Mulholland Drive (2001) with Mike Miley

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Track 1: Hello and welcome to Left of the Projector. I am your host, Evan,

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Track 1: back again with another film discussion from the left.

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Track 1: You can follow the show at leftoftheprojector.com

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Track 1: and give us a like and rating. It's much appreciated.

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Track 1: This week on the show, we are discussing the 2001 surrealist film by the late,

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Track 1: great David Lynch, Mulholland Drive.

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Track 1: It stars Justin Theroux, Naomi Watts, Laura Herring, Ann Miller, and Robert Forrester.

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Track 1: This week to discuss the film, I have Mike Miley. He is an author with a book

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Track 1: coming out in the near future called David Lynch's American Dreamscape.

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Track 1: Thank you for joining me today, Mike.

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Track 2: Oh, thanks, Evan. Happy to be here.

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Track 1: Awesome. Well, I mentioned your book there.

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Track 1: So if you want to give listeners, well, maybe this is a two-part kind of thing.

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Track 1: One, I guess, why we ended up deciding or why you ended up picking Mulholland

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Track 1: Drive, and I guess how that relates to your background and this upcoming book.

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Track 2: So talking about Mulholland Drive here, it seemed like the reading that the

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Track 2: book has on that film kind of lines up the best maybe with what your podcast is devoted to,

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Track 2: because myself and others have sort of read an anti-capitalist critique into

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Track 2: that particular Lynch film.

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Track 2: That one and Eraserhead, I guess, are the ones that get the most attention from that.

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Track 2: And it's not representative necessarily of the approach of the book as a whole.

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Track 2: The book as a whole is mainly looking at literary and musical works and traditions

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Track 2: that Lynch's films tap into.

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Track 2: And so the discussion in the

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Track 2: book about Mulholland Drive is looking at how his how that

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Track 2: film is a an extension of

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Track 2: or a response to the fiction of Nathaniel West and how both of them sort of

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Track 2: use surrealism and dreams and Hollywood in part to talk about the false promises

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Track 2: of the American dream or the American project.

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Track 2: But the rest of the book will look at things like, for literary influences,

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Track 2: how Blue Velvet is a work of children's literature, like Where the Wild Things

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Track 2: Are is, or how Eraserhead is another entry in the historical literary genre

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Track 2: that has works like The Yellow Wallpaper in it.

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Track 2: Twin Peaks The Return is living in

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Track 2: the same universe in a way as Cormac McCarthy's work on the atomic bomb.

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Track 2: And then the second half of the book is about different musical forms or genres.

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Track 2: So looking at Twin Peaks as a teen tragedy ballad or looking at how Lost Highway

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Track 2: uses cover songs, how the straight

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Track 2: story is sort of responding to the folk revival and things like that.

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Track 2: So it covers most of his films, not all of them, but it's sort of looking at

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Track 2: how his works tapping into the zeitgeist of various literary musical traditions

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Track 2: to say something about the country we live in.

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Track 1: Interesting. That's super interesting. Yeah. And for people who are listening,

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Track 1: I had a chance to at least check out the chapter on Mulholland Drive,

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Track 1: which is the subject of today's episode.

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Track 1: But when does your book come out officially?

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Track 2: February 6th. I guess it's currently available as an e-book,

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Track 2: but the hard copies come out on February the 6th.

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Track 1: It's kind of a fortuitous circumstances or unfortunate, whatever you might want

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Track 1: to say, is that we're kind of discussing a David Lynch film as the week,

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Track 1: only a few days after discovering or learning about his passing.

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Track 1: And so I have to maybe ask you this before we start talking about the film itself.

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Track 1: If you had any, I don't know, I mean, obviously you're writing a book discussing works of David Lynch.

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Track 1: If you had any specific favorites or if you had any, you know,

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Track 1: I don't know, I want to call them anecdotes or things, you know,

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Track 1: memories relating to David Lynch that kind of, I don't know,

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Track 1: led you to this moment, I guess.

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Track 2: Yeah um i guess um well

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Track 2: as far as i'm a kind of weird

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Track 2: fan boy in the sense that i kind of think all the mood all of his movies

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Track 2: are great and his best ones i mean i'll even go to the mat for

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Track 2: dune most days uh even though i maybe know

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Track 2: that i'm not standing on his firm ground with that

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Track 2: as when i make an argument about another one of his films but i

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Track 2: i have deep affection for all of them in

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Track 2: some way or another both for their achievements

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Track 2: as works of cinema but then also just maybe where

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Track 2: they line up with my own developing cinephilia

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Track 2: from whether that's seeing dune in the theater when i was five and freaking

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Track 2: out and or like you know other other times in my life there's you know been

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Track 2: a david lynch film to sort of anchor that that time period either discovering

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Track 2: one or a new one coming out but i guess anecdotally um.

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Track 2: The interesting thing about Mulholland Drive for me is this,

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Track 2: its release and all of that stuff and what it's about coincided with me starting to go to film school.

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Track 2: So I saw Mulholland Drive a couple of weeks before it came out because Lynch

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Track 2: came and did a talk at the American Film Institute where I was a directing fellow

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Track 2: and where he was a graduate of as well.

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Track 2: Well, Eraserhead was basically his thesis film that he spent five years making

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Track 2: on the grounds of the former grounds of the American Film Institute.

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Track 2: So he had a new movie. He was coming to show it to us. We were going to see

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Track 2: it before anybody else. And so that was a very, very exciting thing.

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Track 2: And then you wind up getting this movie that nobody was really prepared for.

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Track 2: All we knew about it was just that it was this TV pilot that had gotten rejected

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Track 2: and then had gotten turned into this other movie.

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Track 2: And so suddenly starting

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Track 2: film school and getting one of your heroes is also one of

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Track 2: the reasons you're at this school to show up and show his new movie and talk

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Track 2: to you about it was a pretty profound experience that I think I still wind up

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Track 2: thinking about that time a whole lot.

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Track 2: And I'm really excited that I get to use something that he said in that talk

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Track 2: in the book that I haven't seen printed anywhere else because the AFI usually

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Track 2: doesn't release stuff like that to the public.

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Track 2: But they let me use it because I'm like, I can paraphrase it because I was there,

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Track 2: but I'd rather have the words exactly right.

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Track 2: And so can you do that? And they did the whole like, well, you're a fellow too.

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Track 2: So I guess, yeah, I guess we'll let you use it.

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Track 2: And so from like, for me, it's a pretty big coup, right, to have this really cool quote in there.

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Track 2: And so that's the sort of thing that was the sorts of thing that I remember.

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Track 2: Uh i guess most fondly about mulholland drive but uh

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Track 2: but i gotta be honest like people liked it

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Track 2: and were affected by it but nobody was

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Track 2: walking out of it saying like oh one of the 10 greatest movies ever

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Track 2: made you know the way that it's on the the sight and sound list now

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Track 2: uh it's it's definitely had

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Track 2: to grow on everybody i think seeing it

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Track 2: the first time i know for me and the people around me was sort

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Track 2: of felt the choppiness of it where you could kind of feel oh

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Track 2: here's where a commercial break would be oh this is you can sort of

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Track 2: see the the tv in it more than

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Track 2: more than i do now certainly there's still a couple of parts where

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Track 2: i think it's kind of some of that episodic nature

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Track 2: is kind of evident but really once

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Track 2: you know where those last 30 minutes

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Track 2: are going all the stuff that's added afterward like

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Track 2: once you see all of that all that

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Track 2: stuff kind of becomes irrelevant to the overall impact

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Track 2: of the movie and it um is kind

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Track 2: of the best um oh gosh i'm going to tell another story

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Track 2: about this but i guess it's it's the um it's the impact

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Track 2: about like all of his films essentially right is you don't

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Track 2: need to understand them to feel them right and to feel them very deeply and

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Track 2: i um i probably shouldn't have done this but when i was teaching high school

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Track 2: in la they showed mulholland drive at the american cinematheque one night and

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Track 2: i was teaching a film studies class to a group of seniors and i arranged to

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Track 2: take all of them there on a field trip.

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Track 2: And completely uh freaked all of them

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Track 2: out um and and i guess the the best

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Track 2: way but uh i remember they were um they were

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Track 2: so traumatized that on the bus ride back a car next to us honked its horn really

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Track 2: loudly and like the entire bus like jumped um you know they were i think they

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Track 2: were still freaked out by the person behind the dumpster right like they were

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Track 2: yeah they were they were they were feeling it but like also it was cool to see a young person,

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Track 2: watch that movie and watch them discover,

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Track 2: I don't understand this, but I really felt something and I'm not going to forget this.

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Track 2: And it's all because I don't get it, but I feel something very deeply and I

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Track 2: need to find out what I'm feeling.

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Track 2: Like, I think that was a profound thing to see happen to somebody else.

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Track 1: Yeah, no, that's first just getting to see this ahead of time and all.

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Track 1: Wow, that's that's an incredible thing to have been able to experience.

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Track 1: I don't have nearly my, like, so I was on another podcast recently,

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Track 1: we discussed a film, not, it wasn't a Lynch film, but we happened to just kind

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Track 1: of discuss, you know, some of the things related to David Lynch is because of

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Track 1: the moment, just a couple days ago.

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Track 1: And so I think I don't know if I share this exact story, but my first memory

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Track 1: of watching anything David Lynch, I knew about Twin Peaks when I was younger,

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Track 1: but my parents didn't see it or they didn't like it.

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Track 1: So they weren't, I wasn't exposed to it. And then when I went in,

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Track 1: when I like late in high school, it was around the time, I don't know,

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Track 1: it was probably 16 or 17. I had a friend from another school who was going to

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Track 1: be going to film school or wanted to go to film school.

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Track 1: And he would pick a lot of films to watch, like, can we go to Blockbuster?

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Track 1: He'd pick some movies out. And I had never heard of any of the ones he would

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Track 1: choose. It would always be things that I had never heard of.

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Track 1: And I think at some point he picked out, I'm pretty sure that it was Wild at Heart.

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Track 1: So I think that I recently thought that Eraserhead was the first Lynch film that I had seen.

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Track 1: But it turns out that it was Wild at Heart. And I didn't feel like I liked it

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Track 1: because I was not, I don't know, mature enough or like understand what I was

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Track 1: watching or like didn't get it at all. And it wasn't until many years later that I watched it.

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Track 1: And then when I was around 19, a friend and I wanted to see Eraserhead and that

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Track 1: time wasn't available at the store.

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Track 1: We like went on eBay and found a VHS to watch Eraserhead.

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Track 1: We watched the entire movie with our jaws just like on the floor thinking like,

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Track 1: I don't have any idea what I just watched or heard or saw or any of it.

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Track 1: It doesn't make any sense to me.

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Track 1: And then we're like, that was insane. And then we were like,

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Track 1: let's just watch it again right now. And then so we just watched it again right

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Track 1: after. And I still didn't understand anything that I watched.

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Track 1: And this was, you know, in the days of like message boards.

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Track 1: There wasn't like the same kind of internet now where you could just look up,

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Track 1: you know, article after article about what films mean to different people.

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Track 1: I had no clue what was going on. And now when I watch it as a father,

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Track 1: a friend on this other podcast said, like, if you're a father,

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Track 1: you like have kids or something like that. and you watch right to your head,

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Track 1: it has a whole new meaning to you.

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Track 1: And I just watched it a couple nights ago and the same thing happened.

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Track 1: I was like, oh my God, this is a completely different film than I watched it

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Track 1: 25 years ago. And so it's just one of those things where...

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Track 1: You can watch his films. I didn't necessarily like it when I was 19,

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Track 1: but I appreciated that it did something.

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Track 1: So to your same point, I was almost out of high school, didn't know what I watched,

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Track 1: but I was like, oh my God, he did something here.

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Track 2: Mm hmm. Yeah. And I guess to add to that, right, something that no one else has done,

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Track 2: like it just you feel like and I mean, Eraserhead is probably the premium example

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Track 2: of this, but I think it's true of all of them where, yeah, you're you watch

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Track 2: these movies and you're you get the feeling, oh, wow,

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Track 2: someone made this right. Right.

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Track 2: Like one person did this.

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Track 2: This isn't like some movie made by committee or, you know, something that could

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Track 2: have been done by anybody.

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Track 2: Like this is the product of one consciousness doing doing this.

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Track 2: And so you really become aware of the filmmaker as artist, right,

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Track 2: of the of the director as the artist and things like that.

