Both the threat to the dark-haired woman’s life and the car crash constitute a turning point that shifts the film’s narrative into disequilibrium, an imbalance that needs to be addressed, and which can be formulated into a series of questions: Who is this woman? Why is her life being threatened? Who is threatening her life? How has the crash affected her? These questions signify dangling causes that are partially addressed as the film progresses.
We later discover the dark-haired woman has lost her memory, which creates obstacles to the simple answering of these questions.
The lack of answers and the partially unresolved dangling causes are therefore motivated by the dark-haired woman’s amnesia.
This also leads to another important point, concerning the absence of the narrative elements outlined earlier in this chapter.
The most notable absence, at least from the film’s opening, is exposition. The spectator has to wait over two hours before most of the exposition is presented (in the scene where Diane goes to dinner with Camilla and the director, Adam Kesher, and immediately afterwards, when Diane meets the hit man Joe in Winkies restaurant).
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But back to the film’s beginning. The dark-haired woman survives the car crash and stumbles towards Los Angeles. On Franklin Street, the motifs of the headlamps and overexposed image are repeated. The dark-haired woman then falls asleep under some bushes (outside Ruth’s apartment). This image of her sleeping is repeated on several occasions in the first section of the film. Note what is happening here: in Diane’s dream, the dark-haired woman falls asleep.
The next scene takes place in Winkies. When this scene ends, we return to the dark-haired woman, still asleep. This gives the impression that the scene in Winkies is the dark-haired woman’s dream. The content of the scene is also about dreaming. Dan and Herb sit at a table in Winkies talking about dreams.
Dan recounts a dream about a frightening man behind the
restaurant. The recounted dream seems to come real, because the man is shown to be behind the wall. His appearance literally frightens Dan to death. It is difficult to connect this scene to others, since neither Dan nor Herb play prominent roles in the film (Dan only makes a second fleeting appearance towards the end). There is no exposition, nor any cause–effect links between this and other scenes.
However, we do return to this restaurant on two occasions –
when Rita and Betty enter, and when Diane hires the hit man.
Towards the end of the film, we also return to the man behind the restaurant. The significance of this scene seems to lie in the fact that it is about dreams coming true. The scene is a fragment of Diane’s dream. Diane is dreaming of her lover (Rita in the dream, Camilla outside it), and she dreams that her lover is falling asleep, dreaming of two men, Dan and Herb, in a restaurant who are talking about dreams! Dan’s dream comes true and, as we shall see later, Diane’s dream also comes true.
The next scene consists of fragments of a series of phone calls between the midget, Mr Roque; a Mexican man; a man in run-down lodgings (in the credits he is the ‘hairy arm man’); and Diane’s phone – but only in the second section, when this image is repeated, do we realize it is her phone. Diane’s phone rings three times, but she does not answer.
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The next scene depicts Betty arriving at Los Angeles Airport.
Notice the sound bridge from the previous scene: the ringing phone continues over the cut, but it is distorted, and can be heard over the image of Betty. Remember, this is Diane’s phone that is ringing; it is attempting to summon Diane. Instead, it summons Betty (who is Diane’s exaggerated alter ego in the dream). Betty indirectly ‘responds’ to the telephone ringing, that is, she appears when Diane’s telephone rings. However, this is a very tenuous link between scenes. This is also the first time we see Betty since the jitterbug scene. She appears with her parents (although she does not address them as her parents).
Betty meets Mrs Lanois, the concierge, at her aunt Ruth’s apartment. Mrs Lanois says, ‘Just call me Coco, everybody else does.’ Coco repeats this line to Diane in the film’s second section, when we discover that Coco is in fact Adam Kesher’s mother.
Betty enters Ruth’s apartment, and meets the dark-haired woman. We already know that the dark-haired woman is in
the apartment, whereas Betty does not. This is a moment of omniscient narration. Betty meets the dark-haired woman
while she is in the shower, naked and vulnerable. The dark-haired woman cannot remember her name, so she takes the
name from a film poster in the bathroom – Rita Hayworth’s name, from a poster for the famous film noir Gilda. Notice how the appropriation takes place: we have the dark-haired woman’s point-of-view shot, not of the poster as such, but of the poster as reflected in the mirror. The camera then moves into the mirror image. Like Alice in Wonderland, the dark-haired woman seems to enter the looking glass and emerge as a new character, Rita. She is a mysterious woman who is vulnerable, naked, an amnesiac and injured. She has no past or identity.
