Mulholland Drive

I <3 Mulholland Drive.

I also <3 the dvd extras. That French interviewer guy is hilariously bad.

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00020HB7S.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

swimming pool was good

there must be another mulholland drive thread -- there is, in fact. theories.

two hot movies one hit price

"Swimming Pool" was fucking dire.

i think that needs a bit of explaining alex

just too slow for you?

i thought the juxtaposition of the different phases of femininity was enthralling, along with the sheer magnetism of a French girl at her youthful prime. highly entertaining character studies.

I've never heard them called that before.

=P

It felt unfinished to me, what can I tell you.

i liked ludivine sagnier's boobs

yeah she was totally hot and mesmerizing.

yah

"Were it not for David Lynch," Cyrus asserts, "Miley would never have been Hannah Montana."

Read More http://www.gq.com/entertainment/celebrities/201103/billy-ray-cyrus-mr-hannah-montana-miley#ixzz1E3WhYLo8

was looking for something else & found my ticket stub from seeing this -http://oi42.tinypic.com/33bob6e.jpg

lol fuk

Woah, I just watched this for the very first time last night. What can this mean?

My wife and I watched this together right before it went off netflix. It was pretty much our first artsy movie together, I think. Usually we watch Kung fu movies or comedies when the kids aren't monopolizing the tv. She was so pissed off at me.

ha ha!

Came here with some half-thoughts about mulholland drive, now just want to talk about how bad swimming pool is.

But maybe there's something in that juxtaposition of two films which you might categorise as 'films with sex in them'.

The Lynch film doesn't pretend not to be soft porn in its soft porn parts, whereas swimming pool spent most of its time trying to convince you that it was worthy and artistic or something.

Mulholland is also as scary and unsettling as anything Lynch has ever done, whereas swimming pool is just creepy in ways it doesn't intend. The teenage girl's character was very obviously written by a man for a male audience.

Mulholland also continued Lynch's thing of looking at the - well, I'm not going to say 'seedy underbelly of Puritan America', but you know what I mean, using the idea of the proper and the improper, a sympathy with both the nice sunny world and the dark forbidden world. Whereas swimming pool was pushing a strained 'Look, here in France we are sexy and do not care!' sensibility which by now is pretty much its own white picket fence.

And look how MD uses the conventions of Hollywood, noir, and Americana and makes them into something that frightens you, whereas SP claims to be Artistic European Cinema and ends up boring you.

Dunno. This is all tentative and I'm aware that people here know Lynch better than I do.

Blu-ray on Criterion in October

http://www.criterion.com/films/28050-mulholland-dr

*faints*

Would be happier if not for the region-locking.

It would be cool if they included the 'pilot' cut in the extras

this is so cool

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eh6JtllRkPQ

interesting to go back and see so little enthusiasm for this when it came out. this is widely now considered one of the best films since 2000, and Lynch's second best film after Blue Velvet. no?

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00020HB7S.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

taking sides

yeah it is weird, also strange that there's comparatively little press or promo for this. No talkshows iirc, total opposite of Lost Highway media blitz. Don't know why.

Lynch was on Leno when Mulholland Drive came out in 2001

I seem to remember MD was pretty big at the time. It got a swag of awards and nominations. My memory is that it came at a time when Lynch's reputation had tapered off somewhat, and this put him right back on the pedestal.

The media consensus was that Lynch had lost his way. I think the expectation after Lost Highway was that he would go on making critically divisive, minor cult films. People had also largely heard that MD was a rejected TV pilot with some new footage tacked on. This was one of those unexpected comebacks that has a hell of an impact.

this is widely now considered one of the best films since 2000, and Lynch's second best film after Blue Velvet. no?

Try best.

And it won the NYFCC's best film award, along with iirc the Village Voice critics poll.

eric OTM

yes

"So little enthusiasm" -- wha??

Naomi Watts even got faint Oscar buzz

so little enthusiasm in this thread, i think they meant

yes, I meant this thread

Mulholland Drive came out when ILX was down and all the discus was on the Sandbox iirc

yah we were goin nutz for it i saw it like 5 times in the theater

there's a couple of copies of ilx.thehold.net and sandbox.thehold.net on archive.org but I can't find that discussion I think

i saw this in the theater when it came out, it was amazing, and i was on ILX at the time, but didnt really bother posting here. don't take the lack of posts for a lack of enthusiasm me and my friends drove around the parking lot afterwards screaming with joy.

i saw it when it came out and immediately stabbed my eyes out so i would never see another movie ever again

....naido?

NA eyed 0

Holy shit lynch is a genius

lol

it was right there, staring us all in the face for all these years

this explains the lack of posts. you can't see what you are writing when you have no eyes

When I first saw his movie, I immediately started it over and watched it again.

I watched it on two screens simultaneously

seeing this in a theater that looks just like Silencio earlier this year was one of the best moviegoing experiences i've ever had

Yeah I have vivid memories of seeing an advance free screening of this on my college campus. Was stunned by how great it was. When the cowboy gave his "You will see me one more time if you do good; you will see me two more times if you do bad" bite I remember laughing at how clever it was. The rest of the movie the audience gasped whenever he appeared on screen. This is Lynch's most entertaining movie by a mile.

I don't know how to objectively measure "most acclaimed," but here MD is 64th, Blue Velvet 77th.

http://www.theyshootpictures.com/gf1000_all1000films.htm

i always thought The Elephant Man was his mainstream claim to fame but on that list it's at 464. i need to rewatch it, i remember seeing it when i lived in this house with SCAD video artists and really liking it.

Mulholland Drive was just an endless series of crazy events. it felt like someone had observed a random movie or television scene while going through an out of body experience. perhaps how an alien would replicate the human drama, only it was purposefully sending up the formalisms that tend to be taken for granted. it was thrilling to watch.

holy shit! what was with that crazy bluescreen swing scene? we lol'd almost immediately at that and the super grinny old folks with Naomi Watts as she arrives at this weird artificial California. when they are in the limo it's so comically grotesque. we almost fell out of the chairs when Billy Ray Cyrus showed up. that casting! wtf? this was years before Miley, years before his ironic cultural resurgence, years past being a Weird Al joke. David Lynch wrote him the perfect character. same with the cowboy, who apparently wasn't an actor, and who couldn't remember his lines. they had to write them on notecards and tape them to Jon Favreau's face for him to do the scene and he did it perfectly. when he shows up, i was like, what the literal fuck? that was this movie endlessly. Club Silencio -- it is all a tape! the hand signals and the trumpets!

much like the new Twin Peaks it was a lot of scenes that may not necessarily narratively connect but for sure are connected through symbols and the artistic language of emotions through more abstract forms such as lighting, colors, themes, motifs, dialog repetition, etc. i am glad to see he has gotten the opportunity to work with Naomi again! it is extra poignant when you consider Mulholland Drive was conceived at one point as a Twin Peaks spinoff.

lol when the cowboy shows up. WTF. ROTFLITMT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0stnhrOj6p8

this is really cool

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HytOc0KxFGU

Location trail
http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/mulholland-drive-david-lynch-locations

wow, had no idea that Diane's apartment was in the Snow White cottages. that Elliott Smith connection is nuts, yeah he spent a lot of time there in the last years of his life, sadly living very similarly to Diane, productive but completely cracked out and losing it...

pretty certain that steph1n merr1tt also lived there for a time, based on a memory from the documentary from a few years back.

that Elliott Smith connection is nuts

Positively. Didn't know what I saw when I read that!

Iirc he lived there during some of the writing for Figure 8 and maybe Basement but it wasn’t very long...

though now a 1br goes for ~$2700

you can rent a cheaper 1br on the western/nicer side of west hollywood

pretty certain that steph1n merr1tt also lived there for a time, based on a memory from the documentary from a few years back.