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Track 2: I think with this, with his films, um, you know, even on, even before,

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Track 2: you know, that that's even like a debate in film studies or something like that. Right.

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Track 1: This was a question I didn't even list down. If you were going to like tell

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Track 1: someone who hasn't seen any David Lynn content of any kind, never seen any of

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Track 1: his films, never seen, had never seen twin peaks, you know, original or the, the revival,

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Track 1: what would you tell someone as like the first thing to watch?

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Track 1: Because in my mind, i feel like mulholland drive is somehow like the most like

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Track 1: most accessible and then also like kind of the least accessible.

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Track 2: No yeah it's.

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Track 1: Like it's very you need to watch it probably multiple times but to me it's almost

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Track 1: like the thing it's like the most cohesive film end-to-hand maybe that or wild at heart would be.

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Track 2: Oh yeah well i um i guess it depends

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Track 2: on the person i mean that's not to be like a cop-out but

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Track 2: i think some people like some people

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Track 2: maybe depending on their sensibility need to start with the straight story or

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Track 2: you know or the elephant man or something like that

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Track 2: that's another good um but then i think mulholland

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Track 2: drive is a good one to give people first in the sense that it's a later work

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Track 2: so that more of the the style and things like that are kind of fully formed

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Track 2: and you have the advantage of the fact that uh 70 of it is made for television so you know the,

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Track 2: percentage of it that's going to be like extreme or uncomfortable is less than

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Track 2: yeah then you know something like wild at heart for example right or lost highway yeah but then,

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Track 2: like so you go in with that but then you think oh wow but

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Track 2: that those last 20 minutes are freaking intense right i

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Track 2: mean it really makes up for for the time uh with just sort of how emotionally

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Track 2: raw and explicit some of some of the material in the last 20 minutes is but

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Track 2: uh but yeah i think it's a It's a good one to start with because it at least

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Track 2: then by that point, you've had 90 minutes.

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Track 2: Of getting lulled in right and kind of getting pulled into the into the world

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Track 2: uh and getting a good sense of of what it's going to be like um.

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Track 1: Yeah that's yeah i would i would yeah it's it's

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Track 1: kind of a toss-up but for for me i remember the first time i saw like lost highway

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Track 1: and in inland empire was just kind of like i was lost literally like especially

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Track 1: lost highway that one's a more uh to me a more challenging film but as far as

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Track 1: uh you know this i think maybe a good starting point is,

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Track 1: you know, the background and sort of the landscape of this film is, of course, Los Angeles.

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Track 1: And we're introduced very early on, you know, there's kind of two opening or

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Track 1: two sort of competing narrative sequences that start the film.

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Track 1: One is we have a woman that is in a limo on Mulholland Drive,

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Track 1: you know, the title of the film.

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Track 1: And she's about to be shot if it appears and she and then

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Track 1: crashes into uh you know uh the

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Track 1: car crashes into them causing her to essentially have what we learned very soon

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Track 1: after is she loses her memory and then competing at the same time is we learn

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Track 1: of a young actress who we see his name is betty arriving from ontario at an

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Track 1: airport with what appears to

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Track 1: be her like aunts and uncle or her grandparents and i think it's just her,

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Track 1: well do we even know.

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Track 2: She's an old i think they're an old couple she meets on the plane oh okay and

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Track 2: then um yeah she's staying at her at her aunt's house um but yeah she's it's

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Track 2: just like some old couple she chats up on the plane uh and tells about all of

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Track 2: her dreams of making it as a star and.

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Track 1: So and so we basically have these two individuals collide very early where they

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Track 1: have now you know the the young actress who arise originally we don't know her

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Track 1: name initially but it's actually going by Rita.

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Track 1: Rita and Betty essentially kind of cross paths at this aunt's house.

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Track 1: And it's all taking place in Los Angeles.

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Track 1: And there's lots of these great shots, especially when you're in the very first

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Track 1: scene of her hiding in the bushes of the city of LA down below from the hills.

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Track 1: And so it's kind of inescapable to have the

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Track 1: city of Los Angeles and the dream

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Track 1: of this person into like a limo you know somewhere high up

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Track 1: in the hills and then this new person coming into town

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Track 1: hoping to you know reach those same heights so

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Track 1: i don't know what you think about the like just the context of

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Track 1: la because without la this isn't a film

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Track 1: without hollywood this isn't a film and so kind of how it plays into this you

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Track 1: know if you ask someone from another country about hollywood they would tell

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Track 1: you it's this place that people go to you know have their dreams to try and

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Track 1: like make you know become a an actor or an actress and you know so i don't know

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Track 1: what you think about all of that.

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Track 2: Yeah i mean it it does some of that classic

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Track 2: the city is a character kind of thing in

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Track 2: the in the story however the city is probably more the los angeles of the imagination

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Track 2: than the lived breathed los angeles uh even the los angeles of the film industry

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Track 2: i I think it's most of the film industry related locations are the most, um.

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Track 2: The most fantasized about, right? The gate to Paramount Pictures,

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Track 2: right? That's, of course, the studio lot where they're going to be.

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Track 2: Then you have the Adam Kesher's like ultra postmodern house.

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Track 2: You have the West Hollywood courtyard apartment building where Betty's aunt lives.

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Track 2: I mean, it's got the Capitol Records building, right? It is all kind of the

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Track 2: things that the tourist or the movie fan thinks of when they think of the city

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Track 2: of Los Angeles in a really cool way that I think tells us subconsciously that

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Track 2: we're not really in L.A. and we're not really in reality.

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Track 2: Instead, we are in the L.A. of the mind. That is the place where people go to

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Track 2: make their dreams come true, which is how the entire continent sees the West

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Track 2: Coast and sees Los Angeles.

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Track 2: But it's also at least how at some points in time, how the entire world views the United States.

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Track 2: Right. So we're seeing the city of L.A.

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Track 2: And its its fantasy idea used as a microcosm for the American dream itself.

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Track 2: And, of course, it's all located at the terminal point of both on the West Coast, right?

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Track 2: It's like the dream's gone all the way to the edge, and it can't go any further.

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Track 2: And this is where people go to make their dreams come true. It's also where dreams go to die.

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Track 2: And in this movie, both of them are happening almost simultaneously.

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Track 2: Or the death of one dream is the birth of another in a messed up kind of way

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Track 2: that we see both in the plot of the movie,

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Track 2: but then it also just kind of gets us to see how that is the way the machine

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Track 2: keeps going, right? It's what it runs on.

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Track 1: Yeah, there was numerous times in my, like, when I was taking notes watching it, where I was,

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Track 1: like, it's these very, like, so I mentioned at the opening, like,

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Track 1: who the, like, the main cast are, but Naomi Watts plays the character as Betty,

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Track 1: and then Laura Herring plays Rita, and we later learned different names, which,

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Track 1: you know, obviously, there's spoilers in this, and so if you've already started listening,

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Track 1: you either will be spoiled, or you have already seen it,

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Track 1: it won't matter but we like there's many moments where

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Track 1: like the gazes that naomi watts's characters have

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Track 1: especially as that early stage is betty like this kind

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Track 1: of eyes of wonder as she's looking across the city and as you mentioned the

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Track 1: people on the plane and just this like everything is possible to you and then

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Track 1: you see you know later her later in the film or you see rita with this sort

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Track 1: of just like confusion because she doesn't remember who she is but also just

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Track 1: like how you even how you can uh uh,

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Track 1: how do you perceive Hollywood in that same way?

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Track 1: You know, as you know, the person who's the grizzled veteran who's been in the

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Track 1: city and understands all the things that you have to endure to be there.

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Track 2: Yeah. I mean, it's, it's a, that's the thing where I guess people talk so much

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Track 2: about Naomi Watts's performance.

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Track 2: And I guess they're normally referring to the final third of the movie,

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Track 2: but I'm really, it's the other two thirds are the part that is really hard to

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Track 2: pull off tonally, right?

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Track 2: Because it's so close to being over the top. It's so close to camp,

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Track 2: but it is authentic and true to the way people's dreams are on the inside, right?

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Track 2: And she's just living it on the outside and it is laughable,

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Track 2: but in some ways we're kind of all laughing at ourselves, right?

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Track 2: At how starry eyed we are about things.

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Track 2: And yeah, then you've got on the other side, I hadn't really thought about this

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Track 2: till you were talking about it, the way that the Rita character is kind of,

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Track 2: yeah, like the city has in some ways hit her over the head and she is stumbling around days.

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Track 2: What is this place? None of this makes sense to me.

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Track 2: And of course, what's the one

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Track 2: thing that she uses to orient herself and identify herself in this world?

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Track 2: A movie poster that she sees in a mirror. So it's all screens and reflections.

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Track 2: That's how she figures out who she is. And that part of things.

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Track 2: And so the whole world then is a movie fantasy world or a reflection thereof,

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Track 2: whether we're looking at it through Betty's eyes or through Rita's eyes.

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Track 2: And they, of course, wind up living.

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Track 2: In a movie plot they're like the

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Track 2: the detectives work in a case it's a it's a buddy detective movie for a while

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Track 2: in their in their own minds and they're so and betty's so thrilled to be living

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Track 2: in that for real uh so that even when she's not in the movies her life in la

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Track 2: is just like in the movies uh i mean she even says as much right um.

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Track 1: Yeah and it's it's funny you mentioned the uh the poster

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Track 1: it's funny i did this research briefly not like

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Track 1: research i mean like going down of like a mild wikipedia rabbit

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Track 1: hole so she goes the the the film post

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Track 1: you're referring to was gilda starring rita hayworth

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Track 1: and i was looking i haven't actually seen that which i feel like

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Track 1: it's so good i know i know as soon as i when i

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Track 1: realized i hadn't seen him like i need to add that to my list but i

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Track 1: was reading like the plot of it i didn't i don't mind if it's spoiled

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Track 1: for me but i was trying to think if is there a reason that they would

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Track 1: have you know i can't leave anything that lynch

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Track 1: would do as up to chance you know he didn't it

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Track 1: wasn't just like a random poster he found on the ground he chose that film

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Track 1: so i'm wondering i was reading like the plot i was trying to think like oh is

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Track 1: there a reason for why he chose that it seems like

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Track 1: there's this you know this part of the part of the plot is they're in another

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Track 1: in buenos aires argentina playing casinos and they come back and it's this sort

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Track 1: of this uh you know maybe a similar type of um plot with you know two mobsters

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Track 1: and this whole thing so it seems like it fits perfectly well.

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Track 2: Yeah you've got uh You've got two men sort of dueling over the same woman,

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Track 2: but maybe they really want each other in the same way. We're here in Mulholland Drive.

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Track 2: You've got kind of two women who, I mean, aren't really dueling over the same

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Track 2: man, but one of them really wants the other very well.

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Track 2: But it's it's part, I think, of Lynch's broader fascination with film noir,

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Track 2: whether that's something like Billy Wilder and Sunset Boulevard or Laura,

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Track 2: which in some ways has some relationship to Laura Palmer and Twin Peaks, the the Otto Priminger.

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Track 2: Movie from 1944. So yeah, he's got, I think, a bigger fascination with film

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Track 2: noir, but it's especially fitting to,

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Track 2: I mean, I think the LA of the imagination is either the sun-bleached dream factory

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Track 2: world of the daytime of Mulholland Drive,

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Track 2: or it's the film noir Los Angeles of Double Indemnity and Raymond Chandler and Nathaniel West, right?

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Track 2: That is the other version of LA, The L.A. as dystopia.

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Track 2: The L.A. as dark underbelly of the American dream that's exploited so well in

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Track 2: film noir and that movies more or less when they're doing L.A.

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Track 2: Have to decide, oh, are we doing the sunshiny L.A. thing or are we doing the noir L.A.

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Track 2: Thing? And Mulholland Drive basically does both and in a way shows how one is

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Track 2: sustaining the other and vice versa.

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Track 2: But it's that utopia, dystopia, heaven or the apocalypse that is part of L.A.'s

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Track 2: identity, both on screen and off, right, as promised land and wasteland.

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Track 1: Yeah, no, that's interesting. Yeah, and one thing that this is going back very

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Track 1: slightly to the Los Angeles, just because you put this in the in the notes we're

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Track 1: talking about is the the house that Diane lives.

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Track 1: You were mentioning it as like the these snow white houses.

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Track 1: And yeah, I don't know if you want to say more about that.

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Track 2: Oh, sure. Yeah. So the Diane Selwyn's apartment complex, all those kind of storybook looking.

