Movies - Mulholland Drive

Home > Listing Index > Movies > Mulholland Drive (film)

	Movies - Mulholland Drive

Mulholland Drive (often abbreviated Mulholland Dr.) is a motion picture released in 2001 and directed by David Lynch.

Project development

The project was initially intended to be a two-hour pilot for an ABC television series, with ABC hoping to repeat the success of Lynch's Twin Peaks. When Lynch finally gave them the finished pilot, ABC requested numerous cuts for the sake of time and content. Although Lynch made the requested cuts, the network was not happy with the resulting piece and declined further involvement.

Lynch kept control of the footage he had already shot, and with the help of Canal Plus, a French distributor, finished the pilot and reworked it as a film.

Release

Mulholland Drive premiered at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, to much praise. Lynch was co-awarded the Best Director prize at the festival (sharing it with Joel Coen for The Man Who Wasn't There
). It was named Best Picture by the New York Film Critics Circle, and even more notably was given a 4 star review by critic Roger Ebert who is one of Lynch's biggest detractors. Lynch was also nominated for a Best Directing Oscar for the third time (though A Beautiful Mind
director Ron Howard won out). Nevertheless, the film had little commercial success, grossing just over $7 million at the American box office and a further $13 million globally.

However, the film has gained cult status since its release, with many interpretations floating on the Internet about the film's meaning and symbolism. Lynch, as usual for his works, has not given any explanations about the film's "true meaning". The US and UK DVD release does contain 10 clues from the director on the inner sleeve, but this has only promoted further speculation about the mysteries of the film.

Synopsis

While driving down Mulholland Drive in Los Angeles, California late at night, a dark-haired woman (played by Laura Elena Harring) has a car accident and afterwards suffers amnesia. She wanders down the hill into L.A., and sleeps in a vacant apartment. The next day, Betty Elms (played by Naomi Watts), a young (and cloyingly perky) aspiring actress who has just moved to Hollywood from Deep River, Ontario, moves in and finds her. The dark haired woman decides to call herself "Rita" (from a movie poster advertising Rita Hayworth in Gilda
). Together, the two of them try to piece together exactly who she is and what happened that night.

Other strange things, at first seemingly unrelated, are happening as well. A man tells a friend about a recurring nightmare, only to have it come true; a film director Adam Kesher (played by Justin Theroux) finds his latest project (and later, his life) being turned upside down by shadowy mobsters, who force him to hire an unknown girl named "Camilla" to play a lead role in his new film; and an incompetent hit man steals a "black book".

The plot developments become more and more bizarre, until finally the film leaves these storylines behind altogether and shifts gears entirely. After a sexual encounter between Betty and Rita, who then attend a strange and eerie performance in a mysterious midnight theatre, an entirely new reality suddenly emerges. As Roger Ebert comments, "...characters start to fracture and recombine like flesh caught in a kaleidoscope." Now Watts plays a failed actress Diane Selwyn trapped in an unhappy life. Her one time girlfriend Camilla, now played by Harring, has abandoned her to pursue a life of riches and glamour by marrying a successful director, the very same Adam Kesher. In anger and desperation, Diane hires a hit man to kill her. At the end of the film, the tormented Diane kills herself as well.

Interpretation and allusions

Lynch has maintained his refusal to comment on the film's "meaning" or symbolism, leading to much discussion and multiple interpretations. However, one common interpretation is based on a Freudian desire-gratification/wish-fulfillment interpretation. For references to accounts of this interpretation, see , , , (warning: each contains spoilers)

According to Freudian theory, the mind consists of three parts, the Id, the Ego, and the Superego, and the wishes and desires of the Id are made real in our dreams, at least to the extent that our Superego denies us when awake. Asleep, the Superego (represented by the woman in blue hair at the end of the movie) transforms these dreams from that which is denied to that which is permissible. Furthermore, bits and pieces of information from the waking life are taken, in a disorganized manner, to construct such a dream reality.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Mulholland Drive (film) ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Mulholland Drive (film); it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Movies - Mulholland Drive

Project development

Release

Synopsis

Interpretation and allusions

Searches on eBay

Related searches on eBay