Do you consider Mulholland Drive a great film?

For the love of God. Not another Mulholland Drive thread.

Sheesh!

it makes no sense but i don't think it's suppose to. i only watched it for Ann Miller

In a word, no, OP.

It was fairly interesting, and surprising at the time. But I've forgotten everything about it.

r1 has stated her boundaries!

[quote]I've forgotten everything

So did I.

There is a great film in there ... somewhere

This movie freaked me out starting with that horrifying scene behind the diner all the way to the miniature old people tormenting Naomi Watts. I love the dream logic of it but I don't know if I need to see it again.

Hunny, I probably would have skipped this one if I knew there was pussy rubbin. David was nice, but in my heart I knew that mister Mayer would not have enjoyed the pussy rubbin. Pussy rubbin has it’s place, lord knows! I just never had the time for it because I put all my energy into dancing. I guess what I’m trying to say is, keep pussy rubbin in the home, it has no place in genuine entertainment. Of course, I can’t be too harsh. I’ve never had an orgasm, so maybe there is something to it!

Yes, it's great but probably not one of 'the' classic greats.

I only understood it after I googled for an explanation for what was going on in it so it did make me feel dumb.

The scene OP posted breaks my heart. When Naomi Watts tells Ann Miller about how she came to Hollywood and failed and Miller looks at her and sympathetically and quietly says “I know”. Like it’s so obvious just from looking at her, and it’s an old story told by many women who have come before and many more still in the future.

And then that surprise shot of the cowboy leaving the party is just funny.

God yes. Great film. Masterpiece.

I enjoyed it, as I enjoy most of Lynch's work. I experienced a few moments of dread and a couple of out-and-out panic (the alley behind Winkie's Diner, and the pair of little old people). I still bear scar tissue in my eyes from Naomi Watts' masturbation scene, but all-in-all, I consider it a strong representative of Lynch's oeuvre.

[quote]𝑁𝑜𝑤, 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑠𝑒𝑒 𝑚𝑒 𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑖𝑓 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑑𝑜 𝑔𝑜𝑜𝑑. 𝑌𝑜𝑢'𝑙𝑙 𝑠𝑒𝑒 𝑚𝑒 𝑡𝑤𝑜 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒𝑠 𝑖𝑓 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑑𝑜 𝑏𝑎𝑑.

It’s pretentious schlock.

No. It feels like exactly what it is - a great TV pilot with some scenes shot later tacked on to try to give it closure. It does not work cohesively as a movie - I feel frustrated that we don’t go down the road that the characters start down. I wish it could be resuscitated as a limited series but not by Lynch, because he is already too far gone off the deep end.

Yes, it is great. Best David Lynch film evah. Hollywood broken dreams story with just the right pinch of creepiness. Very entertaining.

No.

Not great, just interesting. Like R9, I had to Google the interpretation. I don't know how Lynch finds funding for these personal films. I guess it's all "God Bless IFC and its funding." It is not as great as Le Jette by Chris Marker but it works as an indie film.

I think it's great in a meta-sense.

It's about our need to impose meaning on film, as well as dreams; to look for a cohesive narrative were there is none.

I love it

Hated it

Lynch is brilliant . His movies are like intriguing paintings with lots of layers .

It really got under my skin in a way few movies have. Betty's character rang a lot of bells for me. I saw it twice and it sparked recurring nightmares.

Lynch at his best for the Llorando scene alone.

Masterpiece.

I didn’t get it.

I think Ann Miller was wearing her own clothes and jewelry.

She always dressed just like that.

I admire Lynch's work more than I enjoy it, but this is my favorite of all his films. The central mystery is interesting, the acting is great, and it really does feel like an unpredictable dream where you have no idea what you'll see or hear next. Naomi Watts in particular is incredible.

I'm pretty meh on Justin Theroux, but I'd give him a handy.

I understand issues others may have with it, but I absolutely love it. Strange, provocative, daring, funny. It's just fantastic.

I also think Watts' performance (along with Dunst's in Meloncholia) is the best of this century.

I just watched it for the first time yesterday and found it compelling.

I could have used less of Justin Theroux and the homeless person subplots and felt the movie could have been edited here and there. The acting though was top notch, especially Watts playing the bright and hopeful starlet transformed into the depressed and disillusioned woman, she was superb.

