The Big Picture - The 25 Best Movies of the Century: No. 6 - 'Mulholland Drive’

Episode Date: November 5, 2025

Sean and Amanda return to continue their yearlong project of listing the 25 best movies of the 21st century so far. Today, they discuss David Lynch’s ‘Mulholland Drive,’ one of the greatest surrealist films ever made. They celebrate Naomi Watts’s incredible breakthrough performance, reflect on all the different conspiracy theories and unique readings of the film, and commend its ability to blend Americana, European surrealism, classic Hollywood glamour, and sinister outsider art, all at once. Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Producer: Jack Sanders Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with the Personal Price Plan®. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there®. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Sean Fennessy. And this is 25 for 25. A big picture special conversation show about Mulholland Drive. No I Banda. And yet we hear a band. We are talking today. This is completely normal cadence. About David Lynch.

It's exactly how they say it in the bell. Well, there is a kind of weirdness. Oh, a kind of sense of unease. Do you identify as a, like, a David Lynch character? Do you feel like you present that? I think the viewers at home might think that my very particular cocktail of intensity and laconicness. Sure. And remove.

Yeah. And, you know, yeah. You got, like, the stiff acting style. Impenetrability. Yeah. This vague sense of doom surrounding this show at all times, right? Yeah. That everything is normal, but also weird shit's happening right in front of us.

Like, you're wearing a crew neck. but, you know, just that you're a dad in a crew neck, but also. But what's underneath, you know? Is it Ray Wise and Twin Peaks? Hopefully not. Hopefully I'm just the normal dad. I'm very excited to talk with you today. This is unfortunately the second time that we're talking about David Lynch this year

because we lost him and he is, of course, one of the great filmmakers. We were never going to do this project without doing a David Lynch film. There are only two David Lynch films made in the 21st century, this one, and of course, Inland Empire. He wrote and directed this one. It stars Naomi Watts, Laura Harring. Justin Theroux, Anne Miller, Robert Forster, along with a handful of well-known Hollywood figures from over the years, a kind of homage.

It's shot as many of his films are by Peter Deming, music by Angela Bado Lamenti, who also makes a appearance in the film as one of the gangsters, production designed by Jack Fisk, and this movie premiered at the 2001 International, excuse me, the 2001 Cannes Film Festival. Mulholland Drive. Yeah.

You know, a film that is invoked often, explored at length in dark corners of the internet, there's an incredible amount of scholarship and investigation into this movie. Let's set that aside for one minute. What do you like about Moholland Drive? I find this the most accessible to me of the Lynch projects

because it combines a lot of my interests and kind of like, not guardrails, but it gives me a way into the David Lynch world. so that I can then, I don't know whether understand is the right word, but like I'm along on the ride with him. And I am, of course, wondering like what the hell is going on, but I'm not because he's using enough references in architecture of like old Hollywood movies and noirs and things that I know and recognize that when things get, you know, Lucy Goosey, I have the intended feeling. Like, I'm with him.

That makes complete sense. Um, I think this is not my favorite David Lynch movie, but it is near the top. A racerhead? No. I, well, as I get older, I think Twin Peaks Firewalk with me is the most upsetting. Okay. And powerful. And a movie that like I didn't get it all when I first saw it as a kid.

I think the stretch of, um, you know, blue velvet, uh, and Twin Peaks together is kind of hard to argue. Yeah. Oh, that's like, that's the most iconic thing that he ever did. But the elephant man is beautiful. I think that's a movie that I like quite a bit. I like Lost Highway quite a bit. I like all of his movies. I think they're all interesting in different ways.

This one, though, is, it's probably considered the culmination of all the things that he is best known for, right? He has this very unique combination of, I guess you'd say, like, Americana, surrealism, really out of like a European tradition, the classic Hollywood. styling that you're talking about bound in genre. And then this really sinister outside art. You know, this idea that there's something like very unseemly under the surface of

everything in human life, in daily life, and American life. And this movie's really good at capturing all of those things. It really is this incredible suffusing of all of those feelings. But it's like a lot of lynch things, its birth is quite strange. This is one of the... I wonder if this is the only film that is at least partially shot in the 20th century. It started out as a TV pilot series that

was supposed to be sort of like, it wasn't quite a follow-up to Twin Peaks, but Mark Frost, the co-creator of Twin Peaks and Lynch, had talked for years after Twin Peaks about doing a show called Mulholland Drive. They never talked about what it was going to be about. They just liked the idea of Mulholland Drive. David Lynch lived on Mulholland Drive. You have driven on Mulholland Drive. I have. Any reflections on those experiences? I mean, it's well captured in this movie. You can't also can't drive Mulholland Drive without thinking of the opening of the film Mulholland Drive.

A very gnarly car crash. Yes. But also, and like the moments before where you're just kind of winding and the cameras following the limo, and it just seems like there is a very bad thing around every single corner, and there are many twists and turns on Mulholland Drive. but also a little bit of like Hollywood, you know, like I'm here, jazz hands, and there is all of Los Angeles spread out beneath you, and that's still true. Yeah, yeah, I always think of the idea of someone like Jack Nicholson living right at the very top

of Mulholland Drive and having a home there for decades and lording over the city in some ways, you know, being like if you want to see Jack, you have to come up to his place all the way at the top of the hill. But there is something, there is an underbelly, obviously, to this city. And this is a place where, you know, millions of people have come hoping to achieve their dreams. This is one of the best movies ever made about the difficulties of trying to achieve those dreams. And the kind of fugue state that your mind can go into when you're banging your head against those dreams. You and I didn't really have that experience as Angelino's. Like, we came for jobs, like very specific jobs.

