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Posted: |
Mar 12, 2013 - 3:06 AM
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By: |
Reeler
(Member)
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This person's theories seem to make sense also. There are some subtle things I'm not sure are accurate, but on the whole it works. I've condensed it but left the link if you want to read further.
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/vine/showthread.php?t=173017
I saw Mulholland Drive for the first time just after it was released and, like many people, was hypnotized but baffled by it. I didn't know quite what to make of it. I recently saw it again on DVD and the second viewing just blew me away and the film has been rattling around in my brain ever since. I've watched it several more times since.
I'd like to offer my own analysis of it, much of which is similar to others that I've read here, but some of which is quite different:
-The first 3/4 of the movie is Diane's dream, the final 1/4 is Diane's reality.
-The dream is essentially a mirror image of reality. In the dream Rita goes down the hill from the limousine; in reality Diane goes up the hill from the limousine. In the dream Adam Kesher's life is spinning out of control; in reality it is very much in control and he has everything. In the dream the hitman is incompetent; in reality he's all too competent. In the dream Camilla is alive and Diane is dead; in reality Diane is alive and Camilla is dead. In the dream Aunt Ruth is alive; in reality Aunt Ruth is dead.
-Betty is an idealized version of Diane...prettier, more talented, more wholesome, and, most importantly, more innocent. However, Diane is not Betty in her dream...she's Rita.
-Aunt Ruth's apartment in the dream is an idealized version of Aunt Ruth's real apartment in the Sierra Bonita apartment complex.
-There was a real limousine crash...it was the one that killed Aunt Ruth. Diane incorporated this into her dream and used it to bring both Aunt Ruth and Camilla back to life.
-The woman in apartment #12 was Aunt Ruth's lover.
-The apartment switch seems to have some kind of significance since at least one of the reality scenes takes place in a different apartment.
-"Coming back" is a theme that's repeated thoughout the film. "I came back, I thought that's what you wanted" is Rita's first line in the audition rehearsal in the dream kitchen. "Camilla, you've come back" is what Diane says while standing in her real kitchen. The hopes and dreams Diane had when she first reached Hollywood come back in the form of Betty. Aunt Ruth and Camilla come back to life in the dream. Diane begins coming back to life in the dream when Rita cuts her hair and puts on a blonde wig. The old couple we see at the airport (and the jitterbug scene) come back to drive Diane to suicide.
There's more but I'll throw that out for starters. MD is an endlessly fascinating film.
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" Both trips seem to be fairly level, don't they? As compared to, for example, Adam Kesher's mechanised ascent to the corral. (Or James Stewart's descents in 'Vertigo.') Doesn't each woman's limousine meander, rather than actually climb or descend?"
I'm not talking about the ascent or descent of the limo which seems to be taking the same road and stops at the same spot in both reality and dream. I'm talking about the different path that each woman takes once she exits the limo.
"Arguably, everyone in the dreamworld is an extension of Diane. What do you mean, exactly?"
It's true that a dreamer is always present in a dream even if only as an observer and the dreamer's subconscious guides the actions and words of everyone in the dream. However the dreamer usually assumes one role in a dream. There seems to be an assumption by most people that Diane is Betty in her dream since that is her ideal self but I don't believe that's true. It's no coincidence that Betty enters the dream after Rita does and disappears from the dream before Rita does.
"This is interesting. But what guides you to the assumption that the Sierra Bonita apt is clearly Aunt Ruth's? And if so, why - for example - doesn't Aunt Ruth step into the bedroom of the Sierra Bonita apt when she hears the blue box fall to the ground? (But then, that's the Cowboy's job…)"
I'm not exactly sure what you mean here. Aunt Ruth did make a final appearance in the dream but she had to disappear (along with Betty and Rita) since the dream had resurrected her.
"What guides you to the conclusion that Aunt Ruth has died in a limousine accident?"