He wrote a song about it, "In the Snow White Cottages," which references Mulholland Drive, Elliott Smith and The Raveonettes.

covered love theme from this score, from my favourite film

https://we.tl/1Nc19Gj3Ls

you made this, Ross?

here's mp3

https://we.tl/oH8IxWLaQV

yeah i did

It's really good mate.

thanks :)

buddy helped with beats, but yeah played all synth parts/outro

i like it a lot!

thanks jed, appreciate that

love the dark minute at the end.

cool, total homage to my love of lynch

This is really neat Ross! Love the dark ending but also the beats.

my favourite movie of all time...?

hey pic.twitter.com/FuNmivCwPd

— Eric Allen Hatch (@ericallenhatch) October 16, 2018

For those as clueless as I was, MULHOLLAND DR's twinning and identity blurring shares a lot of DNA with Bergman's PERSONA, Rivette's CÉLINE ET JULIE VONT EN BATEAU and Altman's 3 WOMEN - all are great and provide a nice counterpoint.
Which is of course to ignore the gender politics of these four men writing and making movies about women having unstable and ill defined identities which can be pushed around.

When I saw this thread pop up I knew it would be that meme

I'm always surprised Meshes of the Afternoon isn't brought up more tbh

matthew, also this movie is totally indebted to sunset boulevard

this movie is indebted to a lot of movies

Telephone Thing otm about Meshes of the Afternoon too fwiw

Agreed Ross - and there's even a Gordon Cole in SUNSET BLVD! I was highlighting the twinned-women microgenre.

that's a p big microgenre. you left out Vertigo for ex.

full house

Three's Company

my mind has known no peace since i discovered the dumpster woman from mulholland drive is also in both princess diaries films pic.twitter.com/dxSotlfNSf

— grace b-p (@gracesimone) April 10, 2019

Watched Hellraiser last night, and there's a very strong similarity between dumpster person and the homeless dude that picks the cube out of the fire. It's close enough to where I'm wondering if Lynch just grabbed the idea directly from Barker.

how the hell did I never see that interview with the actress?
https://www.vulture.com/2014/10/mulholland-drives-evil-hobo-breaks-her-silencio.html

Haha, that's great

Incredible headline

Worth a try

Lifehack: if you time the opening of the blue box directly after hearing “Silencio,” the wide-eyed illusion of living your best life will dissolve into the feverish inescapable reality of our iteration of the multiverse—one rooted in jealousy, heartbreak, and unrelenting failure pic.twitter.com/K98gCMFq88

— Eric Allen Hatch (@ericallenhatch) January 1, 2020

I think I just found my optimal Twitter account.

It's a great one. I can't shake the feeling he's from ILX, possibly because he's called Eric.

I sometimes wish I had some record of how I ended up following people on Twitter

It's a great one. I can't shake the feeling he's from ILX, possibly because he's called Eric.

He’s not. Great guy tho- major props to him and the rest of the collective for Beyond Video in Baltimore. Good friend to have.

Watched this for the first time recently - then watched it again (over a few days), to pick up some threads. Pretty... uh, remarkable movie; and not at all what I was expecting (in a good way). I've been thinking about it a lot, but I guess there's not much to say that would be interesting or "fresh"... I've never seen a Wikipedia page for a movie with so much theory/discussion, ha ha. It is interesting to read that the first half (or whatever) was originally shot as a TV pilot, which I guess explains some things.

I was surprised to encounter several plot elements (and actors) from Twin Peaks: The Return (which I love to death). Parts of the movie almost feel like a "dry run" for that series – to see it now almost "ruins the magic" a little, lol! But I'm sure glad I finally saw it. (For context, I decided I was done with Lynch movies after Lost Highway, so I had no interest when this came out.)

One other thing I will say is that Naomi Watts's performance is just incredible.

I definitely think most of the Dougie plot was either originally meant for or is a commentary on Mulholland Drive.

xpost Lost Highway might be Lynch's worst movie, Mulholland might be his best. It's a jarring turnabout, tbf.

Glad/jealous you had your first time with it! My favorite Nick Nolte movie, hands down.

Where did this fit in to MD?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfGOOL6j_F8

Also watched LH recently and was kinda struck by the car chase scene where whazzhisname beats up the speeding tailgate-er on mulholland and how i like the idea of david lynch having an axe to grind about disorderly drivers and cars in general

Should I find a way to watch Inland Empire (Y/N)? Now I'm curious what I could be missing...

Yes

Absolutely. It's within spitting distance of MH's greatness.

(Hints are afoot that it may be a Criterion release before long.)

Or, sorry, more or less confirmed I guess

pic.twitter.com/YEWyFLKyAB

— Janus Films (@janusfilms) January 20, 2021

Cool - I will

inland empire could be the most 'RIYL mulholland drive' movie of all time

I might have to pick up the Criterion Blu-ray of Mulholland Dr.; I feel like I could watch it over & over again. Not sure exactly why... something about it is just so watchable, on a scene-by-scene basis (even when you know what's coming).

otm -- the colors are dangerous

inland empire >>> mulholland dr.

like^^^ -------------- ^^^don't like

Madness.

Yes, morrisp, these films are meant to be watched and rewatched. I first saw IE late at night, in the dark, on a laptop with headphones, volume turned way up (and immediately followed by the hour+ of extra footage on the second DVD). I don't know that that's the ideal way to see it but it was still a pretty righteous way to see it. An unforgettable experience.

MD may be the best movie to wake up in the middle of, late at night and disoriented/altered.

I still love Eraserhead and Blue Velvet and the OG Twin Peaks, but I'm strongly coming around to the idea that my top-tier Lynch is everything he's done from Mulholland Drive forward. (Which is to say, MD, Inland Empire and TP:TR)

The first half of MD has a “welcoming” quality, and a lightness of touch, that I sure didn’t associate with his movies. And it’s, like, “funny”... I wasn’t expecting that! (When Billy Ray Cyrus showed up, I was like - ok, whaaaaaat is this movie)

Yeah Mulholland Drive is deceptively warm-feeling, for a movie that ends as a tragedy. I love its weird colorful Hollywood.

top-tier Lynch is everything he's done from Mulholland Drive forward.

^^

I like Lost Highway a fair bit, although the car chase scene is the worst thing in it. He's made at least two films worse than LH, though.

fwiw, he couldn't have made Mulholland Dr. if he hadn't made Lost Highway, so even if you don't like it, it's still necessary.

credit sequence with Bowie's "I'm Deranged" + Bill Pullman playing Coleman-esque free jazz at club = best sequences

The video cuts to Particia Arquette's butchered body as one of his best and most horrible ideas. The "call me"/"I'm there right now" scene at the party is essential in his work.

as = is

are!

Rewatched Lost Highway recently and it wasn't nearly as bad as I remembered. It's still near the bottom of the Lynch pile, but I sorta like it now.

Inland Empire is amazing but I can't rewatch it with any regularity. It is a Bad Trip.

I disliked Fire Walk With Me pretty strongly when it came out, but I appreciate it now. It’s still kind of a mess, but pretty powerful – I didn’t appreciate what it was doing at the time, I wasn’t “ready” for it. (It was probably also helpful for The Return to come along and help recontextualize it.)

fire walk with me still his masterwork, even in light of the return, imo

no greater work of empathy in film

Yeah, I totally didn’t get it as a young person. I was like – “Why do we need to see all this graphic, horrible stuff that we already know happened?”

