Some of David Lynch’s films use a more traditional storytelling method than others; sure Lynch is primarily known for his surrealism, but on that rare occasion, some of his films run on a linear fashion. Take for example The Elephant Man (1980), Blue Velvet (1986) and The Straight Story (1999), three of Lynch’s films that don’t get too dreamlike or surreal, they don’t jump time or go into trippy dream sequences, nope, these three films run on a more or less linear fashion; they tell their tale in a way that is digestible for anyone willing to take a crack at them. But then there’s the dark, dark side of Lynch. I’m talking about that group of films in Lynch’s fantastic filmography that dive wholeheartedly into the surreal, the non-linear and the open for interpretation; these are films that usually end up meaning something different to everyone. Lost Highway (1997) is a good example of this, and so is the film I’ll be analyzing today, Mulholland Dr. (2001).
Now here’s a film that I instantly wanted to see again the
first time I saw it. I mean, literally, I saw it and immediately popped it back
in and pushed play. I watched it twice, back to back! I was enthralled, amazed
and transfixed by this film. It spooked me, it had this alluring aura to it
that I devoured and became addicted to. Mulholland Dr. quickly turned into one
of my favorite Lynch films, and it quite arguably is Lynch’s best film. Don’t
know how many of you out there agree, but Mulholland Dr. to me was the apex of
Lynch’s career, the pinnacle of his work, he took everything he knew about
filmmaking up to that point put it in a blender and hit puree! I don’t believe he’s done a film as good as
this one again.
When it was released, Mulholland Dr. got awards all over the
place! Lynch was nominated for best director that year at the Academy Awards,
he won the Best Director Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and Mulholland Dr. was
named ‘Best Picture’ by the New York Film Critics Circle, amongst other awards.
The film certainly got a reaction from audiences, more so than any other Lynch
film, there was something special about this movie and audiences and critics
picked up on it immediately. Now here’s the deal with Mulholland Dr, there are a
myriad of interpretations of the film out there, but I got my personal one and
seriously, it is solid! Air tight! So if you’ve never seen this movie, don’t
read this article because I’m going to go into a deep analysis of the film,
this is my take on one of Lynch’s most mysterious and alluring films, it’s like
a puzzle you have to put together little by little. I’ve seen the movie many
times and my take on it makes sense the more and more I watch it. What I’m
going to do is actually deconstruct the film (which is told in a non-linear
fashion) and retell it linearly, while trying to explain what the film means to
me. Just remember, this is just my take on it, maybe you have your own take it
on it too, which of course I urge you to share on the comments section! if you
haven’t experienced Mulholland Dr. yet, what are you waiting for?
CHAPTER I
CAMILLA AND DIANE; TWO ACTRESSES TRYING TO MAKE IT
The whole story starts out with these two actresses waiting
for their “big break” on a film project, their names are Camilla Rhodes and
Diane Selwyn. In order to make ends meet, Diane works at the local ‘Winkies
Diner’. To complicate things just a little bit more, they are in a
relationship. Apparently, for Camilla the relationship is more sexual, while
for Diane, being with Camilla is an obsession.
CAMILLA BECOMES FAMOUS, DIANE WALKS IN HER SHADOW
One thing leads to another and Camilla gets a big break on a
film called The Sylvia North Story! Camilla actually gets a major role on the
film! Unfortunately, while Camilla get’s to be a star, Diane gets NOTHING!
Fortunately, Camilla uses her fame to get Diane bit parts in some of her films.
For example, Camilla landed a role in a film from a young director called Adam
Kesher whom Camilla ends up falling in love with while rehearsing a kissing
scene. This romance that develops between Camilla and Adam Kesher obviously
makes Diane insanely jealous because Diane is obsessed with Camilla; we can see
the jealousy in Diane’s eyes when Camilla and Adam rehearse the kissing scene.
CHAPTER 3
ADAM BATTLES WITH PRODUCERS OVER WHO IS GOING TO STAR IN HIS MOVIE
Adam is trying to cast the right actress for a part in his
film and he’s got a girl in mind, unfortunately, his producers don’t agree.
They want another actress! This of course is this young director’s worst
nightmare! Now this meeting is the most uncomfortable meeting ever, everyone is
on the edge! The producer is portrayed as a man that’s so hard to please that no
one can get him an adequate cup of coffee! He tastes a cup of espresso they
bring him and he spits it out on a napkin! This of course is Lynch venting out
his frustrations with movie producers and the business side of filmmaking.
