***Patron Request*** Mulholland Drive Full Watch Along

Yes, this is VERY significant 💯💯💯

And I think it's significant that the crash and the amnesia happens on Mulholland Drive at the spot where the car stopped and Camilla came to bring Diane to that party. It's symbolic of how Diane's life became a "wreck" and everything that happened after that party is what Diane desperately wants to forget.

Nathan Bishop

If they're not her grandparents, then maybe they were the judges of the Jitterbug contest that Diane won which led to her acting career. If so, then Diane is haunted by them because she wishes that she could go back and never enter that Jitterbug contest, because she feels that her life would have been better if she had never won that contest and moved out to Los Angeles to pursue a career in the entertainment industry. And yes, Twin Peaks is the greatest show ever.

Nathan Bishop

First let me say that this movie for me is in my top two or three best films of the new millennium, besides Russian Ark (2002), Downfall ( 2004) , Amelie ( 2001) and Blade Runner 2049 (2018). I saw this film in Theaters when it came out and I was in college and was in awe! I just could not stop thinking about it, and I saw it another four times in the following weeks! I don't know why I was so amazed that David Lynch did this because Twin Peaks all three seasons combined are the Greatest show of all time. Also fun fact: This was to be a tv show with Sherilynn Fenn playing the part of Rita/Camilla as Audrey Horne. Also Thanks Nate for recommending this movie to her, and I agree with most of your analysis except for the whole grandparents thing!

Damien beatty

WOW. I think you're spot on with this timeline. You should be a writer 👏🏻💯👍🏻🔥

Amazing, Nate. Sorry I missed these in my wrap up. These are fantastic notes/theories/thoughts about the film. I LOVE them. I am definitely going to go back an re-watch this film....going into it for a 2nd time - knowing that the first 2 hours of the movie is all in Diane's head - a dream.

And after doing the watch along with you, I realize that the dialogue indicates that the old couple are not her grandparents, but I just figure that's because it's during the dream where it's Betty, not Diane, and of course, they are not the grandparents of "Betty". She's dreaming of being Betty because she doesn't want to be Diane anymore, so they wouldn't be her grandparents in that dream. I feel like they must be her grandparents, because they're obviously important to her since they're the last people she thinks of before committing suicide. I also noticed that the hitman had 2 different colored eyes in the dream, which I think is another visual clue that it's a dream and that he's a figment of Diane's imagination, because his eye colors are the same as Betty's and Rita's (who are essentially the same person). Like I said before, this movie is even better when watching it for the 2nd time, because you can pick up on things like that after you have an understanding that the first 2 hours of the film is Diane's dream. And yes, the events of the movie are out of sequence, much like a Tarantino film. There's a couple of flashbacks when we come back to reality. To me, the basic timeline is: Camilla is in Diane's apartment, where Camilla says that they need to stop seeing each other. To drive this point home, Camilla makes out with Adam in front of Diane on that movie set. Then we see Diane yelling at Camilla back at her apartment, and then she masturbates, trying to convince herself that she doesn't need Camilla. Diane has a rebound relationship with her neighbor to get over Camilla. Camilla invites Diane to that dinner party on Mulholland Drive. Diane hires the hitman to kill Camilla. The Hitman leaves the blue key at Diane's place, at which point she starts to feel horrible guilt and she wants to be someone else to escape her guilt and pain, especially after hearing that some detectives have been looking for her for questioning, so she goes to bed, and that's when we experience her dream. Diane wakes up from her dream, remembering everything, and that's when the neighbor stops by to get her stuff, and then Diane hallucinates that Camilla is still alive, when Camilla briefly appears in Diane's kitchen. Then later that night, Diane commits suicide after sitting alone in her apartment, staring at the blue key, and then being haunted by the thought of her grandparents.

Nathan Bishop

I'm glad you enjoyed the movie! I sent some additional thoughts that you must have missed. I'll put them here. There are just many scenes that you can more easily interpret when you realize it's Diane's subconscious. Such as the scene where one of the big wigs spits out that coffee, when it's supposed to be one of the finest espressos in the world. Diane really resented Hollywood big wigs since she was never able to become a successful actress, and that resentment had her dreaming scenes like this where Hollywood is a clearly rigged system and the big wigs are pretentious snobs who are never satisfied no matter how good you are. So you could say that Diane is the coffee that they kept spitting out. But that same scene could also be explained by the dinner party scene, where Diane is drinking coffee. And of course, that's the night when her whole world fell apart, so she probably hates the taste of coffee now since it reminds her of that night. And she even spots the man at that party who becomes the Italian mobster who spits out the coffee in her dream. And, of course, in Diane's dream, the woman who the mobsters force Adam to hire is named Camilla, which is showing Diane's jealousy of Camilla's success as an actress, since Diane believes that things were rigged in Camilla's favor. And the woman who plays Camilla in Diane's dream is the woman she saw kissing Camilla at the dinner party, which is another woman that Diane would be jealous of, since she sees her as part of the same, successful inner circle that Diane could never get into.

Nathan Bishop