I watched Fire Walk with Me on VHS in '93 without watching a millimeter of Twin Peaks and loved this terrific shambles.

totally second the echoes of MD in twin peaks: the return, that's what I kept thinking about as I watched the show (I saw the film first). which also explains why I am pretty convinced the return is the best season of TV I've ever seen

need to see inland empire now

fire walk with me still his masterwork, even in light of the return, imo

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Wednesday, April 7, 2021 8:37 PM (thirty minutes ago)

no greater work of empathy in film

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Wednesday, April 7, 2021 8:37 PM

truest truth

I watched _Fire Walk with Me_ on VHS in '93 without watching a millimeter of _Twin Peaks_ and loved this terrific shambles.

By the way (R.I.P.) - https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/tv/2021/04/07/walter-olkewicz-dies-twin-peaks-actor-starred-jacques-renault/7133539002/

fwiw, he couldn't have made Mulholland Dr. if he hadn't made Lost Highway, so even if you don't like it, it's still necessary.

Yeah, I liked Lost Highway fine at the time, and then Mulholland Drive clearly had him (being forced to) rework ideas he'd come up with for LH and doing them better. It's a positive about Lynch as an artist that ideas, themes and modes echo and recur through his work.

I think the first half of Lost Highway is some of his best, the closest to a straight Lynch horror film. Pullman recounting his dream, and that wonderful imagery of the smoke filling the hallway, is one of my favorite images in his work. Whenever it transitions to Getty, though, I rapidly lose interest. I like to pretend the first half is just a short film.

Pullman's dream is one of the most unnerving Lynch scenes, which is saying a lot. I need to rewatch LH, it has been my least-favorite Lynch ever since I saw it but because of that I have only seen it once.

ideas, themes and modes echo and recur through his work

By the end of TP:TR, I was using the phrase "David Lynch cinematic universe" in all sincerity. His works each have their own specific vibe, but they also all have variations on many recurring themes. (Allowing that in this sense Dune may not be canon, but I also haven't rewatched that one since it came out.)

Dune is absolutely canon (see the post-credits sequence where The Cowboy and Bobby Peru are riding a sandworm across Arrakis).

I’m aware from my Twin Peaks research that Mulholland Drive was originally conceived as an Audrey Horne spinoff series.

Silencio!

Yeah I guess Dune would be canon for the introduction of Kyle MacLachlan (our hero) alone.

Several actors from Showgirls (1995) appear in MD, but I won’t go down that rabbit hole.

showgirls and robocop def part of the david lynch extended universe

OMG you just prompted me imagine a Lynch-directed Robocop and I'm pretty sure part of my brain just exploded

Yeah there are bits throughout tptr that specifically recall every lynch project, even stuff like hotel room

Richard Horne is the grown-up Eraserhead baby.

And the pine weasel episode, which is the only one I saw when it originally aired and wondered, 'this is the show everyone is so gaga about?!?'

misread this as garden weasel and thought there was some Larry Sanders/Twin Peaks crossover i wasn’t aware of.

Larry Sanders would definitely exist in the Mulholland Drive multiverse

Do we have a discussion/anticipation thread for the new series he’s reportedly working on?

xpost I don't recall if they ever mentioned which network Larry Sanders was on so we can't say for sure that he didn't air after The Lester Guy Show.

xp

There was some discussion of the potential new series in the TP:TR thread. Tantalizing.

I am v out of the loop wrt unrecorded night, I hope it happens whatever it is

So no mention of Straight Story at all in this thread?

some of the Twin Peaks threads have Straight Story arguments, many have no mention of it

Oh jeez, Alvin. That's a darn good grabber.

I got the Blu-ray... the interview in the booklet is terrific. (Except for the moment where the interviewer, bizarrely, tries to get Lynch to help "analyze" an element of the film – and is understandably met with silence.)

The "Deleted Scene" isn't much, but nice to see it, lol

Is that the one with the Robert Forster and the other cop talking?

Yep - cool to see Forster in an add'l scene.

i think the straight story is very very good and once made a lynch-obsessive friend almost suplex me for arguing that many lynch fans ignore it or dont take it seriously just bc it doesnt feature any midgets or baby entrails or whatever

One of the many interesting things about MD is how "dated" it looks -- in a good way. Like, the hair & clothing styles are extremely "1999/2000"... and I find it appealing, how it situates the film in a particular moment.

There are also other weird resonances with the time period -- like when it cuts to the two "bros" discussing a car accident in a cramped office, you wonder: What's up with these dudes? Why do they sort of have 'Aphex Twin' faces? And in the final segment, Diane Selwyn looks a hella lot like Liz Phair looked at the time. It's just a coincidence (I guess), but it all feels like some kind of "cosmic unconsciousness" at work.

I'm sure this is tediously old news to most, but just in case, Ronette Pulaski and Laura Palmer are in the theater at Club Silencio
https://i.redd.it/gdgejpw04c051.jpg
(of course Lynch denies it)

When I watched this for the first time, during the initial Winkies scene, my wife (totally joking) was like, “One of those ‘Woodsmen’ guys better not jump out....”—and then (of course): Oh, HELL no!

(To add to the point I made above: the “jitterbug contest,” and the cold open specifically, obv. tie into the “swing craze” of the era, and—why not?—the Swingers movie specifically. You’re money, and you don’t even know it.)

Those agent cooper tik toks are hilarious

A minor plot (or whatever) question—from the Wikipedia summary:

A casting agent takes (Betty) to a soundstage where a film called The Sylvia North Story, directed by Adam, is being cast.

the stagehand says it, according to #3 here: https://www.mulholland-drive.net/studies/10clues.htm

Huh, I’ll have to listen again (thanks).

LOL @ that site – Lynch’s 10 Clues!!

Lynch's 10 Clues was an insert in the first release on dvd and I'm sure were a handout at the initial cinematic release.

Hate hate hate that "woodsman" jump cut - gave me the creeps just thinking about it and prevented me from rewatching the film for last 20 years :)

She’s actually a woman, I belatedly discovered.

Why are people saying "woodsman"?

Have you seen Twin Peaks: the Return? The answer lies therein.

I haven't! Only made it up through FWWM so far. Been meaning to get to it. Thanks.

Technically there are woodsmen in fwwm as well, in the scene above the convenience store: jurgen prochnow and one of the other guys sitting down are credited as woodsman #1 & 2 (the guy with the stick is “electrician”). But yes s3 will explain the comparison with the man behind winkies, though I’m sure you can guess

Woman behind Winkies!

I don’t mean to brag, but David Lynch said he was looking for the most incredible face he could find

i have a great memory of getting the DVD and sitting down with my friend to go over the 10 clues as we watched it. it was fun!

I’d still say man (credited as such I think? but def called “a man” and “he” in the film itself) but yeah the actor is a woman. in twin peaks there is an uncanny being called “bosomy woman” played by a male actor

I know horror is subjective but that jump scare is quoted so often as one of the scariest moments in film history that I just wanted to say that although I do find the build up itself very creepy and effective I don't find the figure itself, that face, scary at all. Anyway, nice to get that off my chest

Me neither! It was just a bit comical. I’m the same with Bob in Twin Peaks though.

Laura Dern's distorted face in IE tho, now you're talking

The horror of the Winkie's moment imo is not the actual jump scare but rather the reification of the nightmare, the confirmation that some horrific dream entity has erupted into our world beyond all reason.

It's the dread that David does so well.

Yes that's what I was implying, or trying to imply. I find the actual 'creature' itself a bit of a disappointment when the mood has been so skillfully created

shoulda got stan winstons creature shop to come in and beef up the design

Yep – for me, the horror of a fear being embodied is undermined by the hobo being so cartoonish. Of course, it would be a different story if I was actually Patrick Fischler's shoes. And it was still a massive jump scare.