I also did not realise Lee Grant was in it til the credits rolled. Or that the actress playing Rita/Camilla was also in Sunset Beach!

Funniest scene, when the hopeless hitman blows a bullet through the wall and accidentally hits the woman on the other side!

R30 "Somethin' bit me bad!"

Top 5 film for me. It is exactly like a dream, or many dreams, and is somewhat The Wizard Of Oz of it's time. Lunch loves that film, and has referenced it before. If I had to tell someone how to approach the film, it would be to do so with the understanding that the first 2/3 is a dream and then the nightmare begins after that. There have been many essays and analyzes of this film, and everyone is going to have their own takeaway, but enjoy it for what it is...a 21st century masterpiece.

One of my favorite films, and Naomi Watts' best performance, in my opinion. Like R32 said, it's a wholesome fantasy that devolves into a real-life nightmare.

I loved Ann Miller in it. She starts out as the warm, jovial Coco the landlady, then turns out to be a bitter old hag at the end (but still the only person who showed Naomi Watts' character the slightest bit of kindness).

it's brilliant.

Without Naomi Watts’ astonishing performance it wouldn’t be. But she elevates it.

At the party, when Diane mentions that she had tried for the lead in The Sylvia North Story, someone says, "Camilla was great in that!" Then Diane starts a sentence, "The director…" and the Scott Coffey character sitting next to her pipes up with "Bob Brooker?" Diane/Watts looks a little annoyed but confirms that that's who it was, and then says, "He didn't think so much of me."

It's ambiguous. Did Diane fail because she was not as an good actress or had less allure/star potential than Camilla, or was it that Diane tried to make it on acting alone, while Camilla was willing (eager, even) to accede to the casting couch? That sounds like a post-Weinstein interpretation, but it may have been what Lynch had in mind in 2000. Camilla slept her way to the top; Diane was really in love with someone and tried to preserve something of herself, and was dashed on the rocks.

Everything in the last 40 minutes or so puts something from earlier (the part conceived as a TV pilot) in a different light. Like the characterization of "dream" Bob Brooker, an Aaron Spelling-looking avuncular has-been thrilled by the very sexually charged performance "Betty" gives in her audition.

I consider the movie a masterpiece. But I've shown or recommended it to various people over 20 years now and they've had the entire range of reactions. Some have loved it just as much as I did; some have hated it; others have said they enjoyed watching it but didn't know what to make of it.

I love it so much, just for the "This is the girl!" audition sequence for "The Sylvia North Story," with the lipsynced renditions of "Sixteen Reasons" and "Ev'ry Little Star." The look of longing that Naomi Watts and Justin Theroux shoot one another then is almost indelible.

I also love the film for giving Ann Miller a last great (if small) part.

I wonder how many men and lesbians have got off to the explicit love scenes and big gorgeous titties?

I thought that it was interesting and some great moments. When I read that it was basically a TV pilot salvaged into a feature film, it clarified some questions that I had about it. Lynch's movies are hit or miss and I am mostly a fan but over the years I realized that he doesn't really have a concrete intention most of the time. I believe that his films are like his artwork; very abstract, open to interpretation and some things are just on the screen because Lynch thinks they are interesting.

The movie is a deserved classic. Naomi Watts gives the best performance by an actress of the 2000’s. Betty’s audition scene is one of the great acting performances of all time.

So who should she have replaced in the BA line up of 2001?

Halle Berry - Monster's Ball

Judi Dench - Iris

Nicole Kidman - Moulin Rouge!

Sissy Spacek - In The Bedroom

Renee Z - Bridget Jones' Diary

I say Renee, even though she was terrific in BJD. I thought both Dench and Spacek did some of the best work of their careers this year. Nicole showed she could sing and also had a big success with The Others in the same year. Halle went gritty and raw.

R42 Halle Berry, no doubt. Her performance in Monster's Ball was nude, but it wasn't great acting.

My favorite movie

Do you think Diane and Camilla were ever a couple or did Diane just dreamt about them being a couple cause she was in love with her/obsessed with her?

I think they had a fling and then Diane got too clingy.

Top Notch film and Naomi Watts was brilliant.

