I've seen Mulholland Drive at least a couple times and still don't have the first fricking idea how to make sense of it.
What do you think of it? I'm going to watch it again, what's one thing I should keep in mind while I do?
Mulholland Drive: Making Sense
The b***h was dreaming the entire movie. The reality parts were the ending when she wakes up looking all depressed. You can pretty much fill in the rest.
there are two layers
on is the relatively obvious interpretation that most viewers end up at, which is this:
but then you remember that Lynch is always showing you ideas in concrete form, and that everything and everyone symbolizes something else, and you start to get at the real meaning of it
And what's that "real meaning" that he's getting at?
see:
ultimately the character of Betty is just a symbol for the Hollywood dream, that's the beauty of having her literally dream the entire dreamlike narrative of it
it's actually one of the most interesting things about Lynch's films if you ask me, that he often employs the "this was just a dream" or "this was just imagination", but that this is then actually a literal symbol for a dream or for imagination itself as a process in a grander context, like e.g. in Lost Highway too as discussed a bit here:
when you start to see Lynch's films in this light you see that he's not just a madman inserting surreal imagery to make his works seem deep without actually having any meaning, he always starts out with the meaning and the ideas and works from there, something he's been very explicit about during all his years as a filmmaker
it's a bit like Finnegans Wake, at first it seems like Joyce has just succumbed to madness, but then you start digging into it and start to see that there's a very real method to the madness, and Joyce himself was absolutely adamant that he could explain any part of it he was asked about perfectly well with great clarity
Ok, but what's the deal with the key?
Blue balls she was giving the male viewers.
WHERE'S THE KEY LEBOWSKY
WHERE'S THE KEY SHIT HEEEEEEEAD
The only thing I don't get is the red lampshade.
I remember it from the phone call about Rita being missing, but that's it.
It's also in the scene where Diane answers the invitation to the party at the end from Camilla
How has nobody solved Mulholland Drive yet when it’s been 20 years, Lynch gave clues on how to figure it out and it’s regarded as one of the supreme masterpieces of cinema
What makes you think no one has "solved" it?
It's already solved why didn't you google it?
https://www.mulholland-drive.net/studies/10clues.htm
>It's a replay of the call to attend the dinner party, only with Mr Roque as the initiator and Diane avoiding the call. It's her pathological way of dealing with reality. Diane feels that she should never have come. She should never have picked up the phone when Camilla called that night.
I like this one.
Some things are fun and more rewarding to figure out on your own
Not true, the movie is divided into two parts, everything leading up to the two sitting in the theatre (that part is real), and everything that follows which is not real/dream-like.
that's just the superficial layer
now realize that all of that is just symbolism
see:
Obviously there's a point behind the fact that the first three quarters is a dream, but it's considerably easier to get there than it is to get the "superficial" layer. Once you understand the dream thing the movie opens up.
you cannot make sense of it.
it was supposed to be a season long tv show that got turned into a movie halfway into production.
lynch is a hack, dont let anyone else tell you otherwise.
Wrong.
No he is. He believes meditation works
It was a completed pilot episode that Lynch capably converted into a completed movie by writing and filming some extra material.
>capably
why are you lying to yourself?
Was about to post same thing. You can tell on first watching that the second half seems to have been written in a hurry and spackled over with surrealism.
The first half is a dream based on the events of the second half (which is also a dream)
The events depicted on screen happen exactly as they are shown. Reddit interpretation involving dreams is midwit nonsense.
Yeah there's a thing with Lynch where he takes dreamy stuff, abstract things, and turns them real. I think more often than not, he turns dreams real more than pointing and saying oh its just a dream
Lynch's whole gimmick is depicting reality in a surreal way so that people realize how absurd our normal circumstances are. Dream interpretations of his stuff are low IQ.
Prove it
This. The movie just is. There's nothing to puzzle out or unwind. It is itself.
Sure, the move just is a movie that shows the MC's dream.
Naomi Watts character is a ghost.