It would indeed be terrifying if you were Patrick Fischler's shoes.

Ha ha.

I’d still say man (credited as such I think? but def called “a man” and “he” in the film itself)

Just credited as 'Bum' but yes, Patrick Fischler does say 'he' when recounting his dream. Maybe that's the real scare for him when he goes round the back. It's worse than the dream: it's a WOMAN.

I also made the connection that wins mentions above (via hidden text); though it seems androgyny also has a particular register in MD, as is discussed at the end of the “Themes and interpretations” section of the Wikipedia page (which I credit b/c I’m not clever enough to have drawn out that theme myself).

(I also agree that the “bum” isn’t really so terrifying I’m appearance, and unfortunately I knew the scare was coming – not sure how it would have struck me if it were a surprise!)

i remember it being a legit heartstopping theater-wide gasp when i saw it in original release, both the jump scare and the way fischler's reaction sells it. in hindsight i guess its dependent on the fact that we all had no idea it was coming, it hadnt occurred to me that the impact must be much lessened now that "The Bum" is a known & oft-discussed character in the Lynchiverse.

(i mean of course a jump scare is dependent on having no idea its coming, but i mean as compared to the actual look of the bum, which was only like 5% of the scare. i feel like it would have been just about as scary if a regular looking guy in a wrinkled tshirt had popped out.)

A bit of errata, on 3rd viewing - the "tech specs" are slightly subpar in the scene where Betty and Rita visit the Sierra Bonita Apartments. There's a shot where a patch of light, reflected by a piece of equipment, dances on the wall behind Rita (it's pretty distracting... surprised it wasn't digitally removed for the Blu-ray); and when they go to knock on the door of Apt. 12, the lighting is funky (the actors cast double shadows).

Not griping about this, just think it's a point of interest - as technical details are usually top notch in Lynch stuff. Maybe they were rushed that day. Though I guess you could make the case that some "visible artificiality" is appropriate for that section of the film. (I wonder if that scene was part of the original pilot - seems doubtful that its resolution would have been shot for TV?)

(Sorry - Apt. 17, not 12.)

saw it in theater during the original release and can concur it was an audible shocking moment for the theater audience, myself included.

For me, the moment which is most viscerally impactful is when Diane sees her own corpse and the Badalamenti score swells in this really queasy way and just...ugh. Even the first time through when you don't realize the import of what's just occurred, it's rough.

I love the double image of Rita running outside and screaming, such an upsetting and disturbing moment, and you can feel it break the reality of the movie.

Honestly, from the Cowboy scene through Club Silencio, it's just one masterful sequence after another. Truly an incredible stretch of film.

I think Betty's audition scene is amazing - it's so funny at the outset, when she gets introduced to all those random ppl; then the director's BS; followed, of course, by her performance in the audition itself... just awesome.

I saw MD for the first time on a long-haul flight (why the fuck was it even available), before I'd got over my fear of flying. So the bum-behind-the-diner scene almost gave me a heart attack, and I had to flip over to a rom-com or something to get through the rest of the flight.

xp It's so funny to me how that director is portrayed; and the fact that the only time you see Adam (either version of Adam) actually directing is when he's orchestrating how to deliver a kiss... plus the fact that the big audition for the lead role in his hot movie seems to basically involve lip-syncing to old pop tunes...

I thought about Blue Velvet when I saw that (he just needs an oxygen mask)

So the bum-behind-the-diner scene almost gave me a heart attack, and I had to flip over to a rom-com or something to get through the rest of the flight.

sorry but this rules

lol yes matt #2 i'm sorry to laugh at your misfortune but that is hilarious.

"'Mullholland Drive', eh? Hmm, 'drive'... driving... yes, something that can only be done on the ground, surely this will take my mind off flying and soothe me" *presses play* OH NO

the big audition for the lead role in his hot movie seems to basically involve lip-syncing to old pop tunes

always wondered if that was a sideways reference to Wild At Heart

Lipstick On Your Collar

hi im a huge lynch guy and mh is like my favorite movie. inland empire is REALLY BAD and looks like shit, yall.

false and incorrect my attorneys will be in touch

have you watched it lately? the digital handheld has NOT aged well.

I am sympathetic to the notion that IE looks bad (as it initially did look kind of bad to me until I warmed to the DV) but the rest of that opinion can take a long walk off a short pier.

"aged" "well"

part of the horror of inland empire def resides in the shitty fidelity of the sony digital camcorder he filmed it on. it's like david lynch's shot-on-video horror film... or rather it is

I think it's a mess with some fantastic scenes, but that's what I think of Fire Walk With Me, too. Haven't seen the Twin Peaks revival.

I'm tempted to revisit Wild at Heart - I remember not liking it too much in the theater (and that was at the height of my preteen Lynch interest).

i think of inland empire and the return as of a piece and i don't really enjoy either of them that much.

peak lynch for me is the run of blue velvet to mulholland drive (with the proviso that i haven't seen the straight story) and twin peaks the tv show and fire walk with me are my favourite lynch projects

Inland Empire didn't do much for me, but I don't think that means it's "bad."

My expectations for Wild at Heart were so low by the time I saw it, I ended up thinking it was kind of awesome and underrated. Not sure what I'd think now though and, yeah, I've never seen it a second time

in inland hes able to achieve some truly otherworldly images & effects, but theres also a lot of long stretches where the DV just makes it feel student film-y to me, like i can tell its obviously just a bunch of actors and david lynch all clomping around some backyard they found. was an unforgettable experience in the theater but i dunno if i'll ever muster the energy to sit through it again at home.

finally saw wild at heart for the first time a couple years ago and thought it was very self conscious and embarrassing, like he was trying to follow up blue velvet and knew what people liked about it but didnt know what made it good

^^that is kind of how I remember Wild at Heart feeling.

(but now I'm second-guessing my Lynch opinions! lol)

if anything it made me appreciate the perfect alchemy of blue velvet more, by taking most of the same ingredients and showing how if one or two of them had been calibrated juuust slightly differently it just becomes a goofy trainwreck

I saw Blue Velvet too late, and I will have always seen Blue Velvet too late, and so I will always feel like the things it broke ground on he did much more to my taste later on in his career.

my brother, who has operated similar cameras, claims the grain and color quality of the DV in Inland Empire were entirely conscious choices on Lynch's part and that the cameras can be easily set to be clearer and produce more accurate colors. I have no idea if this is true.

The first time I saw Wild at Heart a decade ago, I didn’t make it past the head smashing; the violence was too gratuitous for me. I tried again two years ago and liked it a bit better, but overall, one of my least favorite of his. I can see how it was influential at the moment—if I hadn’t known better, I’d have thought it was Lynch’s take on a Tarantino or Oliver Stone film—but OTM about it being too self-conscious and “edgy”.

Bobby Peru is still Lynch's greatest screen creep.

I’ve said it too many times here before, but I don’t really get how roundly disliked Wild at Heart is. I think, stylistically, it’s top tier. So many stunning scenes.

it's a bit cartoonish and the violence is OTT, but I still enjoy it

Yeah, it’s like MTV Lynch and it’s super cool imo.

yeah it rocks imo, a lot of fun

I think of Wild at Heart as his comedy, or at least his most comic film. There's plenty of disturbing stuff in it, but it's also packed with a kind of gonzo humor, much of it courtesy of Cage obviously. It's not in my top Lynch tier, but I like it a lot.

It's a very good blend of the plot-pulpiness / more drily detached humour of Gifford with the emotional intensity and tendency toward luridity of Lynch.

I think about that metal-slam-dance-to-Elvis-slow-dance scene a lot. With the repeated sample press of the Beatles show girl screams. Absolutely one of his best moments.

