"You ever done this before?"
"I don't know."
We see swing dancers overlapping each other against a purple background.
A blonde beauty queen gets a crown.
Flashing lights.
Remember those corny swing-dancing GAP ads?
I'm thinking about 'em, now, for some reason.
Then we're in a first person camera POV,
diving into a pillow.
Is all that transpires after this but a dream?
Now we're following a limo through the curves of Mulholland Dr. a famous road associated with Los Angeles, with Hollywood, with the movies. It was the setting for a hilarious road rage episode in Lost Highway. Deepest night, and a beautiful raven-haired woman is riding in the limo, apparently against her will, as one of the goons in front points a silenced handgun at her. The woman is rescued when drunken teen joyriders collide with the limo, killing the goons, and tossing the woman clear, albeit with a serious head injury. She staggers off into the night.
The woman with the head injury eventually lays down to rest . . . are we entering a dream within a dream? Or is it all just one big dream? Who is dreaming who into existence?
Because the blonde beauty queen arrives in Los Angeles as an aspiring actress from Ontario. And soon enough she and the beautiful raven-haired woman meet, and the whole scenario feels like . . . a film scenario. Happenstance. A woman in trouble. A plucky young civilian investigator. The Canadian beauty queen makes like a wannabee Nancy Drew and offers to assist the amnesiac limo lady with her dilemma.
Oh, yeah: and there's a hitman who just barely manages to shoot his way out of a hairy situation, piling up two too many corpses. Three, if you count that poor damn vacuum cleaner.
Meanwhile, a filthy homeless man-who may be the secret evil god of this reality-hangs out behind a diner's dumpster, scaring to death anyone who looks directly upon his face. Also: a sinister cowboy seems to dictate the fate of a young filmmaker. And then there's Mr. Rocque, the studio head who seems to want to exercise total control over the young filmmaker's dream project just because he can. Why have power if you cannot inflict it upon people, right?
Lotta sinister secret masters in this world-do I need to include the creepy-as-fuck elderly couple?
The mobster who is very particular about his espresso?
And Dan Hedaya-that guy always seems to have the weight of the world on his shoulders. Just like a secret master would . . . shit, he might even be playing the same character he played in Clueless. One moment he's fretting about his teenage daughter's provocative fashion sense, the next he has to go give the business to some upstart young director punk. When it rains.
Has anyone ever written fanfic about the Mulholland Dr./Clueless Extended Universe? Somebody oughtta get on that shit.
Initially, we are presented with idealistic, youthful people trying to make it in Hollywood: an aspiring actress/civilian detective and filmmaker making his first big studio film. The Canadian actress wants to become a star AND solve the mystery of her new friend's amnesia while sinister forces swirl all around her. The filmmaker is trying to resist the oppressive hand of the studio while also dealing with his unfaithful wife and worsening financial situation.
But then the narrative shifts: and an idealistic actress/detective becomes a vengeful jilted lover and the rebel filmmaker is revealed to be a self-serving cog in the studio machine; and the beautiful amnesiac woman is revealed to know exactly who she is and what she wants out of life no matter who gets hurt along the way. The idealistic protagonists struggling against fate are all unmasked as opportunists trying to hustle and con their way through life just like every other person in Los Angeles.
A weird nightclub host tells us, "IT IS ALL RECORDED," and, "IT'S ALL ON TAPE," and a song goes on even after a singer collapses . . .
A blue key opens a void that displaces one reality with another . . .
A woman sees a corpse that turns out to be her own-but only after a shift in space/time . . .
Are we seeing the fantasy Hollywood unmasked as a nightmare of free will cancelled by sinister Lovecraftian deities lurking in deepest mindshadows?
Or is it more of a loop or maybe a simultaneity?
When I first saw this movie, I perceived it as a slow revelation, an unmasking of a horrid reality, but, after absorbing Inland Empire and the third season of Twin Peaks, I can't help but see it not so much as a fantasy followed by the revelation of the dark reality powering it but more of an evocation of the instability of reality itself-of identtiy-of dream-of nightmare.
It's a whole lotta weird shit.
I have no explanations, no solutions, but I'm reminded of something the science fiction writer Samuel R. Delany said about how a writer should not attempt to employ popular tricks and commercial writing techniques to improve their fiction, but rather should be aware of the opposed tensions within the text. The writer can only control those tensions and how they are deployed. Everything else is out of the writer's control. I'm not sure I completely understand what Delany was getting at-he also brought up Wittgenstein, I think-but it resonates in my mind with what Lynch is doing in Mulholland Dr.: opposed visions of reality, of characters presented within the same film. What does this bizarre set of oppositions do to us, as filmgoers?
It confuses the shit out of us, but that confusion goads us to think about what we've seen, heard, felt, thought, experienced. We are no longer being passively entertained. We are engaged.
Or maybe we're yelling at the screen in frustration.
Maybe we're desperately wondering what the fuck is going on, what did I just watch?!
Maybe we're all just a dream in the mind of Alicia Silverstone's character in Clueless.
"As if."
