Starring: Michael J. Anderson, Diane Baker, Scott Coffey, Billy Ray Cyrus, Chad Everett Average Rating: Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Audience Rating: R (Restricted) Binding: DVD Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC Label: Universal Studios Number of Items: 1 Region Code: 1 Release Date: April 09, 2002 Running Time: 147 minutes Theatrical Release Date: 2001
Amazon.com: Pandora couldn't resist opening the forbidden box containing all the delusions of mankind, and let's just say David Lynch, in Mulholland Drive, indulges a similar impulse. Employing a familiar film noir atmosphere to unravel, as he coyly puts it, "a love story in the city of dreams," Lynch establishes a foreboding but playful narrative in the film's first half before subsuming all of Los Angeles and its corrupt ambitions into his voyeuristic universe of desire. Identities exchange, amnesia proliferates, and nightmare visions are induced, but not before we've become enthralled by the film's two main characters: the dazed and sullen femme fatale, Rita (Laura Elena Harring), and the pert blonde just-arrived from Ontario (played exquisitely by Naomi Watts) who decides to help Rita regain her memory. Triggered by a rapturous Spanish-language version of Roy Orbison's "Crying," Lynch's best film since Blue Velvet splits glowingly into two equally compelling parts. --Fionn Meade
Not just one of Lynch's best, but one of the best movies I've ever seen. When Mulholland Drive first starts, you may think that Lynch is making a pretty normal movie. His style is pretty much the same but the plotline is managing to remain pretty linear (for a mystery film). Slowly, but surely, we begin to slip down the rabbit hole, and things get strange. The performances are great, especially Naomi Watts. This is one of those movies where it keeps getting better scene after scene, and you have to see it again and again. What truly makes this movie great is the numerous interpretations that can be realized viewing after viewing, and the fact that Lynch is such a master, none of your interpretations can be discounted. Go see this movie. Go buy this movie. This is a definate must have.
No hay malo in this film Just through Eraserhead and Blue Velvet, David Lynch had proven himself to be the oddest, and one of the most daring filmmakers out there; and also one of my favorites. Mulholland Drive emotionally gripped me more than any Lynch film since Blue Velvet, and it still grips me more than most films today.
First of all, the script is among the deepest I've ever seen. This is one of the only films I know of where every single person who's seen it had a different interpretation. I of course have one, but I'll not explain too much; but the sheer fact of this is just mere proof that this is a film you have to see to believe; and most of the stuff you do try to believe you might just find was not a reality and was just a trip into one's mind. Yes, this film truly is, at times, a trip into the mind, dreams, and desperate desires of one woman. There are several different things this woman can be called; I tend to view her as just human with the same desires as any other (but my views of the film definitely do not stop there).
To truly understand this film, you have to pay attention to everything; the location, the words, the context of words, the arrangement of speech, the arrangement of characters, the relationships of characters (especially between the two leading women and their relationships with others), the reasoning behind characters' acts, even the lighting, and even the smallest detail or object to the side of the screen; in this film, everything is truly important to everything else. You also must know quite a bit about actors and definitely some knowledge on classic hollywood. In this paragraph alone, David Lynch has created a true masterpiece.
I was very disappointed in the 2001 Oscars when it came to the nominations; this film got a sole nomination for Best Director. And while Lynch was certainly deserving of that, this film should've also been nominated for Best Original Screenplay, Best Picture, and Best Actress for Naomi Watts (her Oscar nominated work in 21 Grams doesn't even touch her work here). Oh well then.
Blue box explained It is startling that after 7 years no one really figured out what this movie is all about. If for any reason you have not watched this movie then please watch it first and then read my explanation. Spoilers coming:
Movie is about last days of Marilyn Monroe and her tragic death in 1962. Lynch originally intended to start with her death and go back in the past to explain it similar to Twin Peaks series. Someone powerful (like that midget) didn't like it and series was canceled.
Who is who in this movie?
1. Betty, Diane and Rita are all Marilyn. Betty represents Marilyn in movies (angelic naive look), Diane is real life (paranoid and obsessed) Marilyn, Rita is glamorous movie star Marilyn.
2. Movie "Sylvia North Story" is actually never finished movie "Something's Got to Give".
3. Cowboy is Dean Martin. He had exclusive right of leading lady approval. When Marilyn was fired he said: "No Marilyn, no picture." Remember words from the movie: "This is the girl." Dean Martin was also associated with mafia.
4. Betty is from Deep Rivers, Ontario. Marilyn's first big budget movie that made her a worldwide star was "Niagara" in 1953. Plot of the movie involves Marilyn planning a murder.