If we believe this section of the film to be Diane’s dream, then Diane is constructing an idealized image of her lover, Camilla.
Why Rita Hayworth in Gilda? This is not an arbitrary choice, but is motivated on several levels. Both Rita Hayworth and Laura Harring are Latino women who also look Anglo. Indeed, Rita Hayworth went through a dramatic transformation when she entered Hollywood. Most of her Latino appearance was disguised. But, beyond comparisons between the two actresses, 64
there are also similarities between the two characters they play.
In Gilda, the character of Gilda hastily marries a man, and tells him that she was born the moment she met him, that she has no past. In Mulholland Dr. , Rita is also constructed as a woman with no past, who seems to be born the moment Betty meets her.
After Rita exits the shower, she talks to Betty, and we get some exposition, or back story, about Betty’s past. Betty assumes that Rita is a friend of aunt Ruth. Rita then falls asleep again. In Diane’s dream, her lover is passive, and is always falling asleep.
In the next scene, set in a boardroom, the character of Adam Kesher, the film director, is introduced. There is some narrative development – the lead actress of Adam’s film needs to be recast, for his lead actress has disappeared.
In the boardroom, the meeting is chaired by Ray Hott, president of production. The Castigliane brothers, who seem to ‘own’
Adam’s film, enter the boardroom and insist that a newcomer, called Camilla Rhodes (but who looks like Betty – identities are becoming mixed!), should play the part. Luigi Castigliane’s comment and the action taking place at the same time are significant: Luigi comments ‘This is the girl’, while Camilla’s résumé photo is passed around. This is a significant action, which is repeated in the film’s second section: in Winkies, Diane gives Joe (the hit man) a résumé photo of Camilla Rhodes and says ‘This is the girl’ (to be killed). However, the résumé photo is of Camilla Rhodes as played by Laura Harring. At this point in the dream, Diane is dreaming of the moment she hired Joe to kill her lover.
During the boardroom meeting, Adam rejects the imposition of this new actress in his film, thereby creating an obstacle.
We also cut to Mr Roque in his sparse, air-purified room.
We saw him once before in the telephone sequence. He can hear the boardroom conversation, and we assume most of
the people there do not know that he can hear. This shot is therefore omniscient, although later we discover that Ray knew that Mr Roque was listening. After the board meeting, Adam damages the Castigliane brothers’ car and then drives off.
After one shot of Betty checking Rita, who is still asleep, we cut to Ray talking to Mr Roque. They decide to shut down the 2 Film structure: narrative and narration 65
movie. This, of course, is another obstacle in the way of this new character (Adam) achieving his goal.
The next scene introduces yet
more characters and a new
location: Joe (the hit man) and Ed, a businessman. They seem to be talking about Rita’s car accident, although it is unclear.
Unexpectedly, Joe kills Ed and steals his black book of phone numbers (in an attempt to find Rita?). But there is insufficient exposition or character motivation to explain what is happening in this scene, and the dangling causes are not sufficiently addressed or resolved later in the film.
The next scene returns us to Betty and Rita. Betty finds out that her aunt Ruth does not know anyone called Rita. Rita wakes up, and in an attempt to find out who she is, opens her bag, to find it contains $125,000, plus a blue key. These are mysterious and significant dangling causes, which are repeated in the second section of the film – in Winkies, when Diane is hiring Joe to kill Camilla. She opens her bag to reveal the pay-off. He then shows her a blue key, and says he will leave it in a certain place to indicate when he has killed Camilla. These repetitions are therefore of events that are significant in Diane’s life, particularly her plan to hire a killer to murder Camilla. The second occurrence of these events provides indirect resolution, as we belatedly realize that the money in Rita’s purse is Joe’s pay-off to kill her.