R45 I definitely think they were a couple, but then Camilla dumped Diane when she had the chance to hook up with a director who would make her a star.

Yeah they were a couple, did you see how well Diane knew her pussy?!

R49 Hmm, that was in a dream. In a dream she made herself confident, great actor, good lover, someone who takes care of Camilla cause she fragile, lost etc. when in the reality it wasn't quite like that.

[quote]It is not as great as Le Jette by Chris Marker but it works as an indie film.

I agree with R17. I, too, had to Google for an explanation. The best part was the woman singing the Roy Orbison song.

Lynch is probably an artist, but not a filmmaker. He somehow detoured early from art and tried to combine old fashioned surrealism with conventional TV and movie genres. I don’t think any of it ultimately worked, but in the moment it was provocative and noteworthy.

It seems that all of it is ending up at the fringes of recognition. More footnote than groundbreaking.

I saw Lynch's Eraserhead when I was young. It was the first film that freaked me out but made me think at the same time. It seemed like a thick soup about mental illness, abortion, and desperate lives. It stayed with me for a long time and then I realized I'd never really know what it was about. Since then, I've seen all of Lynch's movies -- the only one that played out like a 'real' movie was Blue Velvet. All his other films seemed self-indulgent to the point that I wondered who/what he was connected to in order to fund some of his crap.

Best movie of the 21st century in my book. I've seen it several times and always come away with something new.

In the Club Silencio sequence, as Naomi Watts and Laura Herring are walking down the aisle, you can see Laura Palmer and Ronette Pulaski from TWIN PEAKS sitting in the audience with the extras. I always wondered if they also existed in the MULHOLLAND universe, if they were part of Betty's dream, or if Lynch planned to do something with them later.

Yes, it’s one of my faves.

Justin Theroux is his hottest in this film. E x a c t l y my type.

I think Betty is Diane's desperate last dream of how she once thought her own life and career would turn out. The contrasting reality revealed after Diane wakes up is hopelessly sad and empty.

R57 Yes, exactly.

[quote]Since then, I've seen all of Lynch's movies -- the only one that played out like a 'real' movie was Blue Velvet. All his other films seemed self-indulgent to the point that I wondered who/what he was connected to in order to fund some of his crap.

Even The Elephant Man and The Straight Story?

[quote]Do you think Diane and Camilla were ever a couple or did Diane just dreamt about them being a couple cause she was in love with her/obsessed with her?

I think what we see in the flashbacks is fairly reliable. Diane loved Camilla, but Camilla may not even be capable of love. Camilla just enjoys sex and she wants to advance her career. The only declaration we hear Camilla make to Diane is "You drive me wild." Then, of course, she and Adam make their marriage announcement (in the tackiest way possible), and it's hinted she has something going on on the side with the Melissa George character. She won't even need clingy, complicated Diane for THAT.

Maybe not a great film, but certainly the weirdest movie of 2001.

Diane and Camilla do appear to be one and the same. No doubt Lynch was heavily influenced by Ingmar Bergman's Persona.

I love this film. You don’t have to “get” it to appreciate the wonderful cinematography & performances, along with the intense atmosphere & tone. The first time I saw it I fell in love with Diane 1.0 & was so deflated when her idyllic world & spunky character came crashing down all around her.

I remember reading in some mag circa 1997 that this was to be a Tv series & was beyond excited to see it, as I’d just watched Twin Peaks for the first time. When I learned it had been turned into a movie I was initially sad, but when I saw it I knew how limited it would’ve been as a series (& would’ve lost a ton in terms of production quality).

Theroux has some pretty funny comments on the Criterion Blu-ray about Lynch's battles with ABC during the making of the pilot. He says even while they were in production, they had a bad feeling. The network didn't want the Adam character to be a smoker. Lynch is a smoker (as were Theroux and Watts at the time; I don't know about now), and Lynch said, "Look, people do smoke," so the network was willing to let Adam be a smoker...but only if he was shown coughing a lot and said something like, "I gotta quit these things. They're gonna kill me!"

They had a lot of similar notes. They clutched their pearls over the bit about a tenant's dog crapping all over the courtyard, and Coco saying she was going to bake the dog for breakfast if the tenant didn't clean up after it.

