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Mulholland Drive (2001) with Mike Miley · Left of the Projector

• 0:16
  Track 1: Hello and welcome to Left of the Projector. I am your host, Evan,
• 0:19
  Track 1: back again with another film discussion from the left.
• 0:22
  Track 1: You can follow the show at leftoftheprojector.com
• 0:26
  Track 1: and give us a like and rating. It's much appreciated.
• 0:29
  Track 1: This week on the show, we are discussing the 2001 surrealist film by the late,
• 0:35
  Track 1: great David Lynch, Mulholland Drive.
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  Track 1: It stars Justin Theroux, Naomi Watts, Laura Herring, Ann Miller, and Robert Forrester.
• 0:42
  Track 1: This week to discuss the film, I have Mike Miley. He is an author with a book
• 0:46
  Track 1: coming out in the near future called David Lynch's American Dreamscape.
• 0:50
  Track 1: Thank you for joining me today, Mike.
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  Track 2: Oh, thanks, Evan. Happy to be here.
• 0:54
  Track 1: Awesome. Well, I mentioned your book there.
• 0:57
  Track 1: So if you want to give listeners, well, maybe this is a two-part kind of thing.
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  Track 1: One, I guess, why we ended up deciding or why you ended up picking Mulholland
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  Track 1: Drive, and I guess how that relates to your background and this upcoming book.
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  Track 2: So talking about Mulholland Drive here, it seemed like the reading that the
• 1:15
  Track 2: book has on that film kind of lines up the best maybe with what your podcast is devoted to,
• 1:23
  Track 2: because myself and others have sort of read an anti-capitalist critique into
• 1:28
  Track 2: that particular Lynch film.
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  Track 2: That one and Eraserhead, I guess, are the ones that get the most attention from that.
• 1:36
  Track 2: And it's not representative necessarily of the approach of the book as a whole.
• 1:40
  Track 2: The book as a whole is mainly looking at literary and musical works and traditions
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  Track 2: that Lynch's films tap into.
• 1:49
  Track 2: And so the discussion in the
• 1:52
  Track 2: book about Mulholland Drive is looking at how his how that
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  Track 2: film is a an extension of
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  Track 2: or a response to the fiction of Nathaniel West and how both of them sort of
• 2:03
  Track 2: use surrealism and dreams and Hollywood in part to talk about the false promises
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  Track 2: of the American dream or the American project.
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  Track 2: But the rest of the book will look at things like, for literary influences,
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  Track 2: how Blue Velvet is a work of children's literature, like Where the Wild Things
• 2:26
  Track 2: Are is, or how Eraserhead is another entry in the historical literary genre
• 2:32
  Track 2: that has works like The Yellow Wallpaper in it.
• 2:35
  Track 2: Twin Peaks The Return is living in
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  Track 2: the same universe in a way as Cormac McCarthy's work on the atomic bomb.
• 2:41
  Track 2: And then the second half of the book is about different musical forms or genres.
• 2:46
  Track 2: So looking at Twin Peaks as a teen tragedy ballad or looking at how Lost Highway
• 2:52
  Track 2: uses cover songs, how the straight
• 2:54
  Track 2: story is sort of responding to the folk revival and things like that.
• 2:59
  Track 2: So it covers most of his films, not all of them, but it's sort of looking at
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  Track 2: how his works tapping into the zeitgeist of various literary musical traditions
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  Track 2: to say something about the country we live in.
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  Track 1: Interesting. That's super interesting. Yeah. And for people who are listening,
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  Track 1: I had a chance to at least check out the chapter on Mulholland Drive,
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  Track 1: which is the subject of today's episode.
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  Track 1: But when does your book come out officially?
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  Track 2: February 6th. I guess it's currently available as an e-book,
• 3:30
  Track 2: but the hard copies come out on February the 6th.
• 3:34
  Track 1: It's kind of a fortuitous circumstances or unfortunate, whatever you might want
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  Track 1: to say, is that we're kind of discussing a David Lynch film as the week,
• 3:45
  Track 1: only a few days after discovering or learning about his passing.
• 3:48
  Track 1: And so I have to maybe ask you this before we start talking about the film itself.
• 3:54
  Track 1: If you had any, I don't know, I mean, obviously you're writing a book discussing works of David Lynch.
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  Track 1: If you had any specific favorites or if you had any, you know,
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  Track 1: I don't know, I want to call them anecdotes or things, you know,
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  Track 1: memories relating to David Lynch that kind of, I don't know,
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  Track 1: led you to this moment, I guess.
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  Track 2: Yeah um i guess um well
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  Track 2: as far as i'm a kind of weird
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  Track 2: fan boy in the sense that i kind of think all the mood all of his movies
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  Track 2: are great and his best ones i mean i'll even go to the mat for
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  Track 2: dune most days uh even though i maybe know
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  Track 2: that i'm not standing on his firm ground with that
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  Track 2: as when i make an argument about another one of his films but i
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  Track 2: i have deep affection for all of them in
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  Track 2: some way or another both for their achievements
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  Track 2: as works of cinema but then also just maybe where
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  Track 2: they line up with my own developing cinephilia
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  Track 2: from whether that's seeing dune in the theater when i was five and freaking
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  Track 2: out and or like you know other other times in my life there's you know been
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  Track 2: a david lynch film to sort of anchor that that time period either discovering
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  Track 2: one or a new one coming out but i guess anecdotally um.
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  Track 2: The interesting thing about Mulholland Drive for me is this,
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  Track 2: its release and all of that stuff and what it's about coincided with me starting to go to film school.
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  Track 2: So I saw Mulholland Drive a couple of weeks before it came out because Lynch
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  Track 2: came and did a talk at the American Film Institute where I was a directing fellow
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  Track 2: and where he was a graduate of as well.
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  Track 2: Well, Eraserhead was basically his thesis film that he spent five years making
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  Track 2: on the grounds of the former grounds of the American Film Institute.
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  Track 2: So he had a new movie. He was coming to show it to us. We were going to see
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  Track 2: it before anybody else. And so that was a very, very exciting thing.
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  Track 2: And then you wind up getting this movie that nobody was really prepared for.
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  Track 2: All we knew about it was just that it was this TV pilot that had gotten rejected
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  Track 2: and then had gotten turned into this other movie.
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  Track 2: And so suddenly starting
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  Track 2: film school and getting one of your heroes is also one of
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  Track 2: the reasons you're at this school to show up and show his new movie and talk
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  Track 2: to you about it was a pretty profound experience that I think I still wind up
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  Track 2: thinking about that time a whole lot.
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  Track 2: And I'm really excited that I get to use something that he said in that talk
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  Track 2: in the book that I haven't seen printed anywhere else because the AFI usually
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  Track 2: doesn't release stuff like that to the public.
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  Track 2: But they let me use it because I'm like, I can paraphrase it because I was there,
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  Track 2: but I'd rather have the words exactly right.
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  Track 2: And so can you do that? And they did the whole like, well, you're a fellow too.
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  Track 2: So I guess, yeah, I guess we'll let you use it.
• 7:00
  Track 2: And so from like, for me, it's a pretty big coup, right, to have this really cool quote in there.
• 7:06
  Track 2: And so that's the sort of thing that was the sorts of thing that I remember.
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  Track 2: Uh i guess most fondly about mulholland drive but uh
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  Track 2: but i gotta be honest like people liked it
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  Track 2: and were affected by it but nobody was
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  Track 2: walking out of it saying like oh one of the 10 greatest movies ever
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  Track 2: made you know the way that it's on the the sight and sound list now
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  Track 2: uh it's it's definitely had
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  Track 2: to grow on everybody i think seeing it
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  Track 2: the first time i know for me and the people around me was sort
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  Track 2: of felt the choppiness of it where you could kind of feel oh
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  Track 2: here's where a commercial break would be oh this is you can sort of
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  Track 2: see the the tv in it more than
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  Track 2: more than i do now certainly there's still a couple of parts where
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  Track 2: i think it's kind of some of that episodic nature
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  Track 2: is kind of evident but really once
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  Track 2: you know where those last 30 minutes
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  Track 2: are going all the stuff that's added afterward like
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  Track 2: once you see all of that all that
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  Track 2: stuff kind of becomes irrelevant to the overall impact
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  Track 2: of the movie and it um is kind
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  Track 2: of the best um oh gosh i'm going to tell another story
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  Track 2: about this but i guess it's it's the um it's the impact
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  Track 2: about like all of his films essentially right is you don't
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  Track 2: need to understand them to feel them right and to feel them very deeply and
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  Track 2: i um i probably shouldn't have done this but when i was teaching high school
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  Track 2: in la they showed mulholland drive at the american cinematheque one night and
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  Track 2: i was teaching a film studies class to a group of seniors and i arranged to
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  Track 2: take all of them there on a field trip.
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  Track 2: And completely uh freaked all of them
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  Track 2: out um and and i guess the the best
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  Track 2: way but uh i remember they were um they were
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  Track 2: so traumatized that on the bus ride back a car next to us honked its horn really
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  Track 2: loudly and like the entire bus like jumped um you know they were i think they
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  Track 2: were still freaked out by the person behind the dumpster right like they were
• 9:00
  Track 2: yeah they were they were they were feeling it but like also it was cool to see a young person,
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  Track 2: watch that movie and watch them discover,
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  Track 2: I don't understand this, but I really felt something and I'm not going to forget this.
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  Track 2: And it's all because I don't get it, but I feel something very deeply and I
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  Track 2: need to find out what I'm feeling.
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  Track 2: Like, I think that was a profound thing to see happen to somebody else.
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  Track 1: Yeah, no, that's first just getting to see this ahead of time and all.
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  Track 1: Wow, that's that's an incredible thing to have been able to experience.
• 9:38
  Track 1: I don't have nearly my, like, so I was on another podcast recently,
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  Track 1: we discussed a film, not, it wasn't a Lynch film, but we happened to just kind
• 9:48
  Track 1: of discuss, you know, some of the things related to David Lynch is because of
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  Track 1: the moment, just a couple days ago.
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  Track 1: And so I think I don't know if I share this exact story, but my first memory
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  Track 1: of watching anything David Lynch, I knew about Twin Peaks when I was younger,
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  Track 1: but my parents didn't see it or they didn't like it.
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  Track 1: So they weren't, I wasn't exposed to it. And then when I went in,
• 10:09
  Track 1: when I like late in high school, it was around the time, I don't know,
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  Track 1: it was probably 16 or 17. I had a friend from another school who was going to
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  Track 1: be going to film school or wanted to go to film school.
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  Track 1: And he would pick a lot of films to watch, like, can we go to Blockbuster?
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  Track 1: He'd pick some movies out. And I had never heard of any of the ones he would
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  Track 1: choose. It would always be things that I had never heard of.
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  Track 1: And I think at some point he picked out, I'm pretty sure that it was Wild at Heart.
• 10:36
  Track 1: So I think that I recently thought that Eraserhead was the first Lynch film that I had seen.
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  Track 1: But it turns out that it was Wild at Heart. And I didn't feel like I liked it
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  Track 1: because I was not, I don't know, mature enough or like understand what I was
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  Track 1: watching or like didn't get it at all. And it wasn't until many years later that I watched it.
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  Track 1: And then when I was around 19, a friend and I wanted to see Eraserhead and that
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  Track 1: time wasn't available at the store.
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  Track 1: We like went on eBay and found a VHS to watch Eraserhead.
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  Track 1: We watched the entire movie with our jaws just like on the floor thinking like,
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  Track 1: I don't have any idea what I just watched or heard or saw or any of it.
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  Track 1: It doesn't make any sense to me.
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  Track 1: And then we're like, that was insane. And then we were like,
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  Track 1: let's just watch it again right now. And then so we just watched it again right
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  Track 1: after. And I still didn't understand anything that I watched.
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  Track 1: And this was, you know, in the days of like message boards.
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  Track 1: There wasn't like the same kind of internet now where you could just look up,
• 11:27
  Track 1: you know, article after article about what films mean to different people.
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  Track 1: I had no clue what was going on. And now when I watch it as a father,
• 11:35
  Track 1: a friend on this other podcast said, like, if you're a father,
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  Track 1: you like have kids or something like that. and you watch right to your head,
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  Track 1: it has a whole new meaning to you.
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  Track 1: And I just watched it a couple nights ago and the same thing happened.
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  Track 1: I was like, oh my God, this is a completely different film than I watched it
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  Track 1: 25 years ago. And so it's just one of those things where...
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  Track 1: You can watch his films. I didn't necessarily like it when I was 19,
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  Track 1: but I appreciated that it did something.
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  Track 1: So to your same point, I was almost out of high school, didn't know what I watched,
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  Track 1: but I was like, oh my God, he did something here.
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  Track 2: Mm hmm. Yeah. And I guess to add to that, right, something that no one else has done,
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  Track 2: like it just you feel like and I mean, Eraserhead is probably the premium example
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  Track 2: of this, but I think it's true of all of them where, yeah, you're you watch
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  Track 2: these movies and you're you get the feeling, oh, wow,
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  Track 2: someone made this right. Right.
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  Track 2: Like one person did this.
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  Track 2: This isn't like some movie made by committee or, you know, something that could
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  Track 2: have been done by anybody.
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  Track 2: Like this is the product of one consciousness doing doing this.
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  Track 2: And so you really become aware of the filmmaker as artist, right,
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  Track 2: of the of the director as the artist and things like that.
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  Track 2: I think with this, with his films, um, you know, even on, even before,
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  Track 2: you know, that that's even like a debate in film studies or something like that. Right.
• 13:02
  Track 1: This was a question I didn't even list down. If you were going to like tell
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  Track 1: someone who hasn't seen any David Lynn content of any kind, never seen any of
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  Track 1: his films, never seen, had never seen twin peaks, you know, original or the, the revival,
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  Track 1: what would you tell someone as like the first thing to watch?
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  Track 1: Because in my mind, i feel like mulholland drive is somehow like the most like
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  Track 1: most accessible and then also like kind of the least accessible.
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  Track 2: No yeah it's.
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  Track 1: Like it's very you need to watch it probably multiple times but to me it's almost
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  Track 1: like the thing it's like the most cohesive film end-to-hand maybe that or wild at heart would be.
