. The additional 20, or so, pages of script that were basically tagged onto the pilot to create the feature, may not have given Lynch sufficient scope to complete his vision. For the purpose of this analysis, I'll be writing from the standpoint that Lynch did complete his vision - otherwise it would be too easy to write off the unexplained as "unexplainable", which is something I don't like to do until all stones have been turned.
3 – BASIC DEVIATIONS FROM FORMAL NARRATIVE
Because Lynch makes little attempt to disguise his intentions with a commercial narrative, many reviewers have explicitly set out to decode his films, sometimes with very plausible results. There are a handful of very good articles floating about on the net that claim to at least partially crack the narrative puzzle of Mulholland Drive.
Before I begin offering my own interpretation, I’d like to address a semantic difficulty that I’ve consistently found in reviews of the film. Although other film analysts correctly assert that several of the characters switch physical appearances during the narrative, it becomes difficult to keep track of which character they are referring to in the writing of their own interpretation. When a reviewer mentions the character Camilla they could be referring to any of three or more different actresses that appear on screen. In an attempt to make this analysis easier to read, I will later begin referring to characters not by appearance, but by identity. When the character’s on screen appearance is different to their identity I will offer a brief description in brackets. Eg “Diane Selwyn (seen as Betty / played by Naomi Watts) … Camilla Rhodes (seen as Rita / played by Laura Harring)” etc. Hopefully this will minimize confusion.
The concept of characters switching visual appearance is the first step in making sense of Mulholland Drive. Here are a selection of clues.
So given these interchanging personas and names, we know that we’re dealing with an unconventional narrative. We must abandon formal narrative logic and accept that at least some of these characters are symbolic, rather than literal.
The second step in breaking down Mulholland Drive’s narrative is to recognise that several events in the film are also symbolic, hence not real. Here are a small number of examples.
These occurrences are not physically possible. So we must consider them to be representative rather than actual.
The third basic step in breaking down the film’s narrative is to acknowledge that much of the narrative consists of dream sequences, flashbacks and fantasies. This is communicated both visually and through dialogue.
It’s this use of dream sequences, flashbacks and fantasies that gives Mulholland Drive its surreal structure. In most films symbolic scene content, if used at all, is both minimal and clearly differentiated from the actual story structure. But what Lynch does is to mix the real with the imaginary and the past with present until we can’t easily tell the difference between the two.
So an important question emerges. Has Lynch given us enough information to separate the real from the unreal and the past from the present? There are arguments both for and against this possibility.
The strongest evidence that I’ve found against the possibility of the film narrative being decipherable is Lynch’s use of language in the original screenplay. At various points he uses metaphoric descriptions that would not be visually noticeable to the audience. For example, Lynch description of the car crash at the beginning of the film explains "The disastrous moving sculpture of the two cars wants to climb up the hill". And a few scenes later, the detective looking across Hollywood from the crash site contains this description, "He slowly raises his gaze to the shining lights of Hollywood laying far below like a galaxy".
However, if there is a logical narrative in Mulholland Drive then we’re only going to succeed in unravelling it through careful observation and cross-referencing. We’ve already made a basic start by identifying that characters and events in the film are sometimes used symbolically, either as flashbacks, dream sequences or fantasies. So in order to progress reliably, our immediate task is to separate out the real chronological events from the symbolic.
Considering the complexity of Mulholland Drive, we need to use a process of elimination to identify which scenes, if any, conform to traditional narrative logic. When faced with conflicting symbols, such as the blue key appearing in two distinctly different shapes, we must assume that at least one of those appearances is unreal. Since the blue box does things that are physically impossible, such as appearing “out of the blue” (so to speak) during the theatre performance or swallowing Rita whole once opened, we can quickly write off the box and its corresponding triangular shaped key as being non-existent in the formal narrative sense. They are merely symbolic.
The blue yale key seen later in the film, is a standard familiar shape, and it doesn’t do anything to break the physical laws of reality. It’s a good bet that if either key is real, it’s the yale shaped version.
So let’s test out the notion that scenes involving the blue yale key are real. There are 3 scenes in which we see this key. It appears on the coffee table when Diane (played by Naomi Watts) answers her door in her grey robe. After she makes a cup of coffee and approaches the couch, the scene transforms into a lesbian sexual encounter, in which a shot of the table reveals the blue key is missing. The piano designed ashtray, which was taken a few minutes ago by the woman collecting her belongings, has suddenly appeared back on the table. So let’s assume the scene has just suddenly switched from reality to either a flashback or fantasy.