And we moved here and we took those jobs and we did them. Right. And they're still going. Those jobs are still happening. For now. For now. As of this recording. Everything is okay.

And so I don't quite have the same personal emotional connection that I think so many filmmakers, actors, aspiring artisans have when they come here where they're going to make it. They're going to put their, you know, and I didn't work in a coffee shop while writing my screenplay. You know what I mean? But that is just the other day, a wonderful woman who cut my hair was telling me all about how she's a sound designer

and also cuts hair. That's just a very common, you know, navigation of this experience. And this movie attempts to kind of collate that into one, maybe one, maybe two women's minds. Right. And we can talk about what we think is really happening there. And brings in some other smaller experiences as well. Like all of the side characters or people who show up are trying in one way or another to get what they want out of this industry and also life. And pretty much everyone is thwarted.

yeah there's not a single happy moment and the final 45 minutes of this film the story if you haven't seen it and I guess the best way to explain it is the film opens with this a woman in the back of a limousine there is a car crash she is injured in the car crash

and is left with amnesia and she wanders down the hill in Mulholland Drive and she stumbles into an apartment and she's discovered by a young woman who has just moved to Los Angeles and is staying in an apartment that was arranged for her by her aunt and she is an aspiring actress

and they build a curious friendship and then something more and in the process Betty the blonde-haired woman attempts to become an actress in Hollywood the dark-haired woman works with Betty to try to solve the mystery of who she is and what's happened to her

and she can't figure out her identity and then at a certain point after this Nancy Drew style mystery with these two young women kind of turns on its head has a kind of psychological flip and we feel different identities and different bodies.

Yes, with different names. Yes. So I saw this movie when I was in college and I was a lynch fan but not a completist at that time. I hadn't seen everything. I didn't know everything about it. I hadn't read books about him.

And like a lot of people... Unlike now. I've read many books about him. I was pure anchor man, you know? Sorry. They're not leather bound, you know? But like he has a memoir He has an interview book.

Like once you've kind of gone through all those things. For sure. Very documented. There's a documentary about him. There's a wonderful Q&A about this movie in the criterion edition of this movie. That's just him talking about the experience of making the film. But with no text and no context and being 18, this is cooked my noodle. I was like, what the fuck is going?

I think that's a feeling that a lot of people were left with. Now, some people immediately thought masterpiece. This is a film Roger Eber, for example, thought, you must kind of like stand in all. of this film's surreal greatness. And that's a critic who for years was very skeptical of David Lynch, very critical of him. And even his Mulholland Drive review

is like, I don't care about Lost Highway. Like, I haven't gotten any of this, but finally he pulls it all together in Mulholland Drive. Yeah, I was wondering if that echoes, you know, some of you. Like, do you have like a negative feeling towards the other movies? Do they just not connect for you? No, I think that, so we weren't a Twin Peaks household. Or if my parents were, they weren't telling me about it.

But they definitely told me about law and order. So I think that... There is a dark core to that series as well. But I think this was probably my first lynch, I would guess, just because of how old I was. I was in high school. And he was nominated for Best Director. It was a bit in the Oscar conversation. So if you were digging deeper, which I probably was at that point.

And again, it was like, you know, glitzy and glamorous. I think L.A. Confidential was an Oscar nominee like five years before, and that was a, you know, like a noir best picture, whatever. So I think I walked in expecting L.A. Confidential. Yes. And that was a good table setter for us at that stage of our life for those kinds of films, it being a throwback to a very traditional style. For sure. So, you know, I was also, what, 17? So I think I was just kind of like, wow, serious people say that this is important. And I don't totally know what I'm watching. And I don't. And, but, you know, there are transcendent moments within it. And so I think I probably just did, like, my best, like, stroking my chin, like, you know, teenager face. And then, um, and then sought out other lynch later in life. But it's really subject matter is the only reason. I mean, Blue Velvet is a classic.

I still haven't seen all of Twin Pink's peaks just because that's a lot. It's a lot of work. Yeah. And, um, it's worth it. It's one of the few things that I would say is. But it is hard. You know, we talk about this. I can't keep up with all the TV shows that currently exist.