Producers often times clash with a directors artistic vision, especially with
directors like Lynch who value art over commerce. Many of Adam’s problems probably
mirror in one way or another Lynch’s own frustrations with the business side of
filmmaking; starting with the hard to please producers. Adam hates this meeting
because they are forcing him to choose an actress he doesn’t want, so he storms
out of the meeting and vents out his frustrations by smashing the window of one
of the producers limos!
CHAPTER 4
ADAM FINDS HIS WIFE CHEATING ON HIM, GETS A CALL FROM ‘THE
COWBOY’
After the meeting with the producers, Adam goes home only to
find his wife in bed with the pool man. To avenge this, he takes all her
expensive jewelry and smothers it with pink paint, she tries to stop him, so he
starts to fight with her at which point the pool man punches Adam in the face
and kicks him out of his own home, Adam takes the hint and leaves. He then goes
to stay at a cheap hotel in town, to hide away. Here he discovers that the
studio has cut off his credit line and he is practically broke! He then
receives a phone call to meet up with a character called “The Cowboy”. Just who
is this cowboy? And what does he want with Adam?
CHAPTER 5
DIANE AND CAMILLA
BREAK UP
Even though Camilla is romantically entangled with Adam
Kesher, she still lives with Diane, and they still share intimacy. But Camilla wants
to put an end to it, so one day, right in the middle of having sex with Diane,
Camilla tells Diane “we can’t keep doing this”, meaning, let’s break up. Diane
doesn’t like what she hears and replies “don’t say that, don’t ever say that”
with an obsessive look on her face. Diane ends up kicking Camilla from their
apartment. Camilla begs Diane not to make things harder than they are but Diane
says she’s not going to make it easy, because it’s not easy for her either.
Obviously, Diane’s attraction towards Camilla was obsessive. How so? Well, once
Camilla has moved out Diane crumbles, she looks a mess, she’s obviously
depressed. While walking through her apartment, she imagines that Camilla is
talking to her. She speaks to the wind saying things like “Camilla, you’re
back!” but there’s no one there. She’s alone. Camilla’s attraction was physical
and not romantic, while Diane’s was obsessive.
CHAPTER 6
ADAM MEETS THE COWBOY
So Adam goes up to this corral up on a mountain to meet The
Cowboy. Now this is a really mysterious character in the film: he knows
everything and seems to have everything under control. Now if you ask me, The
Cowboy is GOD, yup, not just symbolically, but literally. Why do I come to this
conclusion? Well, according to the bible God knows everything, and this cowboy
guy, well; he seems to know it all. He is one step ahead of Adam and the whole
mess going on with Diane and Camilla. There are more symbolisms that let us see
he is god. Adam must go to the top of the mountain to meet him, kind of like
how Moses had to go to the top of the mountain to meet God and get the Ten
Commandments, which is essentially what The Cowboy does with Adam, he gives him
a commandment. When the Cowboy arrives, a light bulb on the corral mysteriously
turns on, when he leaves, the light bulb mysteriously turns off, as if he’s
presence emitted some kind of mystical energy, a common motif in Lynch’s films.
The Cowboy tells Adam that he is the one in charge; that he’s the one “driving
this buggy” and that Adam better do as he’s told. He tells Adam to choose the
girl that his producers have chosen for him. Why does The Cowboy want Adam to
choose this new girl? More on that later!
CHAPTER 7
CAMILLA AND ADAM GET BRUTALLY CRUEL WITH DIANE
So Camilla and Diane have an ugly break up, but apparently
they are still in speaking terms because Camilla invites Diane to a dinner
party at Adams home. On the dinner table, a conversation reveals to us just how
Camilla and Diane met and how Diane has been living on the shadow of Camilla’s
success. Diane also tells us a bit about how she won a Jitterbug Contest and
that this is why she ended up trying to be an actress. We saw the Jitterbug
Contest way back at the beginning of the movie, when we see all those dancers
doing ‘The Jitterbug’ during the very first scenes of the film. While at this
dinner table, we hear Adam talking about his ex-wife; he says that the judge
decided that Adam would get the pool and that “she got the pool man”; which
means they are now divorced and Adam got to keep the house. Things take a turn
towards the brutally cruel when we see the blonde actress who The Cowboy told
Adam to choose for the film kissing Camilla right in front of Diane’s face!