The blue yale key next appears in the discussion between Diane (played by Naomi Watts) and Joe (the shabby hitman) in the Diner. After showing Joe the photo of Camilla Rhodes (a photo of Laura Harring) and the piles of cash in a bag, Joe holds up the blue yale key, which is attached to his own bunch of keys. He tells Diane “When it’s finished you’ll find this where I told you”. If we go along with the obvious implication of the scene, that Diane is paying Joe to assassinate Camilla (Laura Harring), then the third appearance of the blue yale key (on Diane’s coffee table, just before her suicide) more than likely indicates that the assassination has taken place and that Camilla (Laura Harring) is dead.
We’re still left with the question of why Joe would choose to leave a blue yale key as his calling card. Does he just happen to carry around random blue yale keys for that purpose? Diane’s response to the blue key in the diner is a cryptic indicator. She asks “What does it open?” Joe looks surprised and begins laughing, but Diane doesn’t share his amusement. Carefully, watch the interaction again. When Diane is shown the key she doesn’t look surprised. She glances from the key and sees a dark haired man at the counter who turns and looks her in the eye. She leans back uncomfortably and then asks “What does it open?” She knows what it opens, but has just had a moment of paranoia that the dark haired man has overheard her conspiratorial conversation with Joe. She asks Joe what the key opens in an attempt to fool any onlookers that she has never seen the key before. It’s this pathetic attempt to disguise her motives that makes Joe start laughing.
So what does the key open? It’s something Diane (Naomi Watts) is familiar with and it’s related to the assassination of Camilla that Joe is being paid to carry out. Perhaps it’s a key to the apartment in which Betty (played by Naomi Watts) and Rita (played by Laura Harring) found the dead woman’s corpse? If Diane (also played by Naomi Watts) was paying for Camilla’s murder then perhaps she gave Camilla’s apartment key to Joe. Being that the corpse was in an almost identical apartment to Diane’s, it’s reasonable to assume that Camilla and Diane were neighbours in the same courtyard. Maybe Diane stole a copy of the key or was entrusted with a copy by Camilla because they were friends.
There are more indicators that Diane (played by Naomi Watts) had acquired a spare key to Camilla’s apartment. The considerably less attractive woman whose door Rita and Betty (Naomi and Laura) knock on, explains that she swapped apartments with “Diane”. This same unattractive woman is the one who knocks on Diane’s door wanting to collect some belongings, as if they had either swapped apartments or had been living together as lovers. The hostile dialogue between them suggests the latter. “Come on Diane, it’s been three weeks.” Three weeks since what … since they broke up or were they just room mates who fell out?
Again, the specific reactions to the blue yale key are important in this scene. As the woman looks about to see if any more of her belongings are in the apartment, she goes straight for the piano ash tray on the table, but ignores the blue key, which is just inches away. Diane notices the key and instantly urges the woman to get out “Any time”. The key obviously was irrelevant to this woman, but like in the Diner, Diane doesn’t want to be associated with the key, lest her connection to the murder be discovered.
The final piece of dialogue in this scene reveals that the murder has already taken place. Woman collecting belongings, “Oh by the way those two detectives came by again looking for you.” So it seems that Diane’s troubles involve two neighbours, a room mate or lover who she has fallen out with, and the rival actress Camilla who she has assassinated.
Although these events all occur at the end of the film, we’ll use them as our narrative starting point. From this we can begin to classify other scenes as either flashbacks, fantasies or dream sequences.
If Diane Selwyn’s actual appearance is that of Naomi Watts and Camilla’s actual appearance is that of Laura Harring (this is how they are presented to us at the humiliating dinner party) then any other characters that are played by either of these actresses must be written off as unreal. This means that the Betty and Rita characters, whose adventures we follow for almost the first three quarters of the film, are not real people at all. And if they aren’t real then the scenes that feature them can’t be real.
Can this be right? Are the first three quarters of the movie nothing more than a concoction of surreal flashbacks or dreams? It certainly appears so. The big shift in the story comes just seconds after The Cowboy pops his head into a bedroom door, saying “Come on pretty girl. Time to wake up.” This is immediately followed by Diane awakening in bed, seen for the first time in her true form as played by Naomi Watts.
