The difference between Mulholland Drive (2001, David Lynch) and the rest of the films Lynch made is that it takes us to a place where we get to experience all of the bliss exhilaration joy sweet wonder promise of everything. Particularly our first love and a creative passion we love both so intensely as if to make our lives perfectly realized. Emotional paradise.
And by this I mean the BETTY world. The bulk of the film. When was the last time this kind of plucky G-rated schmaltz camp was so gratifying? It’s never too much. The wide-eyed naïve excessive enthusiasm is me. An involuntary tendency I have that’s been pointed out to me. And I’m pretty sure I got it from this movie. The most exemplary instance of this has probably always been this line when Betty leaves for her audition and says And don’t drink all the Coke which I’ve always matched to an identical scene from Showgirls (1995, Paul Verhoeven) when Showgirl tells her roommate And don’t eat all the chips.
I’d say the point in Mulholland Drive that causes me to exclaim I cannot believe how perfect amazing awesome this movie is is when Betty and RITA go to those apartments and Betty decides to break into Diane Selwyn’s apartment by climbing in through that back window. Aside from the kind of mystery we work out with our intellect this is the kind of beat in a mystery yarn that on some primal level is just so rad fun on its own. But then throw in our intellects working and we get the girl who was lured betrayed whored out ridiculed punished and humiliated by the love of her life on a dream Hardy Boys adventure with the idealized version of said love in the most romantic amateur sleuth scenario to find out the identity of a woman who we know is her and is also the one dreaming the dream we are in and at the same time has already committed suicide because of it and we have to ask ourselves when has any other movie taken us anywhere like this before?
But what about all of the other trauma dark abuse hidden meanings in Mulholland Drive you ask? I mean they’re there yeah. But acknowledging most of them never really seemed to add anything that significant to the whole viewing experience for me. The Lynch clues. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to answer that last one Where is Aunt Ruth? I mean all I’ve got is that after Rita drops the blue cube and we shift to what I presume is Diane Selwyn’s real world then Aunt Ruth enters her bedroom and doesn’t notice the cube on the ground yet later at the dinner party Diane says she had an aunt that died and left her some money so? Where is Aunt Ruth? I wanna say Aunt Ruth is this like fulcrum of verisimilitude in the sense she was a source for Diane Selwyn to base her fantasy Aunt Ruth on but in the real world of Mulholland Drive she has nothing to do with her. But the cube is in her room. As in this uncanny Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974, Jacques Rivette) moment with a remnant of a reality beyond our own that shows up in our real world. Cinema is candy. Cinema is a mystery box.
I’d say the point in Mulholland Drive that causes me to exclaim I cannot believe how perfect amazing awesome this movie is is when Betty and RITA go to those apartments and Betty decides to break into Diane Selwyn’s apartment by climbing in through that back window. Aside from the kind of mystery we work out with our intellect this is the kind of beat in a mystery yarn that on some primal level is just so rad fun on its own. But then throw in our intellects working and we get the girl who was lured betrayed whored out ridiculed punished and humiliated by the love of her life on a dream Hardy Boys adventure with the idealized version of said love in the most romantic amateur sleuth scenario to find out the identity of a woman who we know is her and is also the one dreaming the dream we are in and at the same time has already committed suicide because of it and we have to ask ourselves when has any other movie taken us anywhere like this before?
But what about all of the other trauma dark abuse hidden meanings in Mulholland Drive you ask? I mean they’re there yeah. But acknowledging most of them never really seemed to add anything that significant to the whole viewing experience for me. The Lynch clues. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to answer that last one Where is Aunt Ruth? I mean all I’ve got is that after Rita drops the blue cube and we shift to what I presume is Diane Selwyn’s real world then Aunt Ruth enters her bedroom and doesn’t notice the cube on the ground yet later at the dinner party Diane says she had an aunt that died and left her some money so? Where is Aunt Ruth? I wanna say Aunt Ruth is this like fulcrum of verisimilitude in the sense she was a source for Diane Selwyn to base her fantasy Aunt Ruth on but in the real world of Mulholland Drive she has nothing to do with her. But the cube is in her room. As in this uncanny Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974, Jacques Rivette) moment with a remnant of a reality beyond our own that shows up in our real world. Cinema is candy. Cinema is a mystery box.
Mumblecore folk tale collective unconscious recognition repetition. You know I’d never thought of Inland Empire (2006, David Lynch) as mumblecore before but it’s shot on prosumer MiniDV lacks a conventional narrative and the definitive proof according to my definition a scene where Laura Dern’s character makes scrambled eggs the telltale mumblecore trope. If Mulholland Drive is all about what if feels like to have your heart broken for the first time then Inland Empire is about how fun it is to play make believe.
Also of primary importance is how David Lynch’s final film feels the most DIY creative indie low budget artistic freedom art film meta distillation culmination of his life’s work. Ironic to consider his big Hollywood film is both narratively and aesthetically in its execution anything but. And like Mulholland Drive I personally don’t go for trying too hard to figure out what all of it means more like I just know how it makes me feel and that’s enough. Come to think of it the only David Lynch film I think I really infer something significantly within its subtext is Lost Highway.
Inland Empire then is NIKKI GRACE entering into the folklore of Old Hollywood but at the same time her character exists in a state where time does not exist. Everything’s already happened and the past and future occur interchangeably throughout the film’s narrative. Reflection is an elastic motif that encompasses meta devices such as watching yourself in a movie watching yourself prostitute versions of actresses wives mothers and domestic triangles where someone invariably ends up getting stabbed in the stomach with an old screwdriver. Oh and probably most of it has to do with the PHANTOM. Pretty straightforward.
