ESSAYS, ARTICLES, AND THEORIES ABOUT CINEMA: HITCHHIKING DOWN MULHOLLAND DRIVE

David Lynch, famously known for haunting audiences with Blue Velvet (1986), alienating audiences with Eraserhead (1977), and intriguing audiences with Twin Peaks (1990), turns his attention to exploring the absurd within modern Los Angeles in his pivotal film, Mulholland Drive(2001). This film centers on Betty, who comes to Los Angeles with hopes of breaking out as an actress. She comes across Rita, a woman suffering from amnesia, who is in the center of a huge mystery. Together, Betty and Rita attempt to solve the mystery, as big shot film director, Adam Kesher, slowly loses control of his current production to suspicious mafia figures that want a woman named Camilla Rhodes as the lead female role. As Adam’s financial status is dwindled away, Betty and Rita discover that a woman named Diane Selwyn has something to do with the mystery. Betty and Rita fall in love, but the story changes once reality unfolds itself.

What appears to have been the reality, had been a mere fantasy conjured up by Betty, who is actually Diane. She is in love with Rita, who is actually Camilla Rhodes. When it is shown that Camilla is in love with Adam, Diane creates the fantasy (the first part of the film) that Camilla is Rita, a vulnerable woman who needs Diane, now manifested as innocent Betty, and forced Adam to suffer utter humiliation. Before Betty creates this alternate world, she becomes insane and kills herself, thus prompting the regenerating of the beginning of the film. The film contains themes that appear in Lynch’s other masterpieces. Specifically just as Lynch creates the Black and White Lodges in Twin Peaks, he creates the old realm and the new realm. The old, being the first part of the movie and the new being the second part. In David Lynch’sMulholland Drive (2001), through its use of cinematography and mise-en-scene, the audience enters two surreal realms with a scattered enigmatic plot, and with the usage of the subconscious, all pieces are reconstructed, thus forcing the alteration of natural cinema perception.

The film relies heavily on the stylized use of cinematography. The camera glides in delicate movement similar to that of a paintbrush smoothly flowing against a canvas. Every shot contains meaning, even if at the time it appears pointless. This idea shows that if every shot contains valuable information, our reconstruction of these shots creates an understanding of the meaning. There is a scene in the film studio where Adam is auditioning women for his Sylvia North project, when the camera is focused, with a medium close up, on a woman singing. The camera slowly tracks back to show four other backup singers, then continues tracking back to show them through a window in a recording studio booth, and finally continues slowly tracking back to show a camera and reveal the actual location being a film studio with artificial sets, lighting instrument and crew.

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This brilliant shot exposes the audience to the hypnotic magic of Hollywood. The use of the tracking shot, and the fact the scene is shot in one long consecutive take reinforces the reality of seeing the exposure of truth as it unfolds. The frame itself is magically altered three different times, and brings the theory of perception to a completely different level. The audience sees a singer and thinks, since they see nothing else, then they automatically think she is alone. But when the camera tracks back showing four other people in the room, the audience has been given additional information. And when the camera continues tracking back to show the misconception of location, the audience now has to forget all original thoughts perceived earlier. The girl and group are now recording, thus changing the story. And just when the audience feels comfortable with accepting this new establishment, the camera tracks back again to reveal that in fact they have been fooled the entire time by the manipulation of cinematic magic. This manipulation is used in every product distributed by the dream factory of Hollywood. Lynch socially comments on this very perception by imploring its exposure via the use of cinematographic technique. By its use, one wanders: when will the tracking shot stop? Mulholland Drive is itself a product of the medium, and if one were to continue the metaphorical tracking shot, the audience would discover yet another crew behind the crew. Since the diegetic location is established as Hollywood, California, the overall question posed is: if one were to leave the location (what appears to be an actual studio) would they not actually be in France, Vancouver, or maybe Atlanta? This scene also is a metaphor for the film’s structure. After the first half of the movie, everything changes. What appeared to be reality was a fantasy. The audience is forced to forget everything they have seen structurally to that midpoint, because they have entered a new world. Just as the camera tracks back revealing something new, the audience is metaphorically pulled back to discover something else besides the “reality” of the first part. The first part of the film serves the very same purpose of the shot of the girl singing. Everything is pretty and easily interpretated, but with the pull of a dolly, the audience is forced to experience the falsification of the old realm (the first part) and accept the emergence of the new realm, bringing about new interpretation.

