Mulholland Drive - Street of Darkness

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Movie
German title Mulholland Drive - Street of Darkness
Original title Mulholland Drive (USA)
Mulholland Dr. (FRA)
Mulholland Drive logo.png
Country of production United States , France
original language English
Publishing year 2001
length 141 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director David Lynch
script David Lynch
production Neal Edelstein ,
Tony Krantz ,
Michael Polaire ,
Alain Sarde ,
Mary Sweeney
music Angelo Badalamenti
camera Peter Deming
cut Mary Sweeney
occupation

Mulholland Drive - Street of Darkness (original title: Mulholland Drive , also: Mulholland Dr.) is a thriller with drama and mystery elements by David Lynch from 2001 .

The film is set in Los Angeles and tells a mysterious story of love, jealousy and murder. Lynch deliberately breaks with familiar narrative structures through the means of unreliable narration . Because of a change of plot in which characters, moods, locations and previously established leitmotifs suddenly change their meaning, the film creates space for diverse interpretations.

The title of the film is also a nod to Billy Wilder's classic Boulevard of Twilight , which is considered one of Lynch's favorite films.

In the credits, Lynch dedicates the film to actress Jennifer Syme, who died in a car accident in early April 2001 at the age of 28.

action

Based on the changing identities of most of the characters, the film can be divided into two parts, of which the first part comprises more than four fifths and is told in several strands, but chronologically. The two main female characters - both around 30 years old, one dark-haired, the other blonde - come together through an extraordinary series of coincidences.

A young brunette woman escapes an assassination attempt only by being the only one to survive a car accident on Mulholland Drive . Outwardly only slightly injured, but disoriented, she slips into an apartment the next morning that an older woman is leaving, apparently for a long time. On the same day, her niece Betty Elms, who came to Hollywood with the hope of an acting career , stayed there. She is surprised by the presence of the stranger who calls herself Rita, but has no suspicions. "Rita" later confesses to Betty that she doesn't know who she really is. To determine their identity, the two "Ritas" open their bags, but instead of a document they only find a large amount of money and a strange blue triangular key.

Betty's curiosity to discover the secret of the dark-haired woman is aroused. She elicits the possible scene of the accident (Mulholland Drive) and finds it confirmed by an anonymous call to the police. Another clue is “Rita's” memory of a “Diane Selwyn”, triggered by a waitress named Diane who serves her in the Winkie’s fast-food restaurant . The two women find a Diane Selwyn in the phone book, but only get the answering machine. The two women are now so familiar with each other that they rehearse the scene together that Betty got for her audition. She plays it completely differently at the crucial moment and has great success with it. A well-known casting agent present gives her even bigger prospects and takes her to the set to introduce her to the director Adam Kesher, who is currently being cast for the protagonist of his film The Sylvia North Story .

From the previous scenes, we know that Adam - the male protagonist - not just a private dilemma (he catches his wife in a fling and run by her lover, in a small supporting role played by country singer Billy Ray Cyrus , out of the house thrown), but above all a professional one. He is faced with a phalanx of opaque types (initially in the presence of his manager and producer, then alone a stranger named "Cowboy") who put massive pressure on him to play the lead role with the unknown Camilla Rhodes.

Adam and Betty become aware of each other, but before contact can be made, she suddenly runs away, remembering an appointment. Adam gives in to the pressure exerted by saying the agreed sentence ( "That's the right one" ) during Rhodes' appearance . Betty and "Rita" try to find Diane Selwyn in their apartment. When nobody reacts, Betty gets in through the window. They find the body of a woman lying on the bed who has apparently been dead for days. Shocked, "Rita" wants to change her appearance and follows Betty's idea to realize this with a blonde wig. That same night they sleep in a bed and become intimate with each other.

Awakening from a dream around two o'clock, "Rita" insists on going to a club called Silencio . From a theater stage, an announcer announces in various languages ​​that everything is just an illusion and still has an effect. This is confirmed by both the performances (one singer collapses while her voice can still be heard) and the reaction of both women. Betty finds a blue box in her pocket, which apparently fits "Rita's" key, which both of them had previously hidden in her aunt's bedroom closet together with the money. Back in the apartment, "Rita" notices while looking for the key that Betty has suddenly disappeared. She opens the box, which turns out to be empty and audibly falls to the floor. Betty's aunt, who appears just as suddenly, follows the noise, but finds nothing and nobody there. The first part ends with the following picture of the "cowboy" who appears in the door to Diane Selwyn's bedroom and tells the woman lying on the bed that it is time to wake up.