In subsequent scenes, Adam finds out his film set has been closed down, goes home and discovers his wife is having an affair with the pool man, while Betty and Rita hide the $125,000 and go to Winkies (the film’s second visit to this location). The waitress is called Diane, and looks like Betty on a bad day. Rita begins to remember something, and thinks that her real name might be Diane Selwyn. This is the first lead the two women can follow concerning Rita’s real identity. Rita and Betty go back to Ruth’s apartment, look in the phone book, and call Diane Selwyn, thinking that it might be Rita’s real name. Betty says, ‘It’s strange to be calling yourself’ to which Rita replies, ‘Maybe it’s not me.’ They only get the answer phone message, ‘It’s me. Leave a message.’ Betty’s comment (‘It’s strange to be calling yourself’) is, of course, significant, since it is Betty who is calling herself.
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The Castigliane brothers (in a new Cadillac) turn up at Adam’s house and send in a heavyweight bodyguard. But Adam has
already left. This scene is causally linked with the scene where Adam damages the Castigliane brothers’ car, since the brothers have sent in a bodyguard to sort him out.
Adam, who is hiding in a run-down hotel, speaks to his
secretary, Cynthia, on the phone, who asks him to meet with
‘the Cowboy’. When they meet, the Cowboy asks Adam to
select (the blonde) Camilla Rhodes for the lead in his film.
Note the ‘flickering light’ motif that begins and ends the conversation, and the Cowboy’s sudden disappearance, giving the impression that he does not exist. The identity of this real or imaginary Cowboy becomes another unresolved dangling
cause. He knows a great deal about Adam’s predicament, but we do not find out where he gets his information from, or who he is in league with. He simply appears from and disappears into the darkness.
Betty prepares for her audition the following day (one of the film’s few deadlines), and she and Rita rehearse Betty’s lines.
At first it seems as if the two of them are having a conversation about their own situation, but it soon transpires that they are rehearsing. However, the lines do indirectly refer to their situation:
Betty: You’re still here?
Rita: I came back. I thought that’s what you wanted.
Betty: No one wants you here!
Only after this line is uttered does the spectator realize that Rita and Betty are rehearsing. This is a very significant moment in the film, on several levels. Firstly, the lines suggest that Betty has tired of Rita, and wants her out of the apartment.
Secondly, and more importantly, the lines also refer to Diane and Camilla’s relationship in the film’s second section (but we can only retrospectively read this into the scene). However, in their relationship it is Camilla who tires of Diane. What has happened is that, in her dream, Diane has reversed the power dynamics between her and Camilla. A later part of the rehearsal involves Betty threatening Rita’s life, a threat Diane carries out against Camilla.
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At her audition, Betty does well and is liked by everyone except the director, Bob Brooker. Betty is then taken to Adam’s film set, where he is recasting his lead actress. There is an intense exchange of gazes between Adam and Betty. The blonde Camilla Rhodes auditions and Adam utters, ‘This is the girl.’ Betty leaves the set to return to Rita, and both go to Diane Selwyn’s apartment.
Rita and Betty break into the apartment and find Diane dead in bed (the same bed with red sheets that appears in the shot immediately before the credit sequence). This scene represents the part of Diane’s dream where she fantasizes that she has killed herself. Those who fantasize about suicide think about what they would look like when found dead, who would find them, how close friends and lovers would react. When Rita and Betty find Diane, Betty (representing Diane) is witnessing her own suicide. She finds out what she would look like, how she would be found, and how her former lover Rita/Camilla would react. The aim of the fantasy is to represent her lover in a guilty way, and as expressing remorse. Diane’s neighbour, De Rosa, knocks on the door, but Rita and Betty do not respond. Several images from this scene are repeated later (when the film segues into its second section): the image of Diane dead in bed, the knocking, and Betty’s point of view as she slowly walks along the dark corridor leading up to Diane’s bedroom.
Back in Ruth’s apartment. Rita believes that Diane’s death is in some way related to her past and that she will be next. So she puts on a blonde wig for disguise, creating a superficial likeness between her and Betty. Diane’s death is the cause of Rita’s change of appearance. Betty and Rita then express their mutual love in a lesbian love scene.
Betty and Rita wake up at 2 a.m. The image of them in bed resembles an image