I don't have time to get into the reasons right now but I'll just say that it relates to David Lynch's tenth clue, "Where is Aunt Ruth?" I believe that Aunt Ruth plays a significant role in this film and David Lynch gives us clues as to where she lived, how she died, when she died, and even the job she held in Hollywood.
"Why so?"
To be honest I haven't quite worked out the details of the apartment switch in my mind but when I do it should reveal whether the woman in apartment 12 was Ruth's lover or Diane's lover.
"Could you be clearer? Which scene?"
I believe the red lampshade provides the clue to which apartment Diane is residing in at various times. In several scenes the red lampshade is on top of a small lamp sitting on a table next to a telephone and an ashtray. At the end of the film it seems to be on top of a different lamp beside her bed. You'll note that one of the items that the woman in #12 stopped by to pick up was her lamp...but not the red lampshade.
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Thanks for the interest in my theory on "Where's Aunt Ruth". I don't have it entirely worked out but I think I have a pretty good idea of at least part of the answer to that question. It would take me awhile to go through everything but I'll get you started on the right path if you want.
First of all, you have to start with what little the film does tell us about Aunt Ruth. In the pool party scene we are told that she worked in the movie industry (presumably in Hollywood), she has died, and has left Diane some money. I think we can also infer from that scene that she's probably also the one who persuaded Diane to come to Hollywood after she won her jitterbug contest. From the dream portion we see that she appears to be a middle-aged redhead and has departed on a trip of some sort (possibly to Canada). Not a lot of information but it does provide us with a starting point.
I believe Lynch has also left us some visual clues about Aunt Ruth within Diane's dream. The first time we see her is the most obvious...it's when Rita is hiding in the bushes after the limo crash. She's sees a well-dressed, redhead wearing a scarf. The other sightings of an Aunt Ruth-like figure are more subtle.
In the scene at the airport where Betty is first arriving a well-dressed redheaded woman wearing a scarf walks past just as the cabbie picks up Betty's bags to put them in the trunk. The woman looks somewhat different in appearance than the first Aunt Ruth but the similarities are close enough to give us a hint that Lynch may be up to something.
The next Aunt Ruth sighting comes after Betty and Rita show up at the Sierra Bonita apartments to look for Diane Selwyn. There, while hiding behind some bushes, they see a redheaded woman wearing a scarf having her bags put into what appears to be a limousine. Once again the woman looks a little different in appearance than the first two Aunt Ruth sightings but it's hard to ignore anymore that every time bags are being packed into a car for a trip a redheaded woman wearing a scarf is there. By now it's obvious that this is a recurring image in Diane's dream which means that this particular image must have some meaning to her.
To discover that meaning I think you have to go back and think about what we know about Aunt Ruth. We know that she lived in Hollywood, she apparently left on a trip at some point, and that in real-life she's dead. Nowhere in either reality or the dream is there any indication that she ever returned from the trip. From that I think we can deduce that she must have died at some point on the trip.
Why does Diane's dream keep coming back to the image of an Aunt Ruth figure every time a car is being packed for a trip? I believe that's because it represents the last time that Diane ever saw her Aunt Ruth alive.
That's all I have time for now but I will throw out one more interesting observation. Notice the similarity between two of the Aunt Ruth sightings. In one sighting Rita sees a redheaded woman's bags being packed into a taxi as she hides in the bushes. Rita then sneaks into an apartment. In another sighting Betty and Rita see a redheaded woman's bags being packed into a limo as they hide in the bushes. They then sneak into an apartment (after talking briefly with the woman in #12). David Lynch has essentially shot two versions of the same scene. What the heck is he trying to say here? He must be up to something.
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For what it's worth here's my theory on Aunt Ruth:
-David Lynch was telling a second story just beneath the surface - Aunt Ruth's story.
