Mulholland Drive - meaningless?

the_monkey

Mulholland Dr. (2001) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0166924/?ref_=nv_sr_4

Does David Lynch try and piss viewers off ?

Overrated - while an enjoyable watch , it left me frustrated with the lack of explanation - this crap that it's left up to the viewer is lazy writing tbh.

MOD NOTE: This post and the discussion that follows originated in the recently watched thread.

e_e

It's a work of surrealism, to explain would be to lose the point entirely.

Barna77

Lynch back then said that Mulholland Drive was meant to be a pilot episode for a tv series, which would explain why it's so bizarre. Still one of my favourite movies.

Watched Inside Llewyn Davis last night. Another weird one. Not impressed.

the_monkey

Barna77 wrote: »

Lynch back then said that Mulholland Drive was meant to be a pilot episode for a tv series, which would explain why it's so bizarre. Still one of my favourite movies.

Watched Inside Llewyn Davis last night. Another weird one. Not impressed.

He also insists that the movie tells a completely coherent and sensible story :eek:

I might give it a second watch, as I said it is for sure enjoyable - even if I feel a bit let down at the end.

e_e

It's a walk in the park compared to Inland Empire, which I actually prefer for how the "plot" is like an endless maze.

Don't think Mulholland Drive is too difficult anyway, it just presents you with 2 possible realities and you get to decide which one is real.

Tony EH

Is it not obvious at the end what's real and what's not?

MilanPan!c

e_e wrote: »

It's a work of surrealism, to explain would be to lose the point entirely.

That's pure justification of Lynch not being able to tell a story properly.

I hate this movie, and loved Lynch for years and years.

Everything about this seems to just be a joke at viewers expense. Which wouldn't surprise me with Lynch.

Can not express how much I think this movie is over rated and all smoke, no fire.

And yes, I like surrealism. And yes I like weird movies.

But this is just rubbish.

e_e

Tony EH wrote: »

Is it not obvious at the end what's real and what's not?

Maybe, haven't seen the film in about half a decade though.

e_e

MilanPan!c wrote: »

That's pure justification of Lynch not being able to tell a story properly.

Maybe he's not interesting in telling a story "properly".

MilanPan!c

e_e wrote: »

Maybe he's not interesting in telling a story "properly".

Or at all in this case.

It's visual vomit.

e_e

I thought vomit was visual vomit? Not one of the most alluring American films of the 00s.

MilanPan!c

e_e wrote: »

I thought vomit was visual vomit? Not one of the most alluring American films of the 00s.

Jesus. It's so hard to understand why so many people like Mullholland Drive. To me it's about as alluring as ... Cronenberg's Crash.

MD is just transparently shallow and lame.

MilanPan!c

A good discussion of sorts about MD:

www.ruthlessreviews.com/5632/mulholland-drive/

Here's a pretty "clear" "explanation" of the plot:

I think Jaquay has a point in that because it was originally supposed to be a series then certain elements of the plot don’t get embellished upon like the guy who sees the monster in the Winkie place, where the money comes from and what the two brothers are about (although you get the feeling that they were trying to have Rita killed as well perhaps cos she stole the money from them) etc, etc…and hence why the police guy at the car crash (the bail bond guy in Jackie Brown) implies that he’s got a real mystery on his hands when he looks in the direction Rita fled in but then never makes another appearance. Actually, having thought about it, this film is set in LA so maybe the thing with Kesher and the film company and the brothers is just a jab at the suits in Hollywood as this film was financed by Canal, which is a French company.

The rest of the film is as simple as this. The films theme is about learning from your mistakes. Lynch does this with two main story lines. The Diane/Betty story and the Adam Kesher/Camilla story. Although the two stories are intertwined they actually have no bearing on each other at all other than the fact that the Rita/Camilla character is in both.

Diane’s story and Betty’s story are basically two separate stories but at the same time both are exactly the same. One a repeat of the other. Lynch shows us the beginning of the story through Betty’s eyes and the end through Diane’s eyes, Though Diane’s story obviously happens prior to Betty’s. There are a few clues that tell us these things.

1. Both are in love with Rita/Camilla
2. Both have their parts in a film taken away by the Camilla played by Harring. Lynch implies this when the grey haired actor at Betty’s audition says, “Can we do this real close like we did before, you know, with what’s her name? The dark haired one”. We are simply told at the party that the Harring Camilla was given the part in favour of Diane.
3. Both are played by the same character.

Adam Kesher’s story is also two stories. The one with the blond Camilla as the lead actress in his film and the one with the Harring Camilla as the lead in his film. Again the beginning of the story is told through the Blond Camilla/Kesher relationship and the end through the Harring Camilla/Kesher relationship. Again the two stories are different stories but are exactly the same story, though the blond Camilla’s story obviously happens prior to the Harring Camilla’s story, though this time both stories have the same ending. Again there are things that tell us these facts.

