Mulholland Drive

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.