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  Track 2: Oh yeah well i um i guess it depends
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  Track 2: on the person i mean that's not to be like a cop-out but
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  Track 2: i think some people like some people
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  Track 2: maybe depending on their sensibility need to start with the straight story or
• 13:50
  Track 2: you know or the elephant man or something like that
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  Track 2: that's another good um but then i think mulholland
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  Track 2: drive is a good one to give people first in the sense that it's a later work
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  Track 2: so that more of the the style and things like that are kind of fully formed
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  Track 2: and you have the advantage of the fact that uh 70 of it is made for television so you know the,
• 14:14
  Track 2: percentage of it that's going to be like extreme or uncomfortable is less than
• 14:19
  Track 2: yeah then you know something like wild at heart for example right or lost highway yeah but then,
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  Track 2: like so you go in with that but then you think oh wow but
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  Track 2: that those last 20 minutes are freaking intense right i
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  Track 2: mean it really makes up for for the time uh with just sort of how emotionally
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  Track 2: raw and explicit some of some of the material in the last 20 minutes is but
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  Track 2: uh but yeah i think it's a It's a good one to start with because it at least
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  Track 2: then by that point, you've had 90 minutes.
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  Track 2: Of getting lulled in right and kind of getting pulled into the into the world
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  Track 2: uh and getting a good sense of of what it's going to be like um.
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  Track 1: Yeah that's yeah i would i would yeah it's it's
• 15:01
  Track 1: kind of a toss-up but for for me i remember the first time i saw like lost highway
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  Track 1: and in inland empire was just kind of like i was lost literally like especially
• 15:11
  Track 1: lost highway that one's a more uh to me a more challenging film but as far as
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  Track 1: uh you know this i think maybe a good starting point is,
• 15:19
  Track 1: you know, the background and sort of the landscape of this film is, of course, Los Angeles.
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  Track 1: And we're introduced very early on, you know, there's kind of two opening or
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  Track 1: two sort of competing narrative sequences that start the film.
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  Track 1: One is we have a woman that is in a limo on Mulholland Drive,
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  Track 1: you know, the title of the film.
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  Track 1: And she's about to be shot if it appears and she and then
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  Track 1: crashes into uh you know uh the
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  Track 1: car crashes into them causing her to essentially have what we learned very soon
• 15:53
  Track 1: after is she loses her memory and then competing at the same time is we learn
• 15:57
  Track 1: of a young actress who we see his name is betty arriving from ontario at an
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  Track 1: airport with what appears to
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  Track 1: be her like aunts and uncle or her grandparents and i think it's just her,
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  Track 1: well do we even know.
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  Track 2: She's an old i think they're an old couple she meets on the plane oh okay and
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  Track 2: then um yeah she's staying at her at her aunt's house um but yeah she's it's
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  Track 2: just like some old couple she chats up on the plane uh and tells about all of
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  Track 2: her dreams of making it as a star and.
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  Track 1: So and so we basically have these two individuals collide very early where they
• 16:31
  Track 1: have now you know the the young actress who arise originally we don't know her
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  Track 1: name initially but it's actually going by Rita.
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  Track 1: Rita and Betty essentially kind of cross paths at this aunt's house.
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  Track 1: And it's all taking place in Los Angeles.
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  Track 1: And there's lots of these great shots, especially when you're in the very first
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  Track 1: scene of her hiding in the bushes of the city of LA down below from the hills.
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  Track 1: And so it's kind of inescapable to have the
• 16:59
  Track 1: city of Los Angeles and the dream
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  Track 1: of this person into like a limo you know somewhere high up
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  Track 1: in the hills and then this new person coming into town
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  Track 1: hoping to you know reach those same heights so
• 17:11
  Track 1: i don't know what you think about the like just the context of
• 17:14
  Track 1: la because without la this isn't a film
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  Track 1: without hollywood this isn't a film and so kind of how it plays into this you
• 17:22
  Track 1: know if you ask someone from another country about hollywood they would tell
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  Track 1: you it's this place that people go to you know have their dreams to try and
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  Track 1: like make you know become a an actor or an actress and you know so i don't know
• 17:34
  Track 1: what you think about all of that.
• 17:35
  Track 2: Yeah i mean it it does some of that classic
• 17:38
  Track 2: the city is a character kind of thing in
• 17:41
  Track 2: the in the story however the city is probably more the los angeles of the imagination
• 17:47
  Track 2: than the lived breathed los angeles uh even the los angeles of the film industry
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  Track 2: i I think it's most of the film industry related locations are the most, um.
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  Track 2: The most fantasized about, right? The gate to Paramount Pictures,
• 18:05
  Track 2: right? That's, of course, the studio lot where they're going to be.
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  Track 2: Then you have the Adam Kesher's like ultra postmodern house.
• 18:13
  Track 2: You have the West Hollywood courtyard apartment building where Betty's aunt lives.
• 18:22
  Track 2: I mean, it's got the Capitol Records building, right? It is all kind of the
• 18:26
  Track 2: things that the tourist or the movie fan thinks of when they think of the city
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  Track 2: of Los Angeles in a really cool way that I think tells us subconsciously that
• 18:36
  Track 2: we're not really in L.A. and we're not really in reality.
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  Track 2: Instead, we are in the L.A. of the mind. That is the place where people go to
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  Track 2: make their dreams come true, which is how the entire continent sees the West
• 18:50
  Track 2: Coast and sees Los Angeles.
• 18:52
  Track 2: But it's also at least how at some points in time, how the entire world views the United States.
• 18:59
  Track 2: Right. So we're seeing the city of L.A.
• 19:03
  Track 2: And its its fantasy idea used as a microcosm for the American dream itself.
• 19:09
  Track 2: And, of course, it's all located at the terminal point of both on the West Coast, right?
• 19:15
  Track 2: It's like the dream's gone all the way to the edge, and it can't go any further.
• 19:19
  Track 2: And this is where people go to make their dreams come true. It's also where dreams go to die.
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  Track 2: And in this movie, both of them are happening almost simultaneously.
• 19:30
  Track 2: Or the death of one dream is the birth of another in a messed up kind of way
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  Track 2: that we see both in the plot of the movie,
• 19:38
  Track 2: but then it also just kind of gets us to see how that is the way the machine
• 19:43
  Track 2: keeps going, right? It's what it runs on.
• 19:46
  Track 1: Yeah, there was numerous times in my, like, when I was taking notes watching it, where I was,
• 19:51
  Track 1: like, it's these very, like, so I mentioned at the opening, like,
• 19:55
  Track 1: who the, like, the main cast are, but Naomi Watts plays the character as Betty,
• 20:00
  Track 1: and then Laura Herring plays Rita, and we later learned different names, which,
• 20:05
  Track 1: you know, obviously, there's spoilers in this, and so if you've already started listening,
• 20:10
  Track 1: you either will be spoiled, or you have already seen it,
• 20:14
  Track 1: it won't matter but we like there's many moments where
• 20:17
  Track 1: like the gazes that naomi watts's characters have
• 20:20
  Track 1: especially as that early stage is betty like this kind
• 20:23
  Track 1: of eyes of wonder as she's looking across the city and as you mentioned the
• 20:27
  Track 1: people on the plane and just this like everything is possible to you and then
• 20:31
  Track 1: you see you know later her later in the film or you see rita with this sort
• 20:35
  Track 1: of just like confusion because she doesn't remember who she is but also just
• 20:39
  Track 1: like how you even how you can uh uh,
• 20:43
  Track 1: how do you perceive Hollywood in that same way?
• 20:45
  Track 1: You know, as you know, the person who's the grizzled veteran who's been in the
• 20:48
  Track 1: city and understands all the things that you have to endure to be there.
• 20:53
  Track 2: Yeah. I mean, it's, it's a, that's the thing where I guess people talk so much
• 20:56
  Track 2: about Naomi Watts's performance.
• 20:58
  Track 2: And I guess they're normally referring to the final third of the movie,
• 21:01
  Track 2: but I'm really, it's the other two thirds are the part that is really hard to
• 21:07
  Track 2: pull off tonally, right?
• 21:09
  Track 2: Because it's so close to being over the top. It's so close to camp,
• 21:13
  Track 2: but it is authentic and true to the way people's dreams are on the inside, right?
• 21:23
  Track 2: And she's just living it on the outside and it is laughable,
• 21:25
  Track 2: but in some ways we're kind of all laughing at ourselves, right?
• 21:28
  Track 2: At how starry eyed we are about things.
• 21:31
  Track 2: And yeah, then you've got on the other side, I hadn't really thought about this
• 21:35
  Track 2: till you were talking about it, the way that the Rita character is kind of,
• 21:41
  Track 2: yeah, like the city has in some ways hit her over the head and she is stumbling around days.
• 21:45
  Track 2: What is this place? None of this makes sense to me.
• 21:49
  Track 2: And of course, what's the one
• 21:50
  Track 2: thing that she uses to orient herself and identify herself in this world?
• 21:56
  Track 2: A movie poster that she sees in a mirror. So it's all screens and reflections.
• 22:00
  Track 2: That's how she figures out who she is. And that part of things.
• 22:04
  Track 2: And so the whole world then is a movie fantasy world or a reflection thereof,
• 22:10
  Track 2: whether we're looking at it through Betty's eyes or through Rita's eyes.
• 22:13
  Track 2: And they, of course, wind up living.
• 22:16
  Track 2: In a movie plot they're like the
• 22:19
  Track 2: the detectives work in a case it's a it's a buddy detective movie for a while
• 22:24
  Track 2: in their in their own minds and they're so and betty's so thrilled to be living
• 22:28
  Track 2: in that for real uh so that even when she's not in the movies her life in la
• 22:33
  Track 2: is just like in the movies uh i mean she even says as much right um.
• 22:38
  Track 1: Yeah and it's it's funny you mentioned the uh the poster
• 22:41
  Track 1: it's funny i did this research briefly not like
• 22:44
  Track 1: research i mean like going down of like a mild wikipedia rabbit
• 22:48
  Track 1: hole so she goes the the the film post
• 22:51
  Track 1: you're referring to was gilda starring rita hayworth
• 22:54
  Track 1: and i was looking i haven't actually seen that which i feel like
• 22:57
  Track 1: it's so good i know i know as soon as i when i
• 22:59
  Track 1: realized i hadn't seen him like i need to add that to my list but i
• 23:02
  Track 1: was reading like the plot of it i didn't i don't mind if it's spoiled
• 23:05
  Track 1: for me but i was trying to think if is there a reason that they would
• 23:08
  Track 1: have you know i can't leave anything that lynch
• 23:10
  Track 1: would do as up to chance you know he didn't it
• 23:14
  Track 1: wasn't just like a random poster he found on the ground he chose that film
• 23:17
  Track 1: so i'm wondering i was reading like the plot i was trying to think like oh is
• 23:20
  Track 1: there a reason for why he chose that it seems like
• 23:22
  Track 1: there's this you know this part of the part of the plot is they're in another
• 23:27
  Track 1: in buenos aires argentina playing casinos and they come back and it's this sort
• 23:31
  Track 1: of this uh you know maybe a similar type of um plot with you know two mobsters
• 23:38
  Track 1: and this whole thing so it seems like it fits perfectly well.
• 23:41
  Track 2: Yeah you've got uh You've got two men sort of dueling over the same woman,
• 23:46
  Track 2: but maybe they really want each other in the same way. We're here in Mulholland Drive.
• 23:51
  Track 2: You've got kind of two women who, I mean, aren't really dueling over the same
• 23:55
  Track 2: man, but one of them really wants the other very well.
• 23:58
  Track 2: But it's it's part, I think, of Lynch's broader fascination with film noir,
• 24:03
  Track 2: whether that's something like Billy Wilder and Sunset Boulevard or Laura,
• 24:09
  Track 2: which in some ways has some relationship to Laura Palmer and Twin Peaks, the the Otto Priminger.
• 24:16
  Track 2: Movie from 1944. So yeah, he's got, I think, a bigger fascination with film
• 24:21
  Track 2: noir, but it's especially fitting to,
• 24:24
  Track 2: I mean, I think the LA of the imagination is either the sun-bleached dream factory
• 24:29
  Track 2: world of the daytime of Mulholland Drive,
• 24:32
  Track 2: or it's the film noir Los Angeles of Double Indemnity and Raymond Chandler and Nathaniel West, right?
• 24:40
  Track 2: That is the other version of LA, The L.A. as dystopia.
• 24:44
  Track 2: The L.A. as dark underbelly of the American dream that's exploited so well in
• 24:48
  Track 2: film noir and that movies more or less when they're doing L.A.
• 24:53
  Track 2: Have to decide, oh, are we doing the sunshiny L.A. thing or are we doing the noir L.A.
• 24:58
  Track 2: Thing? And Mulholland Drive basically does both and in a way shows how one is
• 25:05
  Track 2: sustaining the other and vice versa.
• 25:07
  Track 2: But it's that utopia, dystopia, heaven or the apocalypse that is part of L.A.'s
• 25:14
  Track 2: identity, both on screen and off, right, as promised land and wasteland.
• 25:22
  Track 1: Yeah, no, that's interesting. Yeah, and one thing that this is going back very
• 25:26
  Track 1: slightly to the Los Angeles, just because you put this in the in the notes we're
• 25:29
  Track 1: talking about is the the house that Diane lives.
• 25:33
  Track 1: You were mentioning it as like the these snow white houses.
• 25:36
  Track 1: And yeah, I don't know if you want to say more about that.
• 25:39
  Track 2: Oh, sure. Yeah. So the Diane Selwyn's apartment complex, all those kind of storybook looking.
• 25:44
  Track 2: Buildings are this complex on Griffith Park Boulevard that was built,
• 25:49
  Track 2: or it's what the Seven Dwarfs houses are modeled off of in Snow White and the
• 25:56
  Track 2: Seven Dwarfs because it was near the original Disney Studios.
• 26:00
  Track 2: And it's alleged that maybe someone involved in the production actually lived
• 26:05
  Track 2: or had an office in one of those buildings.