1. Both are leads in Kesher films
2. Both steal a part from Diane or Betty
3. Both have the same name
4. Bizarrely both end up with Kesher. They are both at the party at Kesher’s they both kiss each other passionately and Kesher doesn’t bat an eyelid. Both Camilla’s have the same sadistic characteristics, which is why the blond Camilla looks at Diane when she is kissing the Harring Camilla taunting her in the same way the Harring Camilla has taunted Diane by spurning her for Kesher.

Now at one point Lynch tries to confuse us by having Betty in the same scene as the blond Camilla (the one where the blond Camilla is being cast in the singing role) but this is just Lynch being Lynch and trying to confuse the issue and should be discarded as such.

So at some point both Kesher and Diane have lost everything. Kesher his wife, home, money and job, Diane the love of her life. Now the point is this. The cowboy tells Kesher that he is an arrogant fool and that he must change his ways or he will be ruined. This he does because his film gets made and he ends up with the Camilla’s (one of Lynches little jokes) so in effect he has learnt from his mistakes and profits from this. Diane cannot learn from her mistakes because she kills herself, so Betty alas, is doomed to repeat them for her.

As for the old couple, they’re just a simple representation of our good old friend Satan. When they say goodbye to Betty at the airport they climb into a car, A BIG **** OFF BLACK ONE!!!! Then they start laughing their heads off. Why? Because they know that Betty’s going to suffer a similar fate to Diane. That’s why they are there at the end of Diane’s story to mock her because she’s riddled with guilt, as she assumes she has killed her “lover” because the hit man wrongly assumes that the Rita/Camilla character was accidentally killed in the car crash and leaves the key on Diane’s table to signify that the job has been completed. Also, this is why Betty and Rita disappear, as after they have made love and that Betty tells Rita she loves her. The Pandora’s box has been opened so we don’t need to know what happens to Betty and Rita next because we learn this from the end of Diane’s story. It’s a repeat remember.

The only question that still puzzles me is why Keshers mum, Coco doesn’t recognise Rita/Camilla when she sees her at Betty’s aunties flat. She definitely met her at the party at Keshers. I wouldn’t be surprised if Lynch did this on purpose though in the same way Betty impossibly appears in the scene I mentioned with the blond Camilla.

Amazing. /sarcasm.

Obviously it's basically just basically random garbage with bit of structure glued onto it during editing.

The only Lynch movie worse that MD is the thoroughly useless and insulting Lost Highway.

LuckyLloyd

MilanPan!c wrote: »

That's pure justification of Lynch not being able to tell a story properly.

I hate this movie, and loved Lynch for years and years.

Everything about this seems to just be a joke at viewers expense. Which wouldn't surprise me with Lynch.

Can not express how much I think this movie is over rated and all smoke, no fire.

And yes, I like surrealism. And yes I like weird movies.

But this is just rubbish.

Spot on imo. Love the delivery also, no pussyfooting around.

e_e

MilanPan!c wrote: »

Jesus. It's so hard to understand why so many people like Mullholland Drive. To me it's about as alluring as ... Cronenberg's Crash.

MD is just transparently shallow and lame.

I'd do the "appeal to critical/popular consensus" thing that you like so much but I realize it'd be hypocritical of me. Besides it's kind of redundant.

Fair dues if you didn't like MD though. I found it to be a scary, funny, seductive and moving film. It has a plot to be sure, but it's not front and center or important.

LuckyLloyd

e_e wrote: »

Maybe he's not interesting in telling a story "properly".

Maybe. Or maybe he's just not inspired all the time and some efforts are weird for the sake of weird? I'd say Blue Velvet is brilliant - straight up on the surface with deeply woven thematic layers supporting it.

And the Straight Story demonstrated his immense skill as the builder of striking images.

johnny_ultimate

Mullholland Drive is second only to Eraserhead IMO in Lynch's filmography, and one of the if not the most coherent and focused of his 'weird' films. I particularly love it as a strange twist on the traditional 'hero's journey' narrative and film noir, dismantling and rebuilding many of the tropes of traditional cinematic storytelling to make this evocative if abstract film about Hollywood and its produce. It's a great film about film IMO.

Yeah, some of it is odd and surreal without much grander relevance, but more than any of his other film's I think it addresses that explicitly by having much of the film effectively take place in a strange, illogical nightmare that is constantly drifting in bizarre directions while retaining a peculiar sort of internal consistency built from generally familiar elements.

I do think there's something to be said the captivating atmosphere speaks for itself with or without that thematic / narrative depth, but I'd say Eraserhead is a purer representation of nightmarish fantasy.

For the record, I think Lost Highway is pretty awful too, albeit with the party scene phone call perhaps the most memorably bizarre scene Lynch has ever directed.

e_e

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Maybe. Or maybe he's just not inspired all the time and some efforts are weird for the sake of weird?