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Track 2: Buildings are this complex on Griffith Park Boulevard that was built,

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Track 2: or it's what the Seven Dwarfs houses are modeled off of in Snow White and the

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Track 2: Seven Dwarfs because it was near the original Disney Studios.

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Track 2: And it's alleged that maybe someone involved in the production actually lived

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Track 2: or had an office in one of those buildings.

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Track 2: By the time the mahalan drive was getting made they were um

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Track 2: i think at least i and i've

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Track 2: gone and visited them and like walked inside one of

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Track 2: them because it was unlocked and open it was also like room number 12 um

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Track 2: it wasn't the same actual door of diane's elements but like it was freaking

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Track 2: awesome to just like kind of walk in there and uh i do a lot of whenever i go

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Track 2: to cities do like movie location tourism slash trespassing and uh and this was

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Track 2: one of the places i had to go to But I think they were for a time,

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Track 2: maybe these things called Caltrans houses that were sort of owned by the city

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Track 2: that like are often like leased out to movie locations and stuff like that.

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Track 2: There's a similar thing where, like, for instance, Vivica A.

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Track 2: Fox's house in Kill Bill, where they have a big fight at the beginning of the

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Track 2: first Kill Bill is one of those houses as well.

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Track 2: But there's a few of them kind of around the city. but yeah

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Track 2: so it like it's it's it's wonderful to pick

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Track 2: that complex as the sierra bonita apartments because the

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Track 2: um right it's it's their fairy tale houses and

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Track 2: you know diane slash betty has

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Track 2: come to la to live in a real life fairy tale and then

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Track 2: um yeah it turns out not to be that or it winds up being like snow white originally

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Track 2: based on a work by the brothers grim right so it becomes a real the real fairy

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Track 2: tale yeah no yeah the yeah not the one that's been watered down by hollywood

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Track 2: right like she's getting the real shit you know um you know uncut.

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Track 1: Yeah no that's uh i had yeah this was one of those things where la is i've never

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Track 1: i've been to la but i've never spent much time there or visited in this kind

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Track 1: of way so a lot of times when you know things like east coast or new york i'm

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Track 1: like yeah i know these things and i can deal with them like the episode that

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Track 1: was just released today,

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Track 1: which was in the past, was on the taking of Pelham 123.

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Track 1: And I think of all that, of these very quintessential New York things.

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Track 1: And so when I have LA, it's always nice when you can shed some light on some of those things.

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Track 1: But one of the areas I think we already sort of been talking about is this dream and versus reality.

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Track 1: And so one of the lines, so in

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Track 1: your chapter that you mentioned before that touches on Mulholland Drive,

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Track 1: you had a line that said that the way that dreams facilitate the transformation

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Track 1: of waste that disgusts and depresses into the art that invigorates inspires

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Track 1: and when i when i i've watched the film and then i read your chapter and then

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Track 1: i watched the film again because i thought that,

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Track 1: made sense to kind of refresh my brain about it.

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Track 1: And that line stuck out to me. And I don't really know if I can articulate how

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Track 1: it does, but I'm wondering if you wanted to add any more like color to some

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Track 1: of that and this sort of the relationship between dreams and waste.

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Track 2: Yeah. Okay. So yeah, so this is, I'll rewind on it a little bit.

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Track 2: So part of where this idea is coming from is Nathaniel West is best known for

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Track 2: this Hollywood novel called Day of the Locust that is a, and West was a, you know.

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Track 2: Dies, I think in 1940 or 1941 on his way to F.

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Track 2: Scott Fitzgerald's funeral, if I'm not mistaken.

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Track 2: But he was another novelist who came out to LA to write screenplays for money.

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Track 2: But he writes Day of the Locust and Miss Lonely

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Track 2: Hearts are kind of his two best known works but

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Track 2: he had his first book is this dadaist slash

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Track 2: surrealist book called the dream life of balso snell

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Track 2: that takes place entirely in the

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Track 2: intestines of the trojan horse and uh

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Track 2: like it's a really messed up weird book like it and um

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Track 2: but in so in that novel

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Track 2: though they um and this is

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Track 2: kind of gross but like they begin by going up the

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Track 2: trojan horse's butt that's where that's where balsa snell goes

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Track 2: in his dream and then he's like just sort of cruising around

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Track 2: the trojan horse's digestive tract and encountering

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Track 2: all these weird people and creatures who live in there who are talking about

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Track 2: like art and meaning and all all of these kinds of things and there is there

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Track 2: are these creatures it's about to get grosser but there are these creatures

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Track 2: who live inside the Trojan Horses GI tract called the Phoenix Excrementi,

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Track 2: who are these beings who eat shit and.

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Track 2: And then shit, and then more creatures grow out, more of them spawn from their shit.

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Track 2: And it's just this cycle of waste reproducing itself and feeding on itself ad infinitum.

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Track 2: And in putting this work, and then throughout Nathaniel West's work,

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Track 2: there's all sorts of stuff about waste and trash.

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Track 2: There's a big scene in Day of the Locust where the main character,

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Track 2: who's a set designer for movies, who wants to be a painter, actually,

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Track 2: goes out to the edges of the studio backlot.

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Track 2: And he sees this big junk heap where all of the sets are thrown out after they're done.

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Track 2: And I think the text refers to it as the dream dump, just where all of the previous

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Track 2: dreams have gotten thrown out.

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Track 2: So you're just looking at this pile of movie after movie after movie.

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Track 2: And so in putting all this together,

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Track 2: I was looking at putting Mulholland Drive in conversation with these works and

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Track 2: looking at how essentially Mulholland Drive is doing the same thing that West

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Track 2: is showing us about what Los Angeles does or what the movie industry does.

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Track 2: Which is the movie industry makes a movie that is sent out to the rest of the

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Track 2: world that inspires people to go and follow their dreams, whatever those dreams might be.

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Track 2: But let's say making it big and wanting to be in the movies,

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Track 2: wanting to be a part of that dream.

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Track 2: And so they come out to L.A., get off the bus full of starry eyed ideas of how

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Track 2: their dreams are going to go.

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Track 2: And then maybe they do a little bit of work. Maybe they don't.

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Track 2: Their dreams don't work out, but they're probably part of something that gets

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Track 2: sent back out into the world that inspires somebody else to get on a bus and come to L.A.

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Track 2: And in a way, the film industry needs this in order for it to continue.

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Track 2: Right. You've got to have the cynical version. You need fresh marks to to have

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Track 2: your con keep working. Right.

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Track 2: And so then you can then broaden that out the way that West does and show how

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Track 2: that's also maybe part of the PR campaign for the American dream.

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Track 2: Right. You know, Gatsby's green light, all of that kind of stuff right here. Come over.

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Track 2: It's going to be great and amazing. and then you

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Track 2: know maybe it is for a minute but like it doesn't stay that way but

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Track 2: it's just long enough for someone else to see that light or to

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Track 2: catch that dream and think oh

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Track 2: maybe it'll work out for me too and so

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Track 2: but it's all made in some ways out of um the dreams are made out of previously

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Track 2: recycled or failed dreams right that and so that's a very long-winded way of

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Track 2: explaining that uh that process of how waste can somehow be generative,

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Track 2: but only in the sense of producing more waste in the long run.

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Track 1: And I guess that's like a good, I mean, I think you...

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Track 1: I don't know if these are, and that's a way of like looking,

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Track 1: you can look at the Betty character who, you know, initially we think as this

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Track 1: person who's come to Hollywood with these sights to be this movie star and we think she's on her way.

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Track 1: And then we learn the reality is that she doesn't make it and she becomes this

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Track 1: person who is, you know, will hire someone to kill someone for her.

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Track 1: She will eventually, you know, as the big spoiler at the end,

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Track 1: the final sequences of the film we learn, you know, kills her own,

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Track 1: takes her own life because of these struggles.

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Track 1: And, you know, in theory, the way I can imagine this in my brain is like someone

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Track 1: were to come to this or find out about the story and, you know,

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Track 1: Hollywood Reporter about someone or maybe not Hollywood Reporter because it's

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Track 1: maybe not someone who's that famous.

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Track 1: But, you know, someone reads a story about this person who killed themselves

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Track 1: and then they make a movie about that, you know, and then the cycle begins again.

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Track 1: So it's like this never ending cycle.

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Track 2: Well, yeah. And what's the name of the movie that Adam Kesher is involved in making?

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Track 2: Right. It's called the Sylvia North story, right? So it's obviously some film

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Track 2: about a woman who – we don't know the story per se.

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Track 2: I guess there's one version of the movie. It's got someone who's a performer

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Track 2: because he's auditioning all those people performing in recording studios.

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Track 1: It could be their downfall, right? They come to Hollywood. They're this big

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Track 1: singer, and then they OD, and that's the end of the film or something.

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Track 2: Yeah, it could be a rise and fall story, or maybe it's a biopic that cuts some

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Track 2: of those more unseemly parts out. and, you know, just inspires people.

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Track 2: But yeah, and the amazing thing about the structure of Mulholland Drive,

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Track 2: the most brilliant thing is we begin in the fantasy.

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Track 2: We start out in the dream world and have the rug yanked out from under us and

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Track 2: discover that we are, that everything we've been watching is some fantasy for

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Track 2: someone else that has failed.

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Track 2: And what's so great about that is we then experience the same kind of betrayal,

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Track 2: that same sense of the dream not coming true, that disappointment and sadness as Diane.

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Track 2: So that's partly why the last 20 minutes are so harrowing is because we have

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Track 2: just in a way lived her dream and now we're watching it come crashing down.

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Track 2: And even though it was too good to be true and it was so cheesy and we bought

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Track 2: into it anyway, You know, and I think why would we buy into something that's so obviously fake?

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Track 2: Because we share the same dream like we believe it, too.

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Track 2: Right. And I think that's what makes the movie so emotionally upsetting is that

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Track 2: we're essentially experiencing our own sense of betrayal through this character.

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Track 1: But, but so let me, let me ask, not ask this, but let me point out this sort of thing.

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Track 1: So you sort of, so you made a good point that the first majority of the film

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Track 1: is the dream as opposed to in, you know, a typical kind of story you're thinking

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Track 1: of, it's may not work in that same way structurally.

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Track 1: But then we also kind of have throughout the

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Track 1: first i guess through two-thirds of the film we

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Track 1: have this sort of under plot of this sort

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Track 1: of like control within hollywood the this

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Track 1: mr roke this person who is essentially you know has this layer of people in

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Track 1: behind you know below him that gets a director to do what he wants exerts this

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Track 1: control over a film and i think i've seen things and read things and heard things

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Track 1: about different ways to interpret some of that you know subplot of the film where they, you know,

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Track 1: they go after the director played by, um.

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Track 1: By of course, Justin Theroux, who's the, the director that you mentioned before

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Track 1: Adam Kesher, and he's trying to make a film and they're forcing him to use a

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Track 1: new, uh, a new star from the, for the picture.

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Track 1: And so to me, that is both like a dream in the sense that it's,

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Track 1: you know, maybe above the, you know, what you think actually happens in Hollywood,

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Track 1: but then at the same time, I not the same violence,

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Track 1: but in some ways there is still a, it's still a violent system that's forcing,

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Track 1: you know, directors and producers and all these different people and actors

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Track 1: to do things that they want them to do because a CEO at, you know,

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Track 1: Warner Brothers wants it this way.

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Track 1: And so it's going to be done that way because that's how he says.

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Track 1: So I guess, how do you square like that being the dream portion of the,

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Track 1: you know, in quotes, but it's, it's more the reality.

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Track 2: Part of me wonders whether this is, and so we're going to get really in the

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Track 2: weeds here for a second, but we're going to go like deep message board for a moment.

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Track 2: But I wonder about whether that whole Mr.

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Track 2: Roke subplot, the whole this is the girl thing, how much of that is Diane trying

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Track 2: to explain why it's not her who became like, why did I not make it?

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Track 2: Couldn't be because i am not good enough or

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Track 2: it had to be the result of this

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Track 2: labyrinthine conspiracy to keep

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Track 2: me out and to foist this other person on

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Track 2: him because it was supposed to be me and

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Track 2: now like he's with her and not with me and my career sucks

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Track 2: and their their career is great um it had

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Track 2: to be the because then it's almost like it's another stock movie plot

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Track 2: it's almost a like you have the kind of the cliches playing

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Track 2: out there um where similar to the the a story i guess this one also sort of

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Track 2: falls into these cliche tropes of like shadowy seedy hotels downtown like i'm

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Track 2: at cookies downtown or whatever right like this is like some of it's so ridiculous

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Track 2: like this might be um the sort of thing that like.

