The 25 Best Movies of the Century: No. 6 - 'Mulholland Drive’

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• 'Mulholland Drive' is celebrated as a culmination of David Lynch's signature styles, blending Americana, European surrealism, classic Hollywood glamour, and sinister outsider art, making it highly accessible yet deeply complex.  Copied to clipboard!
• Naomi Watts's breakthrough performance is highlighted as remarkable, carrying the film through its dual roles and showcasing a stunning arrival as a great actress.  Copied to clipboard!
• The film strongly resists tidy, logical explanations, functioning more as a powerful evocation of feelings—particularly dread, confusion, and the despair of failed Hollywood dreams—than as a solvable puzzle.  Copied to clipboard!

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Introduction and Lynchian Tone

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(00:00:12)

• Key Takeaway: The hosts immediately establish a tone mirroring David Lynch’s style, characterized by a ‘vague sense of doom’ where normal appearances mask underlying weirdness.
• Summary: The hosts introduce the episode focusing on David Lynch’s ‘Mulholland Drive’ as part of the ‘25 for 25’ series. They playfully adopt a cadence and atmosphere reminiscent of Lynch’s work, noting the unsettling feeling that normal things are occurring while ‘weird shit’ is happening just out of sight. This sets the expectation for the film’s unique tonal blend.

Film Credits and Context

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(00:01:27)

• Key Takeaway: David Lynch’s ‘Mulholland Drive’ was written and directed by him, premiered at Cannes in 2001, and features key collaborators like cinematographer Peter Deming and composer Angela Badalmente.
• Summary: The film stars Naomi Watts, Laura Haring, and Justin Theroux, among others, and includes cameos from well-known Hollywood figures as an homage. It premiered at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival. The production involved Peter Deming on cinematography and music by Angela Badalmente, who also appears in the film.

Accessibility and Lynch’s Style

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(00:02:11)

• Key Takeaway: ‘Mulholland Drive’ is considered the most accessible Lynch project because its use of recognizable Hollywood noir architecture provides entry points before the narrative becomes ’loosey-goosey.’
• Summary: One host finds the film accessible because it incorporates recognizable elements of old Hollywood movies and noir, offering guide rails into Lynch’s world. While still confusing, these familiar references allow the viewer to stay ‘along on the ride’ even when the plot becomes abstract. This contrasts with other Lynch works that might be less grounded in genre conventions.

Lynch’s Filmography Comparison

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(00:02:58)

• Key Takeaway: While ‘Mulholland Drive’ is seen as a culmination of Lynch’s known styles, other works like ‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me’ are considered more upsetting and powerful by the hosts as they age.
• Summary: The hosts rank ‘Mulholland Drive’ below other Lynch films like ‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me’ in terms of emotional impact, though they acknowledge its status as a culmination of his themes. They cite ‘Blue Velvet’ and ‘Twin Peaks’ as his most iconic stretch, and also praise ‘The Elephant Man’ and ‘Lost Highway.’

Mulholland Drive’s Origin Story

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(00:04:19)

• Key Takeaway: The film originated as a failed television pilot that David Lynch and Mark Frost developed after ‘Twin Peaks,’ which Lynch later Frankenstein-ed into a feature film.
• Summary: The movie began as a TV pilot concept that Lynch and ‘Twin Peaks’ co-creator Mark Frost had discussed for years, simply liking the title ‘Mulholland Drive.’ Lynch later reworked the material into the feature film, a process so transformative that actor Robert Forster reportedly did not realize he was in the final movie until it premiered years later.

Themes of Hollywood Dreams

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(00:05:50)

• Key Takeaway: The film serves as one of the best cinematic explorations of the difficulties inherent in achieving dreams in Los Angeles, often leading to a psychological ‘fugue state.’
• Summary: Mulholland Drive captures the underbelly of Los Angeles, where millions come hoping to achieve success, only to face crushing difficulties. The movie portrays how this struggle can lead the mind into a state of disorientation. Unlike the hosts who moved to LA for specific jobs, the film focuses on those who came to ‘make it’ and are subsequently thwarted.

Plot Summary for New Viewers

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(00:07:24)

• Key Takeaway: The initial narrative follows an amnesiac woman (Rita) and an aspiring actress (Betty) who form a bond while investigating Rita’s identity, before the film undergoes a major psychological flip.
• Summary: The story begins with a car crash victim suffering amnesia who is taken in by Betty, a newcomer actress, leading to a curious friendship. Betty attempts to break into Hollywood while they solve the mystery of the dark-haired woman’s identity. This Nancy Drew-style mystery eventually turns on its head, shifting identities and perspectives.

