Mulholland Drive (2001)

 

Mulholland Drive

(2001)

 

 

The most defining aspect of American cinema, and why it is frequently more powerful but often less inventive than the European, is our implicit faith that it is a Populist Art form. Yes, we have our “Art” films, but they are looked upon as an “and also,” they exist to be mined by others reaching the larger audience, while all our pinnacle achievements are those that first-and-foremost aspire to the largest audience with “Art” only tagging along for the ride.

 

World renowned Film Theorists have called Walt Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves” (1937) “the most perfect motion picture ever made,” and I suspect that a Children’s movie would be so elevated says something about to power and the specificity of the American Aesthetic. America has both its Charles Dickenses and its Thomas Manns, but on some level, we view our Dickenses are more “American” than our Manns.

 

And that, more than anything else, is why David Lynch is important; he is our greatest Surrealist film maker, not only because his films are so fine, but because so many of them have secured that larger audience -- because that’s what makes you an American Master, that you’ve touched so many. But please don’t confuse this with financial success, “Baywatch” (TV series first aired in 1989) was seen by many and touched none of them, while great films like “Wizard of Oz” (1939), “Citizen Kane” (1941), and “Night of the Hunter” (1961) initially either failed or succeed unimpressively, but ultimately touched many, many, more as time moved on. Simply put, “Baywatch” was popular and bad, while the others listed pursued Populism with Powerful Vision.

 

Lynch’s special position is demonstrated in that his name is now an adjective, all good American-Pop-Culture-derived Surrealism is referred to as “Lynchian,” just like all flawlessly contrived Crime Thrillers are called “Hitchcockian” (not for nothing, this film is loaded with Hitchcock references).

 

 

“Mulholland Drive” marks a cresting of Lynch’s career, being his last aggressively debated, and strongly influential feature film. According to Jay R. Lentzner and Donald R. Ross it, "garnered both some of the harshest epithets and some of the most lavish praise in recent cinematic history." Lynch had been controversial for decades (an impressive achievement as it was more for his Aesthetics than his deliberately Edgy Content) but in the more than a decade since, his projects have either been more minor in ambition or ignored for biting off more than they could chew.

 

Roger Ebert, not always a fan of Lynch’s films, put it well, saying he “has been working toward ‘Mulholland Drive’ all of his career… At last, his experiment doesn't shatter the test tubes. The movie is a surrealist dreamscape in the form of a Hollywood film noir, and the less sense it makes, the more we can't stop watching it.” Meanwhile negative reactions were more like “A moronic and incoherent piece of garbage" (The New York Observer), "Makes a severe and unwelcome turn down a lost highway" (Variety), "Exactly what the hell happens in this movie?" (Premiere), “This is not good filmmaking; it's immature and wasteful” (Reelviews), "You wouldn't need all the emotional back-flips and narrative trap doors if you had anything to say. You wouldn't need doppelgangers and shadow-figures if your characters had souls" (Ray Carney).

 

 

Here’s the thing, both the film’s supporters and haters miss something – or maybe I’m just deluding myself. I say it does make sense. Yeah, it’s non-linear and all, but still tightly structured and lucid. I admit being a bigger fan of Lynch’s more obviously coherent outings (“Elephant Man” (1977) and “Blue Velvet” (1986)) but this one was coherent to me.

 

The mysteries of what he was talking about were significant enough that with the DVD release, the audience was presented with an instruction manual for watching:

 

 

"David Lynch's 10 Clues to Unlocking This Thriller".

 

The clues are:

 

·     Pay particular attention in the beginning of the film: At least two clues are revealed before the credits.

·     Notice appearances of the red lampshade.

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

·     An accident is a terrible event — notice the location of the accident.

·     Who gives a key, and why?

·     Notice the robe, the ashtray, the coffee cup.

·     What is felt, realized and gathered at the Club Silencio?

·     Did talent alone help Camilla?

·     Note the occurrences surrounding the man behind Winkie's.

·     Where is Aunt Ruth?