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Track 2: Um a person who dreams the same dreams

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Track 2: that betty's life would dream up uh as

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Track 2: a nefarious plot but um but again like

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Track 2: that's sort of one way um to look

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Track 2: at it but i think it also like you're saying does point to

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Track 2: a sense that and here's

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Track 2: where we remember the two can sort of square up and or and

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Track 2: meet each other it reflects both versions

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Track 2: of this reflect a sense that all is

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Track 2: not well and that this um this

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Track 2: sunshiny version of things this dreamy version of

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Track 2: things is actually perhaps the malevolent plot

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Track 2: you know or the work of dark forces uh

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Track 2: who may not have our best interests in mind uh

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Track 2: so either way they um they fulfill that function

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Track 2: uh whether it is a self-serving one of diane's um coping mechanism uh or whether

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Track 2: it is in fact um the dark there are dark forces pulling the strings behind these

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Track 2: um these things that we think are light and fluffy entertainments and.

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Track 1: Then like to make it to like expand on like the kind of ridiculousness of this

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Track 1: subplot and this you know the meeting where at where adam is in the you know

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Track 1: the little board room and they.

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Track 2: Having the espresso scene, which is the finest espresso in the world.

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Track 1: Yeah, I mean, I remember the first time I saw the film and not...

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Track 1: Like, there's several moments in this movie, like, the first time you see them, like, it's almost...

Speaker: 00:40:52

Track 1: It's too much like the first the person behind the dumpster it's like the.

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Track 2: Jump scare which is maybe the greatest.

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Track 1: Jump scare like in the history of film.

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Track 2: Oh it's great i.

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Track 1: Mean and then you have this espresso scene like there's lots of moments as you

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Track 1: mentioned but like i don't i don't know that i don't know like i want to be

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Track 1: like oh what's the espresso is a metaphor for this i don't necessarily you don't.

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Track 2: Need to go.

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Track 1: So deep for that it's just it's just the one of the funniest things i've ever

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Track 1: seen like in a in a movie he's like.

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Track 2: Yeah has.

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Track 1: The little napkin he puts down very gently next to him like prepared for him

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Track 1: to because this clearly happened at least once.

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Track 2: Yes probably multiple times where he's.

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Track 1: Just like spitting out the espresso onto the napkin like drooling it.

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Track 2: Yeah oh god and it's so gross i mean it's like the thoroughness

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Track 2: where he's like just running his tongue all around his mouth

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Track 2: to like completely clear out every last drop of

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Track 2: this this apparently terrible espresso um yeah

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Track 2: it's it's it's a classic i mean

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Track 2: it's up there with the the family dinner in eraser head for

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Track 2: its levels of discomfort and this weird

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Track 2: collision of something that's really funny and really

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Track 2: nightmarish and really gross all at the

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Track 2: same time um and the i mean you've even got

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Track 2: the people who do like the someone who's uncontrollably

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Track 2: shaking uh i think the older um well

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Track 2: the older guy with the cane like uh you know when the

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Track 2: guy when angelo battle lamenti the one of the uh

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Track 2: gosh i'm forgetting the last name of the the the

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Track 2: castigliani brothers right uh like where he's

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Track 2: um you've got another guy kind of shaking

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Track 2: in a similar way to how um mary's mother is shaking and a racer head like it's

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Track 2: not a lynch movie if someone doesn't have some kind of episode you know in some

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Track 2: scene this movie's got two right you have like this little one here and then

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Track 2: you've got betty's uh bigger one at club silencio uh but yeah it's it's it's such a wonderful.

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Track 2: Menacing hilarious scene uh i mean this movie is full of those right because

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Track 2: you have that menacing hilarious scene you have the cowboys menacing hilarious

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Track 2: scene um and then then when things are really menacing i guess that the the

Speaker: 00:42:58

Track 2: dinner party at the end of the movie um i find And just the most upsetting,

Speaker: 00:43:03

Track 2: sad, intense scene, and probably in Lynch's whole body of work,

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Track 2: just when Diane goes to the dinner party and has to watch Camilla and Adam announce

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Track 2: their engagement and all of that.

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Track 2: I think that is just the most tragic stuff that Lynch has ever done.

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Track 1: One scene that kind of maybe puzzles me, and it's the moment at the diner where

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Track 1: you alluded to this jump scare,

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Track 1: where there's two men, they're discussing this dream he has,

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Track 1: and then he walks behind, he's led behind the diner, and it comes true,

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Track 1: and he has a heart attack and presumably dies from fright, I guess you could say.

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Track 1: What do you make of that? Because, I don't know.

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Track 2: Yeah. I mean...

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Track 2: I guess so i mean the winkies definitely comes back again a few times yeah in the movie with the name.

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Track 1: Tags to like flip.

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Track 2: Around a lot yeah um and because

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Track 2: i guess it is the site of where diane

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Track 2: hires the the hitman to um you know

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Track 2: to presumably kill camilla right um so and

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Track 2: then we're seeing it filtered back through a few other versions perhaps

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Track 2: where um where like you have

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Track 2: the original one where like the other um when they

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Track 2: when they go to sort of inquire about the accident and

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Track 2: then then you've got the other this other version with the two guys uh where

Speaker: 00:44:26

Track 2: what patrick fishler is describing his dream right

Speaker: 00:44:29

Track 2: and there is that whole he's the one who's doing it so you also have that connection

Speaker: 00:44:33

Track 2: to some other figure behind the scenes pulling strings right but i mean i guess

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Track 2: ultimately it just um it's just it's clearly a remnant from the television show

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Track 2: that doesn't That doesn't necessarily go anywhere in this version,

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Track 2: but it's also just so damn good.

Speaker: 00:44:51

Track 2: You can't cut it out, right? Like you're not going to take that out.

Speaker: 00:44:55

Track 2: So what do you do? But I guess it's a thing early on in the movie that establishes

Speaker: 00:45:00

Track 2: menacing dreams coming true.

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Track 2: So I guess in the overall architecture of the movie, it fulfills a function

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Track 2: of setting this up for things that are to come, even though it doesn't necessarily

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Track 2: square up from a from a plot standpoint.

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Track 2: Um and and i guess with with his films in particular i'm

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Track 2: a little less um interested in

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Track 2: like trying to figure out like let's try

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Track 2: to make it all sort of square up like perfectly

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Track 2: because i think ultimately it doesn't but also i

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Track 2: think that's where its power comes from right is is just like a dream or just

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Track 2: other things like we never can make it all add up but like it all feels like

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Track 2: it's part of the same thing right it all feels like this um this bigger bigger

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Track 2: thing and i and i like that there are sometimes in his work these um,

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Track 2: these stray pieces, um, that are so powerful, but yet maybe don't fit into this

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Track 2: whole puzzle, so to speak, because ultimately he's not, he's not a puzzle filmmaker

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Track 2: the way that other, that some other filmmakers are.

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Track 1: Yeah. And I think the, the, uh, like the scene that immediately follows that

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Track 1: is when the director, Adam Kesher is in that room with the espresso scene, I believe.

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Track 1: And so it almost makes sense that, you know, as you're saying this underlying,

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Track 1: I mean, I guess, again, if this is all a dream, you know, within Betty's mind

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Track 1: of like what Hollywood is like, in a way it almost,

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Track 1: I mean, this is again putting just a, it's almost like this could be like a

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Track 1: scene from a show that she had seen or something and it's like filtering through

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Track 1: her, like that's the way that also that dreams, you know, work.

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Track 1: I just did an episode recently on the Tarkovsky film Mirror.

Speaker: 00:46:41

Track 1: And just like, the way you remember things is not always in like this linear way.

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Track 1: You have like, you see one scene, like this diner, you have this memory of this

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Track 1: diner that maybe they filmed some show. And so all of these things are filtering through.

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Track 1: And like, it doesn't have to be linear. I don't care that that scene maybe doesn't

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Track 1: fit like narratively. Who cares?

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Track 1: Like, it's still like, it's such a, as you said, like, could you imagine that

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Track 1: scene not being there? No.

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Track 2: Yeah. And it really does. like in its in its own little minute i mean because

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Track 2: it's basically a movie onto itself,

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Track 2: right like it's a it's a self-contained you know five minute movie um but it

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Track 2: definitely contains everything that's in the rest of what's to come in some

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Track 2: way shape or form right right um yeah yeah it's so good.

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Track 1: Yeah and i'm trying to think if there's another scene i was gonna mention that

Speaker: 00:47:31

Track 1: we can touch on i mean there's lots of individual ones i'm sure we can uh can

Speaker: 00:47:36

Track 1: get into But one of the things that maybe is worth talking about is just like

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Track 1: we've talked about a lot of the characters.

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Track 1: And as we've already mentioned and kind of spoiled, if you will,

Speaker: 00:47:47

Track 1: is that, you know, Naomi Watts and Laura Herring both play two different characters.

Speaker: 00:47:51

Track 1: These dream people, the dream versions, Betty and Rita.

Speaker: 00:47:55

Track 1: And then we see what they are later is Diane Selwyn and Camilla Rose as actual movie star.

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Track 1: And actually, you know, you could say failed movie star. or someone who hasn't

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Track 1: been able to live up to the promise is living in, you know, an apartment that

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Track 1: initially seems very fancy and nice, but again, later it's like her kitchen,

Speaker: 00:48:12

Track 1: you know, where Diane lives is like very, it's not very nice.

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Track 1: It's very dirty and dingy and to put it mildly. And so, you know, how do you...

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Track 1: I guess I'm trying to think of the best way to kind of touch on this,

Speaker: 00:48:25

Track 1: but is, you know, when you look at their counterparts, like let's say you have

Speaker: 00:48:30

Track 1: Betty, who is the dream movie star, and then you have Camilla,

Speaker: 00:48:34

Track 1: who is the real movie star.

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Track 1: So I'm almost in a way like crossing them as like, how does Betty kind of compare

Speaker: 00:48:40

Track 1: to Camilla as these, you know, the actual movie star versus kind of like what you wish it is.

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Track 1: And it seems like Camilla's life, while being very, you know,

Speaker: 00:48:50

Track 1: very good in that she is with this director and all of these things,

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Track 1: it's still like a messy life, like, in some ways.

Speaker: 00:48:59

Track 2: Yeah. And so careerist, right? I mean, like, because I guess really the person

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Track 2: who seems maybe the most consistent in the dream and the reality is Adam Kesher.

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Track 1: Right?

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Track 2: I mean, like he's he's a he's a prick all the way down. Right. In both of them.

Speaker: 00:49:14

Track 2: But the I think that's a that's a good question, though, because in some ways,

Speaker: 00:49:21

Track 2: Betty envisioned or Diane envisions her ideal version of it as so much more

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Track 2: wholesome and so much more.

Speaker: 00:49:29

Track 2: Or I guess the part that confounded me at the beginning when I first saw it,

Speaker: 00:49:36

Track 2: it's like, wait a minute, you just like knocked this audition out of the park.

Speaker: 00:49:40

Track 2: They take you to a set to meet a director.

Speaker: 00:49:43

Track 2: And then you're like, wait a minute, I have to go. I told my friend I'd meet her somewhere.

Speaker: 00:49:50

Track 2: To me, I'm like, to hell with your friend. Go have that meeting.

Speaker: 00:49:56

Track 2: This is your moment. but betty's a

Speaker: 00:49:59

Track 2: real friend right betty wouldn't sell out

Speaker: 00:50:02

Track 2: her friend for stardom not like camilla

Speaker: 00:50:06

Track 2: right like i think there's something there that um does camilla become the star

Speaker: 00:50:11

Track 2: because she's willing to sell out her friends um you know and is that is is

Speaker: 00:50:16

Track 2: a career first kind of person rather than a friend's first kind of person um

Speaker: 00:50:21

Track 2: you know perhaps like when i look at it now i'm like oh oh,

Speaker: 00:50:24

Track 2: wow, that's really, that's really interesting.

Speaker: 00:50:28

Track 2: The sort of like what's more important to you, the dream or your friend,

Speaker: 00:50:32

Track 2: or I guess to blow it down even more, right? Fame or love.

Speaker: 00:50:35

Track 2: And you can see, oh,

Speaker: 00:50:38

Track 2: at least in Diane's projection of this, Betty chooses love and Camilla chooses fame.

