Mulholland Drive (Spotlight Review) 20th Anniversary!

The cautionary tale of Hollywood and what lies beneath the surface of all the glitz, glamour, and stardom underlies a very dark, seedy, and cutthroat world. 20 years later, David Lynch’s 2001 masterpiece is every much as addicting, debated, and analyzed now as it was upon its theatrical release 20 years ago in October of 2001. As all great pieces of cinema do, the greatest ones are the ones that pierce through the mind and subconscious with their mind-bending approaches and perplexing ambiguities. Mulholland Drive might not have been awarded the Oscars in 2001, it didn’t pull in the Fast and Furious or Ocean’s 11 box-office bucks, but the film reigns supreme as time passes on. The film eventually found its audience and is perhaps the most championed American Independent movie of the 21st century. In fact, out of any film released in 2001 outside Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Mulholland Drive is the most analyzed, celebrated, and discussed film of 2001. Revisiting the film today after receiving a superb Criterion Blu-Ray transfer as it’s upon the cusp of receiving a 4k Criterion Collection Blu-Ray in November, Mulholland Drive will have no problem finding younger audiences of cinephiles in the years to come. It was also my favorite film of 2001, see my list here The Best Films of 2001-Robert Butler

Thanks mainly in part to just how timeless, bold, and formally daring Lynch’s vision goes, in which his condemnation of Hollywood as this place of dreams and hopes, continues to uphold Lynch’s auteur traits of good versus evil, dreams transitioning into nightmares, rich symbolism, duality, mistaken identity, and an engrossing narrative that is completely unforgettable. Upon its release, Mulholland Drive had overall very positive critical reception, in fact, the late Roger Ebert who was always a tough critic on David Lynch praised the film, he even placed it into his top ten list that year. So did his comrade Richard Roeper who originally appeared a little frustrated with it, but he still recommended it on the Ebert and Roeper at the Movies television show. Eventually Roeper warmed up even more to Mulholland Drive and placed it into his top ten list that year after he admitted it stayed with him. Rex Reed from the New Yorker had an infamous review where he called it “an incoherent piece of garbage.” This came to no surprise that I recall recommending this film to people who had very similar reactions, many were frustrated, puzzled, and confused by the film, but one thing is for certain about Mulholland Drive is that the film always generated conversation and audiences to this date still find the film to be a fascinating experience.

Now 20 years later, in the wake of the #MeToo movement, Mulholland Drive feels even more relevant and cautionary than it ever did. The themes appear more cynical, the characterizations run with deeper pathos (even for a surrealist film), the tone feels more nightmarish, and the film feels even more cautionary with its commentary of the post-Weinstein film industry than ever before. Originally produced as a 90-minute TV pilot that was  cancelled by ABC, the same network that aired Lynch’s Twin Peaks in the early 90s. While frustrated at the time for Lynch, he eventually ended up finding the resources in France by Studio Canal and producer Alain Sarde that brought Mulholland Drive into a feature film. Perhaps the whole satire and uncomfortable truths found in the film that hit too close to home for the major studios.

Watching Mulholland Drive in 2021—its not difficult to figure out what moments were meant for TV and which moments are cinematic–some scenes would never be allowed to air on TV–and there is a menacing and  deconstructing quality to the narrative structure that still feels innovative for today’s narrative standards. As culture and times change, Mulholland Drive remains celebrated today as it’s core themes are still the same: as a young and aspiring actress named Betty Elms (Naomi Watts in her breakthrough role), who moves from Deep River, Ontario, to Hollywood in hopes of landing some some major roles in the movies, but gets pulled in by dark forces of Hollywood where she loses  her innocence as the city of dreams becomes a city of nightmares.

The film is structured with three acts as any film, but the first two acts really focus on Betty’s innocence. After winning a jitterbug contest that we see in dreamlike Lynch fashion in the opening scene. After surviving a brutal car accident just moments before she is about to get whacked by a few hitmen in a limo by some drunk drivers, Rita (Laura Harring) wanders into Betty’s aunt’s apartment after receiving a bad concussion. After finding her alone in the shower once she arrives at the apartment, Betty tries to help Rita piece her life back together as she has no memory of her  own identity or what led her to the apartment.