The brunette is the main character.
Watts ordered a "hit" on the brunette as per the events of the final act. She then commits suicide out of guilt BUT the brunette escapes the car wreck albeit with amnesia. Naomi Watts cries during the Silencio scene because she's realised that she's dead.
why would a ghost order a hit on somebody?
What's the evidence for any of the movie being a dream?
It's an allegory of Hollywood and showbiz in general.
I understand that to a small extent: Theroux's character's story in the first half makes that clear. But past that, what? Naomi Watt's as the second character?
yep, exactly
Naomi Watts is essentially the main character
she represents the idea of the young actress coming to Hollywood and everything going perfectly on rails with zero obstacles
but then of course we are constantly being shown the reality intruding on this delusional fantasy, and that this is in fact, much like "the American dream", a "Hollywood dream"
after figuring this out when I had viewed it quite a number of times already, I came across Twin Perfect's summary of it all, and he had come to the same conclusion, but also added a lot of observations I hadn't, would recommend watching that no matter what you think
the most interesting observation is the name of the film itself, Mulholland Drive, as this is apparently a long and winding round that goes across the mountains to the west of the Hollywood Hills and ends up straight underneath the Hollywood sign itself, clearly meant to symbolize the truth and reality of the dangerous and crooked road to Hollywood, as opposed to the delusional Hollywood dream
>What's the evidence for any of the movie being a dream?
Just look at the acting, it's fantasy level stuff, from dialogue to her circumstances of events going all well for her, it's a completely unrealistic compared to the end where the actions seem more lifelike.
When she wakes up she rises from the same position in which she was found dead in the first part and into which she falls when she shoots herself. That's too coincidental for the end sequence to be more real than the first part.
She can't be a ghost, ghosts aren't visible to everyone, which she was.
Well for one thing the movie opens with a first-person view approaching a pillow. I think there may have been a couple more but I forget.
That makes sense but it's still a long shot. Why make such a big deal out of the director thing?
Mulholland Drive was a pilot for a television series but didn't get picked up. Lynch secured funding from the French to shoot enough to make it into a feature. But lots of plot threads are set up and go nowhere, because they would've been part of the show but then the show never happened. (Robert Forster being in it at all, the midget in the wheelchair behind the one way mirror)
in Betty's dream version of things, the reason she doesn't get the acting part she wanted is because the director was pressured by the mafia into picking someone else, instead of it being because she just wasn't good enough. the first part of the movie is how Betty wanted things to be, the second part is the reality where she fricked everything up herself before committing suicide.
Lynch likes to have his characters escape into disassociative fantasy worlds as a way of coping with guilt. It's the whole plot of Lost Highway and of course is present in Eraserhead, Inland Empire, and Twin Peaks
maybe the part like two thirds in where the guy walks into her room and tells her it's time to wake up?
the most important scene by far is
?si=6pVjgF-9GNDQXByf&t=57
naomi watts is the blonde singer. she wanted to be chosen but instead her brunette friend was. she couldn't handle it and the film is the consequence of her dissociating
Are these two posts in direct contradiction of each other? If Betty's the blonde, didn't the mafia in her dream get the director to pick her?
I don't know what
is on about, Betty's literally in that same fricking scene, and the singing girl is the girl Laura Harring leaves her for, they fricking make out at the party in front of her at the end
So the midget guy and the hobo behind the dumpster were just dead ends? And the club silencio stuff?
>why would a ghost order a hit on somebody?
She didn't order the hit when she was a ghost, dumbass. The events shown at the end of the film happen before the start of the film, they are not shown in chronological order. Watts is jealous of her more successful lover, orders the hit "to make it look like a car accident", then kills herself out of guilt. Meanwhile the hit is a failure because the brunette crawls out of the car wreck with amnesia. The middle of the film is ghost / head character watts trying to help the brunette piece her memory back together, except when she does piece her memory back together, watts also remembers she is dead. The blue box is the brunette's memories
don't look up what naomi watts looks like now
How come he didn't ever see him again?