The second part of the film begins in the same place with a view of a woman lying in the same position on the bed but dressed differently, who gets up at a knock. The woman is Diane Selwyn, who (played by Watts) looks like Betty. Her neighbor, with whom she exchanged apartments, tells her that the police have asked about her again. Alone, Diane asks hallucinating: "? Camilla, you're back" , and experienced anxiously surprised the vision of the woman who was previously "Rita" and in the following Camilla Rhodes (now played both of Harring). In a flashback (signaled, among other things, by the fact that a blue security key that was previously on the table has now disappeared), it is shown how Diane suffers from the fact that Camilla is increasingly withdrawing from her love.

When Diane is invited by Camilla to a party at Adam Keer's house on Mulholland Drive, the limousine stops prematurely exactly where “Rita” had the accident in the first part, and Diane reacts with exactly the same words as her: “What should the? But we don't stop here. ” But in this case there is no danger; Camilla made the stop to take Diane to the house via a shortcut. Adam, whose mother is now played by the woman who was the manager of the residential complex to which Betty's aunt's apartment belonged in the first part, apparently has a relationship with Camilla. Over dinner, Diane explains that after her aunt died, she came to Hollywood and met Camilla while auditioning for the Sylvia North Story , who was then nominated for the lead role instead (by the director who saw Betty in the first part pretended).

Now Diane watches as Camilla and a woman (played by George) kiss each other, turn to her and smile. Then Camilla and Adam announce an important announcement, burst into laughter and kiss, knowing that Diane is watching and crying. - While she is being served by a waitress named Betty, Diane meets a man at Winkie's , to whom she gives Camilla's photo and money. In two scenes of the first part, this hit man could already be seen when he was first looking for a certain book with telephone numbers and then for a "brunette" woman (in a less professional action that ended in triple murder) . Now he shows Diane a blue security key and says she will find it at the agreed location when the job is done. When she asked what he was opening, he just laughed. Diane looks up to see a man staring at her in horror. This man named Dan also appeared once in the first part when he told a companion about his nightmarish vision of a horror figure living in the back yard of Winkie’s ; urged to pursue the dream, he actually saw her and collapsed.

In her apartment, where the blue security key can be seen on the table again, Diane is plagued by hallucinations again. She is "chased" by the older couple who had said goodbye to Betty at the beginning of the first part after the joint flight to Los Angeles. This couple then drove away from the airport (also in a limousine) and laughed inexplicably gleefully. Diane wanders through the room screaming, then lies down in bed and shoots herself. “Silencio” , whispers a woman standing on the gallery of the club of the same name.

Notes on interpretation

As with many of David Lynch's films, there is no clear, "strictly rational" linear plot in Mulholland Drive. Lynch provided Mulholland Drive with assistance in "decoding" the mysterious process, but limited himself to ten rather cryptic clues:

  • Pay special attention to the beginning of the film: two important pointers can be found before the opening credits.
  • Observe when and where red lampshades play a role.
  • Notice the title of the film the actresses auditioned for at Adam Kesher. Is this title repeated elsewhere?
  • An accident is a terrible occurrence ... Pay close attention to the location of the accident.
  • Who gives whom a key - and why?
  • Pay attention to the bathrobe, the ashtray, the coffee cup.
  • What is felt, recognized and taken away in Club Silencio?
  • Did Camilla help her talent alone?
  • Keep a close eye on what is happening around the man behind Winkie's .
  • Where is "Aunt Ruth"?

An interpretation that is often held is that the film reproduces the daydreams of an unsuccessful actor aspirant from the provinces in different layers and storylines, with the “Mulholland Drive”, which leads from the mountains in long serpentines to the lower-lying metropolis of Los Angeles, as a metaphor for the ever deeper penetration into the psyche of Hollywood. Little by little, until the dramatic ending, Lynch creates one - his - disillusionment with the dream factory.

Different archetypes of the Hollywood universe emerge ("the blonde, the dark, the pure, the femme fatale, the director, the cowboy, the detective, the analyst, the western, the film noir and the melodrama"), which in the dream are woven in and give it the dream typical. Diane hires a killer to kill Camilla, who she is in love with and who hurt her badly. After Camilla was killed by this killer (the blue key is “in the agreed place”), Diane sees herself haunted by horror fantasies and shoots herself on the bed. Just like the blue key in the film, the keys given by Lynch to interpretation ultimately lead into the void: his horror trip (is) essayistic: reflections without end results, the development of what lives in certain situations and personnel, full of references to pop and film culture the last 60 years.

