13 Nights of Shocktober: Mulholland Drive

by A.J.

Night 4: David Lynch Memorial Night

“I hope that I never see that face, ever, outside of a dream.”

Mulholland Drive

Earlier this year the great David Lynch passed away at the at age of 78 and his loss was greatly felt by fans and cinephiles. I never considered myself a fan but his death affected me more than I expected. It wasn’t until relatively recently that I came to appreciate his films and style. I think what really helped was that I realized his films are not puzzles to be solved. There are no answers because that was never the point. The point was what the experience made you feel. There was something very sincere and even endearing in the experience that he wanted to give the viewer.

Of all his notable films, Mulholland Drive has come to be regarded as Lynch’s masterpiece, at least by film critics. In terms of indecipherableness, Mulholland Drive rests in a sweet spot between being frustratingly incomprehensible like Inland Empire or Lost Highway and being relatively straight forward with some oddness here and there like Blue Velvet or Wild at Heart. I don’t mean to suggest that Mulholland Drive is decipherable but it is certainly less intimidating than the 3-hour surreal odyssey of Inland Empire. Mulholland Drive may not technically be a horror movie but it is frightening at times and unsettling throughout. The first time I saw it was late at night and it so unnerved me that I did not want to go to sleep. 

The plot oscillates between a fun amateur detective story and a strange, dark Noir. Naomi Watts plays fresh faced Betty who has just moved to Los Angeles to pursue her dream of being an actress. She is so impossibly innocent and kind hearted that when she finds another woman (Laura Harring) showering in her aunt’s vacant apartment she assumes the woman is a friend of her aunt. Actually the woman doesn’t know who she is but we know she barely escaped being murdered and was in a bad car accident. She calls herself Rita after a poster of Rita Hayworth and Betty befriends her and becomes determined to find out Rita’s lost identity. There is also the plot involving Adam (Justin Theroux), a young movie director being forced to cast a specific actress by mysterious men in suits. The plots do converge though not in a conventional way. 

What makes this a horror movie, more than any of the surreal, frightening imagery are the ideas at play. Dreams, nightmares, and what is really real loom large and foreboding over Mulholland Drive; not being sure which is which seems to be the main theme of the movie, at least for me. If you ever wondered what it is like to be trapped in a dream or not know whether you are awake or dreaming, this is a good example. Lynch rejected being labeled a surrealist, though that is the easiest way to describe his approach to films and television. Of course, the best adjective is Lynchian, though you have to watch a few of his movies before you understand what that entails, and even then the term has been defined only loosely. Lynchian can refer to how his films often presented a seemingly idyllic setting only to reveal the dark secrets and hidden violence known but not spoken of (Blue Velvet is a good example of this). It can refer to nightmarish but captivating imagery mixed with the mundane (Eraserhead, Lost Highway). It can refer just to the overall ominous mood that dominates whatever is on screen no matter how cheery or mundane it may seem. More than a story or theme, it is a mood or feeling that Lynch wants his films to convey. 

The scariest moment happens in a seemingly unrelated scene with minor characters. Dan (Patrick Fischler, a character actor who you’ll recognize even if you don’t recognize the name) meets with a friend at Winkie’s Diner and tells him about a dream. In the dream he is at Winkie’s Diner with that friend who is standing in line to pay and he is terrified and realizes that there is a “man” behind the restaurant making him scared. Dan brought his friend there to prove to himself that there is nothing to the dream. Then the friend gets up to pay and Dan realizes that the dream is happening. They go outside behind the restaurant and what happens is maybe the most effective jump-scare in film history, even though, like Dan, you know what is going to happen. Did he make the dream come true? Was he having the dream again? His experience is the same whether what happens is real or not, so does it matter? This dilemma reflects Betty’s experience, even in the surreal third act. It also reflects a real life fear that many people have, that in trying to find comfort in disproving something they make it true. 

Mulholland Drive began as a TV pilot for ABC, the same network that produced Lynch’s beloved and classic series Twin Peaks, but the network canceled the pilot after an illfated early morning preview. After a year of negotiations, Lynch secured additional funding from the French production company Canal+, wrote 18 additional pages, reassembled the cast, and turned the failed pilot into a movie. You can probably guess the point where the pilot ends and the additional scenes begin. Yet, this provides another possible point for where dreams or reality stop, or start. A TV pilot typically contains many starting points for a series to expand upon in later episodes. This happens here but not every character or plot is expanded  or tied together, at least not in a conclusive way. My favorite of these false starts is the inept hitman. The most disturbing is the character of the Cowboy who meets with Adam the director and tells him, “Now... you will see me one more time, if you do good. You will see me... two more times, if you do bad.” 

You’ll hear or read that the first two thirds of the movie are a dream and the final third is the nightmarish reality. Of course the first two thirds could be a reality unrecognizable to us and the final third is a nightmare, quotidian and grim by comparison. Maybe the dream had a nightmare? One of the very first images we see is someone under bedsheets. Is everything after a dream? Was it Betty in bed? Or Rita? Or Diane? Or Camilla? Even Adam? Lynch, famously, would never answer direct questions about the meaning of his movies. When asked about symbolism or meaning of Mulholland Drive he would wryly answer with statements like “I think you know” or respond to an interpretation with a simple and definitive but polite, “No.” He began his career as an artist and painter, then an avant-garde experimental filmmaker before making his first feature, Eraserhead. I think understanding Lynch’s career path goes a long to way to understanding not the meaning but the purpose of his films. He created the work, set it out, and it is up to the viewer to provide the interpretation.

Mullholland Drive is available to rent on AppleTV and Fandango At Home. It is also available on DVD & Blu-ray from the Criterion Collection and probably at your local library.