This would have been circa 1999. Is there any better illustration of the mentality that was sending most of the good television to pay cable at that point?

Funny you mention Coco's comment about "baking the dog" because I've always seen Mulholland Dr. as Lynch's version of the Wizard Of Oz, which would make sense because "baking the dog" would be something the Wicked Witch of the West would've said about Toto. Idk, Mulholland Dr., Sunset Bldv., Wild At Heart, The Wizard of Oz...it's in there somewhere.

It is a fantastic movie. Probably David Lynch's best. I saw it for the firs time when I was thirteen years old (first Lynch movie I'd seen), and I had absolutely no clue what in the fuck I was watching, but I remember being transfixed by the strange scenarios, the cinematography, and the MUSIC.

When I was a freshman in college, I rewatched it by myself while extremely stoned, and the entire thing suddenly made perfect narrative sense to me–by some strange psychoactive fluke, it completely reoriented the whole movie in my mind. I never looked at it the same way again. It's one of the few experiences I had smoking pot that was actually enlightening.

[quote]I saw it for the firs time when I was thirteen years old (first Lynch movie I'd seen), and I had absolutely no clue what in the fuck I was watching, but I remember being transfixed by the strange scenarios, the cinematography, and the MUSIC.

That was exactly my experience as a teenager with Blue Velvet. I felt that even the familiar was being shown to me from a completely fresh point of view. But I've come to think Mulholland Dr. is the better film.

R64 In the movie, they turned dog into a kangaroo. And nothing about Coco baking it.

R53 So you didn't watched all of his movies if you think Blue Velvet is the only "real" movie. What about The Elephant Man and The Straight Story?

I really liked it.

[quote]In the movie, they turned dog into a kangaroo. And nothing about Coco baking it.

No, it's in there. Coco sees dog crap in the courtyard and is angry at a tenant named Wilkins. She asks Betty if she has pets (no), and then she tells the story about the guy who lived there long ago and had a kangaroo.

Had the pilot been picked up, Wilkins was going to be a character. He's a screenwriter, he lives in the apartment above Aunt Ruth's, and he is a friend of Adam Kesher's. He gives Adam a place to stay (which would bring Adam into Betty and Rita's orbit). The actor, Scott Coffey, does make it into the film, at the "real" Coco's party. He's sitting next to Diane when she's talking about her sad Hollywood life.

To answer R42’s question, Naomi should have replaced Halle that year and won Best Actress. She was better than all the other nominees. Renee and Nicole were nominated for the first time that year carried in part by movies that were both huge hits.. Halle was terrible. I don’t know how she won.

Hilary Swank showed that it was possible to come nowhere to win BA. I just think Mulholland Drive was too challenging for the academy voters of 2001. Naomi win a number of critics awards but was snubbed by the GG’s and even SAG. I still think Naomi is going to win an Oscar someday.

The Elephant Man is now on my list after watching Mulholland Drive this week, I'm the one who bumped this thread. I also love Hopkins and I'm working through his old movies.

I saw part of The Elephant Man as a kid but turned off when the people were being cruel to Joseph Merrick, I was disgusted by their behaviour and how scared he was.

On another note, Angelo Badalamenti, composer for Lynch's films, and the man who spat out the coffee in this film ("Napkin"), is dead to me.

"Did Diane fail because she was not as an good actress or had less allure/star potential than Camilla, or was it that Diane tried to make it on acting alone, while Camilla was willing (eager, even) to accede to the casting couch? "

I don't think that Camilla used the casting couch, I think she thought bigger than that! Diane made the mistake of falling in love and that compromised her career focus, she alienated Camill and probably Adam and a struggling new actor can't afford to alienate powerful people. No, a struggling new actor has to do what Camilla did, win the hearts and minds, or hearts and genitalia, of the people who are powerful enough to help your career! So we don't really know why Diane failed, was it because she wasn't actually talented, wasn't photogenic enough, or because she made the mistake of falling in love?

Incidentally, one of the tiny things I've always loved about this film in that the "dream", the camera loves Naomi Watts, she looks beautiful and gleaming! And in the "reality" scenes, she looks plain and lifeless, and that's all down to fantastic cinematography.