Of course the huge flashback / fantasy / dream section of the film tells a more complex story than simply a jealous actress having a successful rival killed. It’s the story of a young woman (or women) naively pursuing the Hollywood dream, but gradually falling into the Hollywood nightmare. Some of these scenes may even represent flashbacks of real events, but many of them, possibly all, are simply dream sequences.
Even after Diane awakens from her nightmare, the events we witness occur in a mixed chronology. Camilla is already dead when we first see Diane awake. Yet the scenes of Camilla being pushed out of Diane’s doorway, the naked encounter on the couch, the humiliating diner party and the assassination deal in the diner all occurred before the murder. Notice that all of these mixed chronology scenes are crammed in between Diane approaching the couch with her coffee and her self-loathing stupor that precedes her suicide. What came in between was simply a series of flashbacks to the events that caused Diane to have Camilla murdered. The events are not necessarily literal. They are Diane’s interpretation of her disastrous Hollywood experience.
This mixture of reality and fantasy is most evident in her suicide scene. Although her suicide is real, the old couple chasing her are hallucinatory. They clearly represent the taunting and humiliation that Diane believes she will be subjected to because of her great Hollywood failure. But it’s also important that this suicide inducing vision was preceded by the sound of someone knocking on her door. We already learned from her ex-girlfriend that two detectives have been knocking on doors wanting to speak to her and in her guilt-ridden stupor she would never be able to fake innocence if interrogated. So the old couple also represent the two detectives who Diane dreads having to face. Adding to the potency of the hallucination, the old couple may also symbolically represent Camilla and her partner Adam Kesher, laughing at Diane just as they were in Camilla’s party.
Having unravelled the basic structure of the last quarter of the film, in which the blue key doubled up as a conceptual key to the narrative puzzle, let’s now turn our attention to the giant dream sequence that comprises the first three quarters of the film. Throughout these dream scenes, everything from locations to characters must be considered in terms of how they symbolically relate to the waking state events at the end of the film.
The opening shot, a collage of jitterbug dancers, is the catalyzing event that brought Diane to Hollywood. While in the party at Camilla’s: “I won this jitterbug contest, which led to acting, or … wanting to act.” We see a fuzzy Diane Selwyn (as Betty) step into the limelight as winner of the contest, along with the old couple. Some reviewers believe the old couple to be Diane’s grandparents, while others have interpreted that they are the judges of the jitterbug contest. The script does contain lines of dialogue, in which Diane (Betty) speaks to her grandfather on the phone, but it doesn’t really matter who the old couple really are. What they represent thematically are people who have heard Diane express her naïve aspirations of stardom. Later, in the airport scene, the old woman reveals this, “I’ll be watching for you on the big screen”.
After the surreal jitterbug images we cut to the failed assassination in the limo. This scene sets up several paradigms. It starts out as a repetition of Diane (Naomi Watts) being chauffered to Camilla’s (Laura Harring’s) party, but two things have changed. Diane’s appearance has switched to that of the superstar she wants to be, in this case personified by her successful friend Camilla (Laura Harring), but her line to the chauffer is identical to what we heard Naomi Watts say in the second chauffer scene, “What are you doing? We don’t stop here.”
The fantasy of becoming Camilla the superstar brings with it the unwanted memory of an assassination that has already taken place, but Diane then fantasizes in her dream that the assassination fails. Her identity crisis is well under way. She wants to be Camilla the superstar, but can’t escape the danger that she herself had put Camilla in. Diane’s dream fantasy of reinventing herself and her past is repeatedly spoiled by these subliminal intrusions of reality. On another level, the crash scene may be Diane's wish that she had never made it to the humiliating dinner party to begin with.
Diane (in the guise of Camilla) makes her way to the courtyard of apartments where she will later meet up with Betty the innocent, aspiring actress. Here we find a subliminal manifestation of the laughing old couple, this time seen as a laughing young couple who Diane consequently hides from in the garden. Lynch may have also intended this to be a subliminal reference to Camilla and Adam Kesher as a happy couple laughing together. In Diane’s paranoid world view any laughing done by this couple would be perceived as being directed at her own failure to achieve stardom.