• 26:06
  Track 2: By the time the mahalan drive was getting made they were um
• 26:10
  Track 2: i think at least i and i've
• 26:12
  Track 2: gone and visited them and like walked inside one of
• 26:15
  Track 2: them because it was unlocked and open it was also like room number 12 um
• 26:19
  Track 2: it wasn't the same actual door of diane's elements but like it was freaking
• 26:24
  Track 2: awesome to just like kind of walk in there and uh i do a lot of whenever i go
• 26:28
  Track 2: to cities do like movie location tourism slash trespassing and uh and this was
• 26:34
  Track 2: one of the places i had to go to But I think they were for a time,
• 26:39
  Track 2: maybe these things called Caltrans houses that were sort of owned by the city
• 26:43
  Track 2: that like are often like leased out to movie locations and stuff like that.
• 26:47
  Track 2: There's a similar thing where, like, for instance, Vivica A.
• 26:51
  Track 2: Fox's house in Kill Bill, where they have a big fight at the beginning of the
• 26:56
  Track 2: first Kill Bill is one of those houses as well.
• 26:59
  Track 2: But there's a few of them kind of around the city. but yeah
• 27:02
  Track 2: so it like it's it's it's wonderful to pick
• 27:05
  Track 2: that complex as the sierra bonita apartments because the
• 27:09
  Track 2: um right it's it's their fairy tale houses and
• 27:13
  Track 2: you know diane slash betty has
• 27:16
  Track 2: come to la to live in a real life fairy tale and then
• 27:20
  Track 2: um yeah it turns out not to be that or it winds up being like snow white originally
• 27:24
  Track 2: based on a work by the brothers grim right so it becomes a real the real fairy
• 27:28
  Track 2: tale yeah no yeah the yeah not the one that's been watered down by hollywood
• 27:32
  Track 2: right like she's getting the real shit you know um you know uncut.
• 27:36
  Track 1: Yeah no that's uh i had yeah this was one of those things where la is i've never
• 27:43
  Track 1: i've been to la but i've never spent much time there or visited in this kind
• 27:47
  Track 1: of way so a lot of times when you know things like east coast or new york i'm
• 27:51
  Track 1: like yeah i know these things and i can deal with them like the episode that
• 27:54
  Track 1: was just released today,
• 27:56
  Track 1: which was in the past, was on the taking of Pelham 123.
• 28:00
  Track 1: And I think of all that, of these very quintessential New York things.
• 28:04
  Track 1: And so when I have LA, it's always nice when you can shed some light on some of those things.
• 28:09
  Track 1: But one of the areas I think we already sort of been talking about is this dream and versus reality.
• 28:16
  Track 1: And so one of the lines, so in
• 28:18
  Track 1: your chapter that you mentioned before that touches on Mulholland Drive,
• 28:22
  Track 1: you had a line that said that the way that dreams facilitate the transformation
• 28:26
  Track 1: of waste that disgusts and depresses into the art that invigorates inspires
• 28:30
  Track 1: and when i when i i've watched the film and then i read your chapter and then
• 28:35
  Track 1: i watched the film again because i thought that,
• 28:38
  Track 1: made sense to kind of refresh my brain about it.
• 28:41
  Track 1: And that line stuck out to me. And I don't really know if I can articulate how
• 28:46
  Track 1: it does, but I'm wondering if you wanted to add any more like color to some
• 28:51
  Track 1: of that and this sort of the relationship between dreams and waste.
• 28:56
  Track 2: Yeah. Okay. So yeah, so this is, I'll rewind on it a little bit.
• 29:00
  Track 2: So part of where this idea is coming from is Nathaniel West is best known for
• 29:07
  Track 2: this Hollywood novel called Day of the Locust that is a, and West was a, you know.
• 29:14
  Track 2: Dies, I think in 1940 or 1941 on his way to F.
• 29:18
  Track 2: Scott Fitzgerald's funeral, if I'm not mistaken.
• 29:20
  Track 2: But he was another novelist who came out to LA to write screenplays for money.
• 29:26
  Track 2: But he writes Day of the Locust and Miss Lonely
• 29:29
  Track 2: Hearts are kind of his two best known works but
• 29:32
  Track 2: he had his first book is this dadaist slash
• 29:37
  Track 2: surrealist book called the dream life of balso snell
• 29:40
  Track 2: that takes place entirely in the
• 29:44
  Track 2: intestines of the trojan horse and uh
• 29:48
  Track 2: like it's a really messed up weird book like it and um
• 29:52
  Track 2: but in so in that novel
• 29:55
  Track 2: though they um and this is
• 29:58
  Track 2: kind of gross but like they begin by going up the
• 30:01
  Track 2: trojan horse's butt that's where that's where balsa snell goes
• 30:04
  Track 2: in his dream and then he's like just sort of cruising around
• 30:07
  Track 2: the trojan horse's digestive tract and encountering
• 30:10
  Track 2: all these weird people and creatures who live in there who are talking about
• 30:14
  Track 2: like art and meaning and all all of these kinds of things and there is there
• 30:19
  Track 2: are these creatures it's about to get grosser but there are these creatures
• 30:22
  Track 2: who live inside the Trojan Horses GI tract called the Phoenix Excrementi,
• 30:30
  Track 2: who are these beings who eat shit and.
• 30:34
  Track 2: And then shit, and then more creatures grow out, more of them spawn from their shit.
• 30:41
  Track 2: And it's just this cycle of waste reproducing itself and feeding on itself ad infinitum.
• 30:50
  Track 2: And in putting this work, and then throughout Nathaniel West's work,
• 30:54
  Track 2: there's all sorts of stuff about waste and trash.
• 30:58
  Track 2: There's a big scene in Day of the Locust where the main character,
• 31:02
  Track 2: who's a set designer for movies, who wants to be a painter, actually,
• 31:06
  Track 2: goes out to the edges of the studio backlot.
• 31:10
  Track 2: And he sees this big junk heap where all of the sets are thrown out after they're done.
• 31:16
  Track 2: And I think the text refers to it as the dream dump, just where all of the previous
• 31:21
  Track 2: dreams have gotten thrown out.
• 31:22
  Track 2: So you're just looking at this pile of movie after movie after movie.
• 31:24
  Track 2: And so in putting all this together,
• 31:27
  Track 2: I was looking at putting Mulholland Drive in conversation with these works and
• 31:32
  Track 2: looking at how essentially Mulholland Drive is doing the same thing that West
• 31:37
  Track 2: is showing us about what Los Angeles does or what the movie industry does.
• 31:41
  Track 2: Which is the movie industry makes a movie that is sent out to the rest of the
• 31:47
  Track 2: world that inspires people to go and follow their dreams, whatever those dreams might be.
• 31:51
  Track 2: But let's say making it big and wanting to be in the movies,
• 31:54
  Track 2: wanting to be a part of that dream.
• 31:56
  Track 2: And so they come out to L.A., get off the bus full of starry eyed ideas of how
• 32:01
  Track 2: their dreams are going to go.
• 32:02
  Track 2: And then maybe they do a little bit of work. Maybe they don't.
• 32:05
  Track 2: Their dreams don't work out, but they're probably part of something that gets
• 32:09
  Track 2: sent back out into the world that inspires somebody else to get on a bus and come to L.A.
• 32:15
  Track 2: And in a way, the film industry needs this in order for it to continue.
• 32:19
  Track 2: Right. You've got to have the cynical version. You need fresh marks to to have
• 32:25
  Track 2: your con keep working. Right.
• 32:28
  Track 2: And so then you can then broaden that out the way that West does and show how
• 32:35
  Track 2: that's also maybe part of the PR campaign for the American dream.
• 32:39
  Track 2: Right. You know, Gatsby's green light, all of that kind of stuff right here. Come over.
• 32:45
  Track 2: It's going to be great and amazing. and then you
• 32:48
  Track 2: know maybe it is for a minute but like it doesn't stay that way but
• 32:51
  Track 2: it's just long enough for someone else to see that light or to
• 32:54
  Track 2: catch that dream and think oh
• 32:57
  Track 2: maybe it'll work out for me too and so
• 33:00
  Track 2: but it's all made in some ways out of um the dreams are made out of previously
• 33:07
  Track 2: recycled or failed dreams right that and so that's a very long-winded way of
• 33:13
  Track 2: explaining that uh that process of how waste can somehow be generative,
• 33:18
  Track 2: but only in the sense of producing more waste in the long run.
• 33:23
  Track 1: And I guess that's like a good, I mean, I think you...
• 33:26
  Track 1: I don't know if these are, and that's a way of like looking,
• 33:29
  Track 1: you can look at the Betty character who, you know, initially we think as this
• 33:33
  Track 1: person who's come to Hollywood with these sights to be this movie star and we think she's on her way.
• 33:39
  Track 1: And then we learn the reality is that she doesn't make it and she becomes this
• 33:43
  Track 1: person who is, you know, will hire someone to kill someone for her.
• 33:49
  Track 1: She will eventually, you know, as the big spoiler at the end,
• 33:53
  Track 1: the final sequences of the film we learn, you know, kills her own,
• 33:58
  Track 1: takes her own life because of these struggles.
• 34:00
  Track 1: And, you know, in theory, the way I can imagine this in my brain is like someone
• 34:04
  Track 1: were to come to this or find out about the story and, you know,
• 34:09
  Track 1: Hollywood Reporter about someone or maybe not Hollywood Reporter because it's
• 34:12
  Track 1: maybe not someone who's that famous.
• 34:14
  Track 1: But, you know, someone reads a story about this person who killed themselves
• 34:17
  Track 1: and then they make a movie about that, you know, and then the cycle begins again.
• 34:22
  Track 1: So it's like this never ending cycle.
• 34:25
  Track 2: Well, yeah. And what's the name of the movie that Adam Kesher is involved in making?
• 34:30
  Track 2: Right. It's called the Sylvia North story, right? So it's obviously some film
• 34:34
  Track 2: about a woman who – we don't know the story per se.
• 34:38
  Track 2: I guess there's one version of the movie. It's got someone who's a performer
• 34:42
  Track 2: because he's auditioning all those people performing in recording studios.
• 34:46
  Track 1: It could be their downfall, right? They come to Hollywood. They're this big
• 34:49
  Track 1: singer, and then they OD, and that's the end of the film or something.
• 34:53
  Track 2: Yeah, it could be a rise and fall story, or maybe it's a biopic that cuts some
• 34:57
  Track 2: of those more unseemly parts out. and, you know, just inspires people.
• 35:01
  Track 2: But yeah, and the amazing thing about the structure of Mulholland Drive,
• 35:05
  Track 2: the most brilliant thing is we begin in the fantasy.
• 35:10
  Track 2: We start out in the dream world and have the rug yanked out from under us and
• 35:15
  Track 2: discover that we are, that everything we've been watching is some fantasy for
• 35:22
  Track 2: someone else that has failed.
• 35:24
  Track 2: And what's so great about that is we then experience the same kind of betrayal,
• 35:31
  Track 2: that same sense of the dream not coming true, that disappointment and sadness as Diane.
• 35:38
  Track 2: So that's partly why the last 20 minutes are so harrowing is because we have
• 35:44
  Track 2: just in a way lived her dream and now we're watching it come crashing down.
• 35:48
  Track 2: And even though it was too good to be true and it was so cheesy and we bought
• 35:54
  Track 2: into it anyway, You know, and I think why would we buy into something that's so obviously fake?
• 36:00
  Track 2: Because we share the same dream like we believe it, too.
• 36:04
  Track 2: Right. And I think that's what makes the movie so emotionally upsetting is that
• 36:10
  Track 2: we're essentially experiencing our own sense of betrayal through this character.
• 36:18
  Track 1: But, but so let me, let me ask, not ask this, but let me point out this sort of thing.
• 36:24
  Track 1: So you sort of, so you made a good point that the first majority of the film
• 36:28
  Track 1: is the dream as opposed to in, you know, a typical kind of story you're thinking
• 36:32
  Track 1: of, it's may not work in that same way structurally.
• 36:35
  Track 1: But then we also kind of have throughout the
• 36:38
  Track 1: first i guess through two-thirds of the film we
• 36:41
  Track 1: have this sort of under plot of this sort
• 36:43
  Track 1: of like control within hollywood the this
• 36:46
  Track 1: mr roke this person who is essentially you know has this layer of people in
• 36:52
  Track 1: behind you know below him that gets a director to do what he wants exerts this
• 36:56
  Track 1: control over a film and i think i've seen things and read things and heard things
• 37:01
  Track 1: about different ways to interpret some of that you know subplot of the film where they, you know,
• 37:06
  Track 1: they go after the director played by, um.
• 37:10
  Track 1: By of course, Justin Theroux, who's the, the director that you mentioned before
• 37:13
  Track 1: Adam Kesher, and he's trying to make a film and they're forcing him to use a
• 37:17
  Track 1: new, uh, a new star from the, for the picture.
• 37:21
  Track 1: And so to me, that is both like a dream in the sense that it's,
• 37:26
  Track 1: you know, maybe above the, you know, what you think actually happens in Hollywood,
• 37:32
  Track 1: but then at the same time, I not the same violence,
• 37:35
  Track 1: but in some ways there is still a, it's still a violent system that's forcing,
• 37:39
  Track 1: you know, directors and producers and all these different people and actors
• 37:43
  Track 1: to do things that they want them to do because a CEO at, you know,
• 37:48
  Track 1: Warner Brothers wants it this way.
• 37:50
  Track 1: And so it's going to be done that way because that's how he says.
• 37:53
  Track 1: So I guess, how do you square like that being the dream portion of the,
• 37:58
  Track 1: you know, in quotes, but it's, it's more the reality.
• 38:03
  Track 2: Part of me wonders whether this is, and so we're going to get really in the
• 38:08
  Track 2: weeds here for a second, but we're going to go like deep message board for a moment.
• 38:13
  Track 2: But I wonder about whether that whole Mr.
• 38:18
  Track 2: Roke subplot, the whole this is the girl thing, how much of that is Diane trying
• 38:24
  Track 2: to explain why it's not her who became like, why did I not make it?