The two parts of the film are clearly separated: the first part is the dream of the sleeping Diane, in which she is the star. But when she wakes up in bed, the viewer sees the real Diane, the reality. She is not the star, she is jealous of Camilla and has her killed.

Emergence

The film is a co-production by Les Films Alain Sarde, Asymmetrical Productions, Babbo Inc., Canal + , The Picture Factory and Universal Studios.

The first two thirds of the film were originally shot in early 1999 as a pilot for the American Broadcasting Company (ABC). ABC hoped the film would be as successful as Lynch's 1990 crime series Twin Peaks .

When the two-hour rough version was finished, ABC demanded that a number of scenes had to be cut or removed because the film seemed too long for them. Lynch agreed, despite initial resistance. When the film was finished, it was rejected anyway.

However, Lynch did not want to give up the project and was looking for an investor. Finally, the French network Canal Plus bought the rights to Mulholland Drive from the Americans. More than $ 7 million was invested in the implementation of the additional filming. With this money, new scenes were shot and a new ending created in October 2000.

In May 2001, Mulholland Drive premiered as a feature film at the Cannes Film Festival. It received excellent reviews, and Lynch won the Festival's award for best director. Although many more awards were to follow, the film was denied commercial success.

Locations

The shooting took place in Hollywood , Downtown LA and Los Angeles International Airport (all Los Angeles), Gardena and Paramount Studios in California , among others .

synchronization

The Interopa film was synchronization in order. Lutz Riedel wrote the dialogue book and directed the dialogue.

role actor Voice actor
Betty / Diane Naomi Watts Irina von Bentheim
Rita / Camilla Laura Harring Martina Treger
Coco Ann Miller Christel Merian
Vincenzo Castigliane Dan Hedaya Andreas Thieck
Adam Kesher Justin Theroux Charles Rettinghaus
Harry McKnight Robert Forster Joachim Kerzel
Lorraine Kesher Lori Heuring Ghadah Al-Akel

reception

success

With a total budget of 15 million dollars , the film was about to import 7.2 million US dollars in the United States and about 20 million US dollars worldwide.

Reviews

Mulholland Drive has received critical acclaim. On Rotten Tomatoes , the film was able to convince 82% of the critics and 88% of the viewers, on Metacritic 81% of 34 reviews were positive.

Roger Ebert awarded 4 stars out of 4 and compared the film to a dream. He does not explain anything, he does not complete his scenes, he pays attention to what he finds "fascinating" and lets fall "hopeless" storylines. The film works because Lynch is "completely uncompromising". He uses "frustrating" elements from his earlier films instead of distancing himself from them. Watts and Harring take the risk of embodying Hollywood archetypes, which they can afford because they are archetypes. Mulholland Drive never feels incomplete as the resolution is not the goal. Instead, it is a film that you have to surrender to.

“A hypnotic, nightmarish dream and puzzle game that refuses linear retelling because people change their identity and many storylines are so intertwined that they function like an endless belt. Technically perfect, imaginative and impressive in terms of staging, the film gleefully tears apart the media myths of the present and lets them accumulate in the form of a horror thriller in cold horror, without David Lynch adding anything new to his known oeuvre.

- Lexicon of international film

background

The neglected figure with long dark hair and a dirty face lurking behind the diner is played by actress Bonnie Aarons , who was largely unknown at the time Mulholland Drive was published. By embodying the demonic nun Valak in the horror films Conjuring 2 from 2016 and Annabelle 2 from 2017 as well as in The Nun from 2018, Bonnie Aarons rose to an iconic figure within the horror film genre with her distinctive facial features.

