Mulholland Drive - theories please.

monster/homeless guy = her high school gym teacher

cowboy walking across the restaurant = god

This was a better abstract look at the agony of being Naomi Watts than <i>Ring: Two</i>, I'll admit.

billy ray cyrus = toto

that look at her breasteses sure wasn't abstract!

the titty scene was amazing, I've never claimed otherwise

i think we can all agree on that one

David Lynch initially resisted Studio Canal's offer to provide additional funds to complete the TV pilot as a feature film. Lynch's battles with ABC network executives had left him with a negative feeling about the project and the director felt he had run out of ideas for the storyline. When Lynch finally agreed to revisit the film, much to his horror he found that all the sets had been destroyed, and all of the costumes and props had been released by ABC (normally all sets, props and costumes for a possible TV series are carefully cataloged and stored for future use). Lynch claims this setback actually proved a blessing in disguise, however, when it finally generated new ideas about how to proceed with filming, and the director was able to come up with a satisfying conclusion to the story.

...

The theatrical version contains 26 minutes of newly shot and restored footage; the TV version of Mullholand Drive, shot in 1999, originally ran at just over 100 minutes and ended at Betty's apartment after helping Rita cut her hair and put a blond wig on; an additional deleted scene had Betty running out of the apartment to the roof where Rita joined her and both of them looking out over Los Angeles where Betty says "I have arrived" and Rita saying the same. The final shot in the TV pilot version has the mysterious bum sitting in the alley behind Winkie's Restaurant and holding the mysterious blue box. New footage shot for the theatrical version includes:

* The theatrical ending where David Lynch goes back and tells the story of Diane; in the TV pilot, it ends where Rita (Camilla) opens the mysterious blue box.
* An additional 6 minutes of expanded 'reshoots' that Studio Canal had David Lynch shoot for the theatrical release.

I always wondered if the tittays were part of said 6 minutes.

I recall Lynch, on news of the film version, enthusing to one of the female principles "AND THERE'S GOING TO BE NUDITY!"

http://a255.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/28/l_f066b305ab7e9bcfc5a60af58edee766.jpg

BOO!

D:

the audtion scene is perhaps one of the greatest pieces of cinema evah.

Tim Finney otm 7 years ago. Stunning. Should have won an Oscar on its own, maybe.

This movie broke my brain. Although a couple of ILX posts have subsequently made most of it make some sort of sense. Most.

Can a mod amend the title so as it's spelt correctly?

Botched killing, audition scene, theatre scene, and a few others = stone classic

loved the stupid director in that audition scene btw. 'humanistic'! just as you'd imagine a stupid director to be.

That actor, James Karen, was best known for years in the US as the pitchman for the Pathmark supermarket chain.

If and when kenan comes to post in this thread - I just want to remind him not to fuck my mother - that's all.

Which audition scene? The awkward script reading or the magic 50's studio set Camilla Rhodes lip sync (which I've told people before is probably my single favorite scene of any movie of all time)

There's a whole raft of amazing bit-part players. I think this is a deliberate ploy. To what extent is this film about the fractal nature of film? The subdivided experience of connected whims? I say this because for the first half at least, the film seems to be a collection of scenes, before it becomes a strangely contiguous albeit difficult whole.

The non-awkward and utterly thrilling script reading, my dear Stevie. "like in the movies"

The first of those scenes is the transformative one -- I was utterly astonished by it -- cuz Watts shows something that has no way been shown in her character (or in her performance) til that point.

xp

(not to mention, she's doing a dry hump w/ CHAD EVERETT)

The first of those scenes is the transformative one -- I was utterly astonished by it -- cuz Watts shows something that has no way been shown in her character (or in her performance) til that point.

xp

― Rage, Resentment, Spleen (Dr Morbius), Monday, January 4, 2010 2:54 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^ this

I didn't work out Diane and Betty were the same person until after the movie ended. I was frantically piecing it together but it didn't quite hit until afterwards. (I thought Diane was that waitress! But that was Naomi Watts too, wasn't it?) I didn't work out that the two women practising the audition wasn't a real scene until halfway through. But on this latter point at least, I think I'm probably quite dense.