It's so funny, though, because that show, and I'm talking about this for a reason in this discussion, is an interesting example of a thing that happens to a lot of modern television, which is that the first season, especially the first six episodes, are so beguiling and so involving and feel so different from anything that had come before. Now, they feel ultimately like a link in a chain of all the Lynch works, but it was a phenomenon for a reason, right? the idea of this mystery, this being kind of like the origin point of the dead girl phenomenon, which still courses through our culture today. And the show really loses steam in the second season. And a lot of the second season is not very strong at all. And I do think it has a wonderful conclusion and kind of a fascinating conclusion. But, you know, Lynch puts that aside for a long period of time. And then the other thing that he makes in the 21st century is the return, which is kind of the third season of the show, which is not eligible.

for our project, but it's easily one of my favorite things that's come out. And parts of the return, I think, are among the best things he's ever done, especially episode eight, which I've talked about before. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. To me, is, like, legitimately better than, like, 80% of the things on this list. Like, I just think it's, like, such an amazing piece of work. Um, and you can see that he just, like, kind of can't let go of certain images and ideas. And some people are accused of repeating themselves, and some people, they become recurring motifs in their work. This is like another series of recurring motifs where you're seeing a lot of things that are very interesting and familiar to him, you know, a woman who's been degraded and

desecrated by like a powerful male world and discarded. Like that is something that you see over and over in his work. Some people read that as misogynistic at times. Some people read that as empathetic and open-minded. This is a film about queer romance. Some people read that as exploitative. Other people said this is one of the most sensitive portrayals of this kind of love that we've seen in a movie. Fix Your Hearts or Die, thing he famously said in Twin Peaks and was quoted often after he passed away earlier this year. What I'm saying is he's kind of a conundrum. You know what I mean? He's like one of the greatest movie makers of all time and he's probably best known for making TV. Yeah. I was going to say, how does that make you feel? Well, I think it's the TV here in the room

with us. I mean, I don't love TV, but I love Twin Peaks. And I think it shows that it's obviously like a medium that can support great art, it's just unusual for someone like that to be given the chance to do it at such scope. Yeah. What do you make of Mulholland Drive as his most consensus of, like, work of art? We'll talk about the legacy,

but this has been near the top of every single critics' poll and, like, reader poll of films of the 21st century. It's, like, pretty much unanimous. Yeah. So, I, I have a lot of thoughts about it, but I'm glad you asked because the thing that I always wonder with this is, does this movie make sense if you haven't seen Blue Velvet or Twin Peaks or, like, just tonally? Right.

If you show it to a young person and you're like, let's start with Mulholland Drive. To me, when I saw this, I was like, okay, I've seen Twin Peaks. I've seen Blue Velvet. Like, I at least know what we're working towards. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like the tone of Lynch's movies. Let me see if I can figure out what I wrote down. I wrote this wonderful combination of what the fuck is happening and I don't like how this is making me feel.

this incredible sense of dread and unease and confusion around the plotting and the incidents in the in the movie. Like when Dennis Hopper shows up in Blue Velvet, it's just like, what the hell just happened to this movie? And that's obviously thrilling, and it comes completely out of Lynch's style of writing, which is all from the subconscious. He just kind of lets the ideas come and writes them through,

doesn't worry about logic, thinks of things through the dreamscape, right? But Mohan Drive is so celebrated. in the way that you're describing, I think, because everyone was like, this is it. This is what he's been working towards. This is the culmination. He's one of our great film artists.

It's time now. He has reached the point in his life where we can all feel comfortable celebrating him. You know, very randomly getting the best director nomination, but no other nominations for this film. It's one of those things where everyone just felt comfortable declaring his greatness. Even though, you know, Lost Highway got mixed reviews.

Firewalk with me was loathed. Right. Like, it's not as though he had been on a hot street. as a filmmaker, he'd been kind of in a down period. This was a failed TV pilot. That's true. I do also think it's just, maybe it's the most bizarre, but it is also the most

recognizable of so many of them. Like you can, I don't know what the blue box is. Like, I don't. Like, I haven't read a good explanation of it. But like, but otherwise, you know, it's not Sunset Boulevard, but it is. Like we, you can see the spine and you can see

there is a familiar like tradition and feeling that he is like playing with that people accept from movies that I think grounds everyone a little bit more. Yeah. Like, you know, and also like Hollywood likes movies

about Hollywood, especially movies that castigate Hollywood and the industry and the commercialization of art, I suppose. No, and I think women in peril and detective stories are, two of the most reliable frameworks for a movie. So you got that. So when you already have that,

you're able to kind of rope audiences in and get them compelled by the story. You can have the man behind the dumpster in the alley. You can have the blue box. You can have the shrunk-down older couple in the final stages of the film. You can have Salencio. You can have these flights of subconscious fancy

that are very metaphorical to him and just open-ended enough that we can fill that box with all of our ideas. Right. Now, I got to say, I don't, I don't love his movies because they're so, you know, they fit so many kind of conspiracy theories and multiple readings. Like, that actually isn't my relationship to his work. Like, me either.

And what I like about this movie in particular is that even though you could spend all day being like, no, no, no, no. So the blue boxes X, Y, Z and the jitterbug couple were like the, the old, couple were the judges of the jitterbug context or it's like that's betty's ancient souls and what she happy life she could have had if she didn't come to hollywood like you could read a million things into it and these are all things that are kind of floating around the internet like none of them really makes sense like this movie resists that like reddit puzzle box urge to put everything in its particular place like and it was funny rewatching it i rewatched this movie a couple times just because it is so dense