Awards

from l. to right: Naomi Watts , David Lynch , Laura Harring and Justin Theroux in Cannes , 2001
source rating
Rotten tomatoes
critic
audience
Metacritic
critic
audience
IMDb

Academy Awards (Oscar) 2002

Nomination: Best Director (David Lynch)

Cannes International Film Festival 2001

Best Director (David Lynch)

Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinema (César) 2001

Best foreign film

Golden Globe 2001

Nomination: Best Director (David Lynch)
Nomination: Best Drama
Nomination: Best Screenplay (David Lynch)
Nomination: Best Score (Angelo Badalamenti)

Los Angeles Film Critics Association 2001

Best Director (David Lynch)
Second place: best film
Second place: Best Actress (Naomi Watts)

Chlotrudis Awards 2002

Best movie
Best Director (David Lynch)
Best Screenplay (David Lynch)
Best Actress (Naomi Watts)
Best Screenplay (Audience Award) (David Lynch)

The film was also recognized by the Toronto Film Critics Association , the New Yorks Critics Circle , the National Society of Film Critics , the National Board of Review , the British Academy Film Awards, and the Chicago Film Critics Association .

In total, it won 33 international film awards and was nominated for a further 29 awards and an Oscar.

According to a 2016 survey by the BBC , in which 177 film critics worldwide were asked, it is the best film of the 21st century to date. The year before, Mulholland Drive was ranked 21st in the BBC's 100 Most Great American Films poll.

literature

  • Monta Alaine: Surreal storytelling by David Lynch. Narratology, Narratography and Intermediality in Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire. ibidem, Stuttgart 2015. ISBN 978-3-8382-0583-0 .
  • Hervé Aubron: Mulholland Drive, de David Lynch (Dirt Walk With Me) . Yellow Now, 2006 (in French). ISBN 978-2-87340-206-8 .
  • Wolfram Bergande: Lip-sync jouissance - Female subjectivity in David Lynch's Mulholland Drive , in: Wagner et al. (Ed.): How the film created the body , Weimar: vdg 2006, pp. 193–215
  • Victor A. Ferretti: The Hypostatic Room in David Lynch's Mulholland Drive . In: J. Dünne et al. (Ed.): Of pilgrimage routes, traces of writing and points of view. Spatial practices from a media historical perspective. Königshausen and Neumann, Würzburg 2005, ISBN 978-3-8260-2842-7 , pp. 271-280.
  • Christian Hardinghaus: Mulholland Drive: The decryption. Understanding David Lynch and his street of darkness , GRIN & Movie Verlag, Munich 2013. ISBN 978-3656427575 .
  • Nadine Jügling: The non-linear narrative structure of postmodern film using the example of “Mullholland Drive” by David Lynch. Thesis. Diplomica Verlag, 2003.
  • Michaela Krützen : A dreamer: Mulholland Dr. In: Krützen, Michaela: Dramaturgies of the film. Hollywood with a difference. Fischer, Frankfurt a. M. 2010, ISBN 978-3-10-040503-6 , pp. 159-201.
  • Dominik Orth: Lost in Lynchworld - Unreliable narration in David Lynch's 'Lost Highway' and 'Mulholland Drive'. Ibidem, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 978-3-89821-478-0 .

Web links

Interpretations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Mulholland Dr. (2001) . British Film Institute . Retrieved July 18, 2018.
  2. ↑ unreliable narration : Krützen, Michaela: Dramaturgies des Films. Hollywood with a difference. Frankfurt / M., 2010 page 159 ff: Mulholland Dr .: A dreamer.
  3. ↑ Read the interview with David Lynch in Cinema 12/1984 at http://www.davidlynch.de/ ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.davidlynch.de
  4. ↑ a b c d Rüdiger Suchsland: Just like in the Movies
  5. ↑ DVD-ROM part of the German DVD from Concorde Home Entertainment GmbH, Munich / Studio Canal + 2002. EAN 4-010324-020949.
  6. ↑ [1]
  7. ↑ Cf. Allen B. Ruch: No hay banda ( memento of the original from January 7, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.themodernword.com
  8. ↑ Overview of locations
  9. ^ German synchronous index: German synchronous index | Movies | Mulholland Drive - Street of Darkness. Retrieved March 6, 2018 .
  10. ↑ Overview of box office results
  11. ↑ a b c [2] at Rotten Tomatoes , accessed on May 2, 2015
  12. ↑ a b c [3] at Metacritic , accessed on May 2, 2015
  13. ^ Review by Roger Ebert , accessed on February 2, 2017
  14. ↑ Mulholland Drive - Street of Darkness in the Lexicon of International Films , accessed February 2, 2017 Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used
  15. ↑ Mulholland Drive - Street of Darkness in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  16. ↑ Overview of awards and nominations
  17. ↑ 21st Century's 100 Greatest Films on bbc.com
  18. ↑ The 100 greatest American films at bbc.com, July 20, 2015 (accessed August 24, 2016).