Another interesting use of cinematography within the film is Lynch’s use of close ups. One tool of Hollywood is the close up. It is what separates film from all other mediums. But, what was once used as a distance technique, has become a meaningless trend in Hollywood. Audiences flee to see their favorite stars right up close. Well, Lynch not only in some scenes uses it effectively, but he satirizes the meaningless use of it within the Hollywood community. One way he effectively uses the technique is shown in the scene where Betty first sees Adam. Betty enters the studio and sees Adam. The next shot consists of yet another tracking shot, but this time forward and goes from a medium shot of Adam, all the way to a close up. The next shot has the exact same technique, but applied to Betty, capturing a closer view of her facial expression once she comes in eye contact with Adam. The shot after that one shows Adam again, but this time his eyes show a longing feeling towards Betty. And again back to Betty, who smiles and turns back around. Once Adam makes his selection for the role, he turns back around and the frame shows an extreme close up of Betty’s eyes, and then a reverse shot in an extreme close up of Adam’s eyes.

While credit must also be given to the film’s editor, the use of camera techniques dominates the scene. Betty first notices Adam once she enters the room, and the camera moves right in to Adam’s face. The camera is being pulled into Adam’s perception in how he sees Betty, who is absolutely gorgeous in the next shot, but also moving into her face, the camera is brought into her perception as well, showing Adam with the longing eyes. Lynch is trying to show how a character on the screen literally can absorb the camera and create images from the ideal perception of that individual character. Inside this world, Diane creates a new Adam and recreates herself as Betty, and forces him to desire her. In the second part, she feels threatened by Adam’s power and his love for Camilla, so she reconstructs Adam to no longer desire Camilla, but to desire her. There’s also a poetic flow to the scene. The goal of the scene is to become closer to the characters. From the beginning, the audience sees both characters from a medium shot, and by the end, the audience sees both characters in an extreme close up. This is used to make the audience feel the connection between the two. In a way, they partake in “optical” intercourse.

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Another scene that shows an interesting use of cinematography is in the second part with Diane obsessing over Camilla. Once she realizes that she cannot have her, Diane grows sexually restless. The camera PANS ACROSS a room and down to a close up of Diane on the couch crying. The audience then gets a POV shot of the marble ceiling, which is unfocused, but is suddenly shot right back into focus. This effect completes the POV shot, allowing the audience to really feel like they are perceiving reality through crying eyes. The next shot is back to Diane who bangs her head against the couch and continues sobbing as the camera PANS DOWN her sweat-drenched body and reveals her unhappily masturbating.

By leaving the camera on her face up close, the audience is able to experience every feeling going through her body. She obviously feels pleasure and hate, two opposing emotions we see battling it out through her eyes. Lynch also uses the pan, again like before, to bring new information to mind. The scene, while hard to watch, shows Diane’s desire for instant sexual gratification, which she must give herself since Camilla fails to provide her with it.

If anything holds Mulholland Drive together, it is the film’s mise-en-scene. Everything within the frame serves a purpose in the film. Just as the individual shots are scattered pieces, every prop, costume, acting style, and light is an individual piece to the puzzle waiting to be picked up and put together. The mise-en-scene is analyzed through differentiation: through the first and second part of the film. First, this is shown through props. In the first part, while Betty and Rita go into the diner, their waitress has a nametag, which says, “DIANE.” This prompts Rita to begin realizing the false realm she has been thrown into. Betty’s inner subconscious (Diane) knows what is happening, but her outer self as Betty overpowers the mind. She too has been thrown into this realm by her own subconscious. In the second part of the film, Diane sits with a hitman and the same waitress from the first part waits on them, but this time has a nametag that says, “BETTY.” By the prop itself, the audience concludes that Diane takes Betty (the waitress) and uses her identity to construct her manifestation of Betty in the first part. This is also shown when Rita, after meeting Betty, discovers a film poster of Gilda (1946) starring Rita Hayworth. Once she notices the poster, she takes the identity of Rita Hayworth and applies it to herself. The next shot has Rita coming out of the bathroom with a happy expression on her face. This is because she has taken the identity of the prop. There are contextualized props like the key, the ashtray, Pandora’s box, which contain a new meaning as they appear in the first part compared to the second part. The key, specifically, in the first part is some mystery key that eventually is used to unlock Pandora’s box, but in the second part, the key is given to Diane by the hitman to signify the death of Camilla. Adam Kesher beats up the Casiglioni Brothers’ limo with a golf club, a prop not designed for destruction, therefore it is a metaphorical prop. Another prop used is the wig that Betty makes for Rita. With the wig on, Rita clearly resembles Betty. This prop gives a visual representation of the linking between the two characters. It also shows how Diane manifested Betty making the wig to look more like herself, because when she sees Rita/Camilla, she ultimately sees herself, therefore contains a form of narcissism. This also explains her desire to masturbate, since one partakes in the act to literally make love to ones self.