But I felt some of those muscles kicking in on the second watch of, like, okay, so now that I've refreshed it, it's time for me to put my, like, tinfoil hat on because we have been trained to do that. So, you know, in the last 25 years of movie and TV watching. And it's like, no, that's like, that's not the point. It's there, it does not add up to any sort of logical, like, puzzle box conclusion. It is just, it's about feelings. images that are in his head. And I think it's awesome that it completely, completely frustrates any attempts to explain it. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. There's nothing better than having friends who support you and your passions. Think of all of the times on this show

when you've had to sit here and listen to me, talk about my love for physical media and all of my recent Blu-ray splurges. Yes. Like those friends and like me, State Farm is there to help you along the way. With so many coverage options, it's nice knowing you have support in finding what fits for you. Go online at statefarm.com or use the award-winning app to get help from one of their local agents. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. I totally agree with you. One thing I like about it is maybe this is the film that best slots into that idea of dreams for him. Yeah. Because it's a movie about ostensibly a person who is dreaming. Right. Like if you want to read the movie that way, that Diane imagines Betty as a better version of her life, a happier, more

innocent version of her life. I'm not saying that that's definitively the reading, but if you read it that way, then it's this kind of like double-stacked thing. And then when you're having a dream like that, invariably, I'm famously not much of a dreamer. I don't have, I don't really remember my dreams. I don't dream often, or if I do, I don't have, like, access to them. I had some truly fucked up dreams last night, I think after watching it. And they weren't like. Well, tell us about No, so my dreams are never, the ones I remember aren't usually, you know, surrealist majesty. You know, it's just kind of like very little interpretations of my emotional fears, like, laid out right into, you know. Put it on the table. It's just me and you in here.

But I definitely had one of those last night and I like woke up early and was just like, now, now I feel bad. Do you think that happened because you just have dreams like that frequently or because you watched Mulholland Drive twice? Probably a little bit of both. I don't always have dreams like that. But they do come out kind of in moments of emotional agitation. And I think I was probably like a bit stirred up by being in the Mulholl and Drive headspace for 48 hours straight. Yeah. The movie is, it's kind of floating for a while.

Yeah. It's a little bit hard to hold on to. And there are moments, of course, the legendary diner scene that disrupt and upset you. But it does have this kind of gentle cadence, I would say, for the first hour before things really start to turn. And you can be kind of like subdued into. curiosity about the movie before it starts to really kind of annihilate your feelings. And that's a very powerful trick.

He's pulled here. And, you know, it's like he's, one thing that is a little unclear to me is sort of like the timeline of when he is reshooting versus when he is just shooting the pilot stuff. Like Robert Forster, who's in this film as a police detective famously, did not know he was in this movie. He was a part of the pilot. He's playing one of the cops in the pilot. And then two years later, a movie premiered a can that he was in.

and a friend told him he was in it, and he was like, I had no fucking idea. Like, I thought that that show just didn't go. Yeah. And that's fascinating. You know, that's fascinating that he kind of had to Frankenstein this movie into shape, and yet somehow it sort of hangs together,

even though it is a series of vignettes, and there are all of these side doors that your mind would go down while you're having a dream where it's like, all right, let's spend five minutes with a hitman. All right, let's spend five minutes talking to this guy in this diner. All right, let's go over here and go to this audition and look at all, meet all these new characters. And then they're going to introduce you another character.

And then let's watch this film being made because there's a mob intrusion into this Hollywood production. And it's just like these very soft focus, brief interludes in the life of sad Los Angeles. Yeah. Sad and like messed up Los Angeles. Yeah. I guess I do respond to the sadness in it. And I did, I rewatched it again last night. Then I went back and watched Noi Banda, the Salencio scene.

which is like incredibly sad and then I had sad dreams but I did notice like your contribution to the outline you're like this is one of like the most like despairing portraits of L.A., which I think is true I do instinct

when I think about this movie I think that this is one of the like portraits of L.A. like is evil and cracked and bad as opposed to sad and that it just kind of sucks the life out of everyone which is sad in its own way,

but I think I respond to just the malevolence more than the sadness. It's interesting. I mean, I think you can look at this, especially the final 30 minutes or so at Diane through both of those lenses. Yeah. Because Diane, it's revealed,

is just a destroyed person, a person for whom things have not worked out at all. Yeah. And she's in love with a woman who doesn't love her anymore. She has not been successful in her career in the way that she had hoped. You know, she is a person who, I mean, she's,

played by Naomi Watts. She's stunningly beautiful. Yeah. And yet she feels she has nothing. Right. And so you can feel her anguish. And then it leads to her doing truly evil things. I mean, she hires someone to kill this person that she's in love with.

She really goes to these awful lengths. It's interesting. Like, I'm very happy in Los Angeles and I've been here for a long time. And I'm very fond of saying I'm not leaving. Yeah. But I must confess, for both myself and for most people I know who have moved, here, it's tremendously lonely here. It's, and you have to make a real effort to be not lonely.

And they don't tell you, even though they did in all of these films, but yes. Some of that is informed by maybe where you lived before this or how you grew up, but even with that, it's not just the car culture, it's not just the struggles to get connected with people, it's not just the kind of flip social anxiety of the modern condition where you're like, yeah, I'll be there in 20 minutes, and then people are two hours late. Right. Or they just don't show up, and everyone in L.A. is like the biggest flake on Earth. Right, exactly, yeah.