This move is particularly cruel on Camilla’s part when we consider that she
knows just how badly Diane took their break up. But the cruelty towards Diane does
not stop there. Right on this very dinner table Camilla and Adam announce that
they are going to get married!
CHAPTER 8
DIANE DECIDES TO KILL CAMILLA
After the particularly cruel night, Diane can’t take the
loneliness and rejection. Being without Camilla proves to be just a bit too
much for her. How do we know? Well, Diane masturbates as she cries, but
masturbating just isn’t the same as being with Camilla. So, when Diane just
can’t take it no more, she decides that she wants to kill Camilla, so she hires
a hit man to do the job. Diane meets the hit man at the Winkies where she works
at. She gives him a picture of Camilla, so that he knows who he’s got to kill.
After she hands the hit man the money for the job, the hit man hands her a blue
key. Now just what is this blue key she’s just received and why has she
received it? What does it open?
CHAPTER 9
THE BLUE BOX, THE
BLUE KEY, DIANE COMMITS SUICIDE
Here’s where we gotta
stop and explain just what the blue box and key are. This is an important
question in this film because when the blue key is used and the blue box is
opened, people disappear! They go
somewhere; but where? Now If ‘The Cowboy’ is God, then there’s gotta be a Devil
in this movie, and that Devil is this ugly bum/monster in the alley behind the
Winkies, it is he who owns the Blue Box and Keys, so it is my belief that this blue
box is essentially a door way to hell. In the film, you get a Blue Key only
when you’ve done a heinous thing, like making arrangements to kill someone.
When Diane receives The Blue Key from the hit man, we see The Bum Behind the
Winkies (Satan) dropping the blue box and releasing these two evil looking old
people that I see as demons from hell, I mean, one look at these old dudes and
you’ll agree with me, they are demonic looking! It seems to me they’ve come to
get Diane for the sins she’s committed! What was Diane’s sin? Attempting to get
Camilla killed by paying the hit man! So we see the old demons chasing Diane to
her bed room, once there, Diane grabs a gun from her night table and shoots
herself in the head!
CHAPTER 10
THE COWBOY RESURRECTS DIANE
So Diane has committed a sin, sure, she has to pay for it,
so this is why demons from hell came for her. But what if God considers the
events that led to her death unjust? The all knowing, omnipresent Cowboy (Omnipresence
being another trait that God possesses) apparently decides that Diane has had a
rough life, that the events that led to her suicide where unjust, so he decides
to give her a break. So this is essentially a battle between God and Satan for
Diane and Camilla’s soul! God things she deserves a break while the Devil wants
her to pay for what she’s done. This is the reason why after Diane dies, the
Cowboy walks into her room and tells her “time to wake up”, who else can wake
people from the dead but God? This type of action lets us see that The Cowboy
is indeed a character that is supernatural in nature and why I conclude that he
is God. In the film, he is like a watcher, he is always lurking somewhere in
the background, observing what is going on. During the cruel dinner scene, he
was there seeing the events unfold, if you pay attention, you’ll see him
walking in the background. So it is my belief that The Cowboy saw what was done
to Diane, saw how these cruel acts made her commit suicide so he decided to
give Diane a second chance; so now Diane is going to live again. Will her life
be better this time around?
CHAPTER 11
DIANE’S SHINNY NEW LIFE
So Diane does get to come back to life, only this time,
things are happier, scratch that, things are perfect! On this second chance at
life Diane’s new name is Betty Elms. She’s just arrived at Los Angeles, the
name of the city itself an allusion to the fact that this is really Diane,
coming back from the afterlife. If you pay attention, when she’s coming down
the escalator at the airport, Lynch focuses on the words “City of Angels” and
on the walls, we see little designs of clouds, as if she was coming down from
heaven. This time, the two demonic old
people that had come out of the Blue Box and tortured her till she killed
herself seem angelically nice. Betty says she just met them on the plane, and
we kind of get the idea that they function as guardian angels to Betty. This time around Betty/Diane is still an
aspiring actress, but things are different. Her attitude has changed! She’s all
positive about her prospects as an actress and we gotta remember, one of the
things the Cowboy told Adam was that our attitude in life determines the kind
of life we will live. So anyhow, Betty’s aunt Ruth is letting her stay in her
house so that she can go to a big audition. Everything seems perfect this time
around, even the way Lynch shot the scenes, everything’s colorful and brightly
lit as opposed to Diane’s previous life which was all dark, grey and
depressive. Could this new life be The Cowboys way of giving Diane a chance at
living a better life, a happier life? Maybe he figures she suffered enough and
deserves a shot at happiness? Apparently so because when Dianne goes to an
audition for a film it goes splendidly well! The producer and director love
her! Apparently she’s going to get the part!