Initial Viewing Experience

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(00:08:27)

• Key Takeaway: For first-time viewers without prior Lynch context, ‘Mulholland Drive’ is profoundly confusing, leading to immediate feelings of bewilderment, though critics like Roger Ebert recognized its surreal greatness.
• Summary: One host recalls being completely bewildered by the film upon first viewing in college before having deep knowledge of Lynch’s work. Even critics skeptical of Lynch, such as Roger Ebert, immediately recognized the film’s surreal mastery, calling it a masterpiece that demands surrender over logic.

Recurring Motifs and Themes

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(00:12:32)

• Key Takeaway: A recurring motif in Lynch’s work, evident in ‘Mulholland Drive,’ is the depiction of women degraded and discarded by a powerful male world, a theme interpreted variously as misogynistic or deeply empathetic.
• Summary: The film showcases Lynch’s preoccupation with certain images and ideas, particularly the fate of imperiled women. This theme sparks debate: some view it as misogynistic, while others see it as a sensitive portrayal of queer romance or the anguish of failure. Lynch is noted as a filmmaker who elicits strong affection from the actresses he works with.

Consensus and Canonization

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(00:13:44)

• Key Takeaway: ‘Mulholland Drive’ holds a near-unanimous position near the top of 21st-century film polls, marking a moment where critics comfortably celebrated Lynch’s greatness following a perceived down period.
• Summary: The film consistently ranks high in critics’ and readers’ polls for 21st-century cinema, suggesting a consensus on its importance. This celebration occurred despite the mixed reception of previous works like ‘Lost Highway’ and the initial loathing of ‘Fire Walk with Me.’ The film’s success is also tied to its origin as a reworked, failed TV pilot.

Frameworks and Subconscious Flights

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(00:16:18)

• Key Takeaway: The film’s grounding in reliable genre frameworks—Women in Peril and Detective Stories—allows Lynch to incorporate bizarre, subconscious flights of fancy like the blue box and the diner scene.
• Summary: The movie utilizes familiar structures, like noir and detective tropes, to rope in audiences before introducing surreal elements. This structure permits the inclusion of highly metaphorical, open-ended imagery, such as the blue box or the elderly couple, which resists definitive, logical puzzle-box solutions. The film is ultimately about feelings and images rather than a solvable narrative.

The Diner Scene’s Impact

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(00:20:40)

• Key Takeaway: The legendary diner scene effectively disrupts the film’s gentle curiosity, creating intense dread by manifesting a character’s recounted nightmare in real-time, culminating in a simple jump scare.
• Summary: The diner scene is cited as a moment that deeply upsets viewers, effectively selling the terror of remembered dreams. The sequence uses sound editing to focus entirely on a character recounting a frightening dream, which then begins to manifest physically in the diner. The reveal, though a standard jump scare, is profoundly effective due to the preceding build-up of dread.

Naomi Watts’s Dual Performance

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(00:25:16)

• Key Takeaway: Naomi Watts’s performance is a masterclass in duality, requiring her to portray distinct shades of Betty and Diane, culminating in a stunning, technically precise audition scene.
• Summary: Watts is credited with carrying the entire film, navigating two primary characters (Betty and Diane) and numerous doubles, all while being essentially unknown at the time of casting. Her audition scene is singled out as a technical marvel where she convincingly portrays an actress delivering an imaginary, great performance, transforming her scene partner through restraint.

The Silencio Scene

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(00:36:40)

• Key Takeaway: The Silencio club scene, featuring Rebecca Del Rio’s mesmerizing performance under a red curtain, is a recurring Lynchian motif representing a desolate gathering place where music’s recorded nature is revealed.
• Summary: The scene is triggered by the word ‘Silencio’ and involves the characters entering a club featuring musicians performing before a red curtain, a motif seen elsewhere in Lynch’s work. The performance is mesmerizing until the music is revealed to be a recording, causing the singer to faint, suggesting a cursed or spiritually charged environment.

Oscar Loss and Critical Reception

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(00:38:31)

• Key Takeaway: Despite immediate critical celebration, ‘Mulholland Drive’ received only one Oscar nomination (Best Director for Lynch) and lost Best Picture to ‘A Beautiful Mind’ in a year of national strife.
• Summary: The Academy Awards favored ‘A Beautiful Mind’ (which also won Best Picture) over Lynch’s avant-garde work, which the hosts suggest is typical for the Academy during times of national tension. Roger Ebert’s four-star review emphasized that the film is meant to be surrendered to, not logically solved, though the hosts believe it is readable through its emotional core.

Genre Stand-ins

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(00:44:09)

• Key Takeaway: ‘Mulholland Drive’ functions as a superior entry point for viewers interested in two specific cinematic categories: films about Hollywood and anti-logic psychological nightmare movies.
• Summary: The film stands in for other movies about Hollywood’s destructive nature, such as ‘Sunset Boulevard’ and ‘Showgirls,’ which also examine the industry’s impact on women. It also belongs to the genre of anti-logic psychological nightmares, similar to ‘Donnie Darko’ and ‘Synecdoche, New York,’ focusing on disorientation and the violation of the psyche.