We did at the party.
In fact we see him two more times. At the bedroom door and at the party where she's sliding towards rock bottom. If he did good we would have only seen him wake her up. The director did what he was told, but maybe not what he was supposed to.
Are Lost Highway and Inland Empire as explainable as this?
>Inland Empire
No one understands that crap, not even Lynch
Good post, remember early on in the movie when Fred's talking to the detectives:
"I like to remember things my own way... how I remembered them, not necessarily the way they happened"
Is Inland Empire incomprehensible? Seems like Lynch's MO is dreams and fantasy lands. What about Twin Peaks?
Inland Empire is just bullshit. Twin Peaks is apparently fine, haven't watched it
>Inland Empire is just bullshit.
100%.
Not 100%, it does have a story
mutt's law
well, keep in mind that those posts are just the first layer, the basic frame of the story, and not actually the ideas playing out as Lynch explicitly talks about
but yes and no, Lost Highway is as explainable as Mulholland Drive in my view, but not Inland Empire, that one is at least still beyond me, although I have some faint ideas about what some of the overarching concepts might be
but the key to Lost Highway is what Fred Madison (the saxophone player) says:
>I like to remember things my own way. How I remembered them, not necessarily the way they happened.
going into a detailed analysis would be virtually impossible, but it's essentially a commentary on not just the filmmaking process itself, but the psychological themes of what it means to experience and remember things subjectively, like the classic Anaïs Nin quote:
>We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.
you could go as deep as you want with this, all the way down to the Kantian metaphysical observation that literally everything we experience, all the way down to concepts we think of as fundamental, like space and time, are structures imposed by the mind itself to make experience possible in the first place, so it's obvious that the entirety of your psyche will invariably be projected onto anything you experience and remember
more curious is perhaps how Fred doesn't just express that that's how it is, but that he prefers it that way, he would rather remember things his own way than know them objectively, a bit of an "ignorance is bliss" thing going on
it's a really great film for sure, there is such a depth to Lynch's films that you don't really find from a lot of other directors
I don't think you have to get kantian about it. It seems to me that more often all these surrealists and abstract directors usually place their foundations somewhere in the psychoanalytic tradition.
with Lost Highway in particular you can really see parallels to Kant's recognition of how everything we experience has our minds projected onto it and structuring it
sure, you don't "have to", but it's quite clear
remember that the psychoanalytic traditions themselves spawned out of the ideas that Kant laid the foundations for, although arguably Leibniz might have preceded him in that regard
you have zero idea what you're talking about
you're just looking at the surface of the film, like the people looking at the superficial dream layer of Mulholland Drive
enjoy being an ignorant fool, I guess
You Lynch gays are worse than the Kubrick gays.
>you have zero idea what you're talking about
lol
lmao
1. In 2002, director David Lynch said he had only recently realized what subconsciously inspired the film. It was the O.J. Simpson trial. Lynch said that the trial was a major influence on his mind during the stage of writing this script, which deals with a man who was accused of killing his wife.
>https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116922/trivia/
2. David Lynch's Lost Highway as a commentary on other directors:
Dumb homosexual. The funniest part is how you think "Lynch himself said" is somehow fricking debatable.
yes, we all know that this case influenced the film
no idea what your point is
sounds like you're trying to make it out as if that's that and that that's what the film is about
if that's the case, then you're even more ignorant than I thought
>dumb gay gets btfo'd
>changes his story and thinks people can't just read the thread to discover he's a dumb, lying pseud
>>dumb gay gets btfo'd
the irony of saying this after I totally destroy you here:
pretty hilarious
his story
never did that once
nice try, dumbtard
try again
why are lynchgays like this?