But that's a factor, but it's not just that. Like, it is this agglomeration of, like, sinking into your couch and wishing that you were doing a little bit better so that you can go out into the world. And that has, I think that's become increasingly true for many people in many cities. Yeah. But this movie really hits on kind of how you combat that, right? The Betty's spirit in this movie where she's like, I'll go up for the job. I'll meet a new person. I'll have a conversation with a stranger.

I won't, yeah, I won't kick her out of my aunt's home. Yes, I will be seduced by this amnesiac bombshell. Three years saying yes. It is. It is. We love Betty. We love Betty's spirit. But she's a fantasy.

You know, she's not, that's not real. Very few people are like that here. Everybody is, everybody here is like, right. She's doing my best. She's also really good at her job, and then it goes really well. I mean, that audition scene. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about Naomi Watts in general.

A couple months ago, the ringer did, their list of the 25 greatest screen performances, film performances of the 21st century. Yeah. I thought they very cleverly and smartly chose this performance. Very wise. For a variety of reasons, Naomi Watts at this point, essentially an unknown. She had been working for some years, famously very close friends with Nicole Kidman. Right.

But David Lynch saw a photograph of her and cast her off of the photograph. He said, that's the girl looking at it, which is the kind of like Hollywood story. Well, it's literally, and then that happens in the film itself. He uses it. This is the girl. Yes. And she is remarkable in this movie. The whole thing rests on her shoulders.

With no disrespect to Laura Herring, like she is not one-tenth the actress that Naomi Watts is either. So she has to carry every single moment of the film. And she also has this dual role that emerges in the final quarter. And it's one of the most stunning arrivals of a true star and great actress, certainly this century. I'm sure there are other examples I think I'm from the past

but I don't know what do you make of Naomi Watts the movie Well she's playing literally two characters but there are so many doubles and mirrors and confusing you know confusions

in this movie that she's playing like probably just one person but also like eight different people she's got to populate different shades of where Betty is where Diane is where like Rita

because Rita at some point is just doing what Diane is right down to the hair to the wig yeah and and and you know also maybe to the performances so and then she also has this amazing audition scene where then she has to like she has to be an actress playing an actress auditioning and she's unreal in the scene it's so good and this movie does have a few moments like the Salencio like cafe being another one of them where it's the film like closes in on faces and you are just completely drawn in by the exact and there's not a lot of even like surrealism or weird stuff going on it's just someone acting or singing or doing something like very real in front of you and then every single

time it absolutely pulls the rug out from under the moment as well because she's so good in like a ridiculous soap opera audition that also turns out to be in her imagination that we as best we can tell yeah i think that's a fair reading of the sequence it's an example of a thing that you see over and over again and lynch stuff which is these moments of hypnosis where for three minutes you just find yourself stuck inside the movie yeah and when she is doing that audition which is really challenging because it's one of those things that is a huge test for an actor or a filmmaker when you're talking about an imaginary great film or an imaginary great performance when you're writing a script and then you say to someone, make it real or a pop song, you know, that thing you do thing that we were talking about with Chris a couple of weeks ago

where it's like, now that song's got to be that good. Yep. And she has to be that good because everybody in the room is like, whoa, holy shit, that was so good. And it rarely is. Yes. And you never land it. And it's because I think in the scene, it's very hard to talk about acting as an untrained person

and what is good or not good about acting. But in that scene, she's doing a thing that you hear actors talk about all the time, which is making choices about the way that she's reading lines, about the timbre of her voice, about how loud or quiet she is, about how she physically connects with the other actor who's this really hammy, grabby, old-timey soap star.

And you can feel him being transformed during her performance, and he is becoming a better actor without saying anything as she is exploring this monologue and it's transformational. It's like it is the thing that, you know,

it probably doesn't really happen that often in movies. We can say like, oh my God, that guy was so good in this movie. I loved his performance. What it meant is like, we liked seeing him

and being around him, you know, that his charisma was carrying. Right. This is more of a technical execution of like the choices. Yes. I mean, in a lot of ways,

it is, it's the, it's the Merrill Streep doing Clint Eastwood choice of just of being quiet. And she said that she based Devil Wars Prada on Clinique.

would never raising the voice. Right. But there was choice of restraint and keeping things lower and drawing everyone into you is at least what the character in the movie is doing, which is, you know, there are layers to it as well just in terms of who we're talking about. There's a very funny self-dig in that sequence, too, because the most kind of checked-out and phony person in that scene is the director. And the director is like, yes, a little, what does he say?

Don't make it real until it's real. But what he says after the performance where he's like maybe a little bit, what is the word he uses? It's like effortful, but good, but very good. You know, it's just like very bullshitty, kind of vague, just trying to be like encouraging but also maintain authority, which is something that a lot of filmmakers will do, especially over actresses. You know, like there's some self-knowledge there. I think that Lynch is, you know, putting inside of this. This scene also has some of like the only like pure like comedy jokes.