• 38:29
  Track 2: Couldn't be because i am not good enough or
• 38:32
  Track 2: it had to be the result of this
• 38:36
  Track 2: labyrinthine conspiracy to keep
• 38:39
  Track 2: me out and to foist this other person on
• 38:42
  Track 2: him because it was supposed to be me and
• 38:45
  Track 2: now like he's with her and not with me and my career sucks
• 38:48
  Track 2: and their their career is great um it had
• 38:51
  Track 2: to be the because then it's almost like it's another stock movie plot
• 38:54
  Track 2: it's almost a like you have the kind of the cliches playing
• 38:58
  Track 2: out there um where similar to the the a story i guess this one also sort of
• 39:05
  Track 2: falls into these cliche tropes of like shadowy seedy hotels downtown like i'm
• 39:10
  Track 2: at cookies downtown or whatever right like this is like some of it's so ridiculous
• 39:14
  Track 2: like this might be um the sort of thing that like.
• 39:18
  Track 2: Um a person who dreams the same dreams
• 39:21
  Track 2: that betty's life would dream up uh as
• 39:25
  Track 2: a nefarious plot but um but again like
• 39:28
  Track 2: that's sort of one way um to look
• 39:31
  Track 2: at it but i think it also like you're saying does point to
• 39:34
  Track 2: a sense that and here's
• 39:37
  Track 2: where we remember the two can sort of square up and or and
• 39:40
  Track 2: meet each other it reflects both versions
• 39:44
  Track 2: of this reflect a sense that all is
• 39:47
  Track 2: not well and that this um this
• 39:51
  Track 2: sunshiny version of things this dreamy version of
• 39:54
  Track 2: things is actually perhaps the malevolent plot
• 39:57
  Track 2: you know or the work of dark forces uh
• 40:00
  Track 2: who may not have our best interests in mind uh
• 40:03
  Track 2: so either way they um they fulfill that function
• 40:07
  Track 2: uh whether it is a self-serving one of diane's um coping mechanism uh or whether
• 40:14
  Track 2: it is in fact um the dark there are dark forces pulling the strings behind these
• 40:20
  Track 2: um these things that we think are light and fluffy entertainments and.
• 40:25
  Track 1: Then like to make it to like expand on like the kind of ridiculousness of this
• 40:31
  Track 1: subplot and this you know the meeting where at where adam is in the you know
• 40:36
  Track 1: the little board room and they.
• 40:37
  Track 2: Having the espresso scene, which is the finest espresso in the world.
• 40:43
  Track 1: Yeah, I mean, I remember the first time I saw the film and not...
• 40:47
  Track 1: Like, there's several moments in this movie, like, the first time you see them, like, it's almost...
• 40:52
  Track 1: It's too much like the first the person behind the dumpster it's like the.
• 40:56
  Track 2: Jump scare which is maybe the greatest.
• 40:57
  Track 1: Jump scare like in the history of film.
• 40:59
  Track 2: Oh it's great i.
• 41:00
  Track 1: Mean and then you have this espresso scene like there's lots of moments as you
• 41:03
  Track 1: mentioned but like i don't i don't know that i don't know like i want to be
• 41:07
  Track 1: like oh what's the espresso is a metaphor for this i don't necessarily you don't.
• 41:10
  Track 2: Need to go.
• 41:11
  Track 1: So deep for that it's just it's just the one of the funniest things i've ever
• 41:14
  Track 1: seen like in a in a movie he's like.
• 41:16
  Track 2: Yeah has.
• 41:16
  Track 1: The little napkin he puts down very gently next to him like prepared for him
• 41:20
  Track 1: to because this clearly happened at least once.
• 41:22
  Track 2: Yes probably multiple times where he's.
• 41:25
  Track 1: Just like spitting out the espresso onto the napkin like drooling it.
• 41:29
  Track 2: Yeah oh god and it's so gross i mean it's like the thoroughness
• 41:32
  Track 2: where he's like just running his tongue all around his mouth
• 41:36
  Track 2: to like completely clear out every last drop of
• 41:39
  Track 2: this this apparently terrible espresso um yeah
• 41:43
  Track 2: it's it's it's a classic i mean
• 41:46
  Track 2: it's up there with the the family dinner in eraser head for
• 41:49
  Track 2: its levels of discomfort and this weird
• 41:52
  Track 2: collision of something that's really funny and really
• 41:55
  Track 2: nightmarish and really gross all at the
• 41:58
  Track 2: same time um and the i mean you've even got
• 42:01
  Track 2: the people who do like the someone who's uncontrollably
• 42:04
  Track 2: shaking uh i think the older um well
• 42:08
  Track 2: the older guy with the cane like uh you know when the
• 42:10
  Track 2: guy when angelo battle lamenti the one of the uh
• 42:14
  Track 2: gosh i'm forgetting the last name of the the the
• 42:18
  Track 2: castigliani brothers right uh like where he's
• 42:21
  Track 2: um you've got another guy kind of shaking
• 42:24
  Track 2: in a similar way to how um mary's mother is shaking and a racer head like it's
• 42:30
  Track 2: not a lynch movie if someone doesn't have some kind of episode you know in some
• 42:34
  Track 2: scene this movie's got two right you have like this little one here and then
• 42:37
  Track 2: you've got betty's uh bigger one at club silencio uh but yeah it's it's it's such a wonderful.
• 42:43
  Track 2: Menacing hilarious scene uh i mean this movie is full of those right because
• 42:48
  Track 2: you have that menacing hilarious scene you have the cowboys menacing hilarious
• 42:52
  Track 2: scene um and then then when things are really menacing i guess that the the
• 42:58
  Track 2: dinner party at the end of the movie um i find And just the most upsetting,
• 43:03
  Track 2: sad, intense scene, and probably in Lynch's whole body of work,
• 43:08
  Track 2: just when Diane goes to the dinner party and has to watch Camilla and Adam announce
• 43:15
  Track 2: their engagement and all of that.
• 43:17
  Track 2: I think that is just the most tragic stuff that Lynch has ever done.
• 43:22
  Track 1: One scene that kind of maybe puzzles me, and it's the moment at the diner where
• 43:28
  Track 1: you alluded to this jump scare,
• 43:31
  Track 1: where there's two men, they're discussing this dream he has,
• 43:35
  Track 1: and then he walks behind, he's led behind the diner, and it comes true,
• 43:40
  Track 1: and he has a heart attack and presumably dies from fright, I guess you could say.
• 43:45
  Track 1: What do you make of that? Because, I don't know.
• 43:49
  Track 2: Yeah. I mean...
• 43:51
  Track 2: I guess so i mean the winkies definitely comes back again a few times yeah in the movie with the name.
• 43:57
  Track 1: Tags to like flip.
• 43:58
  Track 2: Around a lot yeah um and because
• 44:01
  Track 2: i guess it is the site of where diane
• 44:05
  Track 2: hires the the hitman to um you know
• 44:07
  Track 2: to presumably kill camilla right um so and
• 44:11
  Track 2: then we're seeing it filtered back through a few other versions perhaps
• 44:14
  Track 2: where um where like you have
• 44:18
  Track 2: the original one where like the other um when they
• 44:20
  Track 2: when they go to sort of inquire about the accident and
• 44:23
  Track 2: then then you've got the other this other version with the two guys uh where
• 44:26
  Track 2: what patrick fishler is describing his dream right
• 44:29
  Track 2: and there is that whole he's the one who's doing it so you also have that connection
• 44:33
  Track 2: to some other figure behind the scenes pulling strings right but i mean i guess
• 44:38
  Track 2: ultimately it just um it's just it's clearly a remnant from the television show
• 44:45
  Track 2: that doesn't That doesn't necessarily go anywhere in this version,
• 44:49
  Track 2: but it's also just so damn good.
• 44:51
  Track 2: You can't cut it out, right? Like you're not going to take that out.
• 44:55
  Track 2: So what do you do? But I guess it's a thing early on in the movie that establishes
• 45:00
  Track 2: menacing dreams coming true.
• 45:01
  Track 2: So I guess in the overall architecture of the movie, it fulfills a function
• 45:05
  Track 2: of setting this up for things that are to come, even though it doesn't necessarily
• 45:10
  Track 2: square up from a from a plot standpoint.
• 45:13
  Track 2: Um and and i guess with with his films in particular i'm
• 45:16
  Track 2: a little less um interested in
• 45:21
  Track 2: like trying to figure out like let's try
• 45:24
  Track 2: to make it all sort of square up like perfectly
• 45:27
  Track 2: because i think ultimately it doesn't but also i
• 45:30
  Track 2: think that's where its power comes from right is is just like a dream or just
• 45:34
  Track 2: other things like we never can make it all add up but like it all feels like
• 45:38
  Track 2: it's part of the same thing right it all feels like this um this bigger bigger
• 45:45
  Track 2: thing and i and i like that there are sometimes in his work these um,
• 45:50
  Track 2: these stray pieces, um, that are so powerful, but yet maybe don't fit into this
• 45:56
  Track 2: whole puzzle, so to speak, because ultimately he's not, he's not a puzzle filmmaker
• 46:01
  Track 2: the way that other, that some other filmmakers are.
• 46:05
  Track 1: Yeah. And I think the, the, uh, like the scene that immediately follows that
• 46:09
  Track 1: is when the director, Adam Kesher is in that room with the espresso scene, I believe.
• 46:14
  Track 1: And so it almost makes sense that, you know, as you're saying this underlying,
• 46:18
  Track 1: I mean, I guess, again, if this is all a dream, you know, within Betty's mind
• 46:23
  Track 1: of like what Hollywood is like, in a way it almost,
• 46:25
  Track 1: I mean, this is again putting just a, it's almost like this could be like a
• 46:30
  Track 1: scene from a show that she had seen or something and it's like filtering through
• 46:35
  Track 1: her, like that's the way that also that dreams, you know, work.
• 46:38
  Track 1: I just did an episode recently on the Tarkovsky film Mirror.
• 46:41
  Track 1: And just like, the way you remember things is not always in like this linear way.
• 46:46
  Track 1: You have like, you see one scene, like this diner, you have this memory of this
• 46:50
  Track 1: diner that maybe they filmed some show. And so all of these things are filtering through.
• 46:54
  Track 1: And like, it doesn't have to be linear. I don't care that that scene maybe doesn't
• 46:59
  Track 1: fit like narratively. Who cares?
• 47:01
  Track 1: Like, it's still like, it's such a, as you said, like, could you imagine that
• 47:05
  Track 1: scene not being there? No.
• 47:07
  Track 2: Yeah. And it really does. like in its in its own little minute i mean because
• 47:09
  Track 2: it's basically a movie onto itself,
• 47:11
  Track 2: right like it's a it's a self-contained you know five minute movie um but it
• 47:18
  Track 2: definitely contains everything that's in the rest of what's to come in some
• 47:22
  Track 2: way shape or form right right um yeah yeah it's so good.
• 47:26
  Track 1: Yeah and i'm trying to think if there's another scene i was gonna mention that
• 47:31
  Track 1: we can touch on i mean there's lots of individual ones i'm sure we can uh can
• 47:36
  Track 1: get into But one of the things that maybe is worth talking about is just like
• 47:40
  Track 1: we've talked about a lot of the characters.
• 47:42
  Track 1: And as we've already mentioned and kind of spoiled, if you will,
• 47:47
  Track 1: is that, you know, Naomi Watts and Laura Herring both play two different characters.
• 47:51
  Track 1: These dream people, the dream versions, Betty and Rita.
• 47:55
  Track 1: And then we see what they are later is Diane Selwyn and Camilla Rose as actual movie star.
• 48:00
  Track 1: And actually, you know, you could say failed movie star. or someone who hasn't
• 48:04
  Track 1: been able to live up to the promise is living in, you know, an apartment that
• 48:08
  Track 1: initially seems very fancy and nice, but again, later it's like her kitchen,
• 48:12
  Track 1: you know, where Diane lives is like very, it's not very nice.
• 48:16
  Track 1: It's very dirty and dingy and to put it mildly. And so, you know, how do you...
• 48:22
  Track 1: I guess I'm trying to think of the best way to kind of touch on this,
• 48:25
  Track 1: but is, you know, when you look at their counterparts, like let's say you have
• 48:30
  Track 1: Betty, who is the dream movie star, and then you have Camilla,
• 48:34
  Track 1: who is the real movie star.
• 48:35
  Track 1: So I'm almost in a way like crossing them as like, how does Betty kind of compare
• 48:40
  Track 1: to Camilla as these, you know, the actual movie star versus kind of like what you wish it is.
• 48:45
  Track 1: And it seems like Camilla's life, while being very, you know,
• 48:50
  Track 1: very good in that she is with this director and all of these things,
• 48:53
  Track 1: it's still like a messy life, like, in some ways.
• 48:59
  Track 2: Yeah. And so careerist, right? I mean, like, because I guess really the person
• 49:04
  Track 2: who seems maybe the most consistent in the dream and the reality is Adam Kesher.
• 49:09
  Track 1: Right?
• 49:09
  Track 2: I mean, like he's he's a he's a prick all the way down. Right. In both of them.
• 49:14
  Track 2: But the I think that's a that's a good question, though, because in some ways,
• 49:21
  Track 2: Betty envisioned or Diane envisions her ideal version of it as so much more
• 49:27
  Track 2: wholesome and so much more.
• 49:29
  Track 2: Or I guess the part that confounded me at the beginning when I first saw it,
• 49:36
  Track 2: it's like, wait a minute, you just like knocked this audition out of the park.
• 49:40
  Track 2: They take you to a set to meet a director.
• 49:43
  Track 2: And then you're like, wait a minute, I have to go. I told my friend I'd meet her somewhere.
• 49:50
  Track 2: To me, I'm like, to hell with your friend. Go have that meeting.
• 49:56
  Track 2: This is your moment. but betty's a
• 49:59
  Track 2: real friend right betty wouldn't sell out
• 50:02
  Track 2: her friend for stardom not like camilla
• 50:06
  Track 2: right like i think there's something there that um does camilla become the star
• 50:11
  Track 2: because she's willing to sell out her friends um you know and is that is is
• 50:16
  Track 2: a career first kind of person rather than a friend's first kind of person um
• 50:21
  Track 2: you know perhaps like when i look at it now i'm like oh oh,
• 50:24
  Track 2: wow, that's really, that's really interesting.
• 50:28
  Track 2: The sort of like what's more important to you, the dream or your friend,
• 50:32
  Track 2: or I guess to blow it down even more, right? Fame or love.
• 50:35
  Track 2: And you can see, oh,
• 50:38
  Track 2: at least in Diane's projection of this, Betty chooses love and Camilla chooses fame.
