David Lynch received some of the best reviews of his career for Mulholland Drive. It’s both a trippy, surreal, L.A.-set horror noir and a biting satire of the phony glitz of show business. At this point in Lynch’s career, all the familiar hallmarks of his filmmaking had been established, from bizarre imagery to ominous ambient noise to the theme of identity.
Released in 2001, Mulholland Drive is one of the quintessential Lynch movies. With dream logic, ambiguous meaning, and mundane everyday situations tainted with terror, Mulholland Drive is full of Lynchian trademarks.
Mundane Situations With A Touch Of Terror
Lynch’s movies tend to depict mundane, recognizable, everyday situations with a horrifying twist. This can be seen when Henry has dinner with his girlfriend’s parents in Eraserhead and the food oozes a dark sludge, or when Fred attends a party in Lost Highway and the Mystery Man gives Fred a phone to speak to his other self lurking around Fred’s house.
The most infamous example in Mulholland Drive sees two men enjoying breakfast in a quaint diner named Winkie’s. One tells the other about a nightmare he had that involved this diner. They go around to the alley in the back, where this nightmare becomes a horrifying reality.
Creepy Ambient Noise
Lynch’s films are renowned for their disturbing atmosphere. Audiences are creeped out by Lynch’s movies, but they’re also mesmerized and can’t look away.
Part of what makes Lynch’s filmmaking so deeply immersive is his use of ambient noise, which is layered over almost every scene in his films – including in Mulholland Drive. This ambient sound creates the unmistakably unsettling atmosphere in Lynch’s work.
The Color Blue
The palette of Lynch’s filmmaking tends to favor the color blue. Blue plays a prominent role in the visual language of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, and Lost Highway.
Mulholland Drive features more blue than perhaps any other Lynch movie. The film depicts blue lights, blue walls, blue smoke, a blue box, a blue key, and a blue-haired woman who wears blue eyeshadow.
Musician Cameo
Lynch usually casts famous singers to play minor acting roles in his movies. This started with Sting’s turn as Feyd-Rautha in Lynch’s much-maligned adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune.
Since then, Lynch has given cameo appearances to David Bowie and Chris Isaak in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, Chrysta Bell in Twin Peaks: The Return, Marilyn Manson and Henry Rollins in Lost Highway, and Billy Ray Cyrus in Mulholland Drive.
Dream Logic
Instead of grounding his stories in a relatable reality, Lynch shoots and edits his movies to play like fluid, unstructured dreams. They don’t have to make sense; audiences just strap in and go along for the ride.
There’s no sense of realism in Mulholland Drive. The opposite is true; anything goes. In one scene, a character’s nightmare comes to life in the alleyway behind Winkie’s.
The Dark Side Of Los Angeles
With its cynical portrait of the film industry and its depiction of monsters of the real-world and supernatural varieties, Mulholland Drive is a definitive exploration of the seedy underbelly of Los Angeles. The dark side of L.A. was also seen in Lost Highway and Inland Empire.
Collectively, these three films are viewed as Lynch’s L.A. trilogy. The director used these movies to deconstruct the Hollywood myths and expose the twisted, soulless, vapid nature of the sun-drenched Californian city.
Paranormal Character
Most of the characters in Lynch’s movies are relatably flawed human beings, but he’s not above delving into the supernatural realm for some good old-fashioned horror. His films tend to include at least one character with paranormal or omnipotent abilities. These spooky characters usually represent an intangible concept like fear.
“The Bum” in Mulholland Drive is a prime example, but there are plenty of others, like “The Man Inside the Planet” in Eraserhead, Killer Bob in Twin Peaks, “The Mystery Man” in Lost Highway, and “The Phantom” in Inland Empire.
Music By Angelo Badalamenti
Throughout Lynch’s career, Angelo Badalamenti has been his go-to composer. Badalamenti scored such Lynch classics as Blue Velvet, The Straight Story, and indeed Mulholland Drive.
On top of that, Badalamenti also composed the music for Twin Peaks and its movie adaptation. The composer received a Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance for his Twin Peaks theme.
Dual Lead Roles
When Lynch enlists the immense talent of an actor like Naomi Watts, he doesn’t confine them to just one role. He gets some bang for his buck with dual roles, allowing Watts and her peers to play characters with fractured, multifaceted identities.
In Mulholland Drive, Watts plays Diane Selwyn and Betty Elms, while Laura Harring plays Camilla Rhodes and her counterpart Rita. In Twin Peaks, Sheryl Lee plays Laura Palmer and her cousin Maddy Ferguson. In Lost Highway, Patricia Arquette plays Renee Madison and Alice Wakefield. In Inland Empire, Laura Dern plays Nikki Grace and Sue Blue. These characters all represent two sides of the same coin.
Open To Interpretation
Like most of Lynch’s films, Mulholland Drive is a surrealist piece that’s open to interpretation. Rather than beat the audience over the head with the meaning of his films, Lynch allows each viewer to find their own meaning. Mulholland Drive is so difficult to decipher that Lynch gave the audience a helping hand with a collection of 10 clues on the DVD release.
Fans have read all kinds of different meanings into Mulholland Drive: the fantasy versus reality of romance, the struggle to determine personal identity, the tug-o’-war between nostalgia and putrefaction, a depressed person’s projection of a happier life – or maybe the whole thing is a dream.