Wild at Heart is goofy as fuck but that's why it's enjoyable

part of the horror of inland empire def resides in the shitty fidelity of the sony digital camcorder he filmed it on. it's like david lynch's shot-on-video horror film... or rather it is

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson)

heavily otm

http://www.lynchnet.com/lh/lhpremiere.html

Long lynch piece by David foster wallace around the time of lost highway

Whenever I see Wild at Heart there are entire sections that I have totally forgotten about. So many digressions and short stories within the movie. Has anybody read the book? Does it have a similar format?

Inland Empire is sometimes my favorite Lynch movie but it is also the hardest to watch. I can dive into Mulholland Drive anytime but IE is intimidating.

Eraserhead and Inland Empire are the purest expression of Lynch in film. They are DIY and free of collaborators.

have you seen The Return?
Eraserhead and Inland Empire are the purest expression of Lynch in film.

the reason i ask is because the Return seemed to be Lynch doing what he wanted, at length, finally. at a length equal to all of his films combined. it was awesome

and in a way that immediately called to mind both IE and eraserhead, somehow. it was fucking amazing

the stagehand says it, according to #3 here:

OK, I hear it now - yeah, it's super quiet in the background, as she walks out. Definitely more of an "Easter egg," compared to other parallels and linkages (though you do have to watch closely to track some of them - and don't think it would be possible to catch them all on a single viewing).

The Return was great! It was a collaboration with Frost and it worked with concepts developed by other writers. It allowed Lynch to run amuck around a familiar property that would guarantee funding. I don't mean to sound cynical; Lynch obviously loves the world of Twin Peaks. The best part of TPTR was seeing modern Lynch push and pull at what Twin Peaks could be. Fire Walk With Me strayed a little outside of the familiar universe: Chet Desmond? What? David Bowie? The Return spun out to Las Vegas, Paris, anywhere could be Twin Peaks.

I would love a Laura Palmer/Agent Cooper Route 66 style road trip series.

I'm glad everyone here calls it The Return (like me) – instead of A Limited Event Series, the wack ass name used in home video contexts, for reasons which completely escape me (The Return is obv. a perfect title, in addition to what it was actually called when it aired!).

Whenever I see Wild at Heart there are entire sections that I have totally forgotten about. So many digressions and short stories within the movie. Has anybody read the book? Does it have a similar format?

killfiled by Cow_Art :(

The book (and ime the other Sailor and Lula novellae) is largely a collection of sketches and vignettes and discurses and dialogues and memories too, but iirc barely any of them are adapted for the film.

I mentioned this in another Lynch thread but anyone who loves his work and wants to know the why and how from the horse's mouth should read "Room To Dream". It goes up to The Return chronologically.

“The Return” was coined by Showtime, I believe. I remember an interview with a crew member who said Lynch always just called it Twin Peaks, or season 3.

it was only called Twin Peaks onscreen, right? I assume The Return caught on as a shorthand bcz, as noted, it was so thematically resonant.

Twin P3aks or gtfo imo

can we stop using "dated" as a pejorative?

"Dated" is a phenomenon, not a descriptor.

the digital looked shitty at the time! it's part of it!

Agreed. Either you accept the shittiness or you don't, but it's not some technical failing.

This was def the convo at the time

in fact....

on this board

SILVIO: I don’t know, T. That digital looks pretty rough. Doesn’t sit right with me.

PAULIE (nodding): PD150. It’s to be expected.

TONY: Again with this shit. It’s an AESTHETIC DECISION!

do you have more of that written?

lol wins

i dont think anyone is saying that the look was unintentional. i wont use the d-word but i'll say looking back on it a lot of what worked about it for me is tied to the context. it felt kind of like a stunt, in a good way - lynch following up this great oscar nom'd return to form with a completely experimental noncommercial 3-hour no-budget dv nightmare, thats our boy. hes almost a character in it, you can practically see him there in the room holding the camera and imagine how excited he was reconnecting with his run & gun DIY roots, running around with actor pals, coming up with crazy shit on the fly for them to say & do. and thats all well and good. but as a film, outside of that framing, other than some truly unforgettable moments it just ends up feeling minor to me. almost like a 3hr version of one of his shorts, if that makes any sense.

I assume The Return caught on as a shorthand bcz, as noted, it was so thematically resonant.

“The a limited event series of the repressed”

SILVIO: the Poland shit. Not for me.

CHRISTOPHER: I’m saying, it’s a consistent diegetic world.

PAULIE: the fuck you talking about?

TONY: kid pays $200 for one masterclass, suddenly he’s orson fuckin welles.

HESH: It’s this generation.

PAULIE: 200 bucks?!

CHRISTOPHER (defensive): David had a lot of interesting shit to say about the art life. I got goosebumps

PAULIE: Madonn’!

TONY: Ey Fellini, gimme $200 I’ll teach you about the stugots life!

SOMEONE: Oh!

SILVIO (to nobody in particular): “A little boy went out to play...”

I always think the “muted trumpet” guy is Steve Martin, when he first walks out.

(I promise I’ll stop reviving this thread after this third viewing)

i think a revive per view is to be expected

“What’s it open?”

Ah – I knew the guy sitting next to Diane at the dinner party (“Oh, Camilla was great in that!”) looked familiar:

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/ferrisbueller/images/9/94/Adams.PNG/revision/latest?cb=20180407120617

(He seems to be sort of a Lynch regular.)

(Link was to this)

http://static1.1.sqspcdn.com/static/f/709071/28245310/1579540743427/bonnie+aarons+david+lynch.png

Rewatched this for the first time in about 15 years last night. It's staggering. I'd absolutely internalised the feel of it (and realised that I was still feeding off it in some way - in the way that the best art continues to be nourishing long, long after the encounter) and remembered a significant amount of it but had also forgotten chunks: the cowboy, the audition(s), the ending.

I've only recently started watching Mad Men (I don't like to rush these things) and I'm more than happy to accept Lynch's Vedic dreamlogic and have Jimmy Barret and 'Dan' echoing within the same universe and the dumpster scene functioning as a kind of karmic reckoning.

That interview with Bonnie Aarons is great. I love that Lynch was happy for to be projecting sexuality in that scene (however buried).

“This is one of the finest espressos in the country!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZ9t869USqs

I'd like to know more about Cookie's backstory. The way Adam talks about his flophouse makes it sound legendary, and then he has a sweet side gig working at club silencio?!?

xp I think it’s — “That is considered one of the finest espressos in the world!”

Sadly, it’s not a very “quotable” movie (my only knock against it!); that’s one of the few lines that qualifies. Maybe also, “Don’t drink all the Coke!”

I've lived scenes like Diane's at that party: being alert to humiliations from people once in your life, being seated beside weary sour old ladies while a beat box pitter-patters in the background.

Btw, I was very satisfied w/my 3rd viewing... I picked out even a few more connections btw. the two sections that I hadn't noticed before; and even the "extra pieces" which aren't so easily incorporated – Club Silencio, the old couple, the "bum" behind Winkie's – seemed to make a sort of sense to me.

However you "interpret" those elements – or even if you just think they're random surrealism (ha) – I think they're necessary to keep the story from feeling too pat and "just-so," if that makes sense.

Sadly, it’s not a very “quotable” movie (my only knock against it!); that’s one of the few lines that qualifies. Maybe also, “Don’t drink all the Coke!”

Good call, a few of those others you mentioned are good lines (huh, I hadn’t processed the relevance of “this dream place”—glad you highlighted it!)