in the movie and everyone making fun of the director because he gives some ridiculous notes and then you like see everybody like roll their eyes and be like, what is he talking about? Yes, yes. I mean, he seems like he's barely paying attention, which is wonderful. And you know, I think Lynch has a real affinity

for actresses if you see, if you've ever seen Laura Dern talk about David Lynch, you know, they were like best friends. And, you know, she was very much his muse and they worked together many times. And they just have this overwhelming affection for him, even though he makes these really transgressive, rough movies. Inland Empire, which comes after

this, is a very tough, hard movie also about an actress who is doubling, and Loredron plays two different women. And he kind of returns to these ideas over and over again, these kind of glamorous women that are imperiled. But you can sense that he has like a real sensitivity with them. He just gets the best out of them, right? And that's like,

that's really important when you're a great filmmaker. Isabella or Rossellini when talking about Blue Velvet and kind of the backlash and the readings of Blue Velvet is... misogynistic or exploited it was like I was a grown woman I was like 31 years old and I chose to play this and like David understands it so I think yeah they do the actresses like working with him and I like I feel understood and part of the process yes even if even if it gets a little ugly but you know women can be ugly too they certainly can not on this show no they're

always beautiful and not really I guess they're ugly emotionally in this movie but uh Everyone's looking pretty great. Yeah, there are no heroes. A lot of the reviews talk about how when Naomi Watts turns into Diane, she's like unrecognizable. And now it's like, let's, let's calm down here. These are two very beautiful women. Her hair is a little straighter.

Well, I think what the film does really well, which is very simple, is, you know, the makeup is different. Yeah. The coloring is different. Yes. She doesn't look radically different. She just looks like what would happen if things went back. bad, you know, and that is a clever choice. You know, her costuming is more muted.

She just seems a little dirtier. Yeah. Her face isn't different. She is still Naomi Watts. Yes, but it's her performance, I think, that that's really, hopefully, nodding to. I did also want to just shout out the diner scene, which I mentioned that I saw it when I was in college, and this is the most scared I've ever written in a movie. It's Patrick Fishler, incredible character actor who is sitting across from the table and

recounting this dream that he's at. Yeah. And the movie just stops in the middle to go to this sequence. And this sequence is remarkable for a variety of reasons. The most important reason is the performances and the editing. But Lynch chooses to cut out all sound in this scene. You cannot hear any of the other patrons inside the diner talking. And so you're focused entirely on what Fishler's character is trying to recount about this dream.

and then the dream starts to happen in real time when the person he is sitting across from who's quite rude and not thoughtful about the mainstream gets up and stands and walks over to the cashier just as he's just described that he's seen him at the very beginning of this dream and then the friend is like let's do it let's make the drill let's see what happens let's see what's behind the

behind the alleyway and you're like I'm in a David Lynch film something terrible is about to happen I know something terrible about to happen and you're waiting and you're waiting and I say this as someone who loves horror movies loves to be scared, isn't really that scared of things. But I was like, hey, what awfulness could possibly be awaiting these characters? As this man is recounting, the most shaken he's ever been from a dream in his entire life.

Right. And I'm so sold on what this character is saying and how this actor is saying it. And what's revealed is, you know, kind of silly. Yeah, just a normal jump scare. Yeah. It looks like a regular jump scare. I don't know why, but I was like disembal. old by this. I was like, oh, near tears. And I think it's because it does something effective,

which is like, I do find when I remember my dreams that they are very scary. I do not find that they are very fun. I wouldn't say I have fun dreams. Does anyone have positive dreams? Like, I don't know. If you're out there, you know, just let us know. This, I know, like, you know, we're all here trying to live our dreams every day in our waking life, but like, those are different from our sleeping dreams. But that's what's so wonderful about the word, Because when the word is invoked in day-to-day conversation, it's about aspirations. Sure. It's about where you want to go and who you want to be, which is, of course, this movie is about.

But when you and I sit down and we start talking about them, you won't even tell me what happened in your dream because you're afraid to reveal the darkest core of your sadness and fear. But the thing is really that it's like it's not particularly creative or artistic. Who cares? It's just a dream. You have no control over it. Who would judge you for that? I know. Well, I don't know.

Wouldn't it be cool if I was like, you know, I was imagining like, well, it looks like a Picasso painting and like I had all these like rich symbolic things instead of being like I don't know Zach was mean to me he was him yeah Eileen has very similar dreams yeah I think I

but I think that that's normal I think that's okay like I think that this movie is about this movie is about what if I failed and what if I didn't and I what if I could have not failed you know and that sequence I think really neatly summarizes the polarity of our feeling about the idea of dreams

That, you know, Betty is a manifestation of what could be. It's a hope. Right. And the diner is the darkness. Yeah. What really scares us or really fucks with us. And, of course, we get that character, that woman, who, of course, is the same actress who portrays the nun in the nun films. I'll have you know.

Okay. You know, that character is identified as a man in the film, but is played by a woman. Okay. And she's become an icon of cinema just by having a scary face. Yeah. Quite a good living, if you can get it, I guess. Exactly. You know, use what you have.

You mentioned Noai Bonda and Salencio. Also an unforgettable scene where so Betty is awoken in the middle of the night because she hears Rita utter the word Salencio and lots sleeping and Noi Bonda and is an indicator that they must go to this club. Yeah. And they enter the club. And there are a lot of scenes in a lot of Lynch films and TV shows that feature musicians. performing in front of a red curtain,

another red curtain in Twin Peaks, this idea of this like desolate place where the stragglers of society gather to watch sad music. So that's another motif that occurs in this film. But Rebecca Del Rio, who performs in this scene, is mesmerizing. And we also see that thing

where we watch other people be mesmerized by a piece of music. But they do announce that the film, the, you know, the music is recording. Yeah. And so when she faints mid-prosal, what do you think, what do you think she fainted from? Um, but I mean, I don't know, seems like a cursed room, honestly, you know? Like at some, before she starts singing, the Betty character is like having convulsions for no reason.