Costumes, just like props are very important to the characters and the story. The costumes in the film define the characters. In the first part, Rita and Adam both wear a lot of black clothing and Betty wears a lot of white clothing. This is used to show the distinction between characters. Diane creates Betty wearing white to show that she is innocent in this world where everyone else is dark and gloomy, wearing a lot of black. In the second part, the color of clothing is basically thrown around like the method of a Jackson Pollock painting. Costumes that are usually bright in reality are dark in the second part and vice versa. On the subject of color, it is important to mention the paint on Adam’s clothing. When he finds his wife in bed with another man, he takes a bucket of hot pink paint and dumps it in her jewelry. After being thrown out of the house, his clothing is stained with the hot pink paint. The contrast of the hot pink coloration is extremely bright, almost garish to the human eye. This leaves the audience with an unsettled, grotesque feeling. It feels as though stability is thrown off with the mixture of the black clothing and the hot pink stain. This surreal image of the sloshed pink appears very similar to a vomit substance, but at the same time is very striking to the eye in its brightness. The stained costume must be significant, because he does not change right away. In fact, he remains in the clothes for almost all of the first part. In reality, one would change clothes right away, but he does not.

The acting style changes from the first part to the second as well. Naomi Watts, who plays Betty in the first part is happy, clean and innocent, but also portrays Diane in the second, who is unhappy, unkempt, and insane. The scene which marks the transformation from Betty back into Diane is shown when the audience sees Diane’s rotting dead body in the dark room, fading out to come back in with Naomi Watts now in the place of the dead rotting Diane. She wakes and her face is more wrinkled, her hair is in streaks and her posture is poor and lanky. The same is with Rita, after opening Pandora’s Box, is transformed back into Camilla. As Rita, she is shy, confused and nice, but as Camilla, she is confident, mean and sinister.

Lighting is another factor of mise-en-scene used interestingly in the film. Specifically in the Club Silencio scene, once Betty and Rita take their seats, a spotlight shines on a man standing on the stage. A cast shadow of the man is seen behind him. Once the man begins giving the main plot of the film, stating that nothing is real in the present world. the lights dim and a strobe effect shown. The strobe effect is one of David Lynch’s signature trademarks. It gives the audience a moment of insanity. People typically do not see the full power of light as far as its speed, but watching a strobe, the audience is capable of perceiving the real essence of the speed of light. Not to mention, anything viewed under a strobe light appears like it moves in slow motion. But mainly, the strobe effect is used to fully make the audience feel uncomfortable. Lynch saves the strobe for moments when he really wants to push the audience to the limit. Along with the strobe, smoke appears, the man disappears, and a wave of blue light floods the stage, proscenium arch and the audience. This effect along with the strobe is used to distance the audience away from fully understanding meaning. After this effect, Rebecca Del Rio sings and faints, but a unique trick they used is having the spotlight follow her as she collapses on the floor. This shows how even though her singing was not real, she still serves some significance. The very significance correlates to not only this film, but most notably all of Lynch’s films. He places emphasis on the mundane and the absurd so often that it seems irrelevant, when in actuality, something as small as Rebecca Del Rio falling over with the recording still playing serves the very purpose of the film’s intention.

