This was my first David Lynch experience. And I will have to say that I really really like the complexity of what is going on here. I call it Mullholand driveway because I feel that this movie was more of an exploration of the character Diane's head and does not leave there.
Much like Last Year at Marianbad, again this is my interpretation, we see the main character fail at something and then rationalize their failure with either a reenactment of the tragedy in a more favorable way or a list of possible outcomes that are postulated by the loser. In Mulholland dr. Diane is an up incoming actress who is friends with Camilla Rhodes, a very sexual person who ends up becoming involved with the director.
The beginning of the movie we see this very cheesy setting where the two characters meet. And to me this is setting Diane's first meeting with Camilla in her head as in the movies. Ultimately this relationship becomes sexual. Camilla is dressed and was casted to be a very sexual person. She is very dark, and her clothes really accentuate her womanliness, if you know what I mean. Camilla steals Diane's thunder by getting the part over her, it would seem by sleeping with the director. Diane tries to rationalize this by creating a mafia that controls hollywood.
My favorite part of this movie is the scene where we first meet the hitman. He stumbles in his murder attempt and this sets up his character very well. In class we talked about why that scene was necessary, I think it is purely to set up his character and brake up the lunacy of the cheesiness with some typical dark hilarity.
Another thing that we talked about in class was club silencio. This scene basically describes the whole movie. You see and hear things happening but there is no substance to it, it is just a recording there is no emotion or life, it is just a cheap display. I think this plays a lot to what this movie is about. We see at the end the decay of age frightening an actress to a point of suicide in a very dramatic fashion. Ones prettiness defines the lifestyle and success in Hollywood and age destroys that.
Your comparisons of Mulholland Dr. to Last Year at Marienbad definitely make sense. I feel like with both movies it is hard to forget that there is no straight forward plot or answers; we still want to make sense of things even though we realize we can't.
ReplyDeleteI liked your comparison of this movie to Marienbad as well and the comparison of the failures of both the character in Marienbad and Diane and their rationalization and their way of dealing with this failure. I thought the hitman scene was hilarious and I couldn't stop laughing during all of his failures.
ReplyDeleteI really liked this post because you said that Diane used the mafia in her story to kinda give a reason for her failure as an actress. I believe you were the one who brought this up in class and I loved it because of how it really got me to think about all the many references that were brought up in the movie. I never really thought more about those references then just thinking that they were just some Post modern thing Lynch decided to fool around with. So great job i loved that thought.
ReplyDeleteI thought your comparison to Last Year At Marienbad was completely accurate and I would imagine that Lynch’s style is largely inspired by that film. I really like your analysis in this blog, particularly when you talk about the club silencio scene showing a lack of substance or a “cheap display”.
ReplyDeleteI have kind of a random question for you because I am curious to hear what your opinion is. What do you get from the cowboy character? Is there anything to this man or is Lynch simply putting him in there to serve a kind of ominous and powerful presence?
I think that the cowboy character is to further the postmodern aesthetic of the film. He is in the film as much as the hitman, but what is interesting is his association to the mafia. I think that a part of this is the decay of the western and how it has been kind of worn dry and we need media like star wars and firefly to make westerns new and interesting again. I think there is something with his line, which we talked about in class, 'If you fix your attitude you will see me one more time. If you don't you will see me two more times.' Maybe Lynch just did this to shoot something unexpected into the film. Anyone's guess.
ReplyDeleteGiven everything Lynch does with genre in this movie, the cowboy does make sense as a sort of decayed western (I like that). It's as decayed as every other ghost genre in this movie--noir, mob movies, a star is born, doomed romance, etc. Looking at the whole movie as characters playing various parts, and the movie switching genres, might help solidify your perceptions.
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