I don't think MD is all that weird, nor do I really get why weird is so often used in a negative way for movies. If anything it's these films (Inland Empire in particular) that show his imagination and inspiration run wild.

MilanPan!c

e_e wrote: »

I don't think MD is all that weird, nor do I really get why weird is so often used in a negative way for movies. If anything it's these films (Inland Empire in particular) that show his imagination and inspiration run wild.

Weird to be weird isn't being true to yourself, unless you're aiming at pretentiousness.

His best movies always have a story, and not one that's up to the viewer to impart meaning onto.

If Blue Velvet was shown in a forest it would still make sense and be a good narrative.

To claim that MD requires some sort of viewer participation to make some sort of sense is simply justification for Lynch's lack of control. He took a half finished idea, welded some other contradictory crap onto it, then let his fans "find their own meaning".

It's pretty cynical.

As is Lynch IMO.

Sad Professor

To understand Mulholland Drive you kind of first need to get the basic gist of Lost Highway. Both films involve characters trapped in a kind of purgatory, what Buddhists call the bardos, a dream-like intermediate state between death and rebirth in which the soul (which doesn’t initially realise its dead) attempts to make sense of its life and face up to what it did before letting go and moving on. The characters in both films have done what in Lynch’s view is probably the worst thing a person could do: kill the person they love. So coming to terms with their life isn’t easy and it’s unclear if either character will ever be free.

Lost Highway was made before Mulholland Drive and depicts what Lynch described as a psychogenic fugue. Inspired by OJ Simpson, it’s about a man on death row for killing his wife whose mind attempts to protect itself from its conscience (which takes a terrifying form) by inventing a fantasy world in which he is a completely different person with a different life, family, etc. However, even in that fantasy, his conscience won’t let him forget and the reality of what he did continues to haunt him. He runs from it, over and over, resulting in a twisting, looping narrative, which it’s implied he never escapes from, even as he burns in the electric chair.

Something similar is happening in Mulholland Drive. It’s a about a failed actress Diane (Watts) who has her lover murdered. Wrecked with guilt, she waits for the news that she’s dead. In her dream-fantasy she takes the form of multiple different characters, represented by people she knew or met in real life. The two main sides of her fractured psyche are represented by Betty (Watts) and Rita (Harring). As they fall in love, they gradually come to the realisation that their world is a dream. At that point Diane wakes up in her apartment. She’s a mess and her mind keeps replaying the events that led her to plan Camilla’s murder. In these flashbacks from her perspectives, we see where the different elements of her fantasy-dream came from. Eventually her mind collapses and she kills herself, mainly out of guilt and also to return to the dream world where Betty and Rita are together.

That’s just a very basic explanation of what’s going on in both films. There’s so much more to them and both films reward multiple viewings.

Sad Professor

Sad Professor wrote: »

That’s just a very basic explanation of what’s going on in both films. There’s so much more to them and both films reward multiple viewings.

Impressive insight Professor!

MilanPan!c

Sad Professor wrote: »

To understand Mulholland Drive you kind of first need to get the basic gist of Lost Highway. Both films involve characters trapped in a kind of purgatory, what Buddhists call the bardos, a dream-like intermediate state between death and rebirth in which the soul (which doesn’t initially realise its dead) attempts to make sense of its life and face up to what it did before letting go and moving on. The characters in both films have done what in Lynch’s view is probably the worst thing a person could do: kill the person they love. So coming to terms with their life isn’t easy and it’s unclear if either character will ever be free.

Lost Highway was made before Mulholland Drive and depicts what Lynch described as a psychogenic fugue. Inspired by OJ Simpson, it’s about a man on death row for killing his wife whose mind attempts to protect itself from its conscience (which takes a terrifying form) by inventing a fantasy world in which he is a completely different person with a different life, family, etc. However, even in that fantasy, his conscience won’t let him forget and the reality of what he did continues to haunt him. He runs from it, over and over, resulting in a twisting, looping narrative, which it’s implied he never escapes from, even as he burns in the electric chair.

Something similar is happening in Mulholland Drive. It’s a about a failed actress Diane (Watts) who has her lover murdered. Wrecked with guilt, she waits for the news that she’s dead. In her dream-fantasy she takes the form of multiple different characters, represented by people she knew or met in real life. The two main sides of her fractured psyche are represented by Betty (Watts) and Rita (Harring). As they fall in love, they gradually come to the realisation that their world is a dream. At that point Diane wakes up in her apartment. She’s a mess and her mind keeps replaying the events that led her to plan Camilla’s murder. In these flashbacks from her perspectives, we see where the different elements of her fantasy-dream came from. Eventually her mind collapses and she kills herself, mainly out of guilt and also to return to the dream world where Betty and Rita are together.

That’s just a very basic explanation of what’s going on in both films. There’s so much more to them and both films reward multiple viewings.