The vibe of Inland Empire is like Axxon N the longest running radio play in history most enjoyable through its serialized continuously unexpected curse it charts. Yes I said curse that isn’t a typo. I’ve always above all loved more than anything the scene with PIOTREK accidentally squirting that entire plastic squeeze bottle of Heinz ketchup all over the white t shirt his stomach he’s wearing then when he asks his wife so calmly where are the paper towels and she says right behind you on the table. And such a cool backyard then all his Polish circus friends show up ominous and that Stanley Kamel dude with the watchmen cap intensity asking where his hammer is. This is the kinda thing in general cinema is lacking in.
Also of primary importance is how David Lynch’s final film feels the most DIY creative indie low budget artistic freedom art film meta distillation culmination of his life’s work. Ironic to consider his big Hollywood film is both narratively and aesthetically in its execution anything but. And like Mulholland Drive I personally don’t go for trying too hard to figure out what all of it means more like I just know how it makes me feel and that’s enough. Come to think of it the only David Lynch film I think I really infer something significantly within its subtext is Lost Highway.
Inland Empire then is NIKKI GRACE entering into the folklore of Old Hollywood but at the same time her character exists in a state where time does not exist. Everything’s already happened and the past and future occur interchangeably throughout the film’s narrative. Reflection is an elastic motif that encompasses meta devices such as watching yourself in a movie watching yourself prostitute versions of actresses wives mothers and domestic triangles where someone invariably ends up getting stabbed in the stomach with an old screwdriver. Oh and probably most of it has to do with the PHANTOM. Pretty straightforward.
The vibe of Inland Empire is like Axxon N the longest running radio play in history most enjoyable through its serialized continuously unexpected curse it charts. Yes I said curse that isn’t a typo. I’ve always above all loved more than anything the scene with PIOTREK accidentally squirting that entire plastic squeeze bottle of Heinz ketchup all over the white t shirt his stomach he’s wearing then when he asks his wife so calmly where are the paper towels and she says right behind you on the table. And such a cool backyard then all his Polish circus friends show up ominous and that Stanley Kamel dude with the watchmen cap intensity asking where his hammer is. This is the kinda thing in general cinema is lacking in.
It’s the subtle little things. Like how KINGSLEY and FREDDIE after we are told they had lousy tea from the commissary when they show up on stage and have a seat look how long of a beat they hold just projecting their distaste that stuff is hilarious. And my obsessive need to match and connect is given full reign with this material like the look at me and tell me if you’ve known me before line. And the manifestations of the visitor’s vague elliptical foreboding fairy tales.
Inland Empire is also such a fascinating incantation of make believe and how we construct our own meanings because of how it was not only Lynch’s final film but the final and grandest achievement in that short lived little trend of MiniDV features. Remember that? Shot so wonderfully by the likes of Anthony Dod Mantle and Robby Müller movies like The Celebration (1998, Thomas Vinterberg) Julien Donkey-Boy (1999, Harmony Korine) Dancer in the Dark (2000, Lars von Trier) Chuck & Buck (2000, Miguel Arteta) The Original Kings of Comedy and Bamboozled (2000, Spike Lee) 28 Days Later (2002, Danny Boyle) Personal Velocity (2002, Rebecca Miller) 24 Hour Party People (2002, Micheal Winterbottom) Visitor Q (2002, Takashi Miike) and The Girl from Monday (2003, Hal Hartley). These were a time of going back to our roots trying to reclaim the excitement of spontaneity the whole independent craze promised. The MiniDV era was a bridge between Dogma 95 and mumblecore that Lynch was at the forefront of because of not only Inland Empire but a series of content and shorts he was uploading to his website davidlynch.com at a time when the internet wasn’t near as big a thing as it became. This stuff was lo fi raw rough and amateur and Lynch was one of the proponents of embracing this kind of aesthetic as an alternative means to stale bloated mass product Hollywood brainrot garbage. And that time is gone now. And so is he. One awaits the next time we’ll see that kind of spirit make its return. It’s only a matter of time.
Inland Empire is also such a fascinating incantation of make believe and how we construct our own meanings because of how it was not only Lynch’s final film but the final and grandest achievement in that short lived little trend of MiniDV features. Remember that? Shot so wonderfully by the likes of Anthony Dod Mantle and Robby Müller movies like The Celebration (1998, Thomas Vinterberg) Julien Donkey-Boy (1999, Harmony Korine) Dancer in the Dark (2000, Lars von Trier) Chuck & Buck (2000, Miguel Arteta) The Original Kings of Comedy and Bamboozled (2000, Spike Lee) 28 Days Later (2002, Danny Boyle) Personal Velocity (2002, Rebecca Miller) 24 Hour Party People (2002, Micheal Winterbottom) Visitor Q (2002, Takashi Miike) and The Girl from Monday (2003, Hal Hartley). These were a time of going back to our roots trying to reclaim the excitement of spontaneity the whole independent craze promised. The MiniDV era was a bridge between Dogma 95 and mumblecore that Lynch was at the forefront of because of not only Inland Empire but a series of content and shorts he was uploading to his website davidlynch.com at a time when the internet wasn’t near as big a thing as it became. This stuff was lo fi raw rough and amateur and Lynch was one of the proponents of embracing this kind of aesthetic as an alternative means to stale bloated mass product Hollywood brainrot garbage. And that time is gone now. And so is he. One awaits the next time we’ll see that kind of spirit make its return. It’s only a matter of time.
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