Mulholland Drive

***Mulholland Drive*** (stylized as MULHOLLAND DR.) is a 2001 surreal neo-noir mystery film written and directed by David Lynch. It tells the story of an aspiring actress named newly arrived in Los Angeles, who meets and befriends an amnesiac woman recovering from a car accident. The story follows several other vignettes and characters, including a Hollywood film director.

The American-French co-production was originally conceived as a television pilot called Mulholland Dr., and a large portion of the film was shot in 1999 with Lynch's plan to keep it open-ended for a potential series. After viewing Lynch's cut, however, television executives rejected it. Lynch then provided an ending to the project, making it a feature film. The half-pilot, half-feature result, along with Lynch's characteristic style, has left the general meaning of the film's events open to interpretation. Lynch has declined to offer an explanation of his intentions for the narrative, leaving audiences, critics, and cast members to speculate on what transpires. He gave the film the tagline "A love story in the city of dreams".

Categorized as a psychological thriller, *Mulholland Drive* earned Lynch the *Prix de la mise en scène* (Best Director Award) at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, sharing the prize with Joel Coen for *The Man Who Wasn't There*. Furthermore, Lynch would also earn an Academy Award nomination for Best Director. The film launched Harring's career, boosted Watts' Hollywood profile considerably, and was the last feature film to star veteran Hollywood actress Ann Miller.

*Mulholland Drive* is now widely regarded as one of Lynch's finest works and one of the greatest films of the 21st century, ranking 28th in the 2012 *Sight & Sound* critics' poll of the best films ever made and topping a 2016 poll by BBC Culture of the best films since 2000. A. O. Scott of *The New York Times* writes that while some might consider the plot an "offense against narrative order ... the film is an intoxicating liberation from sense, with moments of feeling all the more powerful for seeming to emerge from the murky night world of the unconscious".

## Plot

A dark-haired woman is the sole survivor of a car crash on Mulholland Drive, a winding road high in the Hollywood Hills. Injured and in shock, she makes her way down into Los Angeles and sneaks into an apartment. Later that morning, an aspiring actress named Betty Elms arrives at the apartment, which is normally occupied by her Aunt Ruth. Betty is startled to find the woman, who has amnesia and calls herself "Rita" after seeing a poster for the film *Gilda* starring Rita Hayworth. To help the woman remember her identity, Betty looks in Rita's purse, where she finds a large amount of money and an unusual blue key.

At a diner called Winkie's, a man tells his companion about a nightmare in which he dreamt about encountering a horrible figure behind the diner. When they investigate, the figure appears, causing the man with the nightmare to collapse in fright. Elsewhere, director Adam Kesher has his film commandeered by mobsters, who insist he cast an unknown actress named Camilla Rhodes as the lead in his film. Adam resists, but after being thrown out of his house when he finds his wife cheating on him, he learns that his bank has closed his line of credit and he is broke. He agrees to meet a mysterious figure called The Cowboy, who urges him to cast Camilla Rhodes for his own good. Meanwhile, a bungling hit man attempts to steal a book full of phone numbers and leaves three people dead.

While trying to learn more about Rita's accident, Betty and Rita go to Winkie's and are served by a waitress named Diane, which causes Rita to remember the name "Diane Selwyn." They find Diane Selwyn in the phone book and call her, but she does not answer. Betty goes to an audition, where her performance is highly praised. A casting agent takes her to a soundstage where a film called *The Sylvia North Story*, directed by Adam, is being cast. When Camilla Rhodes auditions, Adam capitulates to casting her. Betty locks eyes with Adam, but she flees before she can meet him, saying she is late to meet a friend. Betty and Rita go to Diane Selwyn's apartment, where a neighbor answers the door and tells them she has switched apartments with Diane. They go to the neighbor's apartment and break in when no one answers the door. In the bedroom, they find the body of a woman who has been dead for several days. Terrified, they return to their apartment, where Rita disguises herself with a blonde wig. She and Betty have sex that night.

At 2 AM Rita awakes suddenly, insisting that they go to a theater called Club Silencio. The emcee explains in different languages that everything is an illusion; Rebekah Del Río comes on stage and begins singing the Roy Orbison song "Crying" in Spanish (*Llorando*), then collapses while her vocals continue—her performance was a recording. Betty finds a blue box in her purse that matches Rita's key. Upon returning to the apartment, Rita retrieves the key and finds that Betty has disappeared. Rita unlocks the box, and it falls to the floor with a thump.

Diane Selwyn wakes up in her bed in the same apartment that Betty and Rita investigated. She looks exactly like Betty, but is a failed actress driven into a deep depression by her failed affair with Camilla Rhodes, a successful actress who looks exactly like Rita. At Camilla's invitation, Diane attends a party at Adam's house on Mulholland Drive. At dinner, Diane states she came to Hollywood from Canada when her Aunt Ruth died and left her some money, and she met Camilla at an audition for *The Sylvia North Story*. Another woman who looks like the "Camilla Rhodes" from earlier kisses Camilla, and they turn and smile at Diane. Adam and Camilla prepare to make an important announcement, but they dissolve into laughter and kiss while Diane watches, crying. Later, Diane meets the hit man at Winkie's, appearing to hire him to kill Camilla. He tells her she will find a blue key when the job is completed. In her apartment, Diane looks at the blue key on her coffee table. Distraught, she is terrorized by hallucinations and runs screaming to her bed, where she shoots herself. A woman at the theater whispers, "Silencio."