We follow Betty through this engrossing journey of setting up auditions in Hollywood, and we get other subplots involving Adam Kesher (Justin Theroux), a hot-shot movie director whose coerced into casting a lead actress against his arsis will by Hollywood executives- named the Castigliane Brothers  (Dan Hedaya and Lynch’s own music composer Angelo Badalamenti). The brothers dictate to Adam, his agent, and fellow producers that “This is the girl” as a name Camille Rhoades reads on her photo resume. It’s clear Lynch is condemning Hollywood here for it’s sexual predatory environment that sadly exists in the movie industry.

We also get a brilliant scene involving two men Dan (Patrick Fishler) and Herb (Michael Cooke) who meet up for an early breakfast as Dan explains to Herb that he had a dream about the diner named “Winkies” which he feels a very ominous presence that exists in the back of the diner. It’s there where Lynch’s surrealism and dream logic fades in, you also feel one of most terrifying jump scares that had me jumping from my seat the first time I saw it.  Ironically enough, the film appears to be straight as Betty attempts to piece Rita’s mystery together. It’s not until the end of the second act at Club Silencio, that feels very dreamlike with ambient noises, neon lights, and other forms of surrealist forces unravel as a Magician (Richard Green)  explains “It’s all an illusion” before presenting renowned vocalist Rebekah Del Rio to perform Ray Orbinson’s “Crying” in Spanish.

Club Silencio is a very imperative moment in the film that illuminates the themes of the film of what’s real and what’s not, as well as the third act that reveals the true nature of Betty’s reality, which we see her under the name of Diane Selwyn as Naomi Watts doesn’t appear as innocent, beautiful, and more fragile than Diane. It’s not to say that the first two halves of Mulholland Drive are just fantasy or an illusion, dreams do in fact reflect who we are on a very deep, subconscious level. Mulholland Drive is also about the subconscious, Lynch not only explores deep things, he dives deep into the human psyche as he reveals Betty/Diane’s dreams, anxieties, fears, desires, insecurities, and desperations that eventually lead to dire consequences from her actions that tragically leads to her own demise. We are essentially inside someone else’s subconscious for the whole journey.

Aesthetically, the film’s cinematography by Peter Deming is quite astonishing. In many ways Lynch returns 40s and 50s film noir aesthetics that echoes his the aesthetics and tones of his 1986 masterpiece Blue Velvet, we get the diners, the done-up hair, Rita is clearly the femme fatale, and Adam Kesher’s film is called “The Sylvia North Story” where we see actresses auditioning for the roles as they perform 50’s pop songs. Lynch also merges the more surrealist and dreamlike style with reality that he utilized expertly well in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me and Lost Highway. The film also holds some similar traits, themes, and Jungian dream logic that Ingmar Bergman also explored in Persona. If anything, Mulholland Drive is like a modern day variation of Billy Wilder’s Sunset Blvd meet’s Bergman’s Persona, and Lynch is quite apparent with the homages and tributes. There is a scene of Betty and Diane observing themselves in the mirror with matching hair that is straight out of an image of Images, as the cautionary themes of the vileness of Hollywood also still remain timely in Wilder’s 1950 masterpiece Sunset Blvd.

While certainly inspired, the brilliance of Mulholland Drive is how it defies expectations with it’s singular vision–both on a narrative and logical level as it becomes more of a feeling of experience and tone. I recall seeing Mulholland Drive for the very first time in the theater October 19, 2001 in Auburn Hills at the Star Great Lakes Theater which is now an AMC theater. I recall feeling an exuberance I never before as I watched and experienced the film from beginning to end. Including one pivotal scene is film that is followed by one set of brilliant scenes and sequences have another that involves Betty auditioning for a substantial part for a 50s style melodrama for an elderly producer named Wally Brown (James Karen) and his director Bob Booker (Wayne Grace). Betty’s first audition is quite gripping and powerful as she nails it in the first take with a much more professional and older actor, which leads everyone blown away but the director Bob who appears to be disinterested by the performance.

Meanwhile, during the audition Wally’s ex-wife, fellow casting agent, and her assistant scoop up Betty and take her to the auditions where Adam is auditioning many actresses for the lead role that he was coerced into saving for Camila Rhoades. Once Camila (Melissa George) is slated to audition to perform “I’ve Told Every Other Star,” as Adam utters the words “this is the girl” to his producers as he is distracted and locks eyes with Betty for the first time. This leads to Betty being startled, and it was there as I watched this unique film where I felt relieved that everything was finally appearing to connect together until Lynch deconstructs the entire narrative, defied audience expectations, and took us in directions that nobody can anticipate upon first viewing.