Explanation #275, 459...

There's entire websites devoted to people desperate to exlpain what these films apparently mean. They can't agree.

That should say a lot, that people are desperate to explain them (others still claim they're not even weird - even though no one can agree what they mean, if anything).

I have a sneaking suspicion that one day DL will admit that these two films in particular are just sick jokes... one was an attempt to recoup money he lost while making a TV pilot, the other was a desperate last gasp attempt to regain his former glory...

At any rate, the fact that the people so intent on explaining them, must resort to referencing things like "'psychogenic fugue,' says a lot... Even though, Lynch says it doesn't mean anything and wasn't any inspiration to his films:

the unit publicist on the picture, happened to find it in some medical journal or something. She showed it to us, and it was like Lost Highway. Not literally, but an interior thing can happen that's very similar. A certain mental disturbance. But it sounds like such a beautiful thing - 'psychogenic fugue.' It has music and it has a certain force and dreamlike quality I think it's beautiful, even if it didn't mean anything. (Lynch on Lynch 239)

In other words, Lynch is happy to embrace any old nonsense, if it helps him promote a movie... Sure, "he thinks it's beautiful," but like the editing of MD it was simply an attempt (by his publicist) to help his film appeal to pretentious people...

Film Goer: "Err that movie doesn't make any sense"
Film publicist: It's about "'psychogenic fugue"
Film Goer: "errrrr... if you say so"

Also, the OJ thing wasn't intentional, if it's even true. Lynch said he realised it years later... umm... suuuuure he did...

shazzerman

So what if Lynch made LH as a joke? Maybe Welles made "F For Fake" as a joke. It's a great film. So is LH. I suppose we should discount Huston's "Beat the Devil" too, because it never aspired to be anything other than a bit of a "joke".

MilanPan!c

Took me a few minutes to dig it up, but here you go...

Luke: "Did you understand what David Lynch's Mulholland Drive was all about?"

Mark: "It started as a conversation David and I were having about a sequel to Twin Peaks. We wanted to take the Audrey Horn character, played by Cheryl, to Hollywood. I proposed Mulholland Drive, which I lived on, as a title. He sold it as a pilot to ABC and then convinced the French that if he shot 45 more minutes, he could make something out of it. I haven't seen it. I heard it was a mess. I knew that the pilot was a mess.

"David's strength and weakness is that he is often able to transcend story because he's such a master creating mood. His failing is that he's not a strong storyteller. He doesn't have a lot of interest in telling a story. He's not as interested in character as fragments of personality. He's a surrealist."

Luke: "He's got a great eye for hot looking women."

Mark smiles: "That was always one of his strengths. The mistake that people make about David is that they assume he's an ironist [saying the opposite of what he means]. He's not. He's a sincere simple guy. He doesn't work things out. He's not that good in logic. When people spend a lot of energy trying to figure out exactly what he meant by Mulholland Drive, I can assure you that he (David Lynch) didn't know.

"I exchanged emails with [critic] Roger Ebert at one point. He was conducting an online seminar about the meaning of Mulholland Drive. David works like a painter. He throws a canvas up there and you interpret it any way you want. He doesn't have a strong point of view. It's about sensation and feeling and arousing emotions."

http://www.lukeford.net/profiles/profiles/mark_frost.htm

Who said this?

Mark Frost:

he co-created the ABC television series Twin Peaks and On the Air with David Lynch.

Writer of:

The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer (1990)

He worked directly with DL for over five years, and even came up with the title of the film, Mulholland Drive.

So... if this guys agrees that even Lynch doesn't know what it's about... then yeah, I'm happy in my position...

MilanPan!c

shazzerman wrote: »

So what if Lynch made LH as a joke? Maybe Welles made "F For Fake" as a joke. It's a great film. So is LH. I suppose we should discount Huston's "Beat the Devil" too, because it never aspired to be anything other than a bit of a "joke".

If it's a joke, then it's better than the opposite, some dense and important piece of cinema.

I think, as does the co-creator of Twin Peaks, that it's about mood, and that people that think it's much deeper are reading into things that aren't there.

I didn't like it, because I felt that if was meaningless, beautiful maybe, but shallow and pithy... at best... It had no story to tell...

It's cool if you wanna read it as a joke, in a positive way... but if it IS a joke, it's most likely a joke at the viewers expense.

shazzerman

MilanPan!c wrote: »

If it's a joke, then it's better than the opposite, some dense and important piece of cinema.

That's flawed. A film can be both.

MilanPan!c

shazzerman wrote: »

MilanPan!c wrote: »

If it's a joke, then it's better than the opposite, some dense and important piece of cinema.

That's flawed. A film can be both.

It can of course, but in this case the REASONS it's meant to be so amazing are all just rationalisations and pretensions analysis unrelated to the film itself.

You wanna say it's a genius nonsensical absurdist painting, then grand, have at it...