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Cinematography and mise-en-scene, alone, are useful ways to convey a feeling, however, when used together, the scene fully comes together and literally submerges the audience within the action. The scene where the audience is brought into the new realm is a perfect example of the collaboration between cinematography and mise-en-scene. Rita takes the key and Pandora’s Box, which the audience sees up close and she inserts the key into the hole of the box. She slowly turns the key and opens the box with the camera facing down inside. The inside of the box is pitch black. Suddenly, the camera is literally pulled inside the box. The next shot has the camera coming out of the box, with the box dropping on the floor. Metaphysically, the audience left the old world by entering the box and found its way though the box and into the new realm. The scene focuses on both the prop of Pandora’s Box and the camera. The camera and audience literally go inside a prop. The scene after has Betty waking up as Diane. While in this new realm, the audience is forced to forge everything before this point. Diane puts on a white robe, which symbolizes the very innocence she puts into her idea of Betty. She wears the white robe to mask her true self. In a way, it is like putting on a show, because white typically signifies marriage and purity, something we later find is irrelevant to Diane. The scene has Diane standing at the sink and in a long take, the camera slowly ZOOMS IN to capture her breathing heavily. She turns and shows excitement for seeing someone’s presence (offscreen). This presence rouses her up as the audience gets a reverse shot of Rita, who is now Camilla. She is wearing a bright red dress, bright red lipstick, luscious heavy eyeliner and jet-black hair. She is a temptress for Diane. For Diane is fully enthralled by her seduction. The shot goes back to Diane with another long take of her breathing heavily again, but goes from excitement to sheer anger with deeper breaths and an increase of sighing with each exhale. Then the audience gets another reverse shot to Diane with a solemn expression, where Camilla was standing. This technique, while breaking all conventions of order, adds more evidence to Diane seeing more of herself in Camilla. She makes coffee and as Diane walks to the couch, the camera tracks behind her with a close up frame of her robed buttocks. She ventures off screen left as the camera CRANES UP, TRACKS IN, and PANS DOWN, revealing Camilla on the couch, topless. Diane, who has disrobed, revealing she is in fact topless as well, climbs over the couch and straddles herself on Camilla. The disrobing of the white bathrobe shows her removing the innocence, exposing the sexual deviant she really is. This scene gives the precise description of Diane and Camilla’s relationship. Diane wants Camilla all to herself, but Camilla is in love with Adam. This scene makes the audience feel uncomfortable, because of its nudity, however does a better job showing how possessive Diane truly is.

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The final scene that shows a collaboration of cinematography and mise-en-scene takes place with Diane receiving the call from Camilla. In a darkly lit room, the camera PANS DOWN a red wall, revealing a small wooden table with a black telephone, multi-colored ashtray and a lamp with a red shade. In a long shot, focusing on the table, Diane walks out from behind the wall in a long black dress with red straps. She picks up the phone as the camera slowly ZOOMS IN to her face. This scene, while an example of pure artistic cinema, gives the audience a collaboration of the beautiful camera movements with the décor of the set and use of props all under a dim light.

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David Lynch takes the ordinary use of cinematography and mise-en-scene and makes the camera more than just a camera and mise-en-scene more than just things in the frame. He makes the camera an eye (with and without a clear perspective) and mise-en-scene pieces of a puzzle to give hints to a mystery. The magic of solving the puzzle does not occur while viewing the images, but the impact it leaves within the mind. There are several moments in the film when something feels like it is meaningless, however, keeping it in mind helps applying it to later moments when it can be used to solve the puzzle. Take seeing the key for example. One typically sees the key and forgets it, but do they really forget it? Deep down in their subconscious they remember it, but its up to them to try and pull it out. But it is not until they see Pandora’s box with a keyhole consisting of the same shape of the key that the significance of the key has its understood importance. Now these shots and framed key elements without self-interpretation are merely objects, but with self-interpretation, one is capable of reconstructing a different puzzle than another. This style of storytelling, while similar to that of poetry, allows the medium of film to be considered more than just a film. The thought of one making one’s own interpretation springboards this to a living piece of art. No one can just watch the film and clearly understand everything. The familiar description of this style of storytelling can best be summarized as a “50/50” method, where the filmmaker goes halfway and the audience is required to go the rest. While this idea is typically frowned upon by vast audiences favoring the “entertainment only” idea, Lynch figures that it does not matter if one does not understand his films, for he quite possibly might not fully understand his own work, therefore the journey of understanding every aspect is still alive with the original creator. Sometimes it is boring to watch a film and grasp all the meaning, therefore, sometimes an audience is faced with an enigma, which causes them to actually think. In David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive (2001), through its use of cinematography and mise-en-scene, the audience enters two surreal realms with a scattered enigmatic plot, and with the usage of the subconscious, all pieces are reconstructed, thus forcing the alteration of natural cinema perception.