I watched the beginning of the Behind the Scenes segment on the Blu-ray – it opens with the Diane/hitman scene in the diner, and Naomi Watts keeps tripping over the line: "It's just an actress's photo resume!" Funny that Lynch insisted on using that phrase, rather than just "headshot."

the one that really feels quotable is the Cowboy, esp. “No, you’re not thinking; you’re too busy being a smart alec to be thinking”.

"There's sometimes a buggy. How many drivers does a buggy have?"

^
Buggy seals it

In the Blu-ray extras, Justin Theroux tells a great anecdote about filming that scene. The producer guy who played the Cowboy didn’t/couldn’t learn his lines, so Lynch ended up taping them to Theroux’s head, face, and chest... he was literally reading them aloud for the performance.

One thing I remember from one of the extras was Laura Harring talking about the direction Lynch gave her for her stumbling walk though the hills. “You’re like a broken doll”, which she found very useful. It struck me, because I’m pretty sure I heard him give exactly the same direction to an actress in another of his works, maybe Phoebe Augustine in Twin Peaks, or Isabella Rossellini in Blue Velvet or Sherilyn Fenn in Wild at Heart or, well, you get the idea.

That childhood experience he talks about with the naked bloody woman staggering out of the darkness runs deep, eh?

For leading Diane up the “secret path” to the dinner party, he told her to “walk like a kitty cat.”

Just found this, from 2012, ha:

https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/national-international/mulholland-drive-star-believes-a-david-lynch-follow-up-is-being-born/1885656/

Also, TIL that she retains the title Countess von Bismarck-Schönhausen from an early marriage

https://www.bfi.org.uk/interviews/david-lynch-laura-harring-mulholland-dr

Just learned that too! Btw, she has a shitty agent:

While fellow cast members Naomi Watts, Patrick Fischler, Robert Forster, Brent Briscoe and Bonnie Aarons (the terrifying hobo) are in the upcoming season of Twin Peaks, Harring’s name is noticeably absent. “My agent didn’t want me to be one of the 200 cameos,” she explains. Instead, her agent held out for a more substantial role that didn’t materialise.

(Bonnie Aarons was not in The Return, btw. But Vincent Castallanos, the bro who gets the (er) head shot, is another actor who was.)

My guess is that Harring would have had the Ashley Judd part.

What else of interest was she ever in?

xp I was thinking that, too—though that’s a pretty substantial role!

Hot take : the return is about 15 hours too long

In terms of screen time though Judd could have probably filmed all her scenes in a day. And as far as I know most everyone but Kyle was paid scale. That’s probably what the agent saw.

BTW she must have hired a new agent in between TP:TR and when she had a wordless cameo in the Inland Empire credits.

Or they thought a wordless cameo in a home movie's credits was fine, bu a speaking role in a highly-publicised prestige TV series for a major cable channel deserved better.

Sure seems like she was on a lot of magazine covers though, Spanish language or otherwise.

Okay, rewatched this, slow-watched and then speed-watched, over the weekend for the first time since it came out and can't stop thinking about it.

Just want to call out my favorite shot from the movie. The long zoom-out at the start of this clip, from what looks like a live musical performance to what is then revealed as a radio broadcast and then as a filmed scene of a radio broadcast. It breaks the 4th wall and just keeps on breaking them. I think it's a perfect little encapsulation of what the movie has to say about both filmmaking and storytelling in general, including the stories we tell ourselves. Also, it's just gorgeous to watch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGOla3r6IhA

Yeah, that was good, just as you describe.

and they're in drag!

btw thanks to MD I briefly thought Justin Theroux was smokin' hot.

Same. I got over it by the Charlie's Angels sequel tho.

At which point I entered this phase:

https://i.redd.it/l803gndh1zc21.jpg

I’d never noticed that!

What is slow-watching, James? Like stopping and starting or actual slo-no?

and they're in drag!

Yep, another layer of masks/performances.

xp was just gonna ask is "slow-watching" ... watching a movie from front to back in normal time?

How do you view that scene in relation to Rebekah Del Rio's performance at Club Silencio?

I never connected this scene to Club Silencio - no hay banda indeed

oops sorry

(btw, this is the point on which the interviewer weirdly tried to buttonhole Lynch, in that DVD booklet interview)

(I hadn't made the connection, I'm too dense - guess the i'viewer wanted to show off that he did, lol)

yeah me neither, is what my post was meant to say

another favourite little thing from this film is the way the camera continuously rises in the shots in Winkies while Dan describes his dream

^word! when I first watched it, I was all "wtf?" Lynch actually talks about that in the same interview; apparently it took some work to rig up the right equipment for that effect in that small space (I had assumed it was just handheld).

!!

Yes, Eric H is correct, slow-watching is watching in normal time, maybe even backtracking on occasion, as opposed to running out of time because the purchase is due to expire and or it is time to sleep - what dreams may come? - and so FFWDing through bits and speedwatching.

How do you view that scene in relation to Rebekah Del Rio's performance at Club Silencio?

I think both that scene and Betty's amazing audition scene relate directly to Club Silencio, all of them play with the ways film and art create artificial realities that can convey and resonate with deep, real emotions. It's kind of the ultimate magic trick, I'll show you how it's done, but you'll still feel it anyway.

Dum, da-dum
Da-da-da-da-da-da-da
Oh, baby, I've told every little star

xp Nice, thx

Oh, baby, I've told every little star

I've always liked that song... not sure how I feel about it used in this context (can you ever hear Roy Orbison's "In Dreams" as non-creepy, after the Blue Velvet treatment?), but it was a good choice! (I had never heard "Sixteen Reasons Why I Love You" before.)

idgi, who's in drag?

Does he use Roy Orbison in other films besides this one and the other canonical one mentioned?

Hm. Apparently Lynch actually first heard "Crying," which led to him listening to more of the Big O and putting "In Dreams" in Blue Velvet. In my own Silencio Repertory Theater I will imagine how he would use "Leah" in a scene.

Or what would have happened if he had discovered The Louvin Brothers instead.

Here's Lynch on that song:

Rebekah just wanted to come over for a coffee and sing in front of us. She didn't want to record anything, but she came in and four minutes later—I think before she'd had her coffee—she's in the booth. And the one take that she sang, four minutes off the street, is the vocal that's in the film. THE ACTUAL RECORDING!

The weird thing is that she chose to sing that particular Roy Orbison song. I was about to start shooting Blue Velvet, and "Crying" came on the radio. I said, "Jeez! I've got to get that song to see if it would work in the film." In the end, it wasn't quite right, but I started listening to other cuts, and "In Dreams" came up. (...) Rebekah knows Barbara Orbison, Roy's second wife, and she's the one who translated "Crying" into Spanish, but it's just so strange that that was the song that was almost in Blue Velvet.

Oh, so that's why there is a Barbara Orbison credit/thanks in there. Great story, thanks!

I watched Bergman’s Persona last night, on HBO Max. I saw it college, but barely remembered the details (I’m just kultured enuff to have caught the general allusions in MD). It’s an interesting film; not exactly a masterpiece (though who am I to say). Awesome performances, of course.

Maybe I’ll revisit Altman’s 3 Women at some point (another one I saw decades ago), as I know it’s another touchpoint.

Hour of the Wolf is another Bergman that has something in common with a number of Lynch films - a character disintegrating into his fantasies (or being victimized by their embodiment).

Huh, never heard of that one

I wouldn't recommend it unless you've watched 60 other Bergman films.

3 women has many parallels with MD imo

The Silence has a number of shots in it that seem to have heavily influenced Lynch too. Basically he's a Bergman disciple.

Hadn’t thought about that but yeah.

I wouldn't recommend it unless you've watched 60 other Bergman films.

