Mulholland Drive, Part 2: a Phenomenological View

Phe· nom· e· nol· o· gy [fi–nom–uh–nol–uh–jee]
– noun
1. the way in which one perceives and interprets events and one’s relationship to them in contrast both to one’s objective responses to stimuli and to any inferred unconsciousmotivation for one’s behaviour.
2. in psychology, phenomenology is used to refer to subjective experiences or their study.
eg. “from a phenomenological perspective, I didn’t feel that way…”

That David Lynch sometimes prefers to direct his actors in metaphors is remarkably appropriate; it would take one to describe my feelings about Mulholland Drive. I am not brave enough to attempt any lengthy in depth analysis of his film, least of all his unfathomably enigmatic third act, but in some way I understand everything that I need to about it. I am comfortable in the absence of a definitive meaning of the film, knowing that Lynch himself would cite the feeling that it gives me as proof enough of its influence.

Mulholland Drive has always seemed to me profound, not in terms of artistic statement or aesthetic beauty, but something more; something that I would find it extremely difficult to articulate. I have long since stopped trying, knowing that I would never be able to craft an accurate description of how the film makes me feel. Simplistically, Lynch’s cinema, and in particular Mulholland Drive, has the power to provoke from me a huge range of emotional responses. I find the film at parts extremely unsettling; a number of scenes frighten me more than any horror film has managed to. The man who lives behind Twinkies and the hallucinatory nightmarish ending have both at some point proved too scary for me to watch and I am not exactly sure why. It seems obvious to me that Lynch isn’t trying to scare me, and perhaps knowing this scares me even more. At the same time I find the film achingly beautiful. The establishing arial shots of Los Angeles seem to belong in a blockbuster, so detached are they from the visual style of the rest of the film. Yet they are timeless, flawlessly photographed and therefore return to me as an element of the film that I love.

Many of the emotions that I experience when I watch the film are provoked by both the music and the sound design of the film. The ‘Club Silencio’ scene, one which is heavily reliant on the relationship between the visual and aural components of cinema, is one that I am particularly intrigued by. A personal response to this scene is that Lynch is toying with his viewers, not in a manipulative way, but rather by adopting the theme that all is not what it seems as a microcosm for the film as a whole. In any case, the scene is a spectacle. Peter Deming’s floating, disembodied camera announces the arrival of a shift in tone; we are not aware of what is going to happen, but we know that it is something significant, something meaningful.

Angelo Badalmenti’s score is another aspect of the film that I consider hugely important in my response to it. Music in film is important, but so often it is not given the chance to have a significant influence on the film and an impact on its audience. Badalamenti worked closely with Lynch, often writing music based on Lynch’s attempts to verbalise a mood or feeling. The result is a score that is every bit as responsible for the film’s tone as Lynch’s direction, the cast’s performances and Deming’s cinematography. Using a subtle blend of synth and strings, Badalamenti enhances the power of the image, often giving it a new dynamic in the process.

My emotional involvement with this film peaks at the same point every time I devote 2 hours and 20 minutes of my life to it. The following sequence, which is represented in Lynch’s mind by the image of a glowing red lamp according to his chapter prompts on the special edition DVD, occurs well after we learn that all is not what it seems; during and after the ‘Club Silencio’ scene. By this point in the film my reoccurring thoughts and theories have been put to bed, in their place lies a sense of relief as I realise that my curiosity and intrigue has survived another viewing. Long may it do so. The day that I watch the film and realise that I am no longer affected by it in the same way will be the day that it loses its power over me.

The transcription that follows is of my favourite scene of the film.

A phone rings. The camera pans down past a lit red lamp, cutting to a wider angle to reveal Diane walking into the room as her answering machine message picks up the call. “Hello, it’s me… leave a message” – the lack of a given name underpinning the ambiguity of character. The caller’s tinny voice through the speaker is not quite as unrecognisable as her character has become, nevertheless we intuit her identity. The conversation that ensues, one sided and wracked with condescension, reveals the setting of the next scene as the camera slowly closes in on Diane’s face. 6980 Mulholland Drive. The synthesised score creeps in as Diane’s despondent expression, framed against a wall absent of discernable colour, fades from the screen.

A shot of Mulholland Drive’s street sign, identical to the one that introduces the film, hangs dreamily at the top of the frame. It wades through soft focus and the glare of oncoming headlights as the camera passes below. A black limousine, the same which ushers Rita to her misfortune almost two hours before, winds its way through the Hollywood hills before drawing to a stop. Betty, who occupies the rear passenger seat in place of Rita, ominously utters the words “we don’t stop here…” whilst the eerily hypnotic score works with our expectations to contrive a sense of threat.

“A surprise” remarks the driver, who does little to allay Diane’s concern. The car door opens and Camilla, appropriately silhouetted, descends the forested incline by the side of the road and approaches the car. “A shortcut” she explains, leading Diane out of the car and back into the undergrowth with a soft word or two. Angelo Badalamenti’s orchestral score swells as the pair move on; no other arrangement could better accompany the couple’s ascent, its beauty making their destination irrelevant. The camera tracks their movement, switching perspective from higher to lower ground. We cut to a shot of their clasped hands from which the camera pans upwards to linger on Diane’s spellbound smile.

Lights ahead of the couple signal their arrival; the alluring musical motif dies away to be replaced by the intentionally inappropriate sound of diegetic jazz, revealing their location as utterly unworthy of its poetic foreword. The shift in tone is almost heartbreaking, inspiring in the audience a profound sense of disappointment which remains evident for the coming scenes. The introduction of Adam Kesher, the director with whom Camilla is having an affair, marginalises Diane, who is forced to watch as she toasts “to love” with her new lover. After an agonising exchange with Kesher’s mother which serves to devalue Diane’s position in the group even further, they make way for the house – tellingly, Camilla and Kesher lead whilst Diane follows behind them.

Over dinner, Diane is revealed as the outsider that the disdain of her hosts suggests she is. As she begins a clumsy anecdote, Lynch allows only an indecipherable blur to set the scene before snapping his camera into focus. Kesher’s mother feigns interest whilst clawing at a bowl of nuts, Kesher himself speaks Spanish with Camilla and an out of shot other; Diane clearly doesn’t understand. After dinner, as Kesher and Camilla announce their engagement, the scene descends into parody. The previous restraint shown in light of Diane’s presence has vanished; a sequence of shot reverse shots reveals both the new couple’s sickening, almost insincere joy and Diane’s agony at the news.

From this point onwards is where some claim to be able to make sense of the film. Diane, unable to cope with the loss of her love, hires a thug to kill Camilla. Then, tortured by her decision to do so she kills herself in a scene so unnerving that my best efforts to describe it would prove thankless.

After that... silencio.

Although out of context and therefore presumably lacking much of the emotional substance that I have tried to convey, the scene can be viewed here.