Diane (seen as Rita / Camilla) now falls asleep and has a dream about the two detectives at the crash site. This is effectively a dream within a dream. The reality of being pursued by police for the murder of Camilla Rhodes is now intruding into the dream content.
After Diane (seen as Rita / Camilla) awakens in the garden, she sneaks her way into Aunt Ruth’s apartment, which is in a court yard. This location is simply a dream manifestation of the apartment we see Diane living in at the end of the film, which was also in a court yard. It is also cross symbolized with the apartment in which the Camilla's body was found. There are many aesthetic similarities between the three apartments. At one point (after Rita is swallowed by the blue box) a shot of the apartment interior fades into a very similar shot of Camilla's apartment.
Once Diane (seen as Rita / Camilla) falls asleep under the table in Aunt Ruth's we cut to another dream within a dream. This one is set in Wilkie’s diner, where the assassination deal was arranged. The dialogue between the two men, Dan and Herb, bares this out. Dan describes a dream he had, but the content of the dream is identical to what is actually happening – the disorientating effect is enhanced by Lynch’s choice of a free floating, dreamlike, camera movement.
Dan’s presence in the dream is induced by Diane having seen him at the counter when she was arranging the assassination. Again she is fantasing about being someone else. The fear that Dan describes is actually Diane’s fear. She has switched roles again so that we see her as Dan. The identity of Herb, the man she is talking to, is obscure, but is probably a manifestation of Diane’s Aunt, Ruth. An important piece of dialogue that supports this is when Diane (seen as Dan in the diner) says “It’s kind of embarrassing, but I had a dream about this place”. This has a double meaning relating to Diane’s aspirations in Hollywood. Herb responds with disapproval, “Oh boy”, as if he half expected the Hollywood dream statement. This dialogue makes sense if we think of the conversation as an interraction between Diane and her aunt. Possibly by intention, the name Dan is just two letters short of Diane. Dan, ie ... Diane. The intense fear that we see on Diane’s (Dan’s) face when she sees Herb at the counter, links directly to the fear she felt when she was being stared at by a man at the counter while arranging the assassination.
Next up we have the mystery of the bum in the alley. Once again, this is Diane in a different physical appearance. The ugliness of this character is symbolic of the repulsive person Diane has become. And seeing herself in this guise is so traumatic that it causes Diane (Dan) to drop dead. Another possible implication of the bum could be that Diane was considering living rough after the assassination to escape the law. This would also account for a seemingly irrelevant scene that occurs later near a different diner, in which Joe is asking a young woman if there are any new girls on the street. He is trying to track down and kill Diane to elminate all traces between himself and the dead body of Camilla. This was also what he was doing when he shot three people in an office block. He was retrieving the black book of addresses – the same one that was on the table in front of him in the diner while arranging the assassination. Notice that the woman Joe questions outside the diner has a grip mark on her arm. It seems that she has taken some rough treatment while in Hollywood, but beneath her shabby appearance we can tell that in better circumstances she would appear much more attractive. It seems she’s just another young girl ruined by the false promise of Hollywood stardom.
But let’s get back to Diane. She isn’t just afraid of the law and the humiliation of failure to become a superstar. She’s also afraid of being killed by Joe.
After the first Diner sequence we briefly cut back to Diane (seen as Camilla) asleep under the kitchen table. Then we cut straight back into dream within a dream mode, this time following a sequence of phonecalls, with only the line “The girl is still missing” as a motivator of the events. The final shot in the sequence of calls shows a red lamp next to a telephone and an ashtray full of cigarette butts. This is the same phone that Diane, dressed to attend Camilla’s party, picks up near the end of the film. So in this sequence of phonecalls the studio execs are trying to track down Diane. It seems that everybody is after her.
Now we cut to Betty arriving at the airport. Betty is another dream manifestation of Diane Selwyn. The mysterious adventure that “Betty” and “Rita” pursue for most of the film is simply a nightmare of awakening for Diane Selwyn. There are plenty of details that subliminally communicate Betty and Rita as being one person, a visually split personality.
From here the story flicks back and forth between several themes – the gradual revelation that Rita and Betty are actually Diane Selwyn, the gradual unveiling of the Hollywood dream as an illusion, and of course the gradual revelation that Diane Selwyn had her friend Camilla Rhodes killed out of a paranoid sense of jealousy. And mixed in with all this is the story of Adam Kesher’s fight to maintain creative control of the film he is directing.