 

 

Oh, piffle on that. I understood what I was watching but that list confuses me. Here’s the real key:

 

 

It has a three part-structure and the story telling style shifts with each so you should always know where you are. In the end, most of the film has played out inside of one Character’s head, so the shifting identities reflect that Character’s Fantasies about those around her vs their later-revealed Realties. In the first part we are in a Dream of Hollywood Suspense and Promise.

 

The second, shorter than the first, takes place before the first and is told much more Realistically because we are outside that Character’s head. In this extended Flashback we see that Character’s life became a Sordid and Monstrous Embarrassment. It’s a stark contrast the Heroine she imagines herself to be in the first section.

In the third section, shortest of all and the last in the internal chronology, is the Nightmare of what she’s done catching up to her.

 

First section first:

 

A dark haired and voluptuous damsel in distress, Rita (Laura Elena Harring) escapes a Murder attempt only to be rendered Amnesiac and desperate for the Kindness of Strangers. “Rita” is not her real name, and she knows it, she’s adopted it from a movie poster, naming herself after Rita Hayworth, and as it happens, she’s got the body to pull the reference off. Among the few reliable things were learn about her prior life is that she was an Actress. As this is a Noir, she will no doubt encounter (purely by fate) either an embittered Knight Errant in a trench coat looking for a cause to renew his commitment to living, or a Naïve Innocent who is spiritually above the Big-City’s Sewer just enough to give total commitment to the Truth.

 

 

Rita gets the latter in the form of Betty Elms (Naomi Watts), a perky blond who has just arrived in town to stay in her absent Aunt Ruth's apartment to pursue a career as an Actress. Significantly, one of her early lines is, "I'm in this dream place!"

 

Other characters appear:

·     Film Director Adam Kesher (Justin Theroux) who is told to cast a specific Actress in his movie or be Murdered

·     Mr. Roque, a dwarf movie tycoon in a wheelchair (Michael J. Anderson, veteran of Lynch’s “Twin Peaks” (TV series first aired in 1990)) makes Threats.

·     A Gardener (Billy Ray Cyrus) who, after Adam catches having sex with his wife, proceeds to Dominate Adam

·     Prophesy-intoning, seemingly-Less-than-Human-but-still-All-Powerful Personage dressed in western gear and known only as the Cowboy (Lafayette Montgomery, who was the producer on a few of Lynch’s films) says, “You will see me one more time if you do good. You will see me two more times if you do bad”

·     An espresso-obsessed Mobster (the film’s Composer Angelo Badalamenti)

·     A bungling Hit Man (Mark Pellegrino)

·     A Detective (Robert Forrester) turns up only to have the film quickly forget about him

·     A nosey Landlady (Ann Miller)

·     A Psychic Neighbor (Lee Grant)

·     An over-tanned has-been Actor (Chad Everett) Sexually Harasses young Starlets.

 

 

Rita and Betty attempt to unravel the mystery (Betty’s main investigative insight, “It'll be just like in the movies. We'll pretend to be someone else”). In the mist of this, Betty auditions for a role and proves herself far more gifted an Actress than anything proceeding would’ve suggested. Also, Betty and Rita share two of the hottest lesbian love scenes in mainstream film history (great dialogue: Betty: "Have you done this before?" Amnesiac Rita: "I don't know."). And in all this and I’m not even conveying the depth of the emerging Weirdness. Ebert again, “the characters start to fracture and recombine like flesh caught in a kaleidoscope,” meaning before we’ve moved into the second section.

 

The second section:

 

In violation of all the structural presumptions of a three-part-script, there’s only 45 minutes of running time left when we hit part two – then Lynch starts rewriting the History; all the names are changed, the identities altered, and … ah, but that would be telling.

 

 

What angered so many is that in the first section individual scenes play well by themselves but they don't connect with each other in a way that makes sense. The was a reason for that, there’s a disjointed dream-like anti-logic because the story is literally unfolding inside a dream. The second section, shorter and more to the point, unfolds in the ostensible “Real World.” What the objectors miss is that the re-written History of the second section actually does tie (most) everything together. It’s not a betrayal of the audiences’ trust, it’s a challenge for them to pay attention. Critic Stephen Holden put it really well, “The movie is an ever-deepening reflection on the allure of Hollywood and on the multiple role-playing and self-invention that the movie-going experience promises. That same promise of identity loss extends to the star-making process, in which the star can disappear into other lives and become other people's fantasies. What greater power is there than the power to enter and to program the dream life of the culture. Who needs continuity if you can disappear into a dream?”

