Mulholland Drive - theories please.

this movie is way overrated, i was so disappointed when i finally saw it. "blue velvet" is light-years better.

no

? Blue Velvet is way clumsier

http://www.indiewire.com/biz/lynchcow1.jpg

http://www.davidlynch.de/lynchcow2.jpg

Blue Velvet is not light years better. Why is it light years better?

adheres to conventional thriller narrative structure...? (just guessing)

i mean "blue velvet" is driven by a strong story and has countless indelible moments and still leaves me feeling like i've witnessed something astonishing and complex. MD just leaves me feeling like i've seen a long string of marginally related scenes that don't add up to anything. what exactly do you guys get out of it?

well, the lights go down, and you go into this WORLD...

More multi-plot TV pilots should be given "it was all a dream" endings and released in theatres!

could any other director get away with that kind of ending? Rob Reiner didn't.

MD just leaves me feeling like i've seen a long string of marginally related scenes that don't add up to anything.

Huh? Really? It seems pretty straightforward, honestly.

Blue Velvet has never struck me as particularly complex - its a "coming of age"-type story about a young guy discovering the dark underbelly of America, etc. It has a clear beginning, middle, and end; a villain; a classic "femme fatale", etc. "Mulholland Drive" is so much more dense and intricate - involving the mutability of identity, the Hollywood "dream" (of making it big, of being in a movie, of being someone you're not); its about creative control, obsession, and denial; the nature of recorded media... so many things in there.

Including thirty minutes of "and you were there, and you were there, and you were there..."

Other pilot producers must be SO fucking jealous of this movie.

Lynch has always had a thing for the Wizard of Oz

Huh? Really? It seems pretty straightforward, honestly.

Hmm...Do you have theories about Gravity's Rainbow?

gravity's rainbow is about transcendence

You seem far more convinced about the 'dream' ending than anyone I know, Anthony.

It's admittedly not as fun as the other theories, even though it makes perfect sense and there's nothing in the film that really contradicts it. You might wonder why her dream has subplots, but that's because Lynch didn't bother to change anything about the pilot to fit the ending he was paid to tack onto it.

Hmm...Do you have theories about Gravity's Rainbow?

It's all Octopus Grigori's fantasy of human life.

Ending is more Return To Oz than Wizard Of Oz, though.

The dream theory is otm. But it doesn't just end with "it was all a dream lol!" The harsh reality gives the dream a lot of weight.

i dunno the tiny tourists were pretty lol in my row

tourists = her parents irl

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?