But look at this (all too typical) analysis of the film:

What Lacan is alluding here to is his notion of the point de capiton, the quilting point, which is that point which makes sure that some temporary notion of meaning can be created in language. Again, as in the concept of suture, the metaphor of stitching and sewing comes to the fore, since a quilting point designates an upholstery button, a place where "the mattress-makers needle has worked hard to prevent a shapeless mass of stuffing from moving to freely about." (35) So a point de capiton is a place where signified and signifier are literally stitched together - this is suture in the register of the symbolic. Like a highway with respect to a system of smaller streets, the quilting point holds that system of discourse together, and a minimal number of these points are "necessary for a human being to be called normal, and which, when they are not established, or when they give way, make a psychotic" (Seminar III 268-9).

According to Lacan, the most important points de capiton, the highway amongst some minor roads, so to speak, is the name of the father, the paternal metaphor, which is quite important in Lynch's "post-patriarchal project." (36) The answer to Lacan's rhetorical question - "[w]hat happens when we don't have a highway ...?" (Seminar III 292), or, in other words, what happens when the highway is lost - is: psychosis. The foreclosure, what Freud called Verwerfung, of the primordial signifier, the name of the father, is a strategy for evading castration: the subject is "castrated" by its entry into the symbolic, into language and society. Thus, the denial of this castration leads to psychosis. This rejection of the symbolic Other that results in the disappearance of the phallic function leads to the subject's distortion of its relation to the social order as well to its loss of sexual identity. As in Freud's case of Judge Schreber, Fred Madison tries to escape the threat of castration, but he experiences a "return of the repressed" in the real instead of in the symbolic, in his hallucinations (that is, in his second identity as Pete), because he does not accept the name of the father, the agency that might disturb his symbiotic relationship with Renee and/or Alice: Dick Laurent is dead! So, the "Highway" of the title is exactly this quilting point, this suture, that would be necessary for the subject to be inscribed into "reality," into a state of "normality." Once this point is lost, once this seam is undone, the subject falls prey to the real, becomes psychotic. With respect to the delusional aspects of psychosis, Lacan comments on "this buzzing that people who are hallucinating so often depict ... this continuous murmur ... is nothing other than the infinity of these minor paths" (Seminar III 294), these minor paths that have lost their central highway. What is the deep droning sound underlying most of the movie but this "continuous murmur?"

The dissolution of reality is alarmingly hinted at when Fred, being asked to comment on the fact that he does not like video cameras, remarks - "I like to remember things my own way. ... How I remember them, not necessarily the way they happened." (117K .wav file) (37) Seen in this light, the videos might represent the truth "the way it happened," that is: the repressed truth of Fred (and it is here that the sequence of the burning cabin shot in reverse gains special significance as a recurring image of that repression). Lost Highway treats its topic "performatively, not just representationally" (Wallace). Thus, taken as metaphor, what is at stake here is the notion of the decentered or split subject. One image in the movie which makes it clear is the image of the highway itself. There are two variants of this specific shot that are important here. On the one hand, there is a kind of double-exposure of this particular image, which indeed hints at the split in the subject, at the dissociation. (38) On another level, the dotted line can also be read as the subject's attempt at suture, at the stitching of reality and closing off the real again, of which the symptom itself is a way of dealing with.

http://www.thecityofabsurdity.com/papers/herzogenrath7.html

Or all of this mess: http://www.mulholland-drive.net/studies/10clues.htm

Or this: http://www.mulholland-drive.net/analysis/analysis11.htm

Or this: THE CONFLICT AND COLOR SYMBOLISM AT THE CORE OF THE INTERNAL STRUCTURE

http://www.mulholland-drive.net/analysis/analysis03.htm

Compared to what Lynch's old partner, who gave Lynch the name, said:

David Lynch doesn't even know what it's about.

LuckyLloyd

Strong posting Milan, very strong.

shazzerman

MilanPan!c: "It can of course"

Not a fan of psychoanalytic readings of films (in general), but that Lacan-inspired piece makes a lot more sense to me than your line of argument. You say a film can be a joke, and say that the opposite of a joke-film is one that is dense and serious, and then agree with me, thus saying that - by your logic - a film can ontologically embody two opposite states at the same time... Does a film have to contain a narrative to be meaningful, is a question that might need to be asked.

MilanPan!c

shazzerman wrote: »

MilanPan!c: "It can of course"

Not a fan of psychoanalytic readings of films (in general), but that Lacan-inspired piece makes a lot more sense to me than your line of argument. You say a film can be a joke, and say that the opposite of a joke-film is one that is dense and serious, and then agree with me, thus saying that - by your logic - a film can ontologically embody two opposite states at the same time... Does a film have to contain a narrative to be meaningful, is a question that might need to be asked.

You're reading way too much into what I said. And you're ignoring my response to you.