Diane subconsciously casts characters from Camilla’s party in various roles in her dream. The blonde woman who kisses Camilla (Laura Harring) then becomes Camilla in the dream. Adam Kesher’s mother is recast as the landlady, but she is named Coco, both at the party and in the dream. And of course a wandering guest at the party is recast in Diane’s dream as the all-powerful Cowboy.
Despite its obscure meanings, I’ve always found the theatre sequence to be the most powerful sequence in Mulholland Drive. The scene is preceded by some very strange shots of Betty and Rita making their way to the theatre by taxi. The deliberately shaky camera movement could be thought of as a simple aesthetic to add a sense of discomfort, but pay attention to how the shot movements relate to the movements of Betty and Rita. As they’re flagging the taxi they slowly walk forward then open the door and get in. The camera mimics this movement by first moving slowly forward then moving faster and panning to the right as the girl’s get in the taxi. As the taxi door shuts, the shot loses focus. And as the taxi begins moving the shot becomes extremely shaky. We then cut to viewpoints from inside the taxi of passing city streets and lights. The angles are tilted and shaky, and the focus is slightly off. When the taxi arrives at the theatre, the parallels between camera movement and the movements of Betty / Rita become more prominent. The handheld camera initially remains stable as the taxi parks, but as the girls exit the taxi and begin moving toward the door the camera wobbles prominently as if it has also just emerged from a taxi. It then rushes for the door as the girls enter and cuts as soon as the door is reached.
These aesthetic parallels establish a fractal movie paradigm that continues throughout the whole theatre sequence. It’s not just Betty and Rita who are going to the theatre. We the audience are going there too. It’s also possible that these camera views are those of the bum, who is after all, simply another manifestation of Diane, just as Betty and Rita are.
The stage performance that we witness is a metaphor of a standard movie theatre, hence the presenter correctly claims: “There is no band … This is all a tape recording … No hay banda and yet we hear a band … It’s all recorded … It is an illusion”. When the presenter throws his magician’s wand we don’t hear it land anywhere because the stage and its characters aren’t real. This is the magic of film. The girls are watching a pre-recorded set of carefully staged events, but they’re so emotionally engrossed that the two dimensional content appears three dimensional. This is also true for us, the audience. We emotionally respond to staged, pre-recorded, two dimensional illusions as if they’re real.
Next a blue haired woman is shown looking on from above, but the fact that she is shown behind the presenter suggests that she is a part of the film / stage content, rather than just an audience member. Notice that the thunder and lightening kicks in as the presenter’s stretched out hand overlaps her head. Is she the source of the thunder?
The blue lightening causes Betty to shake, but not Rita. Being that the two girls are just a split personality version of Diane Selwyn, it makes sense that one of them physically reacts to the stage events but the other doesn’t. Diane is torn between reality and the illusion of the film.
As the lightening fades it leaves trace of blue light shimmering about the entire theatre, possibly relating to the blue puzzle box. The presenter is engulfed in smoke as he fades out of existence with an evil smile on his face. This is all very similar to the short sequence that we see after Diane’s suicide.
The theatre remains bathed in blue light as the girls watch a shimmering microphone stand on an empty stage. We cut back to the blue haired woman once more. Notice that she gently leans forward to see the next portion of the act – the introduction of an incredibly talented singer. The singer is played by Rebekah Del Rio, which is also her name in the film. She plays herself and sings her own hit song Llorando, also known as “crying”.
It’s a great performance, but the intense emotional reaction from Diane (Betty / Rita) implies that there is a deeper meaning to the song. When Rebekah collapses to the floor she lands in the same position as the rotting corpse that the girls found earlier. And the hair of the corpse was neither blonde nor black, it was the same light brown colour as Rebekah’s.
So in Diane’s dream logic, Camilla Rhodes is represented as Rebekah Del Rio. The corpse in the apartment was Camilla (Incidentally the original script describes the bed as being covered in shotgun blasts). This reaffirms that Joe entered the apartment with the blue key Diane gave him and then killed Camilla in her sleep.
Rebekah’s presence in the theatre sequence has a simple explanation. Plagued with guilt at having murdered her friend, Diane has gone to the movie theatre to watch Camilla in her last screen performance. This is why Rebekah’s singing continues after she drops dead. The song lyrics repeatedly include the line “crying over you”, which is exactly what Diane (Betty / Rita) is doing. She realizes that Camilla was incredibly talented and that her death is a great loss.