-I believe there was a real limousine crash and that was the one that killed Aunt Ruth. The limousine is a very ominous symbol throughout the movie: it's a limousine that takes Diane to the humiliating pool party; it's in a limousine that the hit on Camilla is now supposed to take place in the dream; it's a limousine that carries the creepy old people away from the airport; it's a limousine that carries the Castigliane brothers around. Nothing good ever comes from a limo ride in this movie. It's no wonder that Diane's subconscious had Adam attacking a limo with a golf club.
-Every time a car is shown with luggage being packed into it a red-haired woman wearing a scarf appears. This seems to be a recurring image in Diane's dream. The final time that we see it is at the Sierra Bonita apartments when a red-haired woman wearing a scarf is shown having her bags packed into a limousine. I believe this represents a real event that Diane witnessed - the last time she saw her aunt alive. While there had been previous intrusions of reality into her dream I believe this scene was the first major rip in the fabric of the dream as she re-experienced an actual event. I believe it's no accident that Diane makes sure that her Aunt Ruth is packed into a taxicab, not a limo, when she leaves her idealized dream apartment and arrives safely at her destination in Canada.
-I think the reason we see Aunt Ruth one last time in the dream just before it dissolves is that since she had been resurrected in the dream she too now has to disappear along with Betty and Rita.
-I also believe that Aunt Ruth lived in the Sierra Bonita apartments and her death had something to do with the apartment swap between Diane and the woman in #12. I have to admit that I haven't quite figured that part out yet, though.
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The reappearance of Aunt Ruth could be an attempt to restart the dream. It's interesting that that she appears to be checking the apartment one last time before her trip. She's still wearing the same clothes we saw her in at the start.
As for the apartment change...I'm pretty sure there was one, otherwise the scene where the neighbor comes by to pick up her stuff doesn't make much sense. I also believe the apartment swap has some kind of significance because David Lynch seems to be telling us which apartment Diane is living in at various times through the placement of the red lampshade. When the red lampshade is on the small lamp on the table near the telephone and ashtray she is in one apartment. When the red lampshade is on a different lamp beside her bed she's in a different apartment.
Another interesting thing to note: the apartment #17 that Rita and Betty explore in the dream doesn't appear to be Diane's apartment. You can't see much of the living room but the bookshelf containing the knicknacks that was in Diane's apartment isn't there. Instead there appears to be a smaller shelf with a basket of some sort on it. I think this helps support the theory that Diane was actually living in #16 not #17. The neighbor lied to the detectives in order to protect Diane.
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My theory is that Aunt Ruth's death was fairly recent, perhaps as recent as three weeks prior. I believe that may have been when Diane moved into her Aunt's apartment. If that were the case then she probably had been living with the woman in #12. Another theory I had was that the woman in #12 had been living with Aunt Ruth as her lover and that Diane and the woman exchanged apartments after Ruth's death. In either case, I believe that Diane ended up in Ruth's apartment after her death.
If Aunt Ruth's death had been fairly recent then this was probably what triggered Diane's initial deep depression and anger. When she got dumped by Camilla that was simply the straw that broke the camel's back and she then took the money she had inherited from her Aunt (it didn't look like more than two or three thousand dollars, not fifty thousand) and used it to hire the hitman. This probably was a further source of Diane's guilt.
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All of the hallucinations (and the dream) happen while the blue key is sitting on the coffee table. There's no evidence that anything prior to Camilla's death was a hallucination.
Like I said, if some or all of the reality portion of the movie is delusional then it muddies the water to the point that it's just about impossible to really know anything about Diane except that she's delusional. To me that's not particularly interesting. I need to know something about Diane's life and how she got to the point of murder and suicide. I believe David Lynch provides that by giving us glimpses of both Diane's inner world and her real life. By making the events of her real life nothing more than delusional products of her mind then David Lynch would have given us nothing firm whatsoever in our attempts to know and understand Diane. I don't believe that's the case.
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No, those things were part of the dream, but the dream happened after Diane had already received the blue key. It was sitting on the coffee table when she woke up.