And you're ignoring the fact that the Lacan explanation is just one of MANY competing and frankly nonsensical readings of the film.

Films can be a "joke" and be deep.

Mullholland Drive isn't such a joke, unless it's a joke aimed at viewers that think thinks like that Lacan mumbo jumbo is "deep" and meaningful.

Like the guy that gave Lynch the name, and co created the "universe" that Lynch (now) claims MD is set is has said:

When people spend a lot of energy trying to figure out exactly what he meant by Mulholland Drive, I can assure you that [David Lynch] didn't know

And it's OBVIOUS he didn't know.

None of the competing theories about it's meaning truly hold up to close scrutiny, and most glaringly, they frequently contradict each other.

Here's another review that contradicts the Lacan one:

http://www.salon.com/2001/10/24/mulholland_drive_analysis/

And one that contradicts them both:

http://www.imanisystems.com/Mulholland_Drive_Analysis.html

All these deep readings are vaguely possible, because Lynch lost control of the project and cynically let people delude themselves into believing that their own deep understanding was truth...

Like I said, he's a cynical guy...

shazzerman

Yeah, they are not opposites. I don't think ML (or LH) is a joke; I rather think it is a superb film. I offer no reasons, no explanations of the film (the narrative of which I do not understand at all). I love the interpretations though - makes watching the film all that more intriguing (a bit like watching "The Birds" after reading Raymond Bellour's take).

MilanPan!c

shazzerman wrote: »

Yeah, they are not opposites. I don't think ML (or LH) is a joke; I rather think it is a superb film. I offer no reasons, no explanations of the film (the narrative of which I do not understand at all). I love the interpretations though - makes watching the film all that more intriguing (a bit like watching "The Birds" after reading Raymond Bellour's take).

That's fine, if you say it's just a mirror, great, good stuff...

What I refuse to do however is say that one of the endless, pretentious, psycho-babble readings is what Lynch intended. None that I've read make sense, really, and - like I've said and what is apparent - they are contradictory.

Lynch the film maker wasn't always this way, and maybe he's stopped being this way (after these two movies I swore him off), so I know he's capable of telling a story without forcing others to make wild guesses as to his intent.

I for one don't find these films intriguing, but again, it's cool that you do - I'm glad someone gets some enjoyment out of them.

Annnnyway.

I doubt I'll ever see another of his films deliberately, so...

shazzerman

I don't know what a director's intentions have to do with it, but there you have it.

MilanPan!c

shazzerman wrote: »

I don't know what a director's intentions have to do with it, but there you have it.

Sorry, just so we're clear, you don't know what a director's intentions have to do with the movie he makes?

If that's what you mean, I'm a bit lost...

Hollywood films typically are narrative story telling. Even in David Lynch-land.

If the director has no idea what the narrative is, or in the case of symbolism, what the symbols are or mean, then the chances of producing something coherent are negligible.

In the case of these two Lynch films, Brad Goodman knows best:

Brad Goodman: Troy. This circle is you.
Troy McClure: My god! It's like you've known me all your life!

shazzerman

Just to be clear: I don't think a director's intentions have anything to do with how one interprets a film. All the religious imagery in "Kiss Me Deadly" - whether Aldrich meant it to be there or not - that doesn't matter to what I am relating to on the screen; ditto with, say, the "flawed" ways of seeing that "Chinatown" seems to spell out in its symbolism with eyes, names etc.

MilanPan!c

shazzerman wrote: »

Just to be clear: I don't think a director's intentions have anything to do with how one interprets a film. All the religious imagery in "Kiss Me Deadly" - whether Aldrich meant it to be there or not - that doesn't matter to what I am relating to on the screen; ditto with, say, the "flawed" ways of seeing that "Chinatown" seems to spell out in its symbolism with eyes, names etc.

Right, as long as you realise that:

- a directors intentions have a great deal to do with the film's they makes, and
- projecting ONTO a film is a reflection on you, not the film itself.


It's fine to project, as long as you don't claim your projections ARE the truth ... and if we go back to these two Lynch films, the fact that so many people project so much is a symptom to me of it's flaws, not its greatness.

Lynch knows how to paint emotive imagery, no doubt, but that doesn't mean that that imagery MEANS anything, even to Lynch.

In fact I'd suggest that he cashed in on his abilities, while cynically abusing his fans.

MD means nothing, really, and it hold no great secrets. I stand by that. Using it like an ink blot to understand yourself, or project meaning onto, is totally fine, but using that... value... as a basis to judge it as a film is extremely dubious, IMO.

shazzerman

MilanPan!c wrote: »

Right, as long as you realise that:

- a directors intentions have a great deal to do with the film's they makes, and
- projecting ONTO a film is a reflection on you, not the film itself.