• 50:44
  Track 1: I mean, if you probably looked at it from like a reality standpoint of,
• 50:47
  Track 1: you know, actual people making it in Hollywood, I mean, they will,
• 50:51
  Track 1: I mean, I don't know the history of every,
• 50:53
  Track 1: you know, this is more of a general statement, but I would imagine that most
• 50:56
  Track 1: people would choose the career that they're trying to achieve coming to Hollywood.
• 51:00
  Track 1: Like they will do whatever it takes to get a part of, you know,
• 51:03
  Track 1: if people probably lost, you know, friends and, and all kinds of things,
• 51:08
  Track 1: you know, in their attempts for, you know, for fame, because that's, I think, like the dirty
• 51:13
  Track 1: underbelly that, you know, that Diane is living, and you're,
• 51:19
  Track 1: you know, that Betty wants to ignore, like, I mean, it's also in the same way
• 51:22
  Track 1: that I'm like skipping a little bit, but the way that, you know,
• 51:25
  Track 1: many people idolize Hollywood, they see, especially,
• 51:28
  Track 1: you know, films from like the golden era,
• 51:31
  Track 1: or, you know, things like that, and they watch and they say,
• 51:33
  Track 1: Oh, everything is glamorous, and everything is perfect and all these things.
• 51:37
  Track 1: And then you have David Lynch coming along, not the first and not the last,
• 51:41
  Track 1: to say that Hollywood is not this.
• 51:43
  Track 1: It is a dirty underbelly that people don't like to think about,
• 51:47
  Track 1: but they like to think about it as the Betty version. But it's closer to the
• 51:52
  Track 1: Diane version for probably 99% of people who go there.
• 51:58
  Track 2: Yes, I mean, the reality is not the story that you
• 52:00
  Track 2: hear about Lana Turner getting discovered at the counter at schwab's
• 52:03
  Track 2: drugstore right you know it's or that
• 52:06
  Track 2: that sort of classic hollywood rags to riches like oh they just plucked me out
• 52:10
  Track 2: of a crowd and here i am right it's yeah it's very often there's there's a whole
• 52:14
  Track 2: lot more to it than that and there's most certainly a whole lot more to lana
• 52:17
  Track 2: turner than just that she went to schwab's drugstore on the right day and got
• 52:21
  Track 2: discovered right um so yeah i think there is some of that going on and.
• 52:27
  Track 2: Implicit or subconscious level, just the types of friendships that one has to
• 52:32
  Track 2: cultivate when they are on the make are, you know,
• 52:38
  Track 2: not always, it's very hard to make them deep and real friendships versus networking
• 52:42
  Track 2: friendships or, you know,
• 52:43
  Track 2: or things like that, or where you got to spend a lot more of your time cultivating
• 52:47
  Track 2: those relationships than genuine relationships.
• 52:50
  Track 2: You know, it's more than looking at people for their utility to where you want
• 52:54
  Track 2: to go than what you actually think.
• 52:56
  Track 2: And I mean, I'm saying this as someone who, you know, lived there for a while
• 53:00
  Track 2: and, you know, sort of caught myself like, oh, like this is activating a part
• 53:05
  Track 2: of myself that I don't necessarily want activated.
• 53:09
  Track 2: And so, I mean, I think there is some of that at some level on Mahalo Drive, but at the same time,
• 53:14
  Track 2: the thing that's really fascinating about David Lynch and
• 53:17
  Track 2: all of his work in these collisions between fantasy versions
• 53:20
  Track 2: and dark underbellies is he loves
• 53:23
  Track 2: them both and he treats them both like
• 53:26
  Track 2: they're true um it's not just
• 53:30
  Track 2: a simple like yank the rug out
• 53:32
  Track 2: from under and like oh all of this is a lie right it's
• 53:35
  Track 2: like some of it's actually true or like enough people believe in it that it
• 53:40
  Track 2: or it would be nice if it were true we still want it um like he's not so disillusioned
• 53:47
  Track 2: as to write that dream off entirely right i mean he he loves that dream He thinks it's beautiful.
• 53:54
  Track 2: And I think that's what in turn makes the movie so painful is you feel that,
• 54:00
  Track 2: um that love for that dream um and the disappointment and heartbreak when it
• 54:07
  Track 2: doesn't come true but still wanting it all the same.
• 54:10
  Track 1: Well and it also makes me think in like
• 54:13
  Track 1: a slightly to the side of that is you know when i'm thinking about the you know
• 54:18
  Track 1: the adam the the director character and how that is you know i think we've already
• 54:22
  Track 1: said is that that was both he's really kind of the same person in both the dream
• 54:26
  Track 1: and the reality like there is these things that are the And then you probably
• 54:30
  Track 1: also think about, you know,
• 54:31
  Track 1: Lynch's actual career making films in Hollywood of having the struggles of people
• 54:36
  Track 1: not wanting to make the films he wants to make, not making this into a show, even though, you know,
• 54:42
  Track 1: Twin Peaks had been around 10 years before.
• 54:44
  Track 1: I don't know how long. I don't know what year. Do you know what year he was
• 54:47
  Track 1: going to make the show? Is it just? i think it.
• 54:49
  Track 2: Was it was pretty much right before.
• 54:50
  Track 1: Like the late 90s yeah.
• 54:52
  Track 2: Late 90s early early 2000s i think there's maybe like a 18 or 24 month period
• 54:58
  Track 2: in between it getting rejected and then the movie um coming out.
• 55:02
  Track 1: Yeah i mean maybe they said to him hey you know we'll make this movie and this
• 55:06
  Track 1: is this i'm just i'm making some of this we'll make this movie if you change
• 55:09
  Track 1: the lead from you know this actor to this one he's like no that this is the
• 55:12
  Track 1: thing i'm i'm making And so,
• 55:14
  Track 1: you know, he doesn't, won't compromise on those ideals and his vision of a film.
• 55:19
  Track 1: Whereas some guy named this guy, Adam Kesher is like, well, you know,
• 55:23
  Track 1: whatever, you know, I mean, he's mad about it.
• 55:26
  Track 1: He like smashes the car with a, you know, a golf club and then,
• 55:30
  Track 1: you know, loses his wife who seemed like he should have left her anyway.
• 55:34
  Track 1: I mean, she was cheating on him with the pool guy or whatever.
• 55:37
  Track 2: Billy Ray Cyrus, right?
• 55:39
  Track 1: Yeah, Billy Cyrus. And so it's like, yeah, you know, whatever.
• 55:41
  Track 1: I'm going to just, you know, move on.
• 55:44
  Track 1: But the other thing I was going to mention, I saw this tweet like right before we were –,
• 55:49
  Track 1: were coming on and it someone had had posted
• 55:52
  Track 1: uh about the fact that david lynch hires a
• 55:55
  Track 1: lot of like last generation actors and their
• 55:58
  Track 1: connection with old hollywood and then someone who was actually on
• 56:01
  Track 1: this show hasn't episode hasn't come out yet but they wrote that lynch for this
• 56:07
  Track 1: movie had ann miller and lee grant play basically the doppelgangers of the betty
• 56:12
  Track 1: and rita in like this universe of like they both had the same color hair one
• 56:16
  Track 1: was blonde and one was the brunette and so So I don't know what to necessarily make of that,
• 56:21
  Track 1: but it's the idea that there is this connection between this vision of what
• 56:27
  Track 1: Hollywood once was and what it can be and this dream version,
• 56:31
  Track 1: or maybe the reality version.
• 56:32
  Track 1: And then you have the Naomi Watts version of it being, and of the modern one.
• 56:38
  Track 1: So I thought that was interesting.
• 56:40
  Track 2: Yeah. Okay. So I think that there's a couple of things there.
• 56:44
  Track 2: I mean, nostalgia, of course, plays such a huge role in Lynch's work.
• 56:47
  Track 2: In whether i mean it's particularly twin peaks
• 56:50
  Track 2: but also the uh the lumberton of blue velvet it's it's
• 56:54
  Track 2: all about nostalgia uh and and the sort of
• 56:57
  Track 2: unpacking the allure of nostalgia and the
• 57:00
  Track 2: danger of it at the same time um and like kind
• 57:03
  Track 2: of exposing what we use that nostalgia to cover
• 57:06
  Track 2: up uh like so in twin peaks like it's the using
• 57:09
  Track 2: that nostalgia to cover up um you know
• 57:12
  Track 2: the um implicit and explicit uh
• 57:15
  Track 2: tolerance or or um enabling of domestic
• 57:19
  Track 2: violence um and and stuff like
• 57:21
  Track 2: that and in mahalan drive i guess it is this sort of uh it's
• 57:25
  Track 2: it's nostalgious papering over the the waste and the um the the putrefaction
• 57:31
  Track 2: that's at the heart of all of what's going on um and and yeah so including lee
• 57:36
  Track 2: grant and ann miller is a really fun kind of subtle way to throw some of those things in.
• 57:43
  Track 2: And of course, they're...
• 57:46
  Track 2: You know, they get connected to, um, am I remembering this right?
• 57:50
  Track 2: Is, is Lee Grant, the, the psychic neighbor is, is that?
• 57:55
  Track 2: Yeah. Right. So, you know, they're also kind of connected to the people who
• 57:59
  Track 2: can kind of see more, right.
• 58:00
  Track 2: You can't fool Coco and, and, uh, Lee Grant's character can,
• 58:05
  Track 2: you know, can see that there's trouble, right. Uh, in a, in a fun sort of way.
• 58:09
  Track 2: Um, and I guess another thing to sort of think about going back a second to the,
• 58:14
  Track 2: the backstory of the show and and uh adam's arc
• 58:17
  Track 2: in relation to lynch's arc uh as a
• 58:20
  Track 2: as a filmmaker i mean it's also kind of the arc of
• 58:23
  Track 2: the movie right in a weird way though in the
• 58:26
  Track 2: sense that the movie gets rejected because it refuses to
• 58:29
  Track 2: conform to market forces but then it just goes and gets financing from france
• 58:34
  Track 2: and comes out as a motion picture and succeeds and so it winds up being a story
• 58:42
  Track 2: about people failing and getting taken apart by the system.
• 58:48
  Track 2: But at the same time, it triumphs over that same system.
• 58:51
  Track 1: Right.
• 58:52
  Track 2: And so it's showing someone someone's dreams falling apart. But then the movie.
• 59:01
  Track 2: Its dreams succeed right and so it winds up being another um siren song to an aspiring filmmaker,
• 59:13
  Track 2: who thinks oh well no i can make it right like
• 59:17
  Track 2: mulholland drive made it right like david
• 59:20
  Track 2: lynch didn't take no for an answer and so i'm gonna be the exception right like
• 59:24
  Track 2: my my dream's gonna work out um i'll prove everybody wrong right that so i'm
• 59:29
  Track 2: gonna come out there and try to make it right The movie winds up inadvertently
• 59:32
  Track 2: being a diagnosis of a thing and a further symptom of the same thing.
• 59:39
  Track 2: It's a victim of its own success, right? In that sort of weird way.
• 59:44
  Track 2: But that's maybe like a little bit backtracking a little.
• 59:47
  Track 2: But yeah, I think the it's always great to see the sort of the industry movies
• 59:52
  Track 2: that really tap into old Hollywood in whatever way they can to sort of show
• 59:57
  Track 2: the it's showing the glamour,
• 59:59
  Track 2: but it's also showing how illusory that glamour may also be. and.
• 1:00:06
  Track 1: I think this is just like uh i i was looking this up before it's well malholland
• 1:00:11
  Track 1: drive wasn't his most highest grossing film i think.
• 1:00:15
  Track 2: That dune was but i think it might have but.
• 1:00:17
  Track 1: Which is funny i.
• 1:00:19
  Track 2: Think it.
• 1:00:19
  Track 1: Might actually have been the one that like officially made the most off its budget because i.
• 1:00:24
  Track 2: Think yeah dune lost money oh absolutely i
• 1:00:27
  Track 2: mean at least initially yeah i mean i mean eraser head maybe
• 1:00:30
  Track 2: um i mean because again its budget was so low that's true
• 1:00:33
  Track 2: right that that doesn't compare but i mean but it's certainly
• 1:00:35
  Track 2: i mean as far as in the public perception uh this
• 1:00:39
  Track 2: is viewed i think now as his most
• 1:00:42
  Track 2: successful film right i mean it's the one that's in the top 10 on the sight
• 1:00:46
  Track 2: and sound list it's it got him an oscar nomination it's the unlike like we were
• 1:00:53
  Track 2: talking about earlier it's sort of the one that we maybe think of as the a good
• 1:00:56
  Track 2: uh gateway to his work um like it's definitely i think uh,
• 1:01:02
  Track 2: been commercially and critically the one
• 1:01:06
  Track 2: that's sort of all around the most successful uh i
• 1:01:10
  Track 2: think that's a fair assessment of it even though
• 1:01:13
  Track 2: you know it's not my favorite of his
• 1:01:15
  Track 2: and even but it doesn't it's not burdened by some
• 1:01:19
  Track 2: of the things that blue velvet is burdened by that make it um perhaps a harder
• 1:01:23
  Track 2: sell or complicate its its legacy maybe in a or in some way right it's um you
• 1:01:30
  Track 2: know yeah it's it's it's definitely uh one of his more all-around successful pictures yeah yeah.
• 1:01:37
  Track 1: So one of the one of the other things that we've like briefly mentioned and
• 1:01:41
  Track 1: it kind of happens a few times throughout the film and i think it's ironically
• 1:01:45
  Track 1: like people think now people see articles now sometimes about like nepotism in hollywood and.
• 1:01:50
  Track 2: How it's you.
• 1:01:51
  Track 1: Know how it's like you know a big thing now it's like people seem to i don't
• 1:01:55
  Track 1: know maybe it's like rosy color, rose colored glasses, like not realizing that's
• 1:01:59
  Track 1: kind of how Hollywood has been for, you know, for many years.
• 1:02:02
  Track 1: I mean, maybe you could say that it's more, more now just because of how many,
• 1:02:07
  Track 1: you know, now it's multiple generations of people, you know,
• 1:02:10
  Track 1: you have the grandchild who's now a movie star and all these things.