The dream, the vision of Camilla standing in her kitchen and the hallucination of the two old people all occur while the blue key is on the table...after Camilla's murder. The pool party and the scene with Camilla on the couch happen prior to the blue key's appearance. There is no evidence that Diane was delusional before the murder. Depressed and angry, yes, but not delusional.
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Posted: |
Apr 3, 2020 - 6:35 PM
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By: |
Moonlit
(Member)
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^yep that was me just a different name lol. Anyway, my memory goes back to I believe a Harry Knowles who had a forum and when this movie came out the theories just exploded into a kind of overwhelming fun. Of course lots of the theories as I vaguely remember were either just that or were heading in the right direction without coming to a complete whole. The overriding one was the dream of making it in Hollywood can be crushed, but also I think maybe Lynch's theme and/or interest in lesbians and about actresses who seem to have a short film careers. I try to stick with what makes the most *sense*, but I also understand it's David Lynch so alas.... I'd say the most important thing to Lynch's films is that even if there were no meaning behind them, his abstract way of telling a story is compelling on its own. For a three hour film like Inland Empire I somehow managed to stay interested and not leave. I also thought his "Straight Story" was a dynamite message of title and that he could tell a linear story.
Malmrose Project on what MD is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfQE0SOGG-g
Also this comment.....
"I enjoyed your analysis. However, I think this film can support multiple readings and I would like to add one. Diane is really in love with Camilla, in a sexual relationship in the real world. (Support: The 'real' sex scenes, the shock when Camilla breaks it off, the scene where Diane masturbates to memories or mental constructions of their last meeting.) The fantasy world then is about what suicides ideally wish for from their bargain. Let's remember - given the fact that Betty and Rita discover Diane's corpse -- that the fantasy takes place while Diane is dead/last firing of synapses. In the suicide's last flashes Diane sees her estranged lover as a fragile child who needs her, loves her, is dependent on her. Indeed Rita's life is in Betty's hands. In the fantasy or dream or other** for which we have no term, Camilla/Rita has no memory of the break-up, fight, no memory of leaving Diane/Betty. In this synapse firing, Diane can have her wishes fulfilled -- to be loved and desired, needed by and also nurture her love object -- the loss of whom actually driver her to the hit and suicide. David Lynch had a serious dark side and seemed very interested in intense desire, panic, fear, loss, evil, and retribution. The old people who sit next to Betty on the plane and then smile to each other inscrutably are in my mind, demons who will demand payment after Diane has had her blissful moments as Betty loving and nurturing Rita/Camilla. (In fact we do see them return as laughing 'demons' in the suicide scene.) Think about it -- failure may inspire suicide, but more often it is the shocking sudden death of love. Remember how in the 'real life' (remembered/constructed) love scene, Camilla seems to brutally break it off with Diane while they are still naked! Then later, at the 'real life' party Camilla unexpectedly descends from the treed hillside (like a goddess) to seemingly raise Diane from her suffering (symbolized by confinement alone in a car). Then, just as Diane has begun to hope that Camilla may be returning to her or at least will treat her with compassion, Camilla humiliates her publicly at the party, passive aggressively rolling her eyes at everything Diane says while simpering to and kissing her director/fiance. While Camilla actually says very little, it is clear from her body language and facial expressions that she enjoys the torture she is putting Diane through. The kiss from the other actress then, is a way of telling Diane that she hasn't lost her to a man, but she has a new girlfriend, too, and her fiancé is cool with it. I read Camilla as a sociopath who destroyed Diane. In your reading it is about career, but in mine it is about limerence and the very dark side of erotic love. Of course career was involved because --how can the very high status Camilla maintain her interest in the distracted, defeated, unsuccessful Diane? Diane hates herself and her career failure because the only way to have a chance with Camilla is to have something the cruel, powerful and beautiful sociopath wants...."
Edit: Brilliant how he can deconstruct the movie like that. Youtube is golden.