It’s Camilla’s (Rebekah’s) on stage death that prompts Diane (Betty) to open her purse and pull out the blue box. The only narrative sense I could make of this is that Diane was carrying the blue key in her purse while watching Camilla’s last film. While in the cinema Diane took the blue key out of her purse and decided to go back to Camilla’s apartment to find out if she was really dead. At this point she would have seen the dead body.
In her theatre dream the blue key in Diane’s purse is symbolized by a blue box, which prompts Diane (Betty / Rita) to return to her apartment and solve the puzzle. The beginning of the solution is the realization that Betty and Rita aren’t real. Betty places the box on the bed while Rita gets the triangular key from in the cupboard. When Rita turns around Betty has vanished completely. She never existed. After Rita uses the key and box, which were merely symbolic, she herself disappears. Neither of them existed.
Returning to the issue of the blue haired woman on the balcony, my guess is that she represents the spirit of Camilla Rhodes looking down on Diane. She speaks just one word of dialogue and it is the very last line in the film, “Silencio”. The only other time we hear this word is when Diane (Rita and Betty) is asleep after her lesbian fantasy. Rita begins repeating the word “silencio” in a camera angle which reveals the duality of her and Betty as being the same person – their faces overlap each other to form one. The memory of Camilla is destined to haunt Diane in her dreams.
Mulholland Drive features other psychological themes that are not necessarily tied to the murder mystery narrative, but are representative of Hollywood life in general. One of those themes is the confusion between reality and the fictional worlds that Hollywood specializes in manufacturing. When Betty is trying to persuade Rita to go along with making an anonymous call to the police, she hints: “It’ll be just like in the movies. We’ll pretend to be someone else.”
Two scenes in particular present this theme as a confusion between reality and scripted reality. After Adam gets his personal warning from the Cowboy, we fade first to the famous HOLLYWOOD sign that overlooks LA and then we cut to Rita and Betty. Initially the scene appears to be a genuine argument between the girls about Rita’s unwelcome presence in the apartment, but the shot pans out, revealing that Rita is reading from a script. It’s just a rehearsal for Betty’s audition. This scene is paralleled when Diane, having woken from her dream, combines two fantasies in her kitchen. She fantasizes that Camilla, looking more beautiful than ever, has come back to life and that her ex-girlfriend has returned, but when the shot cuts back it turns out she’s talking to herself. Diane is rehearsing an internally scripted fantasy by playing herself and Camilla, just like in her dream. In the script rehearsal scene, Rita began: “I came back. I thought that’s what you wanted”, only to be rejected by Betty. The kitchen fantasy gives a more honest take. Diane, looking over the moon, “Camilla. You’ve come back”. Diane follows this with an orgasmic reaction. She’s masturbating just off camera, like when she has the frustrating sexual fantasy on the couch.
Another scene that mixes reality and scripted reality is the audition scene. Lynch’s early script confirms that Betty isn’t entirely acting during the rehearsal – the audition lines overtook her emotions and developed a life of their own. Again, the scripted dialogue parallels with the reality of the situation. The man she is rehearsing with is coming on to her both in reality and in the script they're rehearsing.
The confusion between self and scripted characters is a problem for many Hollywood stars. Their profession requires a sort of self imposed schizophrenia. Intense method acting of difficult roles can lead to psychological problems during and after a shoot. Actors lacking in self-esteem, may feel more comfortable playing the scripted roles of self-confident people than they do just being themselves. So there can be a temptation to continue the role in the real world. Even if the actor doesn’t wish to do this, fans, when met in person, may expect it. And there’s the pressure of profit-hungry studio execs demanding the same character be played over and over again in formula scripts.
It’s not just career actors who suffer identity crisis. It can happen to anyone. Audience members can become so obsessed with the desire to imitate fictional characters that they will even resort to murder in the process. There have been many infamous cases such as John Hinckley Junior’s attempt to assassinate Ronald Reagan, which was partially fuelled by the film Taxi Driver.
