Posted: 10/20/2001

Mulholland Dr.

(2001)

by Joe Steiff

David Lynch’s latest may just be his masterpiece.

About two/thirds of the way through David Lynch’s latest foray into the dreamy underworld of the human psyche, I feared that he had succumbed to the stylistic excesses — a generous way of saying ” lack of focus” — that finally doomed his television series, Twin Peaks. It seemed to me that the film Mulholland Drive had begun meandering with less purpose than the road from which it takes its name. I had eventually attributed this meandering quality in Twin Peaks to Lynch not having thought through his ideas before starting the series. At one level, that’s the beauty of creating television series, you can put off any decisions about resolutions. But Lynch’s work is so specific that I expect him to know where he’s taking me. And Twin Peaks ultimately seemed lazy to me —- like he had no idea where he was going, and I began to resent being dragged along for the ride.

I sighed and realized I shouldn’t be surprised if Mulholland Drive succumbed to the same fate, since as has been widely reported, the film’s first incarnation was as a television pilot.

Lynch certainly knows how to create haunting premises with enough mystery to drive several installments. The man has a firm grasp of “central question” as a technique, though he inevitably answers it in ways that mainstream Hollywood films would never dare. In Twin Peaks, the mystery begins as “who killed Laura Palmer” but gives way to “who was Laura Palmer.” Mulholland Drive inverts the equation by asking “who is Rita” first. Either way, the problem is that such a simple and direct set of questions can only sustain a handful of episodes. Twin Peaks lost its momentum when it moved into a second season. If the series had wrapped up in its first season, its status would probably be as one of the greatest television series ever made rather than as a daring attempt at a great television series.

So I sighed. As perfect as the vocalist is, the stagy rendition of Roy Orbison’s classic “Crying” seemed to me a signal, a roadsign, that the film was spiraling out of control..

And at that precise moment, I became roadkill. David Lynch ran me down, picked me up by the scruff of my neck and threw me back into the film. The thump of that blue box hitting the floor was the sound of me hitting the screen now filled with a maddening overdrive of shifting realities and “aha” responses. The result? I, who moments before was on the verge of hailing a cab, walked out of the theater like many critics and viewers sure that I had just seen a masterpiece or as close as Lynch has gotten so far.

Several reviewers have prided themselves on deciphering Mulholland Drive as one-half dream. Like Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive has (at least) two parts, though not quite as clearly divided as the former. The fact that we can re-interpret one of them as a dream makes the film much less frustrating for many viewers than Lost Highway (my favorite Lynch film until seeing Mulholland Drive), which didn’t offer such an easy handle for interpreting the film’s structure.

Though there are several ways to think about Lynch’s body of work, there is little doubt that Lynch is one of our few experimental filmmakers working in feature-length format. Experimental filmmakers are sometimes seen as existing in one of two camps: imagist or structuralist. Early on, Lynch established himself as an imagist; his primary concern seemed to be creating juxtapositions and compositions that were so profoundly disturbing that they overshadowed and superceded any sense of structure. But that has been changing as his body of work has grown. When I included Lost Highway on my “Ten Best Films of 1997,” I noted with some irony that our leading imagist filmmaker had created the best structuralist film of the year. Mulholland Drive continues Lynch’s development as a structuralist, exceeding his previous works by pulling his images into a haunting balance with the film’s structure. It is this balance of the two that provides much of Mulholland Drive’s strength and power.

Lynch has created an experimental film for the masses. The juxtaposition of shots and the dreamlike level allow for an audience brought up on conventional Hollywood narratives to feel like they “get” it. “Oh, so she was really dreaming…” Lynch’s brilliance here is that we don’t feel ripped off by such an interpretation. Usually when this device is used, it simplifies all that has come before, like in The Wizard Of Oz, and can feel like a let down. Not so with Mulholland Drive, because even if we accept one half of the film as a dream, such an interpretation doesn’t explain everything away. The film remains haunting, its complexity intact.

Better yet, you can reject the dream interpretation of the structure completely. In so doing, the film becomes even more evocative, more haunting, as events become motifs that play out in recognizable variations.

The opening scene, for example, is presented visually or through implication in at least three different configurations, the last answering both “who is Rita” and “who killed her” in an emotionally devastating realization. Mulholland Drive becomes not a dream, but rather an experimental film expertly crafted and beautiful to watch.

I may be one of the few people truly relieved that Mulholland Drive was forced into a cinematic life. Yes, I can see how a number of episodes could be created around the central question of “who is Rita,” but the piece is far stronger for resolving these issues in a little over 2 hours rather than 6 or 12 or 22 or (God forbid) 44.

Lynch has assembled an impressive though not an immediately recognizable leading cast. It doesn’t hurt that they’re all very easy on the eyes. But that’s not what I mean when I say “impressive.” An exceptional Naomi Watts, whose most recent work has focussed on television roles despite some early minor roles in films like Flirting and Tank Girl, gives one of the best performances of the year as the wide-eyed innocent, Betty Elms. Not everyone will think so, due to the nature of the role, but Watts is a pleasure to watch (and I’m not talking about the love scenes). As with many of Lynch’s emblems of innocence, Betty is blonde and perky and quite unaware of the darker world just beyond her touch. At least at first. As the reality of her life becomes more and more slippery, her presence begins to allude to other meanings.

During an audition, Betty fleetingly crosses paths with Adam Kesher, a director mired in his own Hollywood quicksand. At first one might think that Adam and Betty will be our romantic leads, but Lynch has other things in mind. By the number of lesbians in the audience at the screening I attended, I’d say that most people know who the romantic leads are. But even then, there are a few surprises. Anyway…

As played by Justin Theroux (the misunderstood cowboy in Romy & Michele’s High School Reunion as well as characters in The Broken Hearts Club, American Psycho, Zoolander and TV’s The District), Adam seems to have the kind of success that Betty aspires to. In reality, he’s simply further down the road, someone whose innocence is a bit more tattered, someone who is being backed into the corner of compromised dreams.

And at the heart of the mystery is Rita (Laura Harring whose previous work has included TV’s Black Scorpion and General Hospital as well as films like Little Nicky). As a character, she is one of Lynch’s most interesting. Implied to be worldly (she is after all a brunette in a Lynch film and about to be murdered in the opening scene), her amnesia puts her on almost equal footing with Betty in terms of innocence. Her beauty is alluring and haunted, evoking Betty’s concern, empathy and ultimately love.

Certainly, there are red herrings and elements that are introduced but pass to the wayside as these three central characters struggle with the events around them. Many have attributed these unexplored alleys to narrative threads that would have been developed further in the TV series, but the truth is, David Lynch’s films often have elements that are designed to add to the mood rather than the narrative. Regardless of their origin, they do little to slow the film down and much to add to the uneasy Los Angeles of Mulholland Drive.

As in many of Lynch’s films, even the most conventionally narrative ones, there’s a concern with facade and what lies below the surface. Nothing is quite what it appears to be and yet even the facades carry a truth that is not so much supplanted when the “underneath” has been exposed as much as works in juxtaposition to create an even more complex understanding of each character or the events unfolding.

Years from now, when we look back at David Lynch’s total body of work, we may deem him one of our finest filmmakers of horror. Though he has little interest in what passes for horror these days, his films often employ elements of the genre in ways that thwart their usual interpretation, guiding us to the creepy rather than the horrific. The evocative rather than the explicit.

And Mulholland Drive may stand as his masterpiece.

Joe Steiff teaches film at Columbia College in Chicago.

Got a problem? E-mail us at filmmonthly@gmail.com