It was there where the feeling of the film left me with an unfamiliar and almost alien feeling that is challenging to express in words other than you are perplexed, fascinated, and drawn in with many other contractionary emotions that are very uniquely to find in any artistic medium. I found myself retreating back to the theater to revisit Mulholland Drive, as I always brought a different close friend with me so they can feel that same experience I had. I even rudely woke up my best friend early that morning to share with him what I had just experienced. There have  only been a few films have had this impact  on me since which includes Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation, P.T. Anderson’s There Will Be Blood, Alfonso Cuaron’s Children of Men, Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life, and Lynch’s own INLAND EMPIRE.

Upon this sequence, thematically it becomes clear that Mulholland Drive resembles some elements of Blue Velvet as Betty and Rita end up becoming amateur sleuths trying to solve a mystery that takes them into dark mysteries and secrets that reveal the façade in the brilliant and mind-bending third act. Some detractors have pointed out in frustration how Lynch builds up some very important characters like Herb, Dan, and even Robert Forster appears in the beginning of the film as a detective investigating the car accident who doesn’t turn up again–while others appear again in very small glimpses, which leaves the audience pondering what everyone means along with Lynch’s other motifs in the film that includes a mysterious blue key, a blue box, Club Silencio, and a red lamp.

Yes, characters do serve as abstractions in this film, which includes Mr. Roque (Michael J. Anderson) who holds a strange presence in a sealed room of red curtains that appears to control the fate of Hollywood, the productions, and it’s creators. It’s like the film “The Wizard of Oz,” he is the man behind the curtains controlling things, which also become a major subplot and metaphor in Lynch’s Twin Peaks. Like Twin Peaks, Mulholland Drive unfolds with even more dream logic, and in itself plays out just like dreams are as some characters fade in and out as other moments in the film become elusive abstractions and highly symbolic on the subconscious of Betty/Diane and what led to the soul-crushing finale that is the most eerie, nightmarish, and shattering moment Lynch has ever staged. Knowing the events prior with how it plays out in the saga impacts the powerful finale. Also see his companion piece INLAND EMPIRE which is every bit as masterful.

Lynch’s film remains a cryptic treasure that people are still discussing as younger audiences are finding it each year. I anticipate Mulholland Drive moving up higher in the ranks of cinema discussion in years to come, simply because Mulholland Drive is David Lynch’s most extraordinary achievement of his career. It features some of his strongest scenes of Lynch’s career that involve Winkie’s, Betty’s audition, Club Silencio, Adam Kesher’s encounter with a Cowboy, and a third act that consists of fragmented montages and logic that ties in what is real and what is reality. It overall lingers in your mind, and there hasn’t been a day since where I haven’t thought about this film. Each time I revisit Mulholland Drive, I find myself in awe with how addicting the narrative and style is. The sound design in the film is also effective in delivering the dreamlike atmosphere, which comes to no surprise considering how much of a craftsman Lynch is with his audio that consists mostly of ambient sounds and moody tones . This is also elevated by Angelo Badalamenti ominous and equally angelic score where is synthscapes build the world Lynch is going for.

Ultimately, Lynch is a genuine and kind man. I had the pleasure of meeting him in early 2007 in Chicago at a screening for INLAND EMPIRE at the Music Box theater. I praised his style and how he pulls such towering and powerful performances from his actresses. Mr. Lynch was very sincere, he kindly thanked me and even called me “A Sweetheart” for my compliment. Lynch is a true artist, and with Mulholland Drive he is going to bat for all artists who have to endure cutthroat and manipulative dealings just to get ahead in such a competitive industry–no matter what type of art from there is, Lynch understands that there is cruelty, charlatans, and predators out there willing to prey on people’s hopes and talents. With Mulholland Drive, Lynch tried warning us about this as we saw the whole industry being shaken up from the inside just a few years ago with Harvey Weinstein and other #MeToo revelations. While some may find Mulholland Drive to be a very frustrating and puzzling experience, everything that Lynch is exploring and warning is startling and revelatory. Mulholland Drive was ahead of its time, and it’s still ahead of its time. It still remains a film that one must surrender themselves over to and be transported with its hypnotic dream logic, it will still haunt you and never let go.