Speaker: 00:50:44

Track 1: I mean, if you probably looked at it from like a reality standpoint of,

Speaker: 00:50:47

Track 1: you know, actual people making it in Hollywood, I mean, they will,

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Track 1: I mean, I don't know the history of every,

Speaker: 00:50:53

Track 1: you know, this is more of a general statement, but I would imagine that most

Speaker: 00:50:56

Track 1: people would choose the career that they're trying to achieve coming to Hollywood.

Speaker: 00:51:00

Track 1: Like they will do whatever it takes to get a part of, you know,

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Track 1: if people probably lost, you know, friends and, and all kinds of things,

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Track 1: you know, in their attempts for, you know, for fame, because that's, I think, like the dirty

Speaker: 00:51:13

Track 1: underbelly that, you know, that Diane is living, and you're,

Speaker: 00:51:19

Track 1: you know, that Betty wants to ignore, like, I mean, it's also in the same way

Speaker: 00:51:22

Track 1: that I'm like skipping a little bit, but the way that, you know,

Speaker: 00:51:25

Track 1: many people idolize Hollywood, they see, especially,

Speaker: 00:51:28

Track 1: you know, films from like the golden era,

Speaker: 00:51:31

Track 1: or, you know, things like that, and they watch and they say,

Speaker: 00:51:33

Track 1: Oh, everything is glamorous, and everything is perfect and all these things.

Speaker: 00:51:37

Track 1: And then you have David Lynch coming along, not the first and not the last,

Speaker: 00:51:41

Track 1: to say that Hollywood is not this.

Speaker: 00:51:43

Track 1: It is a dirty underbelly that people don't like to think about,

Speaker: 00:51:47

Track 1: but they like to think about it as the Betty version. But it's closer to the

Speaker: 00:51:52

Track 1: Diane version for probably 99% of people who go there.

Speaker: 00:51:58

Track 2: Yes, I mean, the reality is not the story that you

Speaker: 00:52:00

Track 2: hear about Lana Turner getting discovered at the counter at schwab's

Speaker: 00:52:03

Track 2: drugstore right you know it's or that

Speaker: 00:52:06

Track 2: that sort of classic hollywood rags to riches like oh they just plucked me out

Speaker: 00:52:10

Track 2: of a crowd and here i am right it's yeah it's very often there's there's a whole

Speaker: 00:52:14

Track 2: lot more to it than that and there's most certainly a whole lot more to lana

Speaker: 00:52:17

Track 2: turner than just that she went to schwab's drugstore on the right day and got

Speaker: 00:52:21

Track 2: discovered right um so yeah i think there is some of that going on and.

Speaker: 00:52:27

Track 2: Implicit or subconscious level, just the types of friendships that one has to

Speaker: 00:52:32

Track 2: cultivate when they are on the make are, you know,

Speaker: 00:52:38

Track 2: not always, it's very hard to make them deep and real friendships versus networking

Speaker: 00:52:42

Track 2: friendships or, you know,

Speaker: 00:52:43

Track 2: or things like that, or where you got to spend a lot more of your time cultivating

Speaker: 00:52:47

Track 2: those relationships than genuine relationships.

Speaker: 00:52:50

Track 2: You know, it's more than looking at people for their utility to where you want

Speaker: 00:52:54

Track 2: to go than what you actually think.

Speaker: 00:52:56

Track 2: And I mean, I'm saying this as someone who, you know, lived there for a while

Speaker: 00:53:00

Track 2: and, you know, sort of caught myself like, oh, like this is activating a part

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Track 2: of myself that I don't necessarily want activated.

Speaker: 00:53:09

Track 2: And so, I mean, I think there is some of that at some level on Mahalo Drive, but at the same time,

Speaker: 00:53:14

Track 2: the thing that's really fascinating about David Lynch and

Speaker: 00:53:17

Track 2: all of his work in these collisions between fantasy versions

Speaker: 00:53:20

Track 2: and dark underbellies is he loves

Speaker: 00:53:23

Track 2: them both and he treats them both like

Speaker: 00:53:26

Track 2: they're true um it's not just

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Track 2: a simple like yank the rug out

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Track 2: from under and like oh all of this is a lie right it's

Speaker: 00:53:35

Track 2: like some of it's actually true or like enough people believe in it that it

Speaker: 00:53:40

Track 2: or it would be nice if it were true we still want it um like he's not so disillusioned

Speaker: 00:53:47

Track 2: as to write that dream off entirely right i mean he he loves that dream He thinks it's beautiful.

Speaker: 00:53:54

Track 2: And I think that's what in turn makes the movie so painful is you feel that,

Speaker: 00:54:00

Track 2: um that love for that dream um and the disappointment and heartbreak when it

Speaker: 00:54:07

Track 2: doesn't come true but still wanting it all the same.

Speaker: 00:54:10

Track 1: Well and it also makes me think in like

Speaker: 00:54:13

Track 1: a slightly to the side of that is you know when i'm thinking about the you know

Speaker: 00:54:18

Track 1: the adam the the director character and how that is you know i think we've already

Speaker: 00:54:22

Track 1: said is that that was both he's really kind of the same person in both the dream

Speaker: 00:54:26

Track 1: and the reality like there is these things that are the And then you probably

Speaker: 00:54:30

Track 1: also think about, you know,

Speaker: 00:54:31

Track 1: Lynch's actual career making films in Hollywood of having the struggles of people

Speaker: 00:54:36

Track 1: not wanting to make the films he wants to make, not making this into a show, even though, you know,

Speaker: 00:54:42

Track 1: Twin Peaks had been around 10 years before.

Speaker: 00:54:44

Track 1: I don't know how long. I don't know what year. Do you know what year he was

Speaker: 00:54:47

Track 1: going to make the show? Is it just? i think it.

Speaker: 00:54:49

Track 2: Was it was pretty much right before.

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Track 1: Like the late 90s yeah.

Speaker: 00:54:52

Track 2: Late 90s early early 2000s i think there's maybe like a 18 or 24 month period

Speaker: 00:54:58

Track 2: in between it getting rejected and then the movie um coming out.

Speaker: 00:55:02

Track 1: Yeah i mean maybe they said to him hey you know we'll make this movie and this

Speaker: 00:55:06

Track 1: is this i'm just i'm making some of this we'll make this movie if you change

Speaker: 00:55:09

Track 1: the lead from you know this actor to this one he's like no that this is the

Speaker: 00:55:12

Track 1: thing i'm i'm making And so,

Speaker: 00:55:14

Track 1: you know, he doesn't, won't compromise on those ideals and his vision of a film.

Speaker: 00:55:19

Track 1: Whereas some guy named this guy, Adam Kesher is like, well, you know,

Speaker: 00:55:23

Track 1: whatever, you know, I mean, he's mad about it.

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Track 1: He like smashes the car with a, you know, a golf club and then,

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Track 1: you know, loses his wife who seemed like he should have left her anyway.

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Track 1: I mean, she was cheating on him with the pool guy or whatever.

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Track 2: Billy Ray Cyrus, right?

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Track 1: Yeah, Billy Cyrus. And so it's like, yeah, you know, whatever.

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Track 1: I'm going to just, you know, move on.

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Track 1: But the other thing I was going to mention, I saw this tweet like right before we were –,

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Track 1: were coming on and it someone had had posted

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Track 1: uh about the fact that david lynch hires a

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Track 1: lot of like last generation actors and their

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Track 1: connection with old hollywood and then someone who was actually on

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Track 1: this show hasn't episode hasn't come out yet but they wrote that lynch for this

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Track 1: movie had ann miller and lee grant play basically the doppelgangers of the betty

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Track 1: and rita in like this universe of like they both had the same color hair one

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Track 1: was blonde and one was the brunette and so So I don't know what to necessarily make of that,

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Track 1: but it's the idea that there is this connection between this vision of what

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Track 1: Hollywood once was and what it can be and this dream version,

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Track 1: or maybe the reality version.

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Track 1: And then you have the Naomi Watts version of it being, and of the modern one.

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Track 1: So I thought that was interesting.

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Track 2: Yeah. Okay. So I think that there's a couple of things there.

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Track 2: I mean, nostalgia, of course, plays such a huge role in Lynch's work.

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Track 2: In whether i mean it's particularly twin peaks

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Track 2: but also the uh the lumberton of blue velvet it's it's

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Track 2: all about nostalgia uh and and the sort of

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Track 2: unpacking the allure of nostalgia and the

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Track 2: danger of it at the same time um and like kind

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Track 2: of exposing what we use that nostalgia to cover

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Track 2: up uh like so in twin peaks like it's the using

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Track 2: that nostalgia to cover up um you know

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Track 2: the um implicit and explicit uh

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Track 2: tolerance or or um enabling of domestic

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Track 2: violence um and and stuff like

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Track 2: that and in mahalan drive i guess it is this sort of uh it's

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Track 2: it's nostalgious papering over the the waste and the um the the putrefaction

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Track 2: that's at the heart of all of what's going on um and and yeah so including lee

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Track 2: grant and ann miller is a really fun kind of subtle way to throw some of those things in.

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Track 2: And of course, they're...

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Track 2: You know, they get connected to, um, am I remembering this right?

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Track 2: Is, is Lee Grant, the, the psychic neighbor is, is that?

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Track 2: Yeah. Right. So, you know, they're also kind of connected to the people who

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Track 2: can kind of see more, right.

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Track 2: You can't fool Coco and, and, uh, Lee Grant's character can,

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Track 2: you know, can see that there's trouble, right. Uh, in a, in a fun sort of way.

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Track 2: Um, and I guess another thing to sort of think about going back a second to the,

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Track 2: the backstory of the show and and uh adam's arc

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Track 2: in relation to lynch's arc uh as a

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Track 2: as a filmmaker i mean it's also kind of the arc of

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Track 2: the movie right in a weird way though in the

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Track 2: sense that the movie gets rejected because it refuses to

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Track 2: conform to market forces but then it just goes and gets financing from france

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Track 2: and comes out as a motion picture and succeeds and so it winds up being a story

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Track 2: about people failing and getting taken apart by the system.

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Track 2: But at the same time, it triumphs over that same system.

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Track 1: Right.

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Track 2: And so it's showing someone someone's dreams falling apart. But then the movie.

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Track 2: Its dreams succeed right and so it winds up being another um siren song to an aspiring filmmaker,

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Track 2: who thinks oh well no i can make it right like

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Track 2: mulholland drive made it right like david

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Track 2: lynch didn't take no for an answer and so i'm gonna be the exception right like

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Track 2: my my dream's gonna work out um i'll prove everybody wrong right that so i'm

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Track 2: gonna come out there and try to make it right The movie winds up inadvertently

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Track 2: being a diagnosis of a thing and a further symptom of the same thing.

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Track 2: It's a victim of its own success, right? In that sort of weird way.

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Track 2: But that's maybe like a little bit backtracking a little.

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Track 2: But yeah, I think the it's always great to see the sort of the industry movies

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Track 2: that really tap into old Hollywood in whatever way they can to sort of show

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Track 2: the it's showing the glamour,

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Track 2: but it's also showing how illusory that glamour may also be. and.

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Track 1: I think this is just like uh i i was looking this up before it's well malholland

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Track 1: drive wasn't his most highest grossing film i think.

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Track 2: That dune was but i think it might have but.

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Track 1: Which is funny i.

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Track 2: Think it.

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Track 1: Might actually have been the one that like officially made the most off its budget because i.

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Track 2: Think yeah dune lost money oh absolutely i

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Track 2: mean at least initially yeah i mean i mean eraser head maybe

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Track 2: um i mean because again its budget was so low that's true

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Track 2: right that that doesn't compare but i mean but it's certainly

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Track 2: i mean as far as in the public perception uh this

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Track 2: is viewed i think now as his most

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Track 2: successful film right i mean it's the one that's in the top 10 on the sight

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Track 2: and sound list it's it got him an oscar nomination it's the unlike like we were

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Track 2: talking about earlier it's sort of the one that we maybe think of as the a good

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Track 2: uh gateway to his work um like it's definitely i think uh,

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Track 2: been commercially and critically the one

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Track 2: that's sort of all around the most successful uh i

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Track 2: think that's a fair assessment of it even though

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Track 2: you know it's not my favorite of his

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Track 2: and even but it doesn't it's not burdened by some

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Track 2: of the things that blue velvet is burdened by that make it um perhaps a harder

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Track 2: sell or complicate its its legacy maybe in a or in some way right it's um you

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Track 2: know yeah it's it's it's definitely uh one of his more all-around successful pictures yeah yeah.