CHAPETER 12
BETTY ALMOST MEETS ADAM KESHER…AGAIN!
After her splendid audition, a casting director decides to take
Betty to meet a hot young film director whom she considers better. This young
filmmaker as fate would have it ends up being none other than Adam Kesher! Here’s
where we understand why The Cowboy (God) wanted Adam Kesher to choose another
girl! If Adam hadn’t chosen somebody else, Betty would have auditioned for
Kesher’s film and she would have ended up meeting Kesher and Camilla again! Kesher
might have recognized her from when he knew her as Diane, Camilla’s obsessive
girlfriend! But Betty is not Diane anymore, she’s Betty! Had Kesher not chose
another actress, Betty would have ended up right back with Camilla and Kesher,
the two people who psychologically tortured her and made her commit suicide! To
avoid all this, The Cowboy made sure that Kesher chose somebody else. Still, for
a brief second Adam and Betty do see each other from afar, but apparently,
Kesher can’t recognize her. Thankfully, Betty remembers she has to meet Rita
and so she leaves before she can actually meet Kesher. Phew! Crisis averted!
CHAPTER 13
CAMILLA AVOIDS HER OWN DEATH, LOOSES MEMORY
Diane is dead, and she’s come back as innocent and happy Betty,
but we gotta remember that Diane paid a hit man to kill Camilla and said hit
man is still out to kill Camilla! And so, as Camilla rides a Limo, she doesn’t know
it, but she’s about to get shot by the drivers, who are the hit men. These are
the hit men that Diane paid for in her previous life! Anyways, suddenly, a
freak car accident sets her free from being murdered! The hit men die in the
accident and Camilla manages to escape, but there’s a catch, the concussion
that Camilla receives makes her forget who she was! So now Camilla doesn’t know
she’s Camilla, she doesn’t know Adam or Diane, she can’t remember a thing! So
she begins to wander aimlessly through city of Los Angeles, not knowing who she
is or where to go to.
CHAPTER 14
CAMILLA RE-ENCOUNTERS DIANNE IN THE FORM OF BETTY
Eventually Camilla, in her disorientation, finds an empty
apartment and decides to hide in it. She doesn’t know it yet, but this is the
same apartment that Betty/Diane is staying in! Yup, as fate would have it,
Camilla aimlessly wonders right back into Diane’s second chance at life! These
two women who had been lovers in a previous life have now re-encountered each
other, the only problem is that neither one of them recognizes each other.
Camilla can’t remember who Diane is because she’s lost her memory and Diane
can’t remember Camilla because she can’t remember anything from her previous
life! So they both treat each other like perfect strangers! Camilla can’t
remember her name so she gives Betty the first name she sees on a movie poster
which is Rita. So on this second go, Camilla is now known as Rita and Diane is
now Betty. Betty ends up pitying Rita and wanting to help her, perhaps because
the attraction and feelings she had for Camilla in her previous life are still
there somehow. To me it always seemed like their love, their attraction for each
other was so strong that even now, on this second life their souls end up
converging. “Perhaps we’ll meet again in another life” is a common phrase; I
think we could apply it here.
CHAPTER 15
BETTY AND RITA BECOME DETECTIVES
Rita came into Betty’s apartment with a purse that had two
things: a Blue Key and a large amount of
money. What was the money for? Perhaps Camilla was going to get someone killed
as well? At any rate, Camilla must have done a seriously evil deed in order to
receive the dreaded blue key. So anyhow, Betty wants to help Rita remember who
she is, so she calls the cops trying to figure out what happened at the scene
of the accident. Rita suddenly remembers a name ‘Diane Selwyn’! Betty doesn’t
realize it, but Rita is talking about Betty’s past self! Rita/Camilla is
starting to remember who Diane was! Then Betty decides to look up Diane Selwyn
in the yellow pages, they find out there’s only one Diane Selwyn, they call her
but get a recorded message; when Camilla hears the message she recognizes the
voice and says “I know that voice!” Of course, she recognizes it because Diane
use to be her lover and roommate! Next they decide to go see where this Diane
Selwyn lives. When they get there, they walk into the empty apartment and start
exploring it until a hideous smell leads them to the bedroom where they
discover Diane Selwyn, dead on her bed! In other words: Betty discovers the
body she used to inhabit in her previous life! With her brains blown out! The
body decayed! The horror! She doesn’t recognize herself though because the body
is so decayed.