• 1:02:13
  Track 1: But throughout the film, there's numerous, you know,
• 1:02:17
  Track 1: moments where nepotism is very explicitly, you know, described,
• 1:02:21
  Track 1: probably the biggest one being when Betty goes to that audition and like that
• 1:02:25
  Track 1: her aunt has been able to get her and she, you know,
• 1:02:28
  Track 1: kills this interview like in one of the, and honestly, like we haven't talked
• 1:02:32
  Track 1: about that scene and I think it might be her like best,
• 1:02:37
  Track 1: it's ironic that she's at, in an audition acting and it's like maybe the most
• 1:02:42
  Track 1: unreal or like campy acting moments, but it's also just so good.
• 1:02:47
  Track 1: But like, again, it's like this very, very, like this
• 1:02:50
  Track 1: clear nepotism and this whole thing and so i
• 1:02:53
  Track 1: think one thing that we haven't talked about that maybe we can include in
• 1:02:56
  Track 1: this nepotism kind of a section or area is
• 1:02:59
  Track 1: also just like the the women in hollywood because obviously this film is about
• 1:03:03
  Track 1: two women competing in a way you know in hollywood and how the this i think
• 1:03:08
  Track 1: maybe it's more tragic we sometimes think of for women especially in including
• 1:03:14
  Track 1: of the the abuse and all of these horrible things they are you know uh.
• 1:03:19
  Track 1: Forced to do from directors to, you know, producers, all these horrible things we hear about.
• 1:03:25
  Track 1: And so, trying to think of how that, how that puts into a question,
• 1:03:28
  Track 1: but like, how do you see maybe how the, the film like,
• 1:03:32
  Track 1: takes on nepotism and.
• 1:03:34
  Track 2: What it's.
• 1:03:35
  Track 1: Trying to maybe say beyond just nepotism as a thing like.
• 1:03:38
  Track 2: Right we can say that yeah because if i'm remembering correctly too then in
• 1:03:43
  Track 2: the real world version right like ann miller's character and um justin thoreau's
• 1:03:49
  Track 2: character are related as well right yes right.
• 1:03:53
  Track 1: Like at the party at the end.
• 1:03:54
  Track 2: I think he.
• 1:03:54
  Track 1: Says like his grandma or.
• 1:03:58
  Track 2: Yeah i mean because there's another kind of connection there
• 1:04:01
  Track 2: and i that i believe is somewhat of an industry kind of
• 1:04:04
  Track 2: connection um but yeah even in betty's fantasy
• 1:04:07
  Track 2: it's kind of the fly in the ointment right like this whole
• 1:04:10
  Track 2: thing that like is portraying betty's quest as
• 1:04:13
  Track 2: entirely wholesome and unburdened by all of that
• 1:04:16
  Track 2: sort of scheming and yet like why is she there in the
• 1:04:19
  Track 2: first place and she's there in the first place because her
• 1:04:22
  Track 2: her aunt's in the industry and got her lined up for an
• 1:04:24
  Track 2: audition and you know and uh and she's
• 1:04:27
  Track 2: getting to stay in this swanky place because her her aunt's off
• 1:04:30
  Track 2: doing a movie in canada or whatever right like it's it's
• 1:04:34
  Track 2: remarkable how i mean there's a there's a
• 1:04:36
  Track 2: dissonance there that obviously is um
• 1:04:40
  Track 2: is the the characters are not unpacking that
• 1:04:43
  Track 2: because that would make the whole thing fall apart in a
• 1:04:46
  Track 2: certain way right um and then you've got
• 1:04:49
  Track 2: the audition which is i mean for just
• 1:04:52
  Track 2: a garbage movie apparently um and a
• 1:04:55
  Track 2: total casting couch situation that's sort
• 1:04:58
  Track 2: of starting up where you just got this guy uh i mean his name's
• 1:05:01
  Track 2: woody for crying out loud right um who is
• 1:05:04
  Track 2: uh just gonna make out
• 1:05:07
  Track 2: with every you know like oh we're gonna play this one real close like we did
• 1:05:10
  Track 2: with the last one right like he's just there to put the moves on every young
• 1:05:16
  Track 2: ingenue in town and yet so like this is a gross squalid situation and yet the uh.
• 1:05:25
  Track 2: Betty, with her talent, is able to spin shit into gold with this performance
• 1:05:31
  Track 2: that we've seen it already.
• 1:05:33
  Track 2: She can barely get through it without laughing. It's so bad.
• 1:05:36
  Track 2: And then suddenly it becomes this transformative, transcendent moment that takes
• 1:05:45
  Track 2: everyone's breath away, us included,
• 1:05:48
  Track 2: and winds up being – the film scholar George Tolles writes this amazing thing
• 1:05:53
  Track 2: about that scene. I mean, it's got like a 10-page article.
• 1:05:55
  Track 2: It's just about this one scene where he says, essentially, the audition is not
• 1:06:00
  Track 2: for Betty. It's an audition for Naomi Watts.
• 1:06:03
  Track 2: You know, like it becomes for us because it's our introduction to her as an
• 1:06:10
  Track 2: actress, right, in America, right?
• 1:06:12
  Track 2: I mean, she's done things before, mostly in Australia, right?
• 1:06:15
  Track 2: And she's in Tank Girl. but this movie
• 1:06:19
  Track 2: it's like this is announcing like i am a major talent
• 1:06:22
  Track 2: you can't in like the you
• 1:06:25
  Track 2: can't watch that scene and not stop thinking
• 1:06:28
  Track 2: about betty and only be thinking about how great naomi watts
• 1:06:31
  Track 2: is like the the art of the artifice of
• 1:06:35
  Track 2: the whole thing i mean it's the fakest freaking thing in
• 1:06:37
  Track 2: the world i mean one it's an audition it's an audition for a fake
• 1:06:40
  Track 2: movie that's a crappy movie on top of that like there's all
• 1:06:43
  Track 2: these layers just fake fake fake fake fake but then what
• 1:06:46
  Track 2: comes through is the reality of damn naomi watts can bring it and she should
• 1:06:54
  Track 2: be in every movie that ever gets made like you you can't think you can't not
• 1:06:58
  Track 2: think that by the end of that scene um and so i mean it's just an amazing um.
• 1:07:04
  Track 2: Argument that lynch is making that like man
• 1:07:07
  Track 2: movies like i mean like that scene like man
• 1:07:10
  Track 2: movies right like they can do anything uh they can make everything real um and
• 1:07:16
  Track 2: no matter how squalid and fake it might be and it's just a profound um it's
• 1:07:23
  Track 2: just a profound moment that wouldn't work as well if we hadn't already seen
• 1:07:26
  Track 2: how terrible that scene was uh beforehand right when.
• 1:07:30
  Track 1: I think about just Nomi Watts' career after this.
• 1:07:34
  Track 2: Film.
• 1:07:34
  Track 1: Like, I was looking at her filmography earlier. I think in After Mahalan Drive,
• 1:07:38
  Track 1: in the next, like, three or four years, she was in, like, 13 films.
• 1:07:42
  Track 2: Yeah.
• 1:07:42
  Track 1: Something crazy.
• 1:07:43
  Track 2: She was so many. It's like 21 Brams and I Heart Huckabee's.
• 1:07:47
  Track 1: King Kong.
• 1:07:48
  Track 2: Yeah. Oh, The Impossible, right? There's that big disaster movie, the tsunami movie.
• 1:07:55
  Track 1: Yeah, then she was in a couple films, the Cronenberg film,
• 1:07:59
  Track 1: Eastern Promises, oh that's right yeah which is
• 1:08:02
  Track 1: another great movie what a banger um yeah
• 1:08:05
  Track 1: she was just she was just like just went just went crazy after i mean for for
• 1:08:09
  Track 1: a good reason because i mean i don't think we've maybe said yet but her performance
• 1:08:13
  Track 1: in this like it's it's really kind of tragic that i mean you can say what you
• 1:08:17
  Track 1: will about what the oscars and what they mean and yeah deserving and all that
• 1:08:21
  Track 1: but like it's it's almost she should have been nominated for an oscar oh.
• 1:08:25
  Track 2: Right yeah it's like she wasn't even nominated at all was she uh.
• 1:08:27
  Track 1: I don't believe so i don't know she had i guess I guess Lynch.
• 1:08:30
  Track 2: Got the best director nomination. Um,
• 1:08:33
  Track 2: for sure but uh wait.
• 1:08:34
  Track 1: Yeah that's the only one that's.
• 1:08:35
  Track 2: The only nomination that movie got right um okay now of course we have to look
• 1:08:39
  Track 2: at what what the actual nominees are that year um or i have to i'm like because
• 1:08:45
  Track 2: i'm trying to remember the big movie that year was a beautiful mind right that's the one that uh.
• 1:08:49
  Track 1: 2001 and gosford park.
• 1:08:50
  Track 2: Uh was the other um the other big.
• 1:08:53
  Track 1: Uh nominator 2001 2002 academy award yeah yeah so best actress was hallie berry for monsters oh.
• 1:09:00
  Track 2: That's right yeah that's that's right yeah because that was the year she and
• 1:09:04
  Track 2: denzel washington won the same year and sydney poitier got the um had the honorary
• 1:09:08
  Track 2: award okay yeah who else was nominated uh let's.
• 1:09:11
  Track 1: See judy dench for iris nicole kidman moulin rouge spacex for in the bedroom
• 1:09:17
  Track 1: and renee zellweger for bridget doane's diary okay.
• 1:09:20
  Track 2: Yeah all right.
• 1:09:21
  Track 1: Yeah i mean again like it's
• 1:09:24
  Track 1: you could kind of add this in there yeah no i mean
• 1:09:27
  Track 1: you could also add on top of that just the con i mean to
• 1:09:30
  Track 1: layer into the idea of that lynch is bringing
• 1:09:33
  Track 1: to the movie mahal and drive is that you can
• 1:09:36
  Track 1: be in this great film you could you know that's kind
• 1:09:39
  Track 1: of wasn't what the studios wanted wasn't
• 1:09:42
  Track 1: all these different things and put out a great performance and they're like
• 1:09:45
  Track 1: well you know that's that's great for you know you did that thing and that's
• 1:09:48
  Track 1: that's that's all you get from that and like i think that he probably should
• 1:09:53
  Track 1: have won for certainly should have won over i mean a beautiful mind is a is
• 1:09:57
  Track 1: a is a good movie but if i'm gonna pick one i'm gonna pick maholen dragon.
• 1:10:01
  Track 2: I mean yeah it's it's it's something when like your choices include robert altman
• 1:10:06
  Track 2: and david lynch and you go with ron howard um.
• 1:10:10
  Track 1: Like that's um.
• 1:10:12
  Track 2: And I guess I think Todd Field was one of the other nominees,
• 1:10:14
  Track 2: right, for In the Bedroom.
• 1:10:16
  Track 1: I don't think he actually got Best Director. The other one was Ridley Scott
• 1:10:19
  Track 1: for Blackhawk Down, which is fine.
• 1:10:22
  Track 1: And then Peter Jackson for Lord of the Rings, which again, I don't think you
• 1:10:25
  Track 1: should have won for that. I mean, I'm a huge Lord of the Rings fan,
• 1:10:27
  Track 1: but Best Director, maybe not.
• 1:10:28
  Track 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:10:29
  Track 1: Not over David Lynch at Mulholland Drive. Yeah, I mean, that's,
• 1:10:33
  Track 1: again, like you can go down the whole thing.
• 1:10:36
  Track 1: But I think one of the other notes you put in the kind of the nepotism is like the kind,
• 1:10:42
  Track 1: Which maybe is an area we haven't discussed too much, and it also falls into
• 1:10:45
  Track 1: the chapter of your book that you had mentioned where you talked about is kind
• 1:10:49
  Track 1: of like the systemic kind of nature of the film as it kind of relates to just
• 1:10:55
  Track 1: beyond Hollywood and how there's this idea of, especially under a capitalist society,
• 1:11:01
  Track 1: of the promotion of kind of the individualist.
• 1:11:05
  Track 1: So there's this individual Betty who, you know, the tragedy is,
• 1:11:09
  Track 1: you know, as an individual person, as it goes through, but it's kind of more than just individuals.
• 1:11:15
  Track 1: And that's kind of how we're forced to see art a lot of times and how we're forced to see films.
• 1:11:20
  Track 1: I mean, not just filmmaking, but just kind of art in general.
• 1:11:23
  Track 1: So I don't know if you had any additional thoughts.
• 1:11:25
  Track 2: Well, no, I think it's picking up very well from what we were just talking about, right?
• 1:11:29
  Track 2: About like who gets to be the one, right? Right. There's all these deserving
• 1:11:32
  Track 2: people or these people are doing work who gets to be the one or in the case
• 1:11:36
  Track 2: of Oscar nominations, the five who who stand out, who are the who are seen as exceptional.
• 1:11:44
  Track 2: And you get that whole this is any like with anything with Mulholland Drive,
• 1:11:50
  Track 2: anytime that we're talking about, like what things that the industry is saying,
• 1:11:53
  Track 2: that's also broadly things we can apply to narratives and myths that the United
• 1:11:57
  Track 2: States makes and promotes. Right.
• 1:11:59
  Track 2: As far as like, you know, if you're going to be something, be number one. Right.
• 1:12:02
  Track 2: But everybody can't be that. Right. That's why it's number one.
• 1:12:07
  Track 2: Right. There's only only one person can do it. But yet everyone is encouraged to do it.
• 1:12:12
  Track 2: And so you get a lot of people to put in a lot of work and a lot of and sacrificing
• 1:12:18
  Track 2: a lot of things under the belief that, well, I'm going to be the exception.
• 1:12:23
  Track 2: Right. This is this is going to be different for me. And that's, you know,
• 1:12:28
  Track 2: certainly everyone who who gets off the bus and, you know, in Hollywood knows
• 1:12:34
  Track 2: the odds are stacked against them, but it can't get off that bus and not believe.
• 1:12:41
  Track 2: But I'm going to be the exception, right? I'm going to be the one who is not
• 1:12:46
  Track 2: where the, the, the, I'm going to be on the side of the minority of the one, the few who do make it.