As a side note, my personal opinion regarding the kind of movie censorship that has often been called for in reaction to such cases, is that censorship wouldn’t make a difference. It’s the perception of the disturbed audience member that is the root cause of the problem. If we took away the controversial movies, they would find some other arbitrary stimulus to fuel their fantasy. This is most evident in bizarre murder cases such as Charles Manson’s mistaken belief that the White Album, by the Beatles, contained hidden messages instructing him to carry out murders in Hollywood. And in a really twisted case, Cannibal serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer tried to imitate the Emperor from Return of the Jedi. Who could have anticipated that while making the film?
Of course, those are the more extreme cases. Milder attempts at imitating fictional characters range from adrenaline driven young men signing up for military service after years of watching action war movies … to pre-teenage girls dressing way beyond their years in response to over-sexualized music videos.
We each imitate a variety of people in small ways as part of our development, but when we become obsessed with imitating one role model at the expense of all others, it can lead to self-destruction. In Mulholland Drive, Lynch goes all out to reveal how this process destroys the lives of many who flock to Hollywood. There are the more well known cases of actor suicides such Peg Entwhistle, who threw herself off of the HOLLYWOOD sign in 1932, or the dwarf actor David Rappaport. Then there are the failed actresses who fall into prostitution or pornography. And there’s the “casting couch” phenomena that some actresses endure to advance their careers (read about the revelations of Zhang Yu).
The pursuit of feature film acting can be attributed to a desire for wealth, but few people in their right mind would pursue wealth through such a competitive field where the odds are stacked so unevenly. The desire for stardom identity, and all the perceived perks that go with it, is the common motivator drawing actors to Hollywood – in a nutshell the desire for self-love. It’s this identity crisis that is at the heart of Diane’s dream. Rita puts it simply, “I don’t know who I am.”
Betty and Rita’s unexpected sexual encounter occurs after Rita adopts the blonde wig, thus imitating Betty. The scene touches on two fantasies – Diane Selwyn falling in love with herself, which is the ultimate reward of stardom, and her falling in love with the image of stardom itself, which she personifies as the successful Camilla Rhodes. Unfortunately, the illusion can’t last. The revelations of Club Silencio call upon her in her sleep.
In Diane’s world, self-love can only be achieved through the external approval of a film audience. In the absence of this elusive feedback, she desires to be anyone except herself. She fantasizes that she is Betty, Rita and Camilla and when those fantasies fail she sees herself as the utterly despicable and repulsive bum. The shot of her suicide fades into the ugly face of the bum surrounded by flames and smoke, as if burning in hell, which in turn fades into the lime-lit face of Betty floating over Hollywood. She came to Hollywood for self-love, but what she got was self-loathing.
In the non-dream sequence scenes near the end of the film we aren't given any indicators of whether Diane Selwyn was a talented actress. In the dream she gives an impressive audition performance, but this is how she wants to see herself. She dreams of Camilla Rhodes (seen as a blonde) delivering a mediocre singing performance before Adam Kesher, while the director turns and stares at Diane (seen as Betty) with a look of love at first sight. Lynch's original script confirms these ideas. It describes the blonde Camilla's performance as "passable, but not spectacular", while the glance between Adam and Betty is described as "They each seem to feel the thrill of the thunderbolt". These relationships are the opposite of the party sequence at the end of the film, where Adam adored Camilla and couldn't care less for the presence of Diane. The mediocre singing performance of the blonde Camilla Rhodes is also a reversal of the stunningly talented performance given by the Camilla Rhodes in the theatre sequence (seen as Rebekah Del Rio).
Based upon these factors it makes sense that the conspiracy to force Adam Kesher into casting Camilla was a dream fantasy of Diane's. She wants to see herself as being more talented than Camilla. She wants to see herself as the girl who the director would have fallen in love with and given the part. The reality of Adam's disinterest is also subtly manifested in how he rejects his secretary, Cynthia. Cynthia looks much like a dark haired version of Diane Selwyn. She invites Adam to stay with her in his time of need: "You don't know what you're missing", but Adam prefers to stay in the squalor of a rundown hotel. He then brushes off Cynthia with a second sweeping insult: "Run along little Doggy".
Later, Diane's fantasy morphs from a conspiracy-laden dream into a "I didn't get the part because the director fell in love with Camilla" fantasy, but she experiences the latter in a waking state while sitting on her couch. It isn't revealed whether the relationship and engagement between Adam and Camilla was real. It could just be another fantasy of Diane's - perhaps she prefers to feel bitter resentment than to see herself as being less talented than Camilla.