I'm reading the mise-en-scène, not "projecting". Years of training...(thank you James Monaco, Victor Perkins, Robin Wood, Laura Mulvey, David Bordwell - and last, but not least, my own eyes and ears).

the_monkey

I have opened a can of worms here with Mulholland Dr.



Good posts tho ..

MilanPan!c

shazzerman wrote: »

I'm reading the mise-en-scène, not "projecting". Years of training...(thank you James Monaco, Victor Perkins, Robin Wood, Laura Mulvey, David Bordwell - and last, but not least, my own eyes and ears).

Sorry, but reading the mise-en-scene is of course a projection if no one involved in the production intended to send a message via the production/lighting/camera work.

The point being that, if you're reading things into Lynch's gel choices that he never intended, then you're projecting.

Much of the contradictory projection on to Lynch is indeed about the MES, but that's mostly due to his failures as a story teller, not due to his incredible abilities of story telling through set-design, lighting, etc.

He KNOWS that people read into his choices, but has very little to say about them. And as you saw, the co-creator of Twin Peaks thinks most of it is smoke. Which is pretty obvious,unless you're projecting onto, reading into, the MES.

Whether it be the chosen camera stops or the narrative contradictions, those two Lynch films only have projected meanings. There's nothing more deep, unless you wish to use them as a tool for your own ends. But obviously that was not Lynch's goal either.

shazzerman

MilanPan!c wrote: »

Sorry, but reading the mise-en-scene is of course a projection if no one involved in the production intended to send a message via the production/lighting/camera work.

The point being that, if you're reading things into Lynch's gel choices that he never intended, then you're projecting.

Be sorry all you want, but I disagree with you. The intentional fallacy argument is one I - almost - totally agree with. All your "of course"s will not alter my thinking on it. Let us beg to differ.

Sad Professor

So the only real meaning in a film is what the director intends and everything else is projection by the viewer? That’s nonsense. What the filmmaker intends and what they create are two different things. To suggest that a film is meaningless without intent to create meaning is to deny the role played by the subconscious in the creative process. If anything the viewer is probably in a better position to interpret a film than the director is.

Remind me to never go to an art gallery with you, Milan. It disturbs me that you have resorted to this silly art-is-meaningless-without-intent argument to support your opinion of the film. In any case, none of what you’ve posted has changed my view of Mulholland Drive, my interpretation of it or my disagreement with your assessment of it.

Mickeroo

Sure Mulholland Drive has 81% on Rotten Tomatoes, 88% audience rating and an 8.0 on imdb. There's no way anyone with a negative opinion on it can be taken seriously. :pac:

MilanPan!c

Sad Professor wrote: »

So the only real meaning in a film is what the director intends and everything else is projection by the viewer? That’s nonsense. What the filmmaker intends and what they create are two different things. To suggest that a film is meaningless without intent to create meaning is to deny the role played by the subconscious in the creative process. If anything the viewer is probably in a better position to interpret a film than the director is.

Remind me to never go to an art gallery with you, Milan. It disturbs me that you have resorted to this silly art-is-meaningless-without-intent argument to support your opinion of the film. In any case, none of what you’ve posted has changed my view of Mulholland Drive, my interpretation of it or my disagreement with your assessment of it.

No, you've missed the point.

People rave about Lynch and his deep and VERY INTENTIONAL subtext.

I'm not denying the role of the subconcious, but... you can't say:

David Lynch is a genius because of the deep subtext of his films

And then at the same time say:

David Lynch doesn't try to do any of that, it's all just his subconscious leaking out into his art...

Is the claim that he's some sort of outsider artist, with no idea what he's doing?

Because that's not what his fans claim.

Go read exactly what the co-creator of Twin Peaks (And the guy that gave lynch the title, "Mullholland Drive" has to say about the matter... if you think you know more about Lynch's mind and methods than that guy, fine, but if not, then take what he says on board.


FTR, my comments are in the context of these films and the director David Lynch... they're not all meant to be sweeping generalisations... obviously lots of art has multiple levels of meaning, some of which the creator doesn't even intend to express consciously... that is COMPLETELY different to the idea that ALL of the meaning that DL puts into MD and LH, that people love, all that stuff is unconscious and he's just some sort of transmitter for his psyche. That's both nonsense, and not a very complimentary thing to think about DL.

Psychedelic

Mulholland Drive has a clear enough narrative, even on first viewing. Takes a few more viewings to pick up the more subtle things going on, but it all makes sense.

MilanPan!c

Mickeroo wrote: »

Sure Mulholland Drive has 81% on Rotten Tomatoes, 88% audience rating and an 8.0 on imdb. There's no way anyone with a negative opinion on it can be taken seriously. :pac:

Oj, don't get me wrong, people can like it all they want... though I'm with Roger Ebert who said this about LH:

It's a shaggy ghost story, an exercise in style, a film made with a certain breezy contempt for audiences. I've seen it twice, hoping to make sense of it. There is no sense to be made of it. To try is to miss the point. What you see is all you get.