• 1:12:52
  Track 2: Um, cause it's, it asks too much of you to, to not think that,
• 1:12:56
  Track 2: right? Like that would be a liability to think, oh, maybe like, I don't know.
• 1:12:59
  Track 2: I mean, there's so many great people, right? I mean, you, you have to think that.
• 1:13:03
  Track 2: Um, and, and so, yeah,
• 1:13:06
  Track 2: it's, it's the same kind of thing here where we We can see the stuff that's
• 1:13:12
  Track 2: happening throughout this movie is what that thinking can do to a person because
• 1:13:19
  Track 2: we normally just see it when it works out.
• 1:13:22
  Track 2: And that's normally what Diane has seen, right, is when it works out.
• 1:13:26
  Track 2: That's what she imagines is when it works out. But what happens when it doesn't?
• 1:13:29
  Track 2: What's that feel like? and you know the last 20 minutes or so of mahalan drive
• 1:13:34
  Track 2: like are this really intense depiction of what that feels like for that to discover
• 1:13:42
  Track 2: you're not going to be the exception right.
• 1:13:45
  Track 1: Yeah i mean and then it's the you know the unfortunate thing that i think people don't,
• 1:13:51
  Track 1: beyond just like the simple concept within hollywood too is people who are trying
• 1:13:57
  Track 1: so hard because you're told like, oh, if you move to America,
• 1:14:00
  Track 1: you can pull yourself up and become a millionaire.
• 1:14:04
  Track 1: If you do all these things and you try really hard, but you always hear about the people who do that.
• 1:14:09
  Track 1: Like, oh, I started such and such company and now I'm a millionaire or whatever.
• 1:14:13
  Track 1: And maybe that's the case for some people, but for the vast majority of those
• 1:14:17
  Track 1: people, they're not even getting past that first run and you don't hear about
• 1:14:21
  Track 1: them because they're the loser.
• 1:14:23
  Track 1: They're the ones who didn't make it. And you're supposed to now, I don't know, So, um...
• 1:14:29
  Track 1: Not supposed to feel bad for them because they didn't work hard or try hard enough.
• 1:14:33
  Track 1: And, you know, Betty didn't try hard enough or, but the, in the reality is that
• 1:14:37
  Track 1: the entire game was stacked against her.
• 1:14:39
  Track 1: She has, you know, a director and you have the people pushing the financing
• 1:14:43
  Track 1: for this film and all this, I mean, comparing it again, like towards the film,
• 1:14:47
  Track 1: film in real life and film in this movie sense is all these things are stacked against you.
• 1:14:53
  Track 1: Like Betty had almost no chance to ever make it you know in this in this reality
• 1:14:58
  Track 1: and at the end she takes her own life because it's too painful to even you know
• 1:15:04
  Track 1: god like the scene where she like shoots herself and there's the cloud of like
• 1:15:07
  Track 1: the smoke it's just it's so heartbreaking it's just so it's it's just it's gut-wrenching.
• 1:15:13
  Track 2: Yeah because it boils down essentially to like one day they say this is the
• 1:15:17
  Track 2: girl right and like what's great in the movie is that um we see two different
• 1:15:23
  Track 2: girls get declared this is the girl, right?
• 1:15:25
  Track 2: Like, it almost makes it seem arbitrary, because in some ways it is, right?
• 1:15:29
  Track 2: It doesn't seem like the Castigliani brothers have this, like,
• 1:15:32
  Track 2: real attachment to Camilla Rhodes.
• 1:15:34
  Track 2: Like, they don't talk about her skills or anything. It's just like,
• 1:15:38
  Track 2: this is the girl. Like, this is who it is right now.
• 1:15:40
  Track 2: And like, they have as little control over it as you do.
• 1:15:44
  Track 2: You know, or as anybody else does. It's just some, and Betty and Diane just
• 1:15:49
  Track 2: discover that at the time that they arrive in the context that they get to, they're not the girl.
• 1:15:54
  Track 2: At that time, no matter, and nothing they're going to do is going to make them the girl.
• 1:15:58
  Track 2: It's just how it is. Right. But, um, yeah.
• 1:16:02
  Track 2: Betty and Diane have been brought up on a steady diet of only seeing who the girl is, right?
• 1:16:07
  Track 2: And like you're saying, they don't make the movies about the people who were
• 1:16:10
  Track 2: not the girl because that doesn't fit with the story.
• 1:16:13
  Track 2: And it's a bummer. So nobody wants to see that.
• 1:16:18
  Track 2: But yet that is far closer to everyone else's lived experience.
• 1:16:22
  Track 2: And um and it's worth um
• 1:16:26
  Track 2: it's deserving of a dignified treatment right of
• 1:16:29
  Track 2: what that feels like you know and mahalan drive is one of the few movies that
• 1:16:33
  Track 2: actually like gives that experience it's full-throated authentic honest wholehearted
• 1:16:41
  Track 2: treatment even though it's a completely unrealistic movie it's probably the
• 1:16:44
  Track 2: most emotionally honest version of that that you could ask for.
• 1:16:47
  Track 1: Yeah i I think that's actually a good place to take one of the,
• 1:16:51
  Track 1: if you probably ask a lot of people like what their favorite scene or like what
• 1:16:55
  Track 1: the scene like made them feel the most,
• 1:16:57
  Track 1: it's probably the Silencio club scene where you have, you know,
• 1:17:01
  Track 1: this recording of the first this magician coming on and reducing and having this song in Spanish.
• 1:17:07
  Track 1: And you mentioned earlier, like the scene where, you know, Naomi Watts is like
• 1:17:10
  Track 1: shaking in her seat and there's just this uncontrollable, you know, grief and sadness.
• 1:17:16
  Track 1: And it's like, whenever I watch that scene, I'm just like struck by how,
• 1:17:23
  Track 1: like what, obviously there is a, it's meaning forcing you to think and just
• 1:17:30
  Track 1: become, you know, just to see the, the, the tragedy of all this.
• 1:17:35
  Track 1: But I don't know what you make of that scene. I think you wrote that it's like
• 1:17:38
  Track 1: everything about cinema, like in a single scene, but like this scene is just.
• 1:17:42
  Track 2: I mean, it's, it's just, it's, um, It's amazing.
• 1:17:47
  Track 2: I mean, there's just nothing, you know, you have this, of course,
• 1:17:51
  Track 2: incredible vocal performance.
• 1:17:53
  Track 2: You've got the experience of people in a theater watching something moving and amazing.
• 1:18:00
  Track 2: I mean, so they're literally doing what we're doing, watching it,
• 1:18:04
  Track 2: being coming there to not expecting to be moved in the way that they are,
• 1:18:08
  Track 2: but nevertheless are, and they can't explain it, right?
• 1:18:10
  Track 2: And we don't, and they don't know what she's singing about as far as we can
• 1:18:14
  Track 2: tell. It's just, but the emotion and the power is undeniable. And yet.
• 1:18:20
  Track 2: It's all fake. And we're told at the beginning that it's fake,
• 1:18:25
  Track 2: right? That it's all a tape recording.
• 1:18:27
  Track 2: This isn't really happening in front of you.
• 1:18:29
  Track 2: And even when we're told that, we're moved nonetheless.
• 1:18:33
  Track 2: And that's just like when we go into a movie, right? Oh, I know this isn't real.
• 1:18:37
  Track 2: I know it's all recorded beforehand and like it's been manipulated and all of this stuff.
• 1:18:42
  Track 2: You know, it's like, I get it. I know how the sausage is made,
• 1:18:45
  Track 2: right? Right. I'm I'm I'm too cool to to feel stuff. And then, bam.
• 1:18:51
  Track 2: Right. This scene hits you and you're suddenly feeling things.
• 1:18:54
  Track 2: And then Rebecca Del Rio collapses and you suddenly thought, oh, crap.
• 1:18:58
  Track 2: Oh, God, that wasn't she wasn't really singing that.
• 1:19:00
  Track 2: So, well, no, they told you that like just a minute ago, like literally two
• 1:19:05
  Track 2: and a half minutes ago, they told you that this was fake. But it makes you forget.
• 1:19:09
  Track 2: And that's that's the whole movie in miniature at the dream,
• 1:19:12
  Track 2: the fantasy, the artifice is so powerful.
• 1:19:15
  Track 2: That it can make you forget the truth and what's real, even if someone tells you right before.
• 1:19:22
  Track 2: And that's like every movie does this, right? We go in and we forget what we're
• 1:19:28
  Track 2: looking at and are moved nonetheless against our better judgment.
• 1:19:32
  Track 2: And I mean, and that's just, I mean, that's the power of art,
• 1:19:36
  Track 2: right? It's artifice. It's artificial. It's not real.
• 1:19:38
  Track 2: And yet it gets at greater truths than real things are capable of.
• 1:19:44
  Track 2: And movies, of course, at least to me, can do this more powerfully because they
• 1:19:50
  Track 2: have that verisimilitude that a lot of other art forms lack, right?
• 1:19:55
  Track 2: Like we've got sound and picture together, you know, photorealistic.
• 1:19:59
  Track 2: Like we've got people, you know, actually doing the things and being photographed doing them.
• 1:20:06
  Track 2: It's a beautiful illusion that makes us forget it's an illusion.
• 1:20:10
  Track 2: It's so powerful. No wonder –,
• 1:20:13
  Track 2: no wonder so many people get fooled into into like get hoodwinked into into
• 1:20:17
  Track 2: coming and thinking like this can happen to me right it's it's too real not to not to believe that.
• 1:20:22
  Track 1: And the the like ultimate irony of
• 1:20:25
  Track 1: it being introduced by a magician who's like who like
• 1:20:28
  Track 1: literally you know like oh i know magic isn't real it's
• 1:20:31
  Track 1: all an illusion and then like he literally puts the
• 1:20:33
  Track 1: illusion in front of you tells you the illusion it it's it
• 1:20:37
  Track 1: reminds me i don't know if you've maybe you've seen the the nolan film
• 1:20:40
  Track 1: like the prestige oh sure yeah like the beginning it's like
• 1:20:43
  Track 1: i i really like the movie i know some people have i
• 1:20:46
  Track 1: recently had this conversation where like the the voiceover at
• 1:20:49
  Track 1: the beginning is essentially telling you what he's about to do and then you
• 1:20:52
  Track 1: watch the entire movie and you're like oh he did the thing that they were gonna
• 1:20:55
  Track 1: tell you he did and then you're like oh but it was still like i'm still surprised
• 1:20:58
  Track 1: it's like it's the same thing like he's telling you the surprise and then you're
• 1:21:04
  Track 1: still like oh really i'm not surprised and it's,
• 1:21:09
  Track 1: it's just an emotionally heartfelt scene that's kind of hard to uh you you mentioned
• 1:21:13
  Track 1: like the whole last 20 minutes of just being this tragic play and all these
• 1:21:18
  Track 1: things happening all at once and it's just uh i don't is that in the last 20
• 1:21:22
  Track 1: minutes is that it is yeah so.
• 1:21:24
  Track 2: Um i guess where the tv pilot initially ends or i guess real quick yeah to like
• 1:21:29
  Track 2: to add to what you were just saying like i mean yeah in that case like it really is a magic trick.
• 1:21:33
  Track 1: Right like.
• 1:21:33
  Track 2: It we've been told we've shown all the machinery been told
• 1:21:36
  Track 2: how it all works and yet we still feel so like that's the magic
• 1:21:39
  Track 2: that's the trick right that's the prestige is like
• 1:21:42
  Track 2: i just showed you the whole trick and you still fell for it um but um
• 1:21:46
  Track 2: yeah so like everything like they go to diane selman's apartment and they run
• 1:21:49
  Track 2: out screaming and there's like those multiple dissolves where they like all
• 1:21:52
  Track 2: freak out um that's where the tv pilot episode it was supposed to end like that
• 1:21:56
  Track 2: was going to be the end of mulholland drive episode one and so everything after
• 1:22:00
  Track 2: that is the stuff they come back and make about a year later to turn it into a feature film.
• 1:22:06
  Track 2: And so that's I think they come back.
• 1:22:09
  Track 2: If I'm remembering correctly, they come back and that's when they go to bed
• 1:22:12
  Track 2: together and then they wake up and it's she's having the dream and saying silencio
• 1:22:16
  Track 2: and they get in the car and go.
• 1:22:17
  Track 2: And that's that's kind of what I'm calling.
• 1:22:21
  Track 2: I mean, I think it might be longer than like the last 20 minutes,
• 1:22:23
  Track 2: but roughly that third act. That's all the new material that wasn't filmed for the ABC.
• 1:22:29
  Track 2: All the R rated stuff, you know, that comes that comes after that wouldn't be
• 1:22:33
  Track 2: in a Disney property is all is a club silencio.
• 1:22:39
  Track 2: Is part of that um that sequence.
• 1:22:42
  Track 1: Got okay okay that makes that makes sense and yeah the
• 1:22:45
  Track 1: um what was everything i was going to say yeah and so like the the uh
• 1:22:49
  Track 1: yeah the end of this the film is just you know we we see the all the tragedies
• 1:22:54
  Track 1: there's a lot i mean there's a bunch of scenes i think we we left out and i
• 1:22:57
  Track 1: think there's probably you could probably in another podcast uh i listened to
• 1:23:02
  Track 1: who did this there was they did a lot of conversation around just kind of like
• 1:23:06
  Track 1: the relationship between,
• 1:23:08
  Track 1: betty and rita which i don't think we touched too much so i don't know if there's
• 1:23:11
  Track 1: anything in particular any scenes that you wanted to uh to call out or if there's
• 1:23:15
  Track 1: any other things that kind of uh weren't on our sort of uh our uh guide here
• 1:23:21
  Track 1: to walk us through this but any any other bits that we uh wanted to cover it's
• 1:23:25
  Track 1: like i said i feel like we could probably spend a lot more time but.
• 1:23:28
  Track 2: Yeah yeah i mean i i feel bad i guess that we didn't necessarily do a deep dive
• 1:23:32
  Track 2: on the cowboy But then again, I don't I don't have a tremendous I don't think
• 1:23:37
  Track 2: I have anything super smart to say about the cowboy other than like,
• 1:23:41
  Track 2: I think that dude's amazing.
• 1:23:43
  Track 2: And and it's some of the best writing that I think Lynch has done in that exchange.