Part of the irony of Diane's "it wasn't my fault" fantasies, is that she only managed to get set up in Hollywood through her successful Aunt Ruth. She was willing to make use of the "it's not what you know, it's who you know" factor for self promotion, yet she feels bitter at the thought of Camilla making use of the same advantages.
The ultimate disappointment for any wannabe star is the realization that they simply don't have the talent or presence to make it on the silver screen. Much easier, it is, to blame one's own failings on unfair decisions made by directors, producers and other gatekeepers. Mulholland Drive leaves it open to our interpretation as to how realistic Diane's corrupt view of the Hollywood system is. This is a card Lynch plays close to his chest. The film's primary purpose may be a warning to young American women to stay away from the self-destruction dangers of pursuing stardom in Hollywood. Or it could be an underhanded exposure of a dark side of Hollywood that Lynch knows from personal experience. I doubt he'll ever tell us and it's probably more fun that he doesn't.
For the failed actor, resigning one's self to the realms of mediocrity isn't the only pain to be endured. They then have the frustration of seeing others live the high life that they are denied. Personally, I found that the "rubbing it in your face" behaviour of Adam Kesher and Camilla in the party scene and during the film shoot (the scene where they kiss in a car) were a little too blatant to be straight forward flashbacks. My guess is that Diane is embellishing these scenes in her imagination. But then I haven't lived in Hollywood, and admittedly, I have from time to time come across actors in low budget film making who like to mock what they see as their "inferior" competitors.
If Diane's flashbacks are indeed accurate portrayals of how she has been treated by her former friend Camilla, then we are presented with another dark aspect of Hollywood. The hordes of failed actors serve a secondary purpose of elevating the egos of those who are successful because succeeding where many have failed is more potent.
In another of the film's "is it real or not" paradigms, Diane believes that her best friend has helped her get minor parts in her films as a way of mocking her, and that her invitation to the party was an ego boost for Camilla - a deliberate exhibition that she has achieved where Diane has failed. It may have actually been the opposite. Camilla, in reality, may have been very genuine in her attempts to get minor parts for Diane. But like Diane, we'll never know.
After posting this review I received the following email which helps clarify some of the differences between Diane's reality and her dream version of Hollywood. Special thanks to Hermann Atencio for these observations.
Hello.
I wanted to tell you that I enjoyed your analysis regarding Mulholland Dr very much. It inspired me to grab my DVD copy and watch it again. Armed with your observations in the back of my mind, I honestly believe I appreciated the film much more during this viewing.
I also would like to share with you an observation I made that I do not believe you mentioned in your review/analysis. I'm not sure what it means or how it relates to your conclusions, but here it goes:
When Betty/Dianne (in fantasyland) goes to her audition, she is introduced to a number of people in the office. The director she meets is introduced as "Don Brooker" ( I may have the name a little off). Recall that "Don Brooker" seemed to be rather dense and appeared to lack the respect of the other people attending the audition.
Well, latter on in reality, at Dianne's humiliation extravaganza party, she is telling reality-Coco her story. Reality-Coco asks her when she met C. Rhodes. Dianne answers by saying "it was on the Sylvia North Story". Dianne says how she wanted the part so badly but C.Rhodes got the part. She says the director didn't "think much" of her acting. At this point the gentleman on Dianne's right says "Don Brooker?". Dianne affirms what he said.
Yet, back at in fantasyland, right after Betty/Dianne's audition, the two woman take her to something that they tell her "you'll kill for".
You see Adam K. auditioning actresses. When the blond comes up and lip synches to "Every Little Star", one of the film crew on the set shouts out "The Sylvia North Story". Then Adam shouts "action".
So in reality, "The Sylvia North Story" was directed by "Don Brooker".
However, in Dianne's fantasy, Adam K. is the director of "The Sylvia North Story".
I think the buffoon/dim-witted nature of Don Brooker in the audition scene is indicative of Dianne's obvious resented at him for not casting her in the part. His unflattering persona is more of her bitterness.
Well, there you go. I'm sure you've already noticed this or others have pointed it out. In the slim chance that neither has happened yet, maybe I helped in a small way.
Thank you if you took the time to read this and thank you for doing CollativeLearning.com.
Hermann