What the fuck did i just watch? I'm not really into surreal or abstract films and was recommended this because they thought it was on the level of Fight Club, which is one of my favorite movies. I must be completely retarded, because I didn't understand anything and was expecting some sort of conclusion at the end to wrap everything up. It's so bizzare and weird that I just assumed everything was just a fever dream of the main actress. Are all Lynch's films like this? I didn't think it was terrible but I was expecting something totally different. Like, there are so many questions I have that were never resolved. Who the fuck is Cowboy man? Why did the Godfather guy hate the espresso so much? Who the FUCK was that weird invalid in the chair that spoke through a glass door? What the fuck was the blue box? What the FUCK was up with that goofy scene with the hitman slapsticking his way around shooting the man for the black book? So many questions. Movies that you didn't get on the first go thread, I guess.
What the fuck did i just watch...
Lynch deliberately creates questions that 4/5 times have no actual answers to create an air of mystique and depth. Sometimes he will give you answers to keep up the illusion that "there must be more to this" but honestly most of the time there isn't.
He's good at what he does, but he's absolutely a director who does weird shit for the sake of being weird, and people who think otherwise got hoodwinked by his trick.
Diane dreams she is Rita not Betty. Then Rita dreams she is the eyebrow man at winkies. Then the eyebrow man dreams he is the wheelchair man. Then the wheelchair man has a recollection and/or daydream about the hitman. The first hour of the film follows very strict rules about everything being Diane's dream. Then the one time he seems to break that rule, Lynch apparently communicates directly with the audience through a coded message on a license plate. The opening credit sequence features a very obvious message to the audience on the license plate to let us know Lynch is using this method.
It's pretentious drivel for film students to jerk off to. Only enjoyable part was the booba
The first two hours is a cope dream based on the last half hour, which itself is a nightmare based on the first 2 hours
To understand Mulholland Drive, you have to know it is inspired by Sunset Boulevard. In that film a washed up actress loses touch with reality, which is basically what’s happening in Mulholland Dr as well, except it’s more surreal.
LynchED
A lot the specifics are up to your own interpretation. It's part of why I like the movie so much.
>What the FUCK was up with that goofy scene with the hitman slapsticking his way around shooting the man for the black book?
I've thought about that one a lot, and I think it's because Diane wished that Camilla wasn't dead so she was fantasising that the hitman was incompetent so he wouldn't have been able to pull off the hit. In real life he's experienced and kills Camilla with no hiccups.
>Why did the Godfather guy hate the espresso so much?
She thinks studio bigwigs are impossible to please
>Who the fuck is Cowboy man?
I think he's Diane's subconscious. He keeps the dream on track and wakes her up when it's ending.
>What the fuck was the blue box?
The blue box doesn't exist. The blue key that opens the box is the key that the hitman leaves Diane to show that the hit was successful. The box exists in the dream because she thinks the key goes somewhere, when really it's just a symbol that the dude uses.
It’s 2 hours of cope from Betty trying to justify why she failed in Hollywood.
you should've watched blue velvet instead
YES! A Mulholland Drive thread! Let me copy/paste my analysis:
MULHOLLAND DRIVE: THE PERFECT REPRESENTATION OF A DREAM
Mulholland Drive is arguably David Lynch's most well-known, recognized film. And this is for good reason: it's one of his few stories that makes complete sense. The widely held theory that the first four fifths of the movie is a dream that the character in the last fifth of the movie is having is the one that I subscribe to. It makes the entire story have a united plot, and ultimately, it makes rewatching it all the more tragic.
A derelict, washed out actress named Diane Selwyn lusts for Camilla Rhodes, another actress who was thrust into fame by narrowly getting the lead role that Diane auditioned for. The two are friends, but Camilla is getting married to the director of her film, Adam Kesher. Diane, in a moment of anger, hires an assassin to kill Camilla. The night after Camilla has been killed, Diane has a dream of guilt in an attempt to rewrite the relationship between herself and Camilla. In her dream, she's a bright-eyed, ambitious newcomer to LA named Betty, and Camilla is an amnesiac, dubbed Rita, who's helpless and must stay under Betty's care. Adam Kesher is also in the dream, having what appears to be the single worst day of his life as he goes through misfortune after misfortune. Diane even attempts to rectify Camilla's assassination by portraying the hitman she hired as a bumbling, terrible killer - perhaps to convince herself that Camilla somehow got away safe. (1/2)
The masterful thing about this film isn't just how Lynch captures the tone and surreality of dreams, but how he makes everything seem so natural and unquestioned (just like while you're in the middle of a dream). When Betty moves into her aunt's apartment in LA, the landlord notes that another tenant used to have a "prize-fighting kangaroo" in his room. It's a one-off line, but no one questions a thing, and it's delivered in such a way that even the audience doesn't recognize the absurdity of the statement. Little things are off - people laugh for a moment more than they should, phrases are repeated like chants, and a triviality like espresso being bad can cause a catastrophe for the entire city. Every scene has you on the edge of your seat because you genuinely don't know what will happen next in this almost-normal, but slightly off world. It's a film that you can watch over and over again because the ride is just so entertaining.
Mulholland Drive is the best David Lynch film, in my opinion. He creates a tragic mystery of projection and rejection, of love and hatred, with enough subtle clues to keep things grounded and provide excellent fodder for rewatch. (2/2)
Pretty much this
Last 3rd shows before and after the dream that makes up the first 2/3
This
I watched it for the first time recently, and the switch to 'real Diane' to me made the prior stuff being a dream fairly obvious, it was then just figuring out what related to what, and getting through the lynch-isms.
Honestly while I enjoyed it, reading that it was meant to be a series that was then re-tooled into a film makes lots of sense. I don't love it as a film, but I definitely think some of his best individual scenes are in it, and I think that's what people relate to so strongly. The diner, Diane's breakdown, the body reveal, the acting scenes etc were all great but I think Lynch gets in his own way a bit when it came to the leads.
I think the slapstick hitman thing was about the wheelchair man shutting everything down. The camera pulls in real closely on his face to transition the scene. Before that, this is how almost the whole movie works. People keep going to sleep, fainting, etc. Shutting everything down involves getting the black book. Or maybe setting everything up involved getting the black book. And all that clusterfuck was gonna be for nothing.
Lynch is the best director of our time, people who write off his films as arthoe bait are brainlets fr
i liked the movie but almost everything Lynch had ever done was obvious arthoe bait and trying to get female watchers to fall in love with him
it's also why Twin Peaks S3 is superb, must be the only thing he's ever done that's just about cool shit, instead of simply him trying to score arthoe and BPD pussy
see? is exactly the kind of gullible arthoe I wrote about
she's literally in love with Lynch
>EAOOOOI
what did he mean with this?
*and I absolutely agree about the hitman and think that's an excellent point and and angle of it but I think there's also a plot level thing going in that she's concocting about the midget and the black book.
I always thought the blue box was pandoras box
Three Acts maybe? And this was the 1st scene of this 3rd act maybe aka 3rd level?
Oh yeah Diane/Rita also dreams she's the cop detectives. She's shown falling asleep in the bushes before the scene transitions.