5. For role of Rita, Lynch chose Laura Elena Harring, the first Latina to be crowned Miss USA in 1985. Is it coincidence why she takes name Rita? No, because Monroe family was believed to have been Anglo-Spanish in origin. Rita Hayworth was actually Margarita Carmen Cansino, daughter of Spanish flamenco dancer Eduardo Cansino and English/Irish-American Ziegfeld girl Volga Hayworth.
6. When Betty and Rita enter Diane's apartment, Diane is found dead lying on her side just as Marilyn was found in 1962.
7. At the beginning of the movie you can hear someone snorting drugs and then falling to the pillow. Marilyn was declared dead by acute barbiturate poisoning.
8. In the weeks before her death, Marilyn called DOJ where Bobby Kennedy worked eight times. All phone calls from the night that she died are missing. This explains sinister phone calls throughout the movie.
9. Crash scene on Mulholland Drive is very important. It represents collision of glamorous movie star Marilyn full of money and fame with sweet 16 Norma Jeane represented as cheering young girl in the other car. The result is total amnesia. After the crash she takes name Rita (her true Anglo-Spanish origin and real life role model) and remembers the name of Diane Selwyn (real life paranoid and obsessed Marilyn). She also chose blonde wig (Marilyn was not real blonde, she dyed her hair). Glamour movie star Marilyn is lost after the crash.
10. And finally the blue box explained. It relates to famous Blue Book modeling agency. This is where all started. One of Fox's talent scouts noticed her in 1946 and offered a 6-month contract. After Rita opens the box she disappears and Diane wakes up. After remembering how everything started, movie star Marilyn is gone and all that is left is real Marilyn. Key to the box in the dream sequence is triangular in shape indicating 3 different personalities of Marilyn.
I have watched UK import HD-DVD version with superb DTS-HD MA sound. Chapters are available but not in the menu. Highly recommended movie for all those interested in mysteries and suspense.
In Hollywood Dreams... Nothing Is What it Seems In 2001, David Lynch (director of Dune and creator of Twin Peaks) released a complex mystery film that defied the genre rules and mystified audiences. The film starred Naomi Watts, in an outstanding performance, as a seemingly naïve and innocent young actress who stumbles upon a car crash victim with amnesia, played by Laura Elena Harring. The two befriend one another and begin to search for clues to the haunted woman's past. Meanwhile a rebellious young director is being told who to recast as the female lead in his next film but when he refuses, strange things begin to happen. The film unfolds into a delirium of complex schemes, startling eroticism and complete insanity. But it keeps its viewers interested, though it never truly explains itself. Many people have attempted to unravel the film's meaning (there are quite a few interesting theories suggested by other reviewers). Some say that it's about the dream of a psychotic woman on the verge of committing suicide. Others say it's an allegory for the corruptive nature of the Hollywood lifestyle. There have even been some who feel that the whole film is just an epic mindf**k, which wouldn't be that surprising coming from an iconoclast like David Lynch. But what is surprising is that most people will admit that they don't fully understand it, and yet they can't get enough of it. Perhaps its popularity can be attributed to the complex plot, or the brilliant acting, or maybe the raw sesuality of Naomi Watts' performance. Whatever the appeal may be, there's no doubt about it, Mulholland Dr. is a provocative, titillating and mesmerizing trip that you have to experience for yourself. Maybe even more than once.
Dream-like quality This is Lynch's craziest film. Since I've seen it 4 times in 7 yrs. trying to 'understand' something about it, I guess it's one of my favorites. First, I have not followed the 10 hints in the DVD cover, if indeed the 10 hints are anything but another Lynch spoof. The film must be approached via what Theodor Reik called 'listening with the third ear' (or seeing with the third eye), registering first impressions. Logic won't work, this is more like looking for clues for a rare disease, or trying to discover whether a painting is a fake. The first impression was that I was reminded of 'Persona'. The second thing, represented by the garbage can event, is that dreams are reality here. But what about the older cracked pair at the airport, who were they? Did Dianne use her aunt's money to pay the old guy in the wheelchair to make sure that she was in the film? The 3rd thing is the message of 'Silencio', that the tape/dream keeps running even if the person performing quits playing. So I think Camilla 'dreamed' the whole affair up until she opened the box, at which point 'Betty' disappeared and the tape quit, especially since they both saw 'Betty' as Dianne dead in bed earlier. After that came the real story of events. Now, back to that ugly nut behind the garbage cans .....
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