Saying that, WHY do people like it?

Some people on this very thread like it, despite thinking it's completely meaningless narratively.

I'm never ever gonna like a film like that.

What I refuse to engage in though is the BS psychobabble interpretations of it...

Like the co-creator of Twin Peaks said, David Lynch doesn't even know what it's about.

So, if 80% of people and critics like a nonsense movie, grand, that fine, it's obviously "good nonsense," but I'm never gonna like it...

e_e

MilanPan!c wrote: »

Saying that, WHY do people like it?

Just to repost why I loved it:

e_e wrote: »

I found it to be a scary, funny, seductive and moving film.

I also happen to love films that let you intuit your way through them and pick them apart afterwards. There's a kind of puzzle-box appeal to films like Mulholland Drive that I particularly enjoy.

Call Me Jimmy

Sad Professor wrote: »

So the only real meaning in a film is what the director intends and everything else is projection by the viewer? That’s nonsense. What the filmmaker intends and what they create are two different things. To suggest that a film is meaningless without intent to create meaning is to deny the role played by the subconscious in the creative process. If anything the viewer is probably in a better position to interpret a film than the director is.

Remind me to never go to an art gallery with you, Milan. It disturbs me that you have resorted to this silly art-is-meaningless-without-intent argument to support your opinion of the film. In any case, none of what you’ve posted has changed my view of Mulholland Drive, my interpretation of it or my disagreement with your assessment of it.

That's a fair point, but if I cynically paint a red square onto a canvas and get it in an art gallery and someone says the meaning of it to be some damning indictment of modern ireland rather than what it actually is, a giant middle finger to them personally. Would this person be in a better position to read the meaning into it than I who created it? Because I think his opinion is that DL was cynical about it.

MilanPan!c

e_e wrote: »

Just to repost why I loved it:



I also happen to love films that let you intuit your way through them and pick them apart afterwards. There's a kind of puzzle-box appeal to films like Mulholland Drive that I particularly enjoy.

You also said "I don't think Mulholland Drive is too difficult" or "too weird".

So you like simple, normal, puzzle films that you have to intuit your way through?

You must think that people that read all of this extremely complex stuff into it are pretty stupid then?

I mean, it's a pretty simple, normal, puzzle, anyone that thinks is some sort of extremely deep attempt to represent "psychogenic fugue" or create a surrealist representation of the theories of Lacan must be pretty stupid.

Or maybe you're just exceptional?

You must feel sorry for poor shazzerman, who said:

"the narrative of [Mullholland Drive] I do not understand at all"


[rolls eyes]


At least shazzerman is honest about the whole thing: he doesn't get the story, and doesn't think he needs to to enjoy it...

FlashD

e_e wrote: »

Don't think Mulholland Drive is too difficult anyway, it just presents you with 2 possible realities and you get to decide which one is real.

But there aren't two different realities. There is only one.

The dreamer has fallen on hard times. Her depressing 'reality' only makes up a very small part (minutes) of the film, turning in her sleep, going to the toilet etc. ...but she remains in the bed for most of the reality parts.

The majority of the film is her dream. The dream is a surreal mixture of hopes, aspirations (which aren't true), and actual events (which led to her downfall).

The audience's job is to pick the fact from fiction within the dream, that which lead to her downfall....kind of like a puzzle. That's a simplistic explanation.

Tony EH

You can simply sit down and enjoy the ride. There doesn't have to be a meaning telegraphed to the viewer.

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with Lynch, even if I do like 'Mulholland Drive'. Sometimes he films can be WTF...but he's never boring, I'll give him that.

...and he made one of the greatest pictures ever with 'The Elephant Man'.

But Lynch makes films for himself, first and foremost.

Enjoy or don't. There's not much else to be said about him really.

Duchamp has it correct...

e_e

MilanPan!c wrote: »

You also said "I don't think Mulholland Drive is too difficult" or "too weird".

So you like simple, normal, puzzle films that you have to intuit your way through?

You must think that people that read all of this extremely complex stuff into it are pretty stupid then?

I mean, it's a pretty simple, normal, puzzle, anyone that thinks is some sort of extremely deep attempt to represent "psychogenic fugue" or create a surrealist representation of the theories of Lacan must be pretty stupid.

Or maybe you're just exceptional?

You must feel sorry for poor shazzerman, who said:

"the narrative of [Mullholland Drive] I do not understand at all"


[rolls eyes]


At least shazzerman is honest about the whole thing: he doesn't get the story, and doesn't think he needs to to enjoy it...

So many loaded statements, jesus. Why the aggressive tone?

The great thing about films Milan is that they can work on more than one level. In a sense Mullhand Dr. is very straightforward but there's a whole other world of possibility that's opened up when you look into the film further. I find it a little overbearing the way you have to constantly argue straw men to attempt to assert your opinion over others.