I love Bergman's films from 1963 - 1969 and am ambivalent about the rest. I'd like to see The Touch, although the only critic who admired it was Robin Wood.

I wouldn't recommend it unless you've watched Hour of the Wolf first.

Heh

I saw a handful in college, but the only one I have a strong memory of is Scenes From a Marriage (which I loved).

Previously I was only aware of the Ingrid Bergman connection.

Just want to call out my favorite shot from the movie. The long zoom-out at the start of this clip, from what looks like a live musical performance to what is then revealed as a radio broadcast and then as a filmed scene of a radio broadcast. It breaks the 4th wall and just keeps on breaking them. I think it's a perfect little encapsulation of what the movie has to say about both filmmaking and storytelling in general, including the stories we tell ourselves. Also, it's just gorgeous to watch.

― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Monday, April 19, 2021 12:00 PM (six days ago) bookmarkflaglink

man good post have not watched this in too long, its kind of sad the popular conception of lynch is dark/weird/abstract which doesnt give him credit for mastery of the form

Silencio.

I really have to ban myself from using the word vertiginous when talking about certain lynch moments but that (and inland empire locomotion) is this incredible moment where you feel the trapdoor give

El resto es silencio.

I think Hour of the Wolf was maybe the 4th Bergman film I watched and I still like it, totally worth seeing as long as you like the idea of Bergman doing gothic horror.

Yeah, I remember enjoying it, but that it was kind of atypical, Bergman-lite maybe, like almost a self-parody or close to what detractors thought he was doing.

Max von Sydow didn't turn into a werewolf, so it sucked

Count Floyd: "Oh well, it wasn't scary but they got depressed at the end, didn't they, kids? You think it's not scary to be depressed? Did you see them? They, they couldn't... function in this world... with the faces... all those faces..."

Watched this again last night and the crescendo of the old couple slipping under the door and terrorizing Diane until she finds the gun to end her screams ... it's just unbelievable what this guy does with overlapping images and sounds and effects. Nothing else like it in film excepting maybe the end of The Return.

Yep. Besides all his weirdness and originality, he's also just a virtuoso of image and sound.

Lol at Count Floyd coming over from the Midnight Cowboy thread. #onethread

What's amazing is how the old couple are smiling in exactly the same way at the beginning and end of the film. They might even be more terrifying in that hired car after meeting Betty/Diane.

Yeah, that whole thing is WTF.

Like where are they going and why are they behaving that way?

Having not watched this in the intervening decades since it came out all I could remember was the prurient interest and the general vibe, so was pleasantly surprised how much good stuff there was from beginning to end to appreciate. I don’t have much to add on that front. Trying to think of their is any use in comparing with a film on a somewhat similar theme, The Limey, but the two movies are so different, maybe don’t want to go there.

Also trying to remember the substance of a National Lampoon Bergman parody I read once, The Høwl of the Muppets.

xxp the smiles and laughter of the old couple are echoed by Adam Kesher and Camilla Rhodes later in the film
https://www.mulholland-drive.net/pics/cast/oldcouple1.jpg
https://www.mulholland-drive.net/pics/cast/adam_camilla.jpg
(images from mulholland-drive.net where of course someone noticed it way before I did https://www.mulholland-drive.net/theories/18.htm )

That’s an interesting pairing of images, but it’s hard to take a site seriously that conflates the two different “realities”:

First, we've seen how the hitman operates. It is hardly a stretch to imagine him taking out Adam in the process of killing Camilla. In fact, I think it's a bit of a stretch to imagine him killing ONLY Camilla. This guy murdered a vacuum sweeper for crying out loud.

(FWIW, I only vaguely know what to make of the old couple, but it does seem awfully reductive to declare they “represent Adam and Camilla”)

I don't think the hitman is in the dream reality, he doesn't interact with any of those characters. Some "reality" elements are intercut with Diane's Betty dream (e.g. Dan in the diner). Oddly Adam is the only character who seems to have continuity/identity through both worlds, although several faces repeat.
And no, I don't think that the old couple "represent Adam and Camilla" any more than the diner waitress Betty/Diane "represents" Diane/Betty. The whole film is about twinning, representation, offset realities, dream logic.

Oh, that’s interesting, I definitely don’t agree with that first part of what you wrote… but cool to hear the idea! I guess there’s a lot of ways to read even just the basic “presentation” of the movie.

tbh I'm not even sure I agree with myself!

I mentioned this movie to a friend, and he wrote: “Napkin… NAPKIN!!!!!”

So I guess there are more memorable quotes than I initially thought.

So glad I watched this again.

I’m watching Barry Lyndon—there’s a nice analogue of the dinner party scene near the beginning of the movie (it doesn’t play out the same way, of course…).

I finally watched this, and am not sad I missed it when it was first in theaters. So, True Hollywood Stories, as filtered through the David Lynch sensibility?

https://i.imgur.com/3O87Ayp.png

I also just watched this, having not seen it since its release. I was kind of anticipating it to be not as good as I remembered because I was blown away at the time. Not so, just an amazing movie, the crescendo at the end is incredible. I've moved on to binge watching Twin Peaks, which I never saw at the time. I'm enjoying it, but a little frustrated at how slow and repetitious it is, compared to the crisp distillation of sound/image/idea of Mulholland Dr. But maybe that's just due to how I'm watching it, it wasn't designed to be binge watched.

One minor thing I noticed is that it's 2001 and everyone was on the internet by then but it doesn't seem to exist in the film. To try and find out more about the crash Betty buys a newspaper and when there's nothing in it she says it must have been too late for this edition and leaves it at that. Also a lot of landline phone use and not much (if any?) cellphone use. We're living in a 2001 that's more like 1981...

I watched it again about a couple of months ago. I always forget how many tangents and extra stuff there is. Billy Ray Cyrus, the inept hit man, etc.

everyone wasn't on the Internet in 2001. only about half of Americans were. only about 3 in 10 people had cell phones in 2001 in the US, and none of them were smartphones. I'd say 2005 is the earliest year you could say "everyone was on the Internet"... things changed A LOT with respect to the Internet between 2000 and 2010

Rewatched this last week after not seeing it in 20 years and yeah, really holds up. It was good view it with a better understanding of the dream theory with Naomi Watts waking up at the two hour mark.

on deeper level its really all about hollywood razzle dazzle

it's about the awesomeness of Roy Orbison songs

i watched "a masterclass" with david lynch and at one point hes talking about how to go about making movies his advice was to write down ideas on index cards and once you have 70 ideas then you can make them into a movie

on deeper level its really all about hollywood razzle dazzle

Xpost Only half of Americans may have been online in 2001, but I'm guessing it would have been close to 100% in the LA movie world! But yeah, I get your point...

it is tbf a pretty common topic for a movie, he talked in the masterclass about how much he loves sunset boulevard xp

recommended

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNg-cx5OiEQ

I was on the internet in 2001, but if I was looking for info on a car crash the night before I 100% would have reached for the morning paper before thinking to check the internet for something like that.

my experience watching recently for the first time since release was that it was perhaps lightly less good than my memory of it - but this is also possibly because i recently watched Inland Empire which is kinda the full-strength dose of Late Lynch

i still think MD is a great achievement, especially considering its origins

i watched "a masterclass" with david lynch and at one point hes talking about how to go about making movies his advice was to write down ideas on index cards and once you have 70 ideas then you can make them into a movie

― lag∞n, Sunday, January 26, 2025 6:28 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

shit I’m only at 3

I saw it in a theater today as well, for the first time since 2001. Loved it, and am not a fan of Blue Velvet or Wild at Heart. I've thought for years that the audition scene was kind of the ur-text for all of Lana Del Rey, but that thought carried through to other scenes as well.