 

 

Critic J Hoberman adds to this, describing the film as “a poisonous valentine to Hollywood. (This is the most carefully crafted L.A. period film since Chinatown—except that the period is ours.)”

 

 

A notable scene in the second section has the central player tries to masturbate but cannot orgasm because the noise in her head won’t stop.

 

After that, enter the Hell of section three, the final dream of terrible consequences.

 

"Mulholland Drive" was a project rescued and (with additional financing and filming) rebuilt from the wreckage of an unsold 1999 pilot for ABC television. The network didn’t understand it, so they wouldn’t air it; seeing this piece I really can’t imagine how the intricate structure would’ve been feasible in a work spread over more than a single evening. Either the original series was a very different story than the ultimate film or the network did the world a favor by rejecting it, forcing it into its proper form.

 

 

Lynch’s films are often filled with memorable performances, but they generally feel oddly bifurcated between those judged by striking Great Poses and those judged by the depth of the Actor’s Interpretation. That bifurcation has never more striking than here as only three of the abundant figures wandering through are allowed to breathe more than an archetype would -- Betty, Rita, and Adam. As the focus is on Betty and Rita, only their performances drew significant attention, this even though they were relative unknowns swimming in a sea of a sea of extraordinary veterans. Both Actresses Watts and Harring were dead-on perfect in these parts, but as Watts’ role was the more demanding it was therefore rightly the Star-Making one of the pair.  We see her evolve from wide-eyed Innocent, to protective and unwavering Friend, to an Actress of unexpected depth, to passionate Lover— all before the second section arrives and she’s a wholly different person – it’s amazing.

 

 

Lynch also has a pretty consistent Visual and Auditory Language. The film’s boldest sequence, set in Club Silenco and establishing the transition between the first and second sections, establishes a symbolic language where the artifacts of our Pop-Culture Dreams become a kind of Demonic Possession. It is clearly drawn from some of the more memorably weird moments of the “Twin Peaks” TV show.

 

 

Brooding, eccentric, ambient, sound-scapes have been essential to Lynch’s films since the break-through Midnight–Movie “Eraserhead” (1977) and even then he was weaving those sounds into pop-music of an earlier generation. He was exceptionally blessed by having frequent collaborator Composer Badalamenti providing a score that unifies these sound ideas, or as Peter Travers put it, “no sound design this year is more vital to a film's success.”

 

 

The Cinematography by Peter Deming, though not as a frequent collaborator, was similarly, flawlessly, integrated into the tight-but-alien whole. What he seemed to do was borrow from Lynch’s earlier work in the dream movements, and then from Deming’s own earlier work (generally much more conventional films) when outside it. Production Designer Jack Fisk’s is exceptional as he lays out the map for these collaborators and the audience to follow.

 

 

Lynch lives near the street that titles the film, which he describes this way, “At night, you ride on the top of the world. In the daytime you ride on top of the world, too, but it's mysterious, and there's a hair of fear because it goes into remote areas. You feel the history of Hollywood in that road."

 

 

And Actress Harring describes her evolving interpretation of the film this way, "When I saw it the first time, I thought it was the story of Hollywood dreams, illusion and obsession. It touches on the idea that nothing is quite as it seems, especially the idea of being a Hollywood movie star. The second and third times I saw it, I thought it dealt with identity. Do we know who we are? And then I kept seeing different things in it ... There's no right or wrong to what someone takes away from it or what they think the film is really about. It's a movie that makes you continuously ponder, makes you ask questions. I've heard over and over, 'This is a movie that I'll see again' or 'This is a movie you've got to see again.' It intrigues you. You want to get it, but I don't think it's a movie to be gotten. It's achieved its goal if it makes you ask questions."

 

 

Trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96R9MG0DxLc