CHAPTER 16
BETTY AND RITA GET IT ON...AGAIN!
Rita is horrified after having discovered the dead body; she
decides she wants to cut all ties with who she was, so she puts on a blonde
wig. Now Betty and Rita look like two blond twins or something. So anyways, one
thing leads to another and Rita and Betty end up naked on the same bed, their
previous passions resurface and voila! They end up making out. Funny how Betty
asks Rita “have you done this before?” and Rita replies “I don’t know”, in
reality, they’d both been lovers before, they just can’t remember! In the midst
of the passion Betty tells Rita she loves her, but Rita doesn’t say the same,
which kind of mirrors their previous relationship which was only physical, at
least from Rita’s side. On a personal note, this is one of the most erotic love scenes ever filmed! So after their make out session, while they are both
sound asleep, suddenly Rita starts saying “Silencio!” which means ‘silence’ in Spanish,
then she says “No hay banda” which means “There is no band!”. When you first see the film, this is a really
spooky moment because it’s like, suddenly Rita can speak Spanish? What else don’t
we know about Rita? So right there and then, at 2 in the a.m., Rita begs Betty
to come with her somewhere. That somewhere is a place called “Club Silencio”, a
place that apparently Rita frequented.
CHAPTER 17
CLUB SILENCIO
Now here’s a scene in which many of the films themes are
accentuated. Club Silencio is a theater in which we see performers doing illusions
on stage. First we see an illusionist come up on stage and tell us that “there
is no band”. We hear a trumpet, we hear a trombone, but it’s all recorded,
nothing is real, the overall message is that everything is an illusion. The
phrase “life is but a dream” or “life is an illusion” applies here. To me the
Illusionist is the same character as the bum behind the Winkies, he is Satan
coming to claim these girls souls. Both have done horrible deeds, and both must
pay for what they have done, I mean, just the guys face let’s you know he is
evil. When the illusionist stares at Betty, we hear thunder and blue light and
Betty starts shaking uncontrollably. To me what’s happening here is that the
illusionist is placing the Blue Box (which is essentially a doorway to Hell) on
Betty’s purse. He recognizes these two souls as souls who have eluded him when
they should have gone to hell to pay for their sins. When the blue light fades
and the smoke disappears, the Illusionist is also gone from the stage.
Suddenly, Betty realizes that the Blue Box is in her purse. After that we here
Rebecca del Rio sing a Spanish version of Roy Orbison’s ‘Crying’ a song that applies
perfectly to Diane’s unrequited love for Camilla. Read these lines from the
song and you’ll see what I mean:
“When you said “so long” left me standing there all alone,
alone and crying”
”I thought that I was over you, But it’s true, oh so true, I
love you even more, than I did before”
”But darling what can I do? For you don’t love me, and I’ll
always be crying over you”
After Rita and Betty give a good cry together they both know
what they have to do with the Blue Key that they’d found in Rita’s purse! They
have to use it on the Blue Box that magically appeared in Betty’s purse! Again,
this sudden appearance of the Blue Box in Betty’s purse alludes to supernatural
events happening which is why I go with the God/Satan angle with this movie. It’s really the angle that makes the most
sense.
CHAPTER 18
FINALLY RITA AND BETTY USE THE BLUE KEY ON THE BLUE BOX
After Club Silencio, Betty and Rita go back to Aunt Ruth’s apartment, look for the Blue Key and put it in the Blue Box; we see the camera zooming into the box, as Betty and Rita are sucked into it, then they disappear! We know what’s happened; they’ve both been sucked into hell! Then, Lynch ends the film with this mysterious old lady with blue hair looking at the camera. She looks at us from high above in a theater balcony of Club Silencio and whispers the words “Silencio”, then the movie fades to black and we’re left wondering what the hell we just saw. Of course, if you ask me I say that old lady with the blue hair is also God, the cowboy in another form, same as the devil took the form of the magician. God looks at us from high above amusing himself with the theater of life, because as the saying goes “all life is a stage”