Mulholland Drive (2001)

As with the last time I did this, as I started writing my thoughts on Letterboxd, it started to sound like a short essay, beginning with my experience rather than focusing on the movie. So my blog feels like a more appropriate place for it, especially as a busy weekend means I won't have my reviews for Wicked or Gladiator II up until next week.

Warning: this post contains mild spoilers.

Back in college, a friend showed me Mulholland Drive. It was my first Lynch movie, and I didn't know what to make of it. I was a bit too baffled to truly like it, and something felt super off-putting about the whole thing. I watched it again a month or so later, determined that Lynch couldn't write dialog, and moved on with my life as not a fan of Lynch.

More than a decade has passed since that initial viewing, I've become far more movie literate, and have now seen all of Lynch's features. I've become a cinephile in the years since, and long suspected revisiting the movie would result in me revising my opinion. It should shock no one to learn I was right.

In some ways, I laugh at my younger self for being so narrow-minded about the purpose of dialog. Which isn't really fair: if you're only exposed to movies aiming for realistic characters, whose meanings are pretty straightforward, as so many mainstream American movies are, then of course you're going to try to fit everything you see into that box. I hadn't yet fallen in love with Synecdoche, New York or encountered the French New Wave or heard of Quentin Dupieux. Psychological thrillers were probably the most stylized flicks I enjoyed, and they still felt like real people even as they did horrifying things. Coming from that experience, if the dialog is nothing like how real people speak, if the people act like aliens, if the logic is inconsistent, that all must be incompetence.

I've since become very acquainted with stylized dialog, with how experimental filmmaking works, with non-literal storytelling, and with surrealism. Lynch's dialog in the back half of his career is far more often intended to create a feeling, capture an idea, and represent an archetype or an anti-archetype. Much of what they say isn't meant to be taken literally, or at least contains a multitude of layers leading to bizarre reactions and word choices and sequences of events. It works in concert with the context and the visuals and all that came before and after in order to make its meaning felt, rather than known. The upshot is that it won't work for everyone (see, younger me), but it also means they lend themselves to endless interpretation. Lynch's movies are not ones to be "solved": they're to be experienced, and for you to take away something new on each viewing.

If you're able to lock into the wavelength of Mulholland Drive, there are some pretty clear super structures that emerge. Almost from the very beginning, he's screaming at you about the ways in which the whole thing is operating on dream logic. An early scene taking place in Winkies Diner very effectively communicates the lack of delineation between dreams and reality, not the least bit since these guys never show up again (although we do see Patrick Fischler in the background briefly near the end). The blue box and the complete flip of the personalities and characters at that moment signal some sort of transition, some reinterpretation of events. The men in suits, Mr. Roque, The Cowboy, and so many incidental details make clear the power structures of the movie business are being discussed.

I was never a huge fan of Naomi Watts in this movie, but this watch demonstrated it's more her character I find grating than the actor. Which is part of the point, looking at how Hollywood does or doesn't worm its way into the psyche of a "good old American (Canadian?) gal". If there was any doubt, it was erased by her audition scene, in which Watts (and Betty) is absolutely electric, as well as her transformation into Diane in the third act. And she does play the wannabe noir-type sleuth role quite well. But the Adam subplot remains my favorite, for its humor and absurdity and commentary on how movies get made. It's a bit too favorable to the director's point of view, but what do you expect coming from a guy who's had as many ups and downs in the industry as Lynch? I love the many mysterious forces at work surrounding his stupid little movie, highlighting how Hollywood has a tendency to treat the smallest things as if they're the most important stuff in the world. His encounter with his cheating wife and her lover is perfection.

The history of the movie's creation is at once surprising and entirely expected. It was ordered as a TV pilot by ABC, then rejected even after Lynch made extensive cuts to chop it down to 90 minutes. Over a year later, StudioCanal swooped in and funded the transformation of the pilot into a feature film. That such a disconnected and chaotic process somehow led to such an incredible piece of art is hard to fathom. That said, you can feel the demarcation quite clearly: the moment they find Diane's body, the whole vibe shifts. The tone becomes more threatening, and we get the first concrete hints of a romance between the two women, which leads to the movie's first sex scene. To say nothing of Club Silencio and the business with the blue box. So the seam is plain to see, but Lynch was able to turn it to his advantage.

I wouldn't quite go so far as calling it a masterpiece, although maybe another viewing will change my mind yet again. That being said, it's an incredible film, and well worth your time and patience.

In case you're curious, my ranking of David Lynch's feature films is:

10. Dune
9. Blue Velvet
8. The Straight Story
7. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me
6. Inland Empire
5. Lost Highway
4. Eraserhead
3. Mulholland Drive
2. The Elephant Man
1. Wild at Heart