That script-reading scene, like a few others but more so, feels like a 'classic Hollywood scene' and was intended to feel so. But it's artificial! It's created in modern-day cynical Hollywood, and it's a facsimile of a scene by definition. BUT it's a classic Hollywood scene, no inverted commas. Plus, yes, she becomes an actress in that scene, and in the process becomes a real human. I think therein lies a key to the movie? Authenticity through pretence? Movies being real?

movie would've been better with tiny old people running around the entire time

this movie had good scenes but struck me as super lazy

how

really? compared to what, Saw VI?

at some point dude was just like hay lets put this here, let's make this shit about some box, lets uhhhh, uhhhhh
credits

"Sum'n bit me BAD!"

sspfw, I think you are confusing Lynch w/ the television program "Lost"

i think what uhoh is referring to is the difficulty of turning a tv pilot into a cinematic film... i have a dvd copy of the unedited pilot, 80% of which ends up in MD the film. you can tell where lynch had to adapt more to reach more a cinematic arc than keeping it fit for TV.

that said, i think uhoh couldn't be more off the mark that it was lazy filmmaking.

all in all the movie was pretty bold and great but everything felt super rushed, I love lynch btw

yeah maybe lazy was too harsh, dude was just working with what he had

I'm not gonna retract what I thought about the old people running around all the time tho

anyone gonna help me out with my thoughts here or at least call me dumb or w/e...i think it's important i understand how this film relates to film...its combination of trope and innovation surely contains filmic quintessence?

a combination of trope and innovation

OH MY GOD tell us abt the DVD pilot! Are all the scenes in mostly the same order? What sort of direction does it take? What's in the scenes that were removed?

anyone gonna help me out with my thoughts here or at least call me dumb or w/e...i think it's important i understand how this film relates to film...its combination of trope and innovation surely contains filmic quintessence?

― Electric Universe (wherever that is) (acoleuthic), Monday, January 4, 2010 3:11 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

not sure what you're getting at there but the parts of the movie where the film seems to wobble and actually go off the gate could be what you're looking for

...I'm sorta hitting at the film's insistence on placing genuinely classic scenes within a framework that first isolates them and projects them as classic scenes, before somehow incorporating them within a fractal narrative of repeating movie-ness, which comes to define the projection

stevie d,
check here:
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=mulholland+drive+tv+pilot

i'll try to find a copy online and if not i'll u/l mine.

In my blurb for this I said that few films capture exactly what it feels like to be dumped: the scene in which Naomi Watts makes coffee – where every moment, from spooning coffee to stirring the cup, is weighed equally – is one of the truest depictions of depression I've ever seen.

btw there's a bit near the end where the music is incredible - think it's either the bit with andy the director snogging camilla in the car, or the second lesbian love-scene, or both

score throughout is excellent, i gather the dude who wrote it is the dude spitting coffee everywhere, lol

u know what i love is the opening dance collage scene

that blew me away on 1st viewing

i ate at "Winky's"

it was a Denny's but now it's Caesar's in Gardena.

love the eyebrow guy at winky's

who later showed up in mad men and lost. great agent that guy has.

he was also the video store guy in ghost world.

oh yeah!

i'm watching those madmen eps with this guy and he is great in them

his schtick is so weird i don't know how he gets these parts but he's great in them

ya great screen presence

Attended NYU Tisch School of the Arts, trained at Circle in the Square and graduated in 1992.

Founded and is co-artistic director of the Neurotic Young Urbanites, a Los Angeles theater group created by NYU graduates to give young actors a working environment to continue developing their skills. In addition to appearing in many of their productions, he has co-directed musical productions.