"Silencio."
"I don't know."
We see swing dancers overlapping each other against a purple background.
A blonde beauty queen gets a crown.
Flashing lights.
Remember those corny swing-dancing GAP ads?
I'm thinking about 'em, now, for some reason.
Then we're in a first person camera POV,
diving into a pillow.
Is all that transpires after this but a dream?
Now we're following a limo through the curves of Mulholland Dr. a famous road associated with Los Angeles, with Hollywood, with the movies. It was the setting for a hilarious road rage episode in Lost Highway. Deepest night, and a beautiful raven-haired woman is riding in the limo, apparently against her will, as one of the goons in front points a silenced handgun at her. The woman is rescued when drunken teen joyriders collide with the limo, killing the goons, and tossing the woman clear, albeit with a serious head injury. She staggers off into the night.
The woman with the head injury eventually lays down to rest . . . are we entering a dream within a dream? Or is it all just one big dream? Who is dreaming who into existence?
Because the blonde beauty queen arrives in Los Angeles as an aspiring actress from Ontario. And soon enough she and the beautiful raven-haired woman meet, and the whole scenario feels like . . . a film scenario. Happenstance. A woman in trouble. A plucky young civilian investigator. The Canadian beauty queen makes like a wannabee Nancy Drew and offers to assist the amnesiac limo lady with her dilemma.
Oh, yeah: and there's a hitman who just barely manages to shoot his way out of a hairy situation, piling up two too many corpses. Three, if you count that poor damn vacuum cleaner.
Meanwhile, a filthy homeless man-who may be the secret evil god of this reality-hangs out behind a diner's dumpster, scaring to death anyone who looks directly upon his face. Also: a sinister cowboy seems to dictate the fate of a young filmmaker. And then there's Mr. Rocque, the studio head who seems to want to exercise total control over the young filmmaker's dream project just because he can. Why have power if you cannot inflict it upon people, right?
Lotta sinister secret masters in this world-do I need to include the creepy-as-fuck elderly couple?
The mobster who is very particular about his espresso?
And Dan Hedaya-that guy always seems to have the weight of the world on his shoulders. Just like a secret master would . . . shit, he might even be playing the same character he played in Clueless. One moment he's fretting about his teenage daughter's provocative fashion sense, the next he has to go give the business to some upstart young director punk. When it rains.
Has anyone ever written fanfic about the Mulholland Dr./Clueless Extended Universe? Somebody oughtta get on that shit.
Initially, we are presented with idealistic, youthful people trying to make it in Hollywood: an aspiring actress/civilian detective and filmmaker making his first big studio film. The Canadian actress wants to become a star AND solve the mystery of her new friend's amnesia while sinister forces swirl all around her. The filmmaker is trying to resist the oppressive hand of the studio while also dealing with his unfaithful wife and worsening financial situation.
But then the narrative shifts: and an idealistic actress/detective becomes a vengeful jilted lover and the rebel filmmaker is revealed to be a self-serving cog in the studio machine; and the beautiful amnesiac woman is revealed to know exactly who she is and what she wants out of life no matter who gets hurt along the way. The idealistic protagonists struggling against fate are all unmasked as opportunists trying to hustle and con their way through life just like every other person in Los Angeles.
A weird nightclub host tells us, "IT IS ALL RECORDED," and, "IT'S ALL ON TAPE," and a song goes on even after a singer collapses . . .
A blue key opens a void that displaces one reality with another . . .
A woman sees a corpse that turns out to be her own-but only after a shift in space/time . . .
Are we seeing the fantasy Hollywood unmasked as a nightmare of free will cancelled by sinister Lovecraftian deities lurking in deepest mindshadows?
Or is it more of a loop or maybe a simultaneity?
When I first saw this movie, I perceived it as a slow revelation, an unmasking of a horrid reality, but, after absorbing Inland Empire and the third season of Twin Peaks, I can't help but see it not so much as a fantasy followed by the revelation of the dark reality powering it but more of an evocation of the instability of reality itself-of identtiy-of dream-of nightmare.
It's a whole lotta weird shit.
I have no explanations, no solutions, but I'm reminded of something the science fiction writer Samuel R. Delany said about how a writer should not attempt to employ popular tricks and commercial writing techniques to improve their fiction, but rather should be aware of the opposed tensions within the text. The writer can only control those tensions and how they are deployed. Everything else is out of the writer's control. I'm not sure I completely understand what Delany was getting at-he also brought up Wittgenstein, I think-but it resonates in my mind with what Lynch is doing in Mulholland Dr.: opposed visions of reality, of characters presented within the same film. What does this bizarre set of oppositions do to us, as filmgoers?
It confuses the shit out of us, but that confusion goads us to think about what we've seen, heard, felt, thought, experienced. We are no longer being passively entertained. We are engaged.
Or maybe we're yelling at the screen in frustration.
Maybe we're desperately wondering what the fuck is going on, what did I just watch?!
Maybe we're all just a dream in the mind of Alicia Silverstone's character in Clueless.
"As if."
"Silencio."