really, it's like saying that Lynch saw some dude acting like Weinstein, and that this is what inspired Mulholland Drive
no, stupid, it's the entire idea behind it, the very fact that this is what Hollywood is like
in the case of Lost Highway, one such case inspiring it doesn't make the film about that, it's about the entire intricacy of trying to find any objective truth when all you have are subjective experiences and subjectively recalled memories to go by, especially when those experiences are not only colored by the individual minds experiencing them, but when those minds literally actively engage in self-deception and confabulation
a trial like that of Simpson is just a superficial manifestation of these deeper themes, and it's these themes that Lynch really works with
>the very fact that this is what Hollywood is like
Well in Mulholland Drive's case, it's what failed actors like to dream about is the case as cope.
the show would have just gotten shitty quickly as the networks either cancel it prematurely or get too involved in the creative choices. The movie is perfect.
>I like to remember things my own way. How I remembered them, not necessarily the way they happened.
>it means something something something something film school words
Nope. Think super hard about an Angeleno working in a field traditionally dominated by blacks who killed his blonde wife and claimed he didn't, then eluded punishment for it*. Look at trial footage from that case and see if the victim didn't have a brunette sister who otherwise looked exactly like her. Also look super hard at the characters played by Balthazar Getty in Natural Born Killers as well as Lost Highway and see whether they're absolutely identical. In fact, look at Oliver Stone's output since Twin Peaks and see if you can detect where it's lampooned (really more reclaimed) in Lost Highway.
>*Lynch has stated flat-out (by accident, and he stopped talking afterward) what this film is based on, even mentioning the name of the man.
I absolutely despise Lynch fans because they are the dumbest people in the world but think they're smart.
>there is such a depth to Lynch's films that you don't really find from a lot of other directors
Yes, most films have more depth than a puddle. Unlike the trash this idiot put out
Michael Gira?
I need to frick Naomi.
whats not to get?
She incorporated real life into her fantasy dream world.
At the end party is real life, she incoporated the hate for coffee, Adams fricking her lesbian lover and re-worked it into a fantasy of her making
naomi booba
Naomi boota
my take was that she makes a deal with devil and reality is rewritten using dream logic
I think I understand it now:
Diane came to Hollywood after her aunt died to try to act. She met Camilla and started a relationship with her. Camilla's career took off and hers did not, and that made her jealous. Then she realized her relationship with Camilla was just a casual thing, or in any case Camilla was interested in other people as well, including the director of the role she couldn't believe she lost (did Camilla sleep with him maybe?). She couldn't handle it, hired a hitman to kill Camilla, and then killed herself out of guilt and despair at having failed in Hollywood.
The beginning like three quarters of the film are a dream, where she is successful as Betty and Camilla is Rita, who she is able to control much more easily.
yes. and the monster is the murder and the box is the truth. once it's opened the fantasy of diane vanishes "time to wake up" and she kills herself
and inland empire is awesome if you don't understand it you should watch it again. there are some good youtube explanations out there too if you need a little insight becuase it's so tangled if you don't watch it a few times (it's like three hours long lol)
You don't get it because you're too busy being a smart alec.
Comfy looking hat.
>runs hollywood
>wears a funny hat
Persona's better
>that scene where she furiously fapped to a memory of her ex
Watched this while going through a break up and it hit hard
do women really?
Yes I still speak to an ex and sometimes she hangs up the phone to jerk off.
Another day of this trash being spammed
Just have a nice day already
Sorry, I thought this was the board to discuss television and film
it makes me sad how fricking stupid people are, i'm stupid and i understood 90% of the movie
of course you did, me too
It's not meant to make sense, just like Lost Highway, it's a genre of film from EU made by people totally up themselves
it's a dream within a dream. layers. nothing in MD is "real". it's also lynch's meta-commentary on pedowood and casting couch.
0 dreams, just layers and cuts from a movie that the characters are producing + real life
Crackprostitute Naomi Watts is real, gets cheated on by her actor gf with the director, gets mad and orders a hit on her, then dreams about the whole story as it is first presented
They really screwed up not making it a show, since it’s some of the best shit I’ve ever seen.