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Posted: |
Apr 7, 2020 - 10:13 PM
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By: |
Moonlit
(Member)
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This was the Inland Empire review Malmrose did. It's long but has a lot of interesting info. The gist is it's a film within a film within a film. The Lost Girl is the "real" person watching her life's mistakes before her from a tv set, trapped in time, until her character(s) redeem themselves. I think that is the case given she eventually meets her "character" in the room and is "freed" from her state of limbo or understanding. Otherwise why? What impressed me was on the dvd extras this was Lynch directed this without a script, and while there are concretes explained above, he intentionally wanted your own interpretation from the material. One of the takeaways from this for me was when one person described the most horrific moments of the film to be more horrific than most horror films.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrQpcDnVgdQ
Comments-
Nice interpretation, but I can't totally agree with you.
For me, there is no "On high and blue tomorrows". The mouvie is just a fantasy created by Sue Blue while she is trapped in some sort of limbo or purgatory. Just like in "Lost Highway" and "Mulholland Drive", where the lead characters imagine something so that they could escape reality, Sue Blue does the same in creating this fantasy where she is Nikki Grace, an actress living in a big mansion with a wealthy husband.
The Polish woman in the beginning of the film asks Nikki if there is a murder in her film. There is no murder in the film, there is actually a murder in real life. Sue Blue and Billy Side are real, whereas Nikki Grace and Devon Berk aren't. There is also a scene where Sue meets Nikki and then Nikki disappears, underlining the fact the Nikki isn't real. If you paid enough attention, you could realise that the mansion where Nikki is at first shown, is in fact the mansion where Billy Side lives in. In reality, Sue Blue is just a maid inside Billy's big house and she has an affair with him. Both Smithy and Doris Side find out about their affair and therefore murders are committed (Sue certainly dies, I am not sure about Billy, though, but I think he dies, too, killed by Smithy - Smithy who existed in real life, whereas Piotrek didn't). After Sue dies, she imagines herself being this beautiful actress playing the lead role in this highly praised mouvie which could bring her again to the top. In my opinion, the visitors (the old Polish lady and then the other lady taking about a bill that needs paying; the director, his assistant, the whole crew, Mr. K and the Phantom - are all parts of some sort of spirit world - they all want to guide Sue to the light, to the purging of evil, so that she could enter heaven, because she cannot face the reality of her past life. She definitely killed her husband Smithy (the sequence where she runs towards the camera with her dark smiling teeth is very suggestive in this respect - this is actually the evil that must be purged; that's why her dark smiling face reappears attached on the face of the Phantom) and then she is killed by Doris Side somewhere on the streets of L.A. after working as a prostitute for a while.
When Sue "dies" on the set of "On High and Blue Tomorrows", she finally realises what really happened in her past life and she knows that the way to paradise will be shown to her after confronting the Phantom - who is actually just a reflector if evil, he is not a villain here. After she "dies", she clearly rejects the director who keeps calling her Nikki, because she knows her name is not Nikki, but Sue. She cannot live this "Hollywood masquerade" anymore and therefore rejects the fantasy and enters paradise after she "defeats" the Phantom. Ironically, for me, it seems that Sue's paradise is in fact the place where she's shown to us in the beginning of Inland Empire, namely that mansion. This time, though, she's happy, she looks saved by the divine grace.
Back to Lost Girl. I think Lost Girl was a Polish prostitute who lived some time ago in Poland. Abused by her pimp/husband??, she has an affair with a guy that looks exactly like Smithy. This person has a wife that is clearly Doris Side's Polish version and he cheats on her because she can't give him children (funny that present time Smithy is infertile, while his past version is). Anyway, the Polish Smithy is probably killed by Lost Girl's pimp (who is actually the Phantom/Crimp in present time) and Lost Girl kills Polish Doris Side, presumably because Lost Girl thinks she killed the Polish Smithy. It appears to me that Lost Girl is trapped in that hotel room and she is freed only when Sue finally defeats the evil. I guess Lost Girl and Sue Blue are twin souls, just like Polish Smithy and the present time Smithy.