## Production

### Development

Originally conceived as a television series, *Mulholland Drive* began as a 90-minute pilot produced for Touchstone Television and intended for the ABC television network. Tony Krantz, the agent who was responsible for the development of Twin Peaks, was "fired up" about doing another television show. Ironically, Lynch wrote "I will never do television again" on a piece of plywood. It was originally a script for a pilot for ABC. David Lynch sold the idea to ABC executives based only on the story of Rita emerging from the car accident with her purse containing $125,000 in cash and the blue key, and Betty trying to help her figure out who she is. An ABC executive recalled, "I remember the creepiness of this woman in this horrible, horrible crash, and David teasing us with the notion that people are chasing her. She's not just 'in' trouble—she *is* trouble. Obviously, we asked, 'What happens next?' And David said, 'You have to buy the pitch for me to tell you.'"Lynch showed ABC a rough cut of the pilot. The person who saw it, according to Lynch, was watching it at six in the morning and was having coffee and standing up. He hated the pilot and ABC immediately cancelled it. Pierre Edleman, Lynch's friend from Paris, came to visit and started talking to him about the film being a feature. Edleman went back to Paris. Canal+ wanted to give Lynch money to make it into a feature and it took a year to negotiate.

Lynch described the attractiveness of the idea of a pilot, despite the knowledge that the medium of television would be constricting: "I'm a sucker for a continuing story ... Theoretically, you can get a very deep story and you can go so deep and open the world so beautifully, but it takes time to do that." The story included surreal elements, much like Lynch's earlier series *Twin Peaks*. Groundwork was laid for story arcs, such as the mystery of Rita's identity, Betty's career and Adam Kesher's film project.

Actress Sherilyn Fenn stated in a 2014 interview that the original idea came during the filming of *Twin Peaks*, as a spin-off film for her character of Audrey Horne.

### Casting

Lynch cast Naomi Watts and Laura Harring by their photographs. He called them in separately for half-hour interviews and told them that he had not seen any of their previous works in film or television. Harring considered it fateful that she was involved in a minor car accident on the way to the first interview, only to learn her character would also be involved in a car accident in the film. Watts arrived wearing jeans for the first interview, direct from the airplane from New York City. Lynch asked her to return the next day "more glammed up". She was offered the part two weeks later. Lynch explained his selection of Watts, "I saw someone that I felt had a tremendous talent, and I saw someone who had a beautiful soul, an intelligence—possibilities for a lot of different roles, so it was a beautiful full package." Justin Theroux also met Lynch directly after his airplane flight. After a long flight with little sleep, Theroux arrived dressed all in black, with untidy hair. Lynch liked the look and decided to cast Adam wearing similar clothes and the same hairstyle.

### Filming

Filming for the television pilot began on location in Los Angeles in February 1999 and took six weeks. Ultimately, the network was unhappy with the pilot and decided not to place it on its schedule. Objections included the nonlinear storyline, the ages of Harring and Watts (whom they considered too old), cigarette smoking by Ann Miller's character and a close-frame shot of dog feces in one scene. Lynch remembered, "All I know is, I loved making it, ABC hated it, and I don't like the cut I turned in. I agreed with ABC that the longer cut was too slow, but I was forced to butcher it because we had a deadline, and there wasn't time to finesse anything. It lost texture, big scenes and storylines, and there are 300 tape copies of the bad version circulating around. Lots of people have seen it, which is embarrassing, because they're bad-quality tapes, too. I don't want to think about it."

One night, I sat down, the ideas came in, and it was a most beautiful experience. Everything was seen from a different angle ... Now, looking back, I see that [the film] always wanted to be this way. It just took this strange beginning to cause it to be what it is.

The script was later rewritten and expanded when Lynch decided to transform it into a feature film. Describing the transition from an open-ended pilot to a feature film with a resolution of sorts, Lynch said, "One night, I sat down, the ideas came in, and it was a most beautiful experience. Everything was seen from a different angle ... Now, looking back, I see that [the film] always wanted to be this way. It just took this strange beginning to cause it to be what it is." The result was an extra eighteen pages of material that included the romantic relationship between Rita and Betty and the events that occurred after the blue box was opened. Watts was relieved that the pilot was dropped by ABC. She found Betty too one-dimensional without the darker portion of the film that was put together afterward. Most of the new scenes were filmed in October 2000, funded with $7 million from French production company StudioCanal.

Theroux described approaching filming without entirely understanding the plot: "You get the whole script, but he might as well withhold the scenes you're not in, because the whole turns out to be more mystifying than the parts. David welcomes questions, but he won't answer any of them ... You work kind of half-blindfolded. If he were a first-time director and hadn't demonstrated any command of this method, I'd probably have reservations. But it obviously works for him." Theroux noted that the only answer Lynch did provide was that he was certain that Theroux's character, a Hollywood director, was not autobiographical of Lynch. Watts stated that she tried to bluff Lynch by pretending she had the plot figured out, and that he delighted in the cast's frustration.