Things dont have to make complete sense for you to appreciate them. Cinema is a medium of feels, of the visceral, of the sensuous. Under the Silver Lake wanted to remind you of this which is why Mitchell hired the spooky jumpscare guy.
Holy shit he's the comic schizo
yep
coincidentally, Under the Silver Lake actually has a very Lynchian feel to it, although a much more modern and contemporary take
Isn't Mulholland Drive the type of movie that is supposed to be felt rather than understood? Kinda like Persona. Lynch took a look of inspiration from that film and Sunset Boulevard.
There isn't much about it that isn't understandable. The meaning behind the Cowboy and The Homeless man is kind of vague, but not completely out of reach.
I think Persona is not meant to be "understood" in the way that it is really besides the point to nail down exactly what does and does not happen in the narrative, because what is worth discussing in the movie comes through regardless.
For me at least it's hard to even get my bearings in Lynch. I had at least a tentative idea of what Persona was "about" on the first watch. I walk away from Lynch stuff the first time not knowing what the frick is going on
Persona is a deeper film
Its kino because you're a noire detective chasing vague leads that don't add up, and you're always reaching out for the next theory or clue. Knowing 100% of the mystery would kill the movie.
So is Inland Empire about a guy that kills his wife and the porn producer that put her in a film, and then blocks it out of his memory until the end? Was the kid real? Who killed the guy that threw the party (the guy that ended up in the table)?
It's "Woah, she's literally me!", the movie.
My understanding is that the movie is about the power of film to affect the audience.
It's about a movie within a movie within a movie.
The prostitute is watching TV in a room, she is watching Inland Empire, which is about an over the hill actress that gets a part in a supposedly cursed movie. The character she portrays in the movie is a woman who has a southern accent, has a history of being abused which she recounts to a man in a room, she cheats on her husband and gets impregnated by the other man, so the husband leaves to join the circus, she loses her son, is left with nothing, becomes a prostitute, she goes to her lover played by her costar (Justin Theroux) and exposes their affair to his wife. His wife ends up stabbing her wit a screwdriver in the street and the character dies.
The actress's costar is considered some kind of stud who bangs all his costars, this idea they both scoff at at the beginning, but eventually they do have sex, the actress cheats on her husband with her costar, which begins her deep relation with the character she portrays, to the point she can't tell the difference between reality and the movie she's acting in.
But one the charachter dies, she gets up to her reality, that she is an actress, she sees Inland Empire at the cinema, she goes up to the prostitute's room, and they embrace, they become one because they are "she's literally me". The prostitute has been watching this movie, and deeply relating to it because it also tells her life, and watching it was been some kind of revelation or catharsis to her. It leads to her being able to overcome her situation and reunite with her family.
Although the prostitute may not be "real" either, it might be a story told on a radio show.
And the rabbits?
Sitcom, tv world idealization of family
"fricking like rabbits"
Talks of a secret being exposed
kek didn't even notice that yet it's so obvious on second reading.
I think that anon meant to say "Lost Highway" not "Inland Empire"
Kill all Poles.
whats your favorite lynch movie and why anon?
It's one big redpill
It's a blackpill
the silly guy at the theatre tells you it's all fake and especially gay
I walked out of the theater when I saw that scene. I thought to myself, "Nothing matters? All is illusion? Okay, this is gay"
Just read this website.
https://www.mulholland-drive.net/
i miss the old internet
>tfw i remember davidlynch.com
bump with rare pepe
What is there left to add?
It's an easily understood film once you get what part is a dream and what part isn't.
There's plenty. Understanding what's a dream and what's not is only so you can understand what ideas Lynch worked in service of. There's betrayal, corruption, disappointment, hatred, jealousy, revenge.
You can get a sense of all that even without understanding where the dream/reality ends and begins. Regardless of whether it's a dream or reality it's still Diane's feelings, hopes, beliefs, etc.
But people get confused by the narrative, that's the point of the thread, and it's really quite simple once you get when dream begins and ends.