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Track 1: So one of the one of the other things that we've like briefly mentioned and

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Track 1: it kind of happens a few times throughout the film and i think it's ironically

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Track 1: like people think now people see articles now sometimes about like nepotism in hollywood and.

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Track 2: How it's you.

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Track 1: Know how it's like you know a big thing now it's like people seem to i don't

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Track 1: know maybe it's like rosy color, rose colored glasses, like not realizing that's

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Track 1: kind of how Hollywood has been for, you know, for many years.

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Track 1: I mean, maybe you could say that it's more, more now just because of how many,

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Track 1: you know, now it's multiple generations of people, you know,

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Track 1: you have the grandchild who's now a movie star and all these things.

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Track 1: But throughout the film, there's numerous, you know,

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Track 1: moments where nepotism is very explicitly, you know, described,

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Track 1: probably the biggest one being when Betty goes to that audition and like that

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Track 1: her aunt has been able to get her and she, you know,

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Track 1: kills this interview like in one of the, and honestly, like we haven't talked

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Track 1: about that scene and I think it might be her like best,

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Track 1: it's ironic that she's at, in an audition acting and it's like maybe the most

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Track 1: unreal or like campy acting moments, but it's also just so good.

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Track 1: But like, again, it's like this very, very, like this

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Track 1: clear nepotism and this whole thing and so i

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Track 1: think one thing that we haven't talked about that maybe we can include in

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Track 1: this nepotism kind of a section or area is

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Track 1: also just like the the women in hollywood because obviously this film is about

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Track 1: two women competing in a way you know in hollywood and how the this i think

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Track 1: maybe it's more tragic we sometimes think of for women especially in including

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Track 1: of the the abuse and all of these horrible things they are you know uh.

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Track 1: Forced to do from directors to, you know, producers, all these horrible things we hear about.

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Track 1: And so, trying to think of how that, how that puts into a question,

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Track 1: but like, how do you see maybe how the, the film like,

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Track 1: takes on nepotism and.

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Track 2: What it's.

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Track 1: Trying to maybe say beyond just nepotism as a thing like.

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Track 2: Right we can say that yeah because if i'm remembering correctly too then in

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Track 2: the real world version right like ann miller's character and um justin thoreau's

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Track 2: character are related as well right yes right.

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Track 1: Like at the party at the end.

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Track 2: I think he.

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Track 1: Says like his grandma or.

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Track 2: Yeah i mean because there's another kind of connection there

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Track 2: and i that i believe is somewhat of an industry kind of

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Track 2: connection um but yeah even in betty's fantasy

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Track 2: it's kind of the fly in the ointment right like this whole

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Track 2: thing that like is portraying betty's quest as

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Track 2: entirely wholesome and unburdened by all of that

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Track 2: sort of scheming and yet like why is she there in the

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Track 2: first place and she's there in the first place because her

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Track 2: her aunt's in the industry and got her lined up for an

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Track 2: audition and you know and uh and she's

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Track 2: getting to stay in this swanky place because her her aunt's off

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Track 2: doing a movie in canada or whatever right like it's it's

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Track 2: remarkable how i mean there's a there's a

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Track 2: dissonance there that obviously is um

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Track 2: is the the characters are not unpacking that

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Track 2: because that would make the whole thing fall apart in a

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Track 2: certain way right um and then you've got

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Track 2: the audition which is i mean for just

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Track 2: a garbage movie apparently um and a

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Track 2: total casting couch situation that's sort

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Track 2: of starting up where you just got this guy uh i mean his name's

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Track 2: woody for crying out loud right um who is

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Track 2: uh just gonna make out

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Track 2: with every you know like oh we're gonna play this one real close like we did

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Track 2: with the last one right like he's just there to put the moves on every young

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Track 2: ingenue in town and yet so like this is a gross squalid situation and yet the uh.

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Track 2: Betty, with her talent, is able to spin shit into gold with this performance

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Track 2: that we've seen it already.

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Track 2: She can barely get through it without laughing. It's so bad.

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Track 2: And then suddenly it becomes this transformative, transcendent moment that takes

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Track 2: everyone's breath away, us included,

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Track 2: and winds up being – the film scholar George Tolles writes this amazing thing

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Track 2: about that scene. I mean, it's got like a 10-page article.

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Track 2: It's just about this one scene where he says, essentially, the audition is not

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Track 2: for Betty. It's an audition for Naomi Watts.

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Track 2: You know, like it becomes for us because it's our introduction to her as an

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Track 2: actress, right, in America, right?

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Track 2: I mean, she's done things before, mostly in Australia, right?

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Track 2: And she's in Tank Girl. but this movie

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Track 2: it's like this is announcing like i am a major talent

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Track 2: you can't in like the you

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Track 2: can't watch that scene and not stop thinking

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Track 2: about betty and only be thinking about how great naomi watts

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Track 2: is like the the art of the artifice of

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Track 2: the whole thing i mean it's the fakest freaking thing in

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Track 2: the world i mean one it's an audition it's an audition for a fake

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Track 2: movie that's a crappy movie on top of that like there's all

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Track 2: these layers just fake fake fake fake fake but then what

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Track 2: comes through is the reality of damn naomi watts can bring it and she should

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Track 2: be in every movie that ever gets made like you you can't think you can't not

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Track 2: think that by the end of that scene um and so i mean it's just an amazing um.

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Track 2: Argument that lynch is making that like man

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Track 2: movies like i mean like that scene like man

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Track 2: movies right like they can do anything uh they can make everything real um and

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Track 2: no matter how squalid and fake it might be and it's just a profound um it's

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Track 2: just a profound moment that wouldn't work as well if we hadn't already seen

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Track 2: how terrible that scene was uh beforehand right when.

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Track 1: I think about just Nomi Watts' career after this.

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Track 2: Film.

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Track 1: Like, I was looking at her filmography earlier. I think in After Mahalan Drive,

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Track 1: in the next, like, three or four years, she was in, like, 13 films.

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Track 2: Yeah.

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Track 1: Something crazy.

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Track 2: She was so many. It's like 21 Brams and I Heart Huckabee's.

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Track 1: King Kong.

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Track 2: Yeah. Oh, The Impossible, right? There's that big disaster movie, the tsunami movie.

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Track 1: Yeah, then she was in a couple films, the Cronenberg film,

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Track 1: Eastern Promises, oh that's right yeah which is

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Track 1: another great movie what a banger um yeah

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Track 1: she was just she was just like just went just went crazy after i mean for for

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Track 1: a good reason because i mean i don't think we've maybe said yet but her performance

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Track 1: in this like it's it's really kind of tragic that i mean you can say what you

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Track 1: will about what the oscars and what they mean and yeah deserving and all that

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Track 1: but like it's it's almost she should have been nominated for an oscar oh.

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Track 2: Right yeah it's like she wasn't even nominated at all was she uh.

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Track 1: I don't believe so i don't know she had i guess I guess Lynch.

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Track 2: Got the best director nomination. Um,

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Track 2: for sure but uh wait.

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Track 1: Yeah that's the only one that's.

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Track 2: The only nomination that movie got right um okay now of course we have to look

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Track 2: at what what the actual nominees are that year um or i have to i'm like because

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Track 2: i'm trying to remember the big movie that year was a beautiful mind right that's the one that uh.

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Track 1: 2001 and gosford park.

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Track 2: Uh was the other um the other big.

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Track 1: Uh nominator 2001 2002 academy award yeah yeah so best actress was hallie berry for monsters oh.

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Track 2: That's right yeah that's that's right yeah because that was the year she and

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Track 2: denzel washington won the same year and sydney poitier got the um had the honorary

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Track 2: award okay yeah who else was nominated uh let's.

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Track 1: See judy dench for iris nicole kidman moulin rouge spacex for in the bedroom

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Track 1: and renee zellweger for bridget doane's diary okay.

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Track 2: Yeah all right.

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Track 1: Yeah i mean again like it's

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Track 1: you could kind of add this in there yeah no i mean

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Track 1: you could also add on top of that just the con i mean to

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Track 1: layer into the idea of that lynch is bringing

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Track 1: to the movie mahal and drive is that you can

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Track 1: be in this great film you could you know that's kind

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Track 1: of wasn't what the studios wanted wasn't

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Track 1: all these different things and put out a great performance and they're like

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Track 1: well you know that's that's great for you know you did that thing and that's

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Track 1: that's that's all you get from that and like i think that he probably should

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Track 1: have won for certainly should have won over i mean a beautiful mind is a is

Speaker: 01:09:57

Track 1: a is a good movie but if i'm gonna pick one i'm gonna pick maholen dragon.

Speaker: 01:10:01

Track 2: I mean yeah it's it's it's something when like your choices include robert altman

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Track 2: and david lynch and you go with ron howard um.

Speaker: 01:10:10

Track 1: Like that's um.

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Track 2: And I guess I think Todd Field was one of the other nominees,

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Track 2: right, for In the Bedroom.

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Track 1: I don't think he actually got Best Director. The other one was Ridley Scott

Speaker: 01:10:19

Track 1: for Blackhawk Down, which is fine.

Speaker: 01:10:22

Track 1: And then Peter Jackson for Lord of the Rings, which again, I don't think you

Speaker: 01:10:25

Track 1: should have won for that. I mean, I'm a huge Lord of the Rings fan,

Speaker: 01:10:27

Track 1: but Best Director, maybe not.

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Track 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Track 1: Not over David Lynch at Mulholland Drive. Yeah, I mean, that's,

Speaker: 01:10:33

Track 1: again, like you can go down the whole thing.

Speaker: 01:10:36

Track 1: But I think one of the other notes you put in the kind of the nepotism is like the kind,

Speaker: 01:10:42

Track 1: Which maybe is an area we haven't discussed too much, and it also falls into

Speaker: 01:10:45

Track 1: the chapter of your book that you had mentioned where you talked about is kind

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Track 1: of like the systemic kind of nature of the film as it kind of relates to just

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Track 1: beyond Hollywood and how there's this idea of, especially under a capitalist society,

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Track 1: of the promotion of kind of the individualist.

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Track 1: So there's this individual Betty who, you know, the tragedy is,

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Track 1: you know, as an individual person, as it goes through, but it's kind of more than just individuals.

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Track 1: And that's kind of how we're forced to see art a lot of times and how we're forced to see films.

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Track 1: I mean, not just filmmaking, but just kind of art in general.

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Track 1: So I don't know if you had any additional thoughts.

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Track 2: Well, no, I think it's picking up very well from what we were just talking about, right?

Speaker: 01:11:29

Track 2: About like who gets to be the one, right? Right. There's all these deserving

Speaker: 01:11:32

Track 2: people or these people are doing work who gets to be the one or in the case

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Track 2: of Oscar nominations, the five who who stand out, who are the who are seen as exceptional.

Speaker: 01:11:44

Track 2: And you get that whole this is any like with anything with Mulholland Drive,

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Track 2: anytime that we're talking about, like what things that the industry is saying,

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Track 2: that's also broadly things we can apply to narratives and myths that the United

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Track 2: States makes and promotes. Right.

Speaker: 01:11:59

Track 2: As far as like, you know, if you're going to be something, be number one. Right.

Speaker: 01:12:02

Track 2: But everybody can't be that. Right. That's why it's number one.

Speaker: 01:12:07

Track 2: Right. There's only only one person can do it. But yet everyone is encouraged to do it.

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Track 2: And so you get a lot of people to put in a lot of work and a lot of and sacrificing

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Track 2: a lot of things under the belief that, well, I'm going to be the exception.

Speaker: 01:12:23

Track 2: Right. This is this is going to be different for me. And that's, you know,

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Track 2: certainly everyone who who gets off the bus and, you know, in Hollywood knows

Speaker: 01:12:34

Track 2: the odds are stacked against them, but it can't get off that bus and not believe.

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Track 2: But I'm going to be the exception, right? I'm going to be the one who is not

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Track 2: where the, the, the, I'm going to be on the side of the minority of the one, the few who do make it.

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Track 2: Um, cause it's, it asks too much of you to, to not think that,

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Track 2: right? Like that would be a liability to think, oh, maybe like, I don't know.

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Track 2: I mean, there's so many great people, right? I mean, you, you have to think that.

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Track 2: Um, and, and so, yeah,

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Track 2: it's, it's the same kind of thing here where we We can see the stuff that's

Speaker: 01:13:12

Track 2: happening throughout this movie is what that thinking can do to a person because

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Track 2: we normally just see it when it works out.