There are a lot of scenes in the mouvie that I haven't got yet, but at least I think I know what the purpose of the rabbits is. The rabbits are the key of the story, they are the symbols that need to be deciphered in order for the viewer to understand the mouvie. I don't know if anyone noticed, but Suzie the rabbit - the maid - has two shadows on the wall, implying she lives a double life, that of a maid and of a lover. Jack the rabbit may be Billy Side, while Jane could be Doris Side. The thing with the burning of clothes is also a mystery to me. Sue Blue burns the silk cloth only after she has a "vision" or so projected on a vinyl, where Lost Girl tells her what to do. Maybe this is a suggestion of how reality burns holes in her fantasy. Lost Girl helps Sue, she brings her one step closer to the awful truth, by letting her see the events that took place in Poland.
The prostitutes, as well, may belong to the spirit world mentioned above and that could be true, considering that two of the prostitutes seem to guide Sue throughout the whole experience. I still don't know what AXXON N stands for, but anytime Sue sees this writing, she's one step closer to the truth. There is also the vinyl and the needle which could be interpreted that the story goes on forever in a never ending circle or it seems never ending until the needle jumps off at the end of the artistic experience, be it a radio play or an album. I don't know if you remember, but there is a scene before the scene readings where the director and his assistant, after they sit down, they just sit there for several seconds and do nothing. This could imply the "frustration" of doing a thing all over again. It seems to me that Sue Blue has lived her fantasy as Nikki Grace for many times now and they have to repeat doing the same mouvie until Sue realises who she really is, hence the forgetfulness the Polish lady talks about in the beginning.
I don't know why the Lost Girl returns?? to Smithy in the end, I don't know who the persons with blurred faces in the beginning of the film are and why Jack the rabbit teleports to the past and then to Mr. K's office. This is all I could think of about the mouvie.
Also...
I think AXXON N might be referring to prostitution, as, it says at the beginning that it is "the oldest running play...which now takes place in an old grey hotel room"....referring to prostitution, as everyone knows, as the oldest profession, cut to us at an old grey hotel room.
And...
There seems to be two portals that connects the three plots of the movie, right?
Axxon N connects Nikki to Sue, and one should decide if the main character is Nikki turning into Sue to find a solution to her problems or the opposite, which would be Sue getting conscious that she's not a Hollywood star and lives in the Inland Empire.
The cigarette burn is the other portal, where Sue connects herself with the Lost Girl. Once again, Sue might be a creation from the Lost Girl who's dealing with her inner demons, as the Lost Girl can be a way for Sue to understand her role in Inland Empire.
It's interesting to observe that in the end of the movie, when Sue is running the sidewalks, she sees a faded Axxon N sign with no door available. She seems to be familiar with it, without making a sense out of that moment. I believe that this is one of the key moments of the movie, that actually brings Sue back to reality and helps her to understand that she isn't a movie star and she might be a creation from the poland girl. From this moment, she accepts her fate, ignoring her wishes to insist on beign a movie star and focus on dealing with whatever keeps the Lost Girl trapped.
I've read opinions that points Nikki as the main/real character of IE, but this particular moment of the movie makes it look like the real person is the Lost Girl.
This one makes the most sense to me. She leaves the set after realizing it wasn't real because the camera is shown above. That was such a visual trip. But the point was she leaves going on a loooooooong walk out of the Hollywood experience back into reality. (Her time traveled walking is the key IMO.)
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Posted: |
Feb 9, 2023 - 9:25 AM
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By: |
Ado
(Member)
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David Lynch is a very sweet, warm, funny, and quirky guy. The Straight Story is a very sweet, warm, funny, and quirky movie. I don't think it is any kind of outlier, just another glimpse into the soul of both himself and co-writer/editor/producer/partner/mother of his son Mary Sweeney.
Straight Story is an excellent film, sweet, and sad, and beautiful.
It is not not well known or seen by many people.
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