Re the lack of internet, the bulk of MD was shot in 1999, and written before that - there wasn't much news reported on the web at that time, and few had email.

https://www.vulture.com/article/patrick-fischler-answers-all-our-mulholland-drive-questions.html

In 2001 I read Salon several times a day, and they published one of those MD guides that helped.

this? https://www.salon.com/2001/10/24/mulholland_drive_analysis/

perhaps you also read the letters from readers offering their own reactions and theories, featuring me and erstwhile ilxor kenan.

!

lol

amazing

What was that first take like for you? It’s a jump scare for the audience.
It was kind of a jump scare for me. It was like, Oh, shit. In person, she looked remarkable. It was scary and odd and creepy. In that whole scene, even the walk, the dread just came to me. I can feel it in my chest right now talking to you. I’m not that kind of actor.

I remember getting the DVD that had the "10 hints from David Lynch" or w/e in the booklet, which iirc were remarkably specific and unlocked things pretty tidily. At the time I remember being shocked that Lynch would stoop to explaining things like that.

That salon piece was huge for me

cinematic scud missile of 1997

inland empire >>> mulholland dr.

like^^^ -------------- ^^^don't like

― mark s, Wednesday, 7 April 2021 22:36 (three years ago) bookmarkflaglink

rewatched this last night, haven't much changed my opinion tbh -- MD has terrific individual scenes but it's like someone v carefuly watched twin peaks 1-3 and thought "i can do that" only they couldn't

Mulholland Drive feels pretty disjointed through the first act because it's putting up a bunch of scenes that were clearly meant to introduce plots in the TV show that never go anywhere in the film. However, the sequence of scenes from the Cowboy until the Silencio club is pure movie magic.

My pet theory about Twin Peaks s3 is that a lot of the Dougie stuff, the memory loss, the gangsters, is repurposed from ideas originally intended for Mulholland Drive.

rewatched this last night, haven't much changed my opinion tbh -- MD has terrific individual scenes but it's like someone v carefuly watched twin peaks 1-3 and thought "i can do that" only they couldn't

― mark s, Wednesday, March 5, 2025 9:49 AM (thirty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

no way absolutely not

fwwm was my favorite lynch film for like a decade but i rewatched this the other week and folks... it's his best

inland empire, and i always end up regretting any strong opinion on lynch, doesn't in any way support a watch. convolution is the point, i think its genuinely the one where i think he doesn't manage to carry even the vibe/feeling through strongly enough to help even the deducated true believer construct their own fable.

mulholland drive far better tbh

some truly insane opinions in this thread maybe instead of watching david lynch films people should consider looking in a damn mirror

https://theschleicherspin.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/bob-cooper-mirror.jpg?w=640

ivy otm, Mulholland is his masterpiece.

i'm very glad i was able to see it "fresh" before i knew about the backstory with the pilot & cancelled series, its hard to un-know that once you know it and ofc you can see some of the stiches & seams. but at this point i actually think that adds rather than detracts from it. its like you see him spending all this time carefully setting up all these dominos, but then instead of tipping them he shoves you into a dumpster behind Winkies.

some truly insane opinions in this thread maybe instead of watching david lynch films people should consider looking in a damn mirror

― lag∞n, Wednesday, March 5, 2025

You're too busy being a smart aleck to be thinkin'. Now I want ya to think and quit bein' such a smart aleck. Can ya do that for me?

Lynch definitely draws on prior work to synthesize new ideas and plots, but mark accidentally implying Mulholland Drive draws from Twin Peaks s3 and not vice versa is silly

The stray threads are fine in MD. There’s a bigger world at first and then it starts collapsing into itself.

bit confused by how someone can be accused of being incapable of making a piece of work they already made, or plagiarising something they made fifteen years later to make it

obv David Lynch was a Time Lord

Ask john fogerty xp

wait so lynch spends years documenting the nature of time with its knots and whorls and then when i apply his research to his own work i'm suddenly "silly"

well, you also dislike JFK.

I like this film but I’m not gonna pretend I don’t know what “it’s like” means

Just saw it for the first time … nothing especially profound to say about it except that the Club Silencio scenes were … I mean, why was I so affected by watching two actresses cry during the (astounding) Rebekah del Rio song? And Betty shaking uncontrollably … Twin Peaks has electricity, this move just has street lights, set lights, orgasm.

(that shot of Diane at the party with the ridiculous bokeh - something about her vulnerability, while she’s surrounded by … spirits? Or maybe just glamour. But I prefer to think it’s friendly spirits she’s unaware of.)

Incredible movie, the smoke, the blue, the guilt, Dianne lying dead on her bed in her own dream/reality, getting what she wants from Rita

I need to give Inland Empire another go. I basically completely agree with Deems' assessment above, but watching this again has got me feeling maybe it was a me problem.

I have a perhaps-fringe opinion that FWWM theatrical is a sub-par film but my recent viewing of a fan edit (Blue Rose) is a contender for one of the best films ever made

S3 is Lynch’s masterpiece imo and Mulholland Drive is his best no-caveats theatrical work

I love Lost Highway more than most and dislike Wild At Heart more than most. I’m going to rewatch Inland Empire this week

It’s funny, having rewatched the entire Twin Peaks thing this year, and finished it, there’s a veneer of dissatisfaction when viewing anything else, it all feels so comparatively unsatisfying

My biggest revelation in the rewatch was that Angelo’s score for FWWM (mostly the first third) is some of the best music imaginable

otm

"S3 is Lynch’s masterpiece imo and Mulholland Drive is his best no-caveats theatrical work"

agreed

i must catch blue rose edit

same.

fgti, your post triggered a jagged memory of FWWM, i posted it on that thread for continuity sake.

In hindsight, one reason why I like the final season of Twin Peaks so much is that so many of the stranded and unsatisfying elements from Fire Walk with Me and the abrupt end that was the second season now find their place in relation to each other and are taken to fruition. There's still a lot of plot still left on the table, but not in a way that leaves the show feeling "unfinished." That was always the disappointment of finishing the original two-season run when I saw it back in the '00s, a couple of years before the DVD's happened when nobody was talking about Twin Peaks anymore, at least anyone within my social scope at the time. It felt like a sad ending to a brilliant pop phenomenon, one that quickly fell apart and was left twisting in the wind. Not in a million years would I have guessed Lynch would get carte blanche to do a third and final season - it really is a gift.

Lot of David Lynch-loving cinephiles waking up to this gift this morning. Thank you, #EverybodysLive! I fell off my chair. pic.twitter.com/b3E6AGStSP

— Courtney Howard (@Lulamaybelle) April 17, 2025

I've declined the opportunity to see Mulholland Drive in the theater now the last two times it's come up this year in my city; once shortly after Lynch's death and then once as part of a greater Lynch retrospective. The thing of it is that I'd already seen it in theaters a couple times already in the relatively recent past plus a couple more times at home, and while "no hay banda" and "silencio" had me very shook and impressed once I came up with an interpretation of them that worked for me, going back to MD now after seeing it four times in four years felt a little bit like work, whereas I'm planning on going to see Inland Empire in the theater on Monday precisely because I've never had a satisfactory viewing experience with it trying to watch it at home. Does that make sense? MD is a great film and I love it, and yet I've just avoided seeing it in the best way possible now, twice?

sure. there are films I’d count among the best I’ve seen that I have no plans to watch again, and others I’d watch any time. if you become too familiar with something, elements that were shocking or impactful can become expected

I caught Inland Empire and The Elephant Man at my theatre's retrospective, but the time didn't seem ripe for most of the others. Lynch is one whose films I don't really want to see more than maybe once a decade.

no lesbians itt i see