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Track 2: And that's normally what Diane has seen, right, is when it works out.

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Track 2: That's what she imagines is when it works out. But what happens when it doesn't?

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Track 2: What's that feel like? and you know the last 20 minutes or so of mahalan drive

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Track 2: like are this really intense depiction of what that feels like for that to discover

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Track 2: you're not going to be the exception right.

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Track 1: Yeah i mean and then it's the you know the unfortunate thing that i think people don't,

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Track 1: beyond just like the simple concept within hollywood too is people who are trying

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Track 1: so hard because you're told like, oh, if you move to America,

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Track 1: you can pull yourself up and become a millionaire.

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Track 1: If you do all these things and you try really hard, but you always hear about the people who do that.

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Track 1: Like, oh, I started such and such company and now I'm a millionaire or whatever.

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Track 1: And maybe that's the case for some people, but for the vast majority of those

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Track 1: people, they're not even getting past that first run and you don't hear about

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Track 1: them because they're the loser.

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Track 1: They're the ones who didn't make it. And you're supposed to now, I don't know, So, um...

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Track 1: Not supposed to feel bad for them because they didn't work hard or try hard enough.

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Track 1: And, you know, Betty didn't try hard enough or, but the, in the reality is that

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Track 1: the entire game was stacked against her.

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Track 1: She has, you know, a director and you have the people pushing the financing

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Track 1: for this film and all this, I mean, comparing it again, like towards the film,

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Track 1: film in real life and film in this movie sense is all these things are stacked against you.

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Track 1: Like Betty had almost no chance to ever make it you know in this in this reality

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Track 1: and at the end she takes her own life because it's too painful to even you know

Speaker: 01:15:04

Track 1: god like the scene where she like shoots herself and there's the cloud of like

Speaker: 01:15:07

Track 1: the smoke it's just it's so heartbreaking it's just so it's it's just it's gut-wrenching.

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Track 2: Yeah because it boils down essentially to like one day they say this is the

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Track 2: girl right and like what's great in the movie is that um we see two different

Speaker: 01:15:23

Track 2: girls get declared this is the girl, right?

Speaker: 01:15:25

Track 2: Like, it almost makes it seem arbitrary, because in some ways it is, right?

Speaker: 01:15:29

Track 2: It doesn't seem like the Castigliani brothers have this, like,

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Track 2: real attachment to Camilla Rhodes.

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Track 2: Like, they don't talk about her skills or anything. It's just like,

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Track 2: this is the girl. Like, this is who it is right now.

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Track 2: And like, they have as little control over it as you do.

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Track 2: You know, or as anybody else does. It's just some, and Betty and Diane just

Speaker: 01:15:49

Track 2: discover that at the time that they arrive in the context that they get to, they're not the girl.

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Track 2: At that time, no matter, and nothing they're going to do is going to make them the girl.

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Track 2: It's just how it is. Right. But, um, yeah.

Speaker: 01:16:02

Track 2: Betty and Diane have been brought up on a steady diet of only seeing who the girl is, right?

Speaker: 01:16:07

Track 2: And like you're saying, they don't make the movies about the people who were

Speaker: 01:16:10

Track 2: not the girl because that doesn't fit with the story.

Speaker: 01:16:13

Track 2: And it's a bummer. So nobody wants to see that.

Speaker: 01:16:18

Track 2: But yet that is far closer to everyone else's lived experience.

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Track 2: And um and it's worth um

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Track 2: it's deserving of a dignified treatment right of

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Track 2: what that feels like you know and mahalan drive is one of the few movies that

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Track 2: actually like gives that experience it's full-throated authentic honest wholehearted

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Track 2: treatment even though it's a completely unrealistic movie it's probably the

Speaker: 01:16:44

Track 2: most emotionally honest version of that that you could ask for.

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Track 1: Yeah i I think that's actually a good place to take one of the,

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Track 1: if you probably ask a lot of people like what their favorite scene or like what

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Track 1: the scene like made them feel the most,

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Track 1: it's probably the Silencio club scene where you have, you know,

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Track 1: this recording of the first this magician coming on and reducing and having this song in Spanish.

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Track 1: And you mentioned earlier, like the scene where, you know, Naomi Watts is like

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Track 1: shaking in her seat and there's just this uncontrollable, you know, grief and sadness.

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Track 1: And it's like, whenever I watch that scene, I'm just like struck by how,

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Track 1: like what, obviously there is a, it's meaning forcing you to think and just

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Track 1: become, you know, just to see the, the, the tragedy of all this.

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Track 1: But I don't know what you make of that scene. I think you wrote that it's like

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Track 1: everything about cinema, like in a single scene, but like this scene is just.

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Track 2: I mean, it's, it's just, it's, um, It's amazing.

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Track 2: I mean, there's just nothing, you know, you have this, of course,

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Track 2: incredible vocal performance.

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Track 2: You've got the experience of people in a theater watching something moving and amazing.

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Track 2: I mean, so they're literally doing what we're doing, watching it,

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Track 2: being coming there to not expecting to be moved in the way that they are,

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Track 2: but nevertheless are, and they can't explain it, right?

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Track 2: And we don't, and they don't know what she's singing about as far as we can

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Track 2: tell. It's just, but the emotion and the power is undeniable. And yet.

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Track 2: It's all fake. And we're told at the beginning that it's fake,

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Track 2: right? That it's all a tape recording.

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Track 2: This isn't really happening in front of you.

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Track 2: And even when we're told that, we're moved nonetheless.

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Track 2: And that's just like when we go into a movie, right? Oh, I know this isn't real.

Speaker: 01:18:37

Track 2: I know it's all recorded beforehand and like it's been manipulated and all of this stuff.

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Track 2: You know, it's like, I get it. I know how the sausage is made,

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Track 2: right? Right. I'm I'm I'm too cool to to feel stuff. And then, bam.

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Track 2: Right. This scene hits you and you're suddenly feeling things.

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Track 2: And then Rebecca Del Rio collapses and you suddenly thought, oh, crap.

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Track 2: Oh, God, that wasn't she wasn't really singing that.

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Track 2: So, well, no, they told you that like just a minute ago, like literally two

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Track 2: and a half minutes ago, they told you that this was fake. But it makes you forget.

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Track 2: And that's that's the whole movie in miniature at the dream,

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Track 2: the fantasy, the artifice is so powerful.

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Track 2: That it can make you forget the truth and what's real, even if someone tells you right before.

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Track 2: And that's like every movie does this, right? We go in and we forget what we're

Speaker: 01:19:28

Track 2: looking at and are moved nonetheless against our better judgment.

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Track 2: And I mean, and that's just, I mean, that's the power of art,

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Track 2: right? It's artifice. It's artificial. It's not real.

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Track 2: And yet it gets at greater truths than real things are capable of.

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Track 2: And movies, of course, at least to me, can do this more powerfully because they

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Track 2: have that verisimilitude that a lot of other art forms lack, right?

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Track 2: Like we've got sound and picture together, you know, photorealistic.

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Track 2: Like we've got people, you know, actually doing the things and being photographed doing them.

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Track 2: It's a beautiful illusion that makes us forget it's an illusion.

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Track 2: It's so powerful. No wonder –,

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Track 2: no wonder so many people get fooled into into like get hoodwinked into into

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Track 2: coming and thinking like this can happen to me right it's it's too real not to not to believe that.

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Track 1: And the the like ultimate irony of

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Track 1: it being introduced by a magician who's like who like

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Track 1: literally you know like oh i know magic isn't real it's

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Track 1: all an illusion and then like he literally puts the

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Track 1: illusion in front of you tells you the illusion it it's it

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Track 1: reminds me i don't know if you've maybe you've seen the the nolan film

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Track 1: like the prestige oh sure yeah like the beginning it's like

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Track 1: i i really like the movie i know some people have i

Speaker: 01:20:46

Track 1: recently had this conversation where like the the voiceover at

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Track 1: the beginning is essentially telling you what he's about to do and then you

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Track 1: watch the entire movie and you're like oh he did the thing that they were gonna

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Track 1: tell you he did and then you're like oh but it was still like i'm still surprised

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Track 1: it's like it's the same thing like he's telling you the surprise and then you're

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Track 1: still like oh really i'm not surprised and it's,

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Track 1: it's just an emotionally heartfelt scene that's kind of hard to uh you you mentioned

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Track 1: like the whole last 20 minutes of just being this tragic play and all these

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Track 1: things happening all at once and it's just uh i don't is that in the last 20

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Track 1: minutes is that it is yeah so.

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Track 2: Um i guess where the tv pilot initially ends or i guess real quick yeah to like

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Track 2: to add to what you were just saying like i mean yeah in that case like it really is a magic trick.

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Track 1: Right like.

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Track 2: It we've been told we've shown all the machinery been told

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Track 2: how it all works and yet we still feel so like that's the magic

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Track 2: that's the trick right that's the prestige is like

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Track 2: i just showed you the whole trick and you still fell for it um but um

Speaker: 01:21:46

Track 2: yeah so like everything like they go to diane selman's apartment and they run

Speaker: 01:21:49

Track 2: out screaming and there's like those multiple dissolves where they like all

Speaker: 01:21:52

Track 2: freak out um that's where the tv pilot episode it was supposed to end like that

Speaker: 01:21:56

Track 2: was going to be the end of mulholland drive episode one and so everything after

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Track 2: that is the stuff they come back and make about a year later to turn it into a feature film.

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Track 2: And so that's I think they come back.

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Track 2: If I'm remembering correctly, they come back and that's when they go to bed

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Track 2: together and then they wake up and it's she's having the dream and saying silencio

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Track 2: and they get in the car and go.

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Track 2: And that's that's kind of what I'm calling.

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Track 2: I mean, I think it might be longer than like the last 20 minutes,

Speaker: 01:22:23

Track 2: but roughly that third act. That's all the new material that wasn't filmed for the ABC.

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Track 2: All the R rated stuff, you know, that comes that comes after that wouldn't be

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Track 2: in a Disney property is all is a club silencio.

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Track 2: Is part of that um that sequence.

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Track 1: Got okay okay that makes that makes sense and yeah the

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Track 1: um what was everything i was going to say yeah and so like the the uh

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Track 1: yeah the end of this the film is just you know we we see the all the tragedies

Speaker: 01:22:54

Track 1: there's a lot i mean there's a bunch of scenes i think we we left out and i

Speaker: 01:22:57

Track 1: think there's probably you could probably in another podcast uh i listened to

Speaker: 01:23:02

Track 1: who did this there was they did a lot of conversation around just kind of like

Speaker: 01:23:06

Track 1: the relationship between,

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Track 1: betty and rita which i don't think we touched too much so i don't know if there's

Speaker: 01:23:11

Track 1: anything in particular any scenes that you wanted to uh to call out or if there's

Speaker: 01:23:15

Track 1: any other things that kind of uh weren't on our sort of uh our uh guide here

Speaker: 01:23:21

Track 1: to walk us through this but any any other bits that we uh wanted to cover it's

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Track 1: like i said i feel like we could probably spend a lot more time but.

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Track 2: Yeah yeah i mean i i feel bad i guess that we didn't necessarily do a deep dive

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Track 2: on the cowboy But then again, I don't I don't have a tremendous I don't think

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Track 2: I have anything super smart to say about the cowboy other than like,

Speaker: 01:23:41

Track 2: I think that dude's amazing.

Speaker: 01:23:43

Track 2: And and it's some of the best writing that I think Lynch has done in that exchange.

Speaker: 01:23:48

Track 2: Um but it's uh you know it's it's another example of something being so ridiculous

Speaker: 01:23:54

Track 2: and menacing at the same time you know and these uh and like silly tropes like

Speaker: 01:24:00

Track 2: this dude in a stupid ass hat like meeting at a ranch scaring the crap out of us um with.

Speaker: 01:24:07

Track 1: Like some of the best dialogue too.

Speaker: 01:24:08

Track 2: Like the way he delivers.

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Track 1: It is just uh it's like if you you'll see me two more times if.

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Track 2: You do if You do good. Yeah. I mean, it really it almost seems like the nightmare

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Track 2: version of like David Lynch.

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Track 2: Right. Like, because it's a weird folksy affect, but with no sense of gentleness

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Track 2: or or or kind heartedness about it at all.

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Track 2: It's just pure menace. um yeah i mean it's and i guess that guy is uh monty

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Track 2: montgomery who was a producer on uh wild at heart he's um so like he's someone

Speaker: 01:24:44

Track 2: who's not an actor by trade right he's coming in through,

Speaker: 01:24:48

Track 2: lynch's the the the lynch's previous stable of collaborators.