It seems like bad juju in there. And I'm not really like an L.A. woo-woo type of person, but whatever energy people are trying to correct has, has found its way there. Yeah, I mean, part of what's so great about that Twin Peaks episode that I was talking to talking about from the return is that that's an episode that attempts to actually explore the origins of evil. Like, that's actually a pretty bold choice to try to reach back 10, 20, 50, 100 years into choices that are made by human beings that kind of corrode our soul. I'm not seeing as just another example of it. Great movie. Really good. What a fascinating film.

Good job, everyone. Good job. Well done, David Lynch. The film's legacy, you know, you mentioned pretty, it's not unanimous. There were definitely detractors for this film, but there was a very immediate celebration of its greatness, which I find pretty fascinating.

It competed for the palm, but it did not win and lost to a film called The Sun's Room, which I have not seen, but Lynch did win for Best Director and it was nominated for just the one Oscar. You remember who he lost to in the Academy Awards that year? Yes, you've written Ron Howard for A Beautiful Mind. What do you think about that? Which also won Best Picture.

I mean, so these Oscars were, what, February, March, 2002. Yeah. Weird time in America. Yes. Yeah. Well, it might have been appropriate to give Mulholland Drive the Academy Award. But, you know, the Academy has not historically embraced, like, the most avant-garde solution in times of strife. I can't say I disagree with that.

Roger E. Renan's four-star review wrote, this is a movie to surrender yourself to it. If you require logic, see something else. Yeah. I would quibble with that ever so slightly in that I think the. movie is very readable if you choose to, it just resists the tidy solution that you're talking about. Yes. It's impenetrable in terms of solving it, but you can apply, and there is an incredible amount of extraordinary reading into what the film is representative of. And that's, it stands up. I read a later Ebert piece about a conference he attended in Colorado every year

where they would, they'd pick one movie, and they'd go frame by frame. And so anyone in the audience could say stop or what, you know, and they would analyze like the composition and the symbols and kind of spend 12 hours on a movie with Roger Eber. And so one year, they picked Mulholl and Drive. And I think it was Roger Ebert's pick. And he's like, I'm really going to get to the bottom of this. And the piece is about the many theories that were explored in this group. And at the end, he was like, nope.

And I'm no closer to, you know. like this format does not, you know, does not have all of the answers. Yeah, it's a movie that's ultimately about a feeling, or a series of feelings at least, which is part of, I mean, it's just like in The Mood for Love in that way. In The Mood for Love is not a movie to be solved. It's a movie to be felt. And that one is a little bit more romantic. This one is a little bit more evil.

This film is number two on both the main poll and the Reader's poll for the New York Times. Now, that to me is fascinating. Right? So I began to wonder if this is just sort of like, it isn't more about the methodology. I don't know how they're waiting and ranking stuff, but if enough people are putting it somewhere in the top 10, then I think most people, especially that list was done this summer. So, you know, Lynch's passing was in the mind. And so a lot of people pick Mulholland Drive. It's a very good point. So I wondered if it was like a little bit recency bias or just kind of.

the number of mentions? Well, I think it's a, it's a convergence of that very specific recency bias, along with the fact that it has been rising in the, in the canon. So in 2012, on the site and sound poll, it was at number 22. In 2022, it was at number eight. So this is, you know, simultaneously, and some of this is about a great artist getting older, so even before he passed, kind of recognizing his great works. I think this movie, just like you were describing when you were 17,

is a little bit of a keystone to outsider, you know, know, surrealist cinema, you know, you wouldn't start with Bunwell, you'd probably start with this movie, he's like, oh, Naomi Watts is in this, I'll check it out. And then that leads you down a rabbit hole of trying to understand all the things that influenced Lynch and as you become a real cinephile and try to understand all these styles and genres. Like, he's just a very helpful portal into this kind of film and filmmaking. I already asked you this, does it make sense if you haven't seen Blue Velvet or Twin Peaks? I'd like to get, you know, I'm curious for some younger movie fans' opinions about this. We have a lot of younger listeners who haven't seen

the collected works of David Lynch, you know. So if you sit down and you are 20 and you are in film school and you watch this movie with Roger Ebert and he breaks it down for you scene by scene, are you like, are you getting it? Are you really, are you grasping the tonality? I believe in the younger generation. I do too. I'm not trying to undermine that. First of all, if they want to let us know politely, they can. Okay. But also... How would they do that? Where can they find you? That's part of the process is problem solving, okay? That's the education we're offering here, the big picture.