• 1:23:48
  Track 2: Um but it's uh you know it's it's another example of something being so ridiculous
• 1:23:54
  Track 2: and menacing at the same time you know and these uh and like silly tropes like
• 1:24:00
  Track 2: this dude in a stupid ass hat like meeting at a ranch scaring the crap out of us um with.
• 1:24:07
  Track 1: Like some of the best dialogue too.
• 1:24:08
  Track 2: Like the way he delivers.
• 1:24:09
  Track 1: It is just uh it's like if you you'll see me two more times if.
• 1:24:15
  Track 2: You do if You do good. Yeah. I mean, it really it almost seems like the nightmare
• 1:24:19
  Track 2: version of like David Lynch.
• 1:24:22
  Track 2: Right. Like, because it's a weird folksy affect, but with no sense of gentleness
• 1:24:29
  Track 2: or or or kind heartedness about it at all.
• 1:24:33
  Track 2: It's just pure menace. um yeah i mean it's and i guess that guy is uh monty
• 1:24:39
  Track 2: montgomery who was a producer on uh wild at heart he's um so like he's someone
• 1:24:44
  Track 2: who's not an actor by trade right he's coming in through,
• 1:24:48
  Track 2: lynch's the the the lynch's previous stable of collaborators.
• 1:24:51
  Track 1: Yeah i looked at his wikipedia page it's like two lines long
• 1:24:55
  Track 1: and it's exclusively mentions him with david lynch
• 1:24:58
  Track 1: yeah yeah it's just uh those two i mean
• 1:25:00
  Track 1: he might have other credits that just aren't listed in i'm sure he has many
• 1:25:03
  Track 1: other ones but yeah the cowboy is always one of the like one of those things
• 1:25:07
  Track 1: that i just found really you know like and then i think you see him later at
• 1:25:13
  Track 1: the party he like is just like yeah you do see him two more times yeah because i.
• 1:25:18
  Track 2: Mean that's that's the other amazing thing because he shows up and says like
• 1:25:20
  Track 2: hey pretty girl time to wake up so that's when you see him one more time yeah
• 1:25:24
  Track 2: and then in the background at the party he walks across like oh crap somebody
• 1:25:27
  Track 2: did bad because we just saw him we just saw him two more times.
• 1:25:31
  Track 1: Yeah another scene that i also like i
• 1:25:34
  Track 1: think is probably the funniest scene in you know
• 1:25:37
  Track 1: probably intentionally or just works out that way is when the
• 1:25:40
  Track 1: the hitman that diane hires goes to the
• 1:25:42
  Track 1: studio to you know shoot the the
• 1:25:45
  Track 1: director or i don't know get the black book the
• 1:25:48
  Track 1: black book and all these things it's just like the most comical like you know
• 1:25:53
  Track 1: comedy of errors like shooting the bullet through hits the woman in the ass
• 1:25:56
  Track 1: and like that goes on and it's you know it's i think that that is more like
• 1:26:01
  Track 1: the reality version right like she hires him to do this and he just like completely
• 1:26:06
  Track 1: bumbles everything yeah.
• 1:26:07
  Track 2: Yeah yeah that that seems so broad um and i guess like that one in the um i
• 1:26:14
  Track 2: guess all the stuff with billy ray cyrus and the um the the that huge guy like
• 1:26:19
  Track 2: there's a couple very broadly comedic moments.
• 1:26:21
  Track 1: Yeah oh that's a good in there.
• 1:26:23
  Track 2: That uh that are unique to um you don't get a whole lot of that broad comedy
• 1:26:29
  Track 2: in lynch's work that are i guess don't get a whole lot of it played strictly
• 1:26:32
  Track 2: for laughs um but it's yeah it's it's definitely some of his uh,
• 1:26:37
  Track 2: more of that lighter touch of like his influences from like everything from
• 1:26:41
  Track 2: like you know jacques tati or the three stooges or something like that i.
• 1:26:44
  Track 1: Think i had any i mean yeah like i said we could probably go on a lot of these different things here.
• 1:26:49
  Track 2: Well and it's hard too because everything in the movie basically happens twice
• 1:26:52
  Track 2: right like because you've got all there's
• 1:26:55
  Track 2: so much doubling so like you've got the
• 1:26:58
  Track 2: the two audition scenes you've got two lip-syncing scenes you
• 1:27:01
  Track 2: know you have uh two um like
• 1:27:05
  Track 2: there's a couple of different interviews of sorts right two diner
• 1:27:08
  Track 2: scenes yeah two diner scenes you know there's just so much doubling
• 1:27:11
  Track 2: that uh that when you start when you
• 1:27:14
  Track 2: first notice it then you start seeing it everywhere
• 1:27:17
  Track 2: in the movie like just everything's everything's happening twice but like in
• 1:27:22
  Track 2: this movie and in lost highway like what's really where he just kind of goes
• 1:27:25
  Track 2: wild with with doubles and doppelgangers and stuff like that and twin peaks
• 1:27:29
  Track 2: or i mean like it's basically half of his body of work is stuff happening twice there's.
• 1:27:35
  Track 1: Literally like the cousin of uh.
• 1:27:37
  Track 2: Laura palmer yeah i'm.
• 1:27:38
  Track 1: Like in the midst of re-watching that show right now.
• 1:27:40
  Track 2: So oh nice fresh.
• 1:27:41
  Track 1: Fresh in my mind.
• 1:27:42
  Track 2: Yeah um.
• 1:27:43
  Track 1: But yeah so i don't know are there any other last like bits or like maybe if
• 1:27:47
  Track 1: you had any closing thoughts maybe as it relates to the chapter i know we you.
• 1:27:50
  Track 2: Already kind of talked about.
• 1:27:51
  Track 1: At the top but if there's any way you want to like you know,
• 1:27:54
  Track 1: kind of bring it back to bring it back to that.
• 1:27:57
  Track 2: Oh, I mean, I guess just if anyone listening is not familiar with the work of
• 1:28:01
  Track 2: Nathaniel West, I would highly, highly recommend checking out any of his four
• 1:28:05
  Track 2: books, whether that's Dream Life of Balsa Snell, A Cool Million,
• 1:28:10
  Track 2: Miss Lonely Hearts or Day of the Locust.
• 1:28:12
  Track 2: They're all they're all all timers, you know, especially Day of the Locust.
• 1:28:18
  Track 2: It's it lives up to all of the hype, although it is hard to read nowadays because
• 1:28:22
  Track 2: one of the characters his name is homer simpson and so it makes reading the
• 1:28:27
  Track 2: book really hard because he's very much not like homer simpson it's.
• 1:28:31
  Track 1: Funny when uh when when i was reading the chapter and i saw that like i had i.
• 1:28:35
  Track 2: Did like a double take immediately because.
• 1:28:36
  Track 1: I just was like wait.
• 1:28:38
  Track 2: What and then i i.
• 1:28:39
  Track 1: Like i literally googled like oh okay get it now.
• 1:28:41
  Track 2: Yeah yeah it's yeah so now just imagine that feeling for
• 1:28:44
  Track 2: like 200 pages where you have to keep telling yourself no not
• 1:28:47
  Track 2: not that homer simpson not that homer simpson but it's
• 1:28:50
  Track 2: other than that it's a it's a it's an impeccable book it's it's so great and
• 1:28:55
  Track 2: he's kind of he's often overshadowed by you know that fitzgerald and hemingway
• 1:28:58
  Track 2: and the other kind of writers of that time period and because he didn't write
• 1:29:01
  Track 2: as much material but um but he's he's very very worth um worth your time awesome.
• 1:29:08
  Track 1: Well uh mike it's been a pleasure to have you on to talk about this uh this uh,
• 1:29:16
  Track 1: incredible film by david lynch and actually i have to ask before i know i was
• 1:29:19
  Track 1: like starting to close it out but you.
• 1:29:20
  Track 2: Said this.
• 1:29:21
  Track 1: Wasn't your favorite david lynch.
• 1:29:22
  Track 2: Film so i'm.
• 1:29:23
  Track 1: Now i have to know which one it.
• 1:29:24
  Track 2: Is oh i think blue velvet is my favorite film of all time that
• 1:29:28
  Track 2: i think that one is uh it just it's
• 1:29:31
  Track 2: got it all uh i mean i think and then i
• 1:29:34
  Track 2: i probably lately i've been
• 1:29:37
  Track 2: thinking okay firewalk with me is not my favorite movie but it
• 1:29:39
  Track 2: might be his best or it might be his his you know
• 1:29:42
  Track 2: best piece of work um i've probably seen lost highway the most um simply because
• 1:29:49
  Track 2: that hit at the time when you would like rent it from the video store every
• 1:29:54
  Track 2: weekend and show it to a different friend and stay up all night trying to figure
• 1:29:58
  Track 2: out what it was about uh that's.
• 1:30:00
  Track 1: Exactly how i saw that movie.
• 1:30:01
  Track 2: Yeah yeah yeah i mean it's what you got to do right uh but so i mean i i do
• 1:30:07
  Track 2: love this one very much um yeah it's just uh but blue velvet i think is the
• 1:30:12
  Track 2: the this is the one for me that is uh just does everything movies everything
• 1:30:18
  Track 2: you want a movie to do and and then some that's.
• 1:30:21
  Track 1: Fair i i i was thinking about this and i think for me it probably is mulholland drive i think.
• 1:30:26
  Track 2: Only because.
• 1:30:27
  Track 1: I've seen it the most times i.
• 1:30:29
  Track 2: Yeah just.
• 1:30:30
  Track 1: It's uh and maybe as we said at the beginning as like for someone who is new
• 1:30:35
  Track 1: to his work it's like the most cohesive or like maybe easy to digest film of
• 1:30:41
  Track 1: his and so maybe that just became like i it was i don't know maybe i did maybe
• 1:30:45
  Track 1: i need to see blue velvet more times to uh to uh,
• 1:30:49
  Track 1: to maybe change my mind but.
• 1:30:50
  Track 2: Yeah well i mean but i think if you're also if you're making a top 10
• 1:30:53
  Track 2: list of like most powerful sequences in a david lynch film
• 1:30:56
  Track 2: i think at minimum three of them are going
• 1:30:58
  Track 2: to be from this movie right you're going to have the winkies diner
• 1:31:02
  Track 2: scene the um the audition scene and the
• 1:31:04
  Track 2: club silencio scene right yeah so right so like this
• 1:31:07
  Track 2: and i mean this movie is going to have three of those spots right you're going
• 1:31:10
  Track 2: to have the and you have the mystery man scene from lost highway right that'd
• 1:31:13
  Track 2: be the the one from lost highway you're going to have um you know there's gonna
• 1:31:18
  Track 2: be a couple from from blue velvet and from eraser but i don't think any of the
• 1:31:21
  Track 2: other movies are going to get three in that top 10 no right so i mean it's like you could.
• 1:31:25
  Track 1: Probably you can make a case for any of those i mean.
• 1:31:27
  Track 2: I think.
• 1:31:27
  Track 1: Someone i saw on online recently was saying that their favorite one was twin
• 1:31:31
  Track 1: peaks what you know far with me like those are like there's none of these opinions
• 1:31:34
  Track 1: or none of these are a bad uh bad 10 films and your choices of uh.
• 1:31:39
  Track 2: Yeah i.
• 1:31:41
  Track 1: Think i saw someone actually post an article maybe i didn't read it yet that
• 1:31:44
  Track 1: the street story was actually their favorite lynch.
• 1:31:47
  Track 2: Movie even though he didn't write.
• 1:31:48
  Track 1: It but directed it and so.
• 1:31:49
  Track 2: Yeah i mean his partner wrote or his partner at the time wrote it so
• 1:31:52
  Track 2: it's very much a like a kind of an in-house project but
• 1:31:55
  Track 2: yeah i mean that that's certainly his most underrated movie um just
• 1:31:59
  Track 2: because it's it's a g-rated disney film that doesn't
• 1:32:02
  Track 2: uh immediately smack of of being lynchian yet it's it's all there um you know
• 1:32:09
  Track 2: and it's uh it's just it's there in a different way and uh I've certainly I've
• 1:32:14
  Track 2: certainly it's grown on me tremendously as I've gotten older to watch it. I think it had a it got it.
• 1:32:22
  Track 2: It got a bad rap when it came out because people just sort of dismissed it as
• 1:32:25
  Track 2: like, oh, it's Forrest Gump on a tractor, you know, or something like that.
• 1:32:28
  Track 2: And like, that's just like.
• 1:32:30
  Track 2: On one level, that is a description of the movie, but it is to miss the entire point of the movie.
• 1:32:38
  Track 2: But it's also it's a brain worm, right? Like you get that in your head and it
• 1:32:42
  Track 2: takes a while to to not see it like that, particularly like when I saw it,
• 1:32:47
  Track 2: if you were a, you know, a know-it-all 21-year-old, you know, like you're going to.
• 1:32:52
  Track 1: I like it more than Forrest Gump.
• 1:32:53
  Track 2: Well, yeah, low bar, right? But yeah, I don't like Forrest Gump.
• 1:32:58
  Track 1: If anyone uh had listened to my episode
• 1:33:01
  Track 1: way a while ago on us five of us kind of hating on forrest gump oh sure yeah
• 1:33:05
  Track 1: hour and a half as i think i think one's one should do perhaps yeah it's cathartic
• 1:33:10
  Track 1: speaking of another speaking of another like academy award film like that you
• 1:33:14
  Track 1: know the whole anyway yeah but uh but mike uh it's been a pleasure having you
• 1:33:18
  Track 1: to talk about yeah thank you drive yeah.
• 1:33:20
  Track 2: I had a great time thanks so much for having me i really appreciate it.
• 1:33:23
  Track 1: Of course and i'll put a note to a pre-order i assume they could pre-order your yeah yeah yeah.
• 1:33:29
  Track 2: It'll be uh yeah i guess you'll uh you can pre-order it probably if you if you
• 1:33:34
  Track 2: watch the if you listen to these right away or um you know or if it's a couple
• 1:33:38
  Track 2: days later it might be available in a in a store or web store uh near you.
• 1:33:43
  Track 1: Awesome well uh again thanks for being here and you've been listening to left
• 1:33:49
  Track 1: of the projector and we will catch you next time.