Speaker: 01:24:51

Track 1: Yeah i looked at his wikipedia page it's like two lines long

Speaker: 01:24:55

Track 1: and it's exclusively mentions him with david lynch

Speaker: 01:24:58

Track 1: yeah yeah it's just uh those two i mean

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Track 1: he might have other credits that just aren't listed in i'm sure he has many

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Track 1: other ones but yeah the cowboy is always one of the like one of those things

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Track 1: that i just found really you know like and then i think you see him later at

Speaker: 01:25:13

Track 1: the party he like is just like yeah you do see him two more times yeah because i.

Speaker: 01:25:18

Track 2: Mean that's that's the other amazing thing because he shows up and says like

Speaker: 01:25:20

Track 2: hey pretty girl time to wake up so that's when you see him one more time yeah

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Track 2: and then in the background at the party he walks across like oh crap somebody

Speaker: 01:25:27

Track 2: did bad because we just saw him we just saw him two more times.

Speaker: 01:25:31

Track 1: Yeah another scene that i also like i

Speaker: 01:25:34

Track 1: think is probably the funniest scene in you know

Speaker: 01:25:37

Track 1: probably intentionally or just works out that way is when the

Speaker: 01:25:40

Track 1: the hitman that diane hires goes to the

Speaker: 01:25:42

Track 1: studio to you know shoot the the

Speaker: 01:25:45

Track 1: director or i don't know get the black book the

Speaker: 01:25:48

Track 1: black book and all these things it's just like the most comical like you know

Speaker: 01:25:53

Track 1: comedy of errors like shooting the bullet through hits the woman in the ass

Speaker: 01:25:56

Track 1: and like that goes on and it's you know it's i think that that is more like

Speaker: 01:26:01

Track 1: the reality version right like she hires him to do this and he just like completely

Speaker: 01:26:06

Track 1: bumbles everything yeah.

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Track 2: Yeah yeah that that seems so broad um and i guess like that one in the um i

Speaker: 01:26:14

Track 2: guess all the stuff with billy ray cyrus and the um the the that huge guy like

Speaker: 01:26:19

Track 2: there's a couple very broadly comedic moments.

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Track 1: Yeah oh that's a good in there.

Speaker: 01:26:23

Track 2: That uh that are unique to um you don't get a whole lot of that broad comedy

Speaker: 01:26:29

Track 2: in lynch's work that are i guess don't get a whole lot of it played strictly

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Track 2: for laughs um but it's yeah it's it's definitely some of his uh,

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Track 2: more of that lighter touch of like his influences from like everything from

Speaker: 01:26:41

Track 2: like you know jacques tati or the three stooges or something like that i.

Speaker: 01:26:44

Track 1: Think i had any i mean yeah like i said we could probably go on a lot of these different things here.

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Track 2: Well and it's hard too because everything in the movie basically happens twice

Speaker: 01:26:52

Track 2: right like because you've got all there's

Speaker: 01:26:55

Track 2: so much doubling so like you've got the

Speaker: 01:26:58

Track 2: the two audition scenes you've got two lip-syncing scenes you

Speaker: 01:27:01

Track 2: know you have uh two um like

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Track 2: there's a couple of different interviews of sorts right two diner

Speaker: 01:27:08

Track 2: scenes yeah two diner scenes you know there's just so much doubling

Speaker: 01:27:11

Track 2: that uh that when you start when you

Speaker: 01:27:14

Track 2: first notice it then you start seeing it everywhere

Speaker: 01:27:17

Track 2: in the movie like just everything's everything's happening twice but like in

Speaker: 01:27:22

Track 2: this movie and in lost highway like what's really where he just kind of goes

Speaker: 01:27:25

Track 2: wild with with doubles and doppelgangers and stuff like that and twin peaks

Speaker: 01:27:29

Track 2: or i mean like it's basically half of his body of work is stuff happening twice there's.

Speaker: 01:27:35

Track 1: Literally like the cousin of uh.

Speaker: 01:27:37

Track 2: Laura palmer yeah i'm.

Speaker: 01:27:38

Track 1: Like in the midst of re-watching that show right now.

Speaker: 01:27:40

Track 2: So oh nice fresh.

Speaker: 01:27:41

Track 1: Fresh in my mind.

Speaker: 01:27:42

Track 2: Yeah um.

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Track 1: But yeah so i don't know are there any other last like bits or like maybe if

Speaker: 01:27:47

Track 1: you had any closing thoughts maybe as it relates to the chapter i know we you.

Speaker: 01:27:50

Track 2: Already kind of talked about.

Speaker: 01:27:51

Track 1: At the top but if there's any way you want to like you know,

Speaker: 01:27:54

Track 1: kind of bring it back to bring it back to that.

Speaker: 01:27:57

Track 2: Oh, I mean, I guess just if anyone listening is not familiar with the work of

Speaker: 01:28:01

Track 2: Nathaniel West, I would highly, highly recommend checking out any of his four

Speaker: 01:28:05

Track 2: books, whether that's Dream Life of Balsa Snell, A Cool Million,

Speaker: 01:28:10

Track 2: Miss Lonely Hearts or Day of the Locust.

Speaker: 01:28:12

Track 2: They're all they're all all timers, you know, especially Day of the Locust.

Speaker: 01:28:18

Track 2: It's it lives up to all of the hype, although it is hard to read nowadays because

Speaker: 01:28:22

Track 2: one of the characters his name is homer simpson and so it makes reading the

Speaker: 01:28:27

Track 2: book really hard because he's very much not like homer simpson it's.

Speaker: 01:28:31

Track 1: Funny when uh when when i was reading the chapter and i saw that like i had i.

Speaker: 01:28:35

Track 2: Did like a double take immediately because.

Speaker: 01:28:36

Track 1: I just was like wait.

Speaker: 01:28:38

Track 2: What and then i i.

Speaker: 01:28:39

Track 1: Like i literally googled like oh okay get it now.

Speaker: 01:28:41

Track 2: Yeah yeah it's yeah so now just imagine that feeling for

Speaker: 01:28:44

Track 2: like 200 pages where you have to keep telling yourself no not

Speaker: 01:28:47

Track 2: not that homer simpson not that homer simpson but it's

Speaker: 01:28:50

Track 2: other than that it's a it's a it's an impeccable book it's it's so great and

Speaker: 01:28:55

Track 2: he's kind of he's often overshadowed by you know that fitzgerald and hemingway

Speaker: 01:28:58

Track 2: and the other kind of writers of that time period and because he didn't write

Speaker: 01:29:01

Track 2: as much material but um but he's he's very very worth um worth your time awesome.

Speaker: 01:29:08

Track 1: Well uh mike it's been a pleasure to have you on to talk about this uh this uh,

Speaker: 01:29:16

Track 1: incredible film by david lynch and actually i have to ask before i know i was

Speaker: 01:29:19

Track 1: like starting to close it out but you.

Speaker: 01:29:20

Track 2: Said this.

Speaker: 01:29:21

Track 1: Wasn't your favorite david lynch.

Speaker: 01:29:22

Track 2: Film so i'm.

Speaker: 01:29:23

Track 1: Now i have to know which one it.

Speaker: 01:29:24

Track 2: Is oh i think blue velvet is my favorite film of all time that

Speaker: 01:29:28

Track 2: i think that one is uh it just it's

Speaker: 01:29:31

Track 2: got it all uh i mean i think and then i

Speaker: 01:29:34

Track 2: i probably lately i've been

Speaker: 01:29:37

Track 2: thinking okay firewalk with me is not my favorite movie but it

Speaker: 01:29:39

Track 2: might be his best or it might be his his you know

Speaker: 01:29:42

Track 2: best piece of work um i've probably seen lost highway the most um simply because

Speaker: 01:29:49

Track 2: that hit at the time when you would like rent it from the video store every

Speaker: 01:29:54

Track 2: weekend and show it to a different friend and stay up all night trying to figure

Speaker: 01:29:58

Track 2: out what it was about uh that's.

Speaker: 01:30:00

Track 1: Exactly how i saw that movie.

Speaker: 01:30:01

Track 2: Yeah yeah yeah i mean it's what you got to do right uh but so i mean i i do

Speaker: 01:30:07

Track 2: love this one very much um yeah it's just uh but blue velvet i think is the

Speaker: 01:30:12

Track 2: the this is the one for me that is uh just does everything movies everything

Speaker: 01:30:18

Track 2: you want a movie to do and and then some that's.

Speaker: 01:30:21

Track 1: Fair i i i was thinking about this and i think for me it probably is mulholland drive i think.

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Track 2: Only because.

Speaker: 01:30:27

Track 1: I've seen it the most times i.

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Track 2: Yeah just.

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Track 1: It's uh and maybe as we said at the beginning as like for someone who is new

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Track 1: to his work it's like the most cohesive or like maybe easy to digest film of

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Track 1: his and so maybe that just became like i it was i don't know maybe i did maybe

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Track 1: i need to see blue velvet more times to uh to uh,

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Track 1: to maybe change my mind but.

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Track 2: Yeah well i mean but i think if you're also if you're making a top 10

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Track 2: list of like most powerful sequences in a david lynch film

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Track 2: i think at minimum three of them are going

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Track 2: to be from this movie right you're going to have the winkies diner

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Track 2: scene the um the audition scene and the

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Track 2: club silencio scene right yeah so right so like this

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Track 2: and i mean this movie is going to have three of those spots right you're going

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Track 2: to have the and you have the mystery man scene from lost highway right that'd

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Track 2: be the the one from lost highway you're going to have um you know there's gonna

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Track 2: be a couple from from blue velvet and from eraser but i don't think any of the

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Track 2: other movies are going to get three in that top 10 no right so i mean it's like you could.

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Track 1: Probably you can make a case for any of those i mean.

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Track 2: I think.

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Track 1: Someone i saw on online recently was saying that their favorite one was twin

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Track 1: peaks what you know far with me like those are like there's none of these opinions

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Track 1: or none of these are a bad uh bad 10 films and your choices of uh.

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Track 2: Yeah i.

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Track 1: Think i saw someone actually post an article maybe i didn't read it yet that

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Track 1: the street story was actually their favorite lynch.

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Track 2: Movie even though he didn't write.

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Track 1: It but directed it and so.

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Track 2: Yeah i mean his partner wrote or his partner at the time wrote it so

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Track 2: it's very much a like a kind of an in-house project but

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Track 2: yeah i mean that that's certainly his most underrated movie um just

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Track 2: because it's it's a g-rated disney film that doesn't

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Track 2: uh immediately smack of of being lynchian yet it's it's all there um you know

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Track 2: and it's uh it's just it's there in a different way and uh I've certainly I've

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Track 2: certainly it's grown on me tremendously as I've gotten older to watch it. I think it had a it got it.

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Track 2: It got a bad rap when it came out because people just sort of dismissed it as

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Track 2: like, oh, it's Forrest Gump on a tractor, you know, or something like that.

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Track 2: And like, that's just like.

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Track 2: On one level, that is a description of the movie, but it is to miss the entire point of the movie.

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Track 2: But it's also it's a brain worm, right? Like you get that in your head and it

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Track 2: takes a while to to not see it like that, particularly like when I saw it,

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Track 2: if you were a, you know, a know-it-all 21-year-old, you know, like you're going to.

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Track 1: I like it more than Forrest Gump.

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Track 2: Well, yeah, low bar, right? But yeah, I don't like Forrest Gump.

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Track 1: If anyone uh had listened to my episode

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Track 1: way a while ago on us five of us kind of hating on forrest gump oh sure yeah

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Track 1: hour and a half as i think i think one's one should do perhaps yeah it's cathartic

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Track 1: speaking of another speaking of another like academy award film like that you

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Track 1: know the whole anyway yeah but uh but mike uh it's been a pleasure having you

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Track 1: to talk about yeah thank you drive yeah.

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Track 2: I had a great time thanks so much for having me i really appreciate it.

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Track 1: Of course and i'll put a note to a pre-order i assume they could pre-order your yeah yeah yeah.

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Track 2: It'll be uh yeah i guess you'll uh you can pre-order it probably if you if you

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Track 2: watch the if you listen to these right away or um you know or if it's a couple

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Track 2: days later it might be available in a in a store or web store uh near you.

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Track 1: Awesome well uh again thanks for being here and you've been listening to left

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Track 1: of the projector and we will catch you next time.