But yeah, I think in particular the younger generation, if you're, also, if you are a xenophile at this point and you're seeking out, you're like, okay, here is, David Lynch is like a blind spot in my repertoire. Then you at least like know something, right? Oh, of course. You know enough to know like, oh, I got to seek out David Lynch. So then I think you're emotionally prepared for this. Yeah, he's also obviously someone who is in gender.

a tremendous amount of respect from his peers as filmmakers and actors. So if you hear them talk about him. And a lot of rip-offs that are quite bad. It's a very good point. We didn't even talk about that. But this also just sets up a long trail of movies that are kind of like this but aren't very good.

Yeah. And that's the thing is he also, you know, this movie didn't make any money. He jokes about this in this criterion interview that I referenced where he's just sort of like, yeah, critics loved it, but nobody saw it. You know, he does still have that kind of down-home corn-pone direct conversation style where he's just like, we're making movies for people out here.

You know, he's making the strangest, most elusive, mysterious films, but he still, he wants to be seen and he wants to be understood, but he doesn't want to have to explain. Well, same. Wow. Wow. Well, that's moving. So what movies is this movie standing in for? Yeah. I would say that there are two tracks here.

Yeah. So what is the first track that you wrote down? Movies about Hollywood. Yeah. So I think eligible movies about Hollywood. Adaptation, Babylon, La La La Land. And a star is born, the Bradley Cooper. What do you think Bradley Cooper thinks of David Lynch?

Now, we know he has portrayed the elephant man on Broadway. Yes. So, of course, I'm sure he's seen the film. I'm sure he's like David Lynch was a great friend, you know, because that's what Bradley Cooper says about everyone. I wonder if they were friends. So the other kind of genre that it's standing in for are what I'm describing as anti-logic psychological nightmare movies, which have also been very common in the last 25 years,

especially in a post-9-11 world where this feeling of disorientation and disruption has been coming over the, often male psyche, I'll say. Sometimes the female psyche, but, you know, Donnie Darko is an example of this, Synectekee, New York, Beau is Afraid as a recent example of this,

very indebted to lynch, Black Swan. Yeah. There are others. I think if you want to go back into the past, the movie like, Don't Look Now is an interesting example of this, the violation of the male psyche and male power. Yeah.

You know, and then what violence is wrought upon us? Anyhow. Do you think a lot of Aeronovsky fans at home crying because Black Swan's not on the list? I never really considered it. Okay. I like that movie. Sorry.

I haven't seen it in many years. I don't think I disliked it. Okay. I think it's very effectively doing what it's trying to do. Yeah. It's cribbing from a lot of Polanski. Yeah. It's a lot of Polanski.

But that's okay. Yeah. Okay. Recommend it if you like. Now those were those are what these movies are standing in for. This is like if you dig these movies. movies, you might dig this. The first one that came to mind was showgirls.

It's really good, really good pull. Showgirls, also about the way that the world of entertainment, the male-run world of entertainment, destroys women's souls. Yeah. And features a remarkable performance by Elizabeth Berkeley. It does. It does.

It does. Also features longtime Lynch stand-in, Kyle McLaughlin. True. In a role as a bad man. Yeah. I mean, Show Girls is now incredibly understood, you know, and more understood every day. Thank you to Adam Neiman for any entire book about it.

Other recommend that if you like, I think Blow Up. Yeah. Another movie about seeing women through a male lens. Sure. Yeah. And death and murder. This one's funny. Yeah.

Really good. Right. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. What a great movie. I mean, Sunset Boulevard, of course, which is the movie that Lynch has probably asked about most in terms of its correlation.

Right. I mean, we do actually see Sunset Boulevard right after we see, we go from. from Mulholland Drive to Sunset Boulevard through the brush, which, you know, is a tough journey, IRL. It is. Have you done it? Do you climb down yourself? I tried a couple times. Like, when I first moved to L.A., and when I, like, I refused to relinquish the walkability of New York City. Yeah, that was funny when you tried that. We'll, like, walk down. But, but even for me, this would be quite a journey. It's difficult. Two of the great films named after streets in Los Angeles.

Any other great films named after Strait's in Los Angeles? Any other great films named for it, or really any of the lunch movies, but. Yeah, I think, I mean, this was a no-brainer. Yeah. Too high, too low, feel good about its placement? Just right. Just right. Yeah, just like Goldilocks.

So this is number six. Yes. And we have five more to go. We do. Do you want to do any trades? Well, you have been mentioning one that you want to do. Well, I don't really know how to pull it off. Okay.

But I'm thinking on something. All right. And I'm not going to spoil it here on the pod right now. That's the thing is that we can't actually talk about. I don't want to, I just want to make content in life. I don't want to make recorded content. Okay. I want to have a content conversation with you.

Yeah. Behind closed doors. Okay. Okay. Well, thanks to Jack Sanders for his work on this episode. We are just days away from our live event. That's right. Our screening, our secret screening.

Yes. Which is actually going to be of the number four films. on our list. So we're going to ask all of the people who attend to not say anything. I've got a whole plan. I got a whole. You just you just got to stand there for the introduction. And we're going to have a heart to heart. Great news. Yeah. I'm very happy to hear that. Then you might have to pose, but. Okay. Well, I'm very good at that. As we all know, I'm very good at taking photographs. And yeah, we will be back later this week with a conversation about Frankenstein and Die My Love. Yeah. Two films candidly that have a lot to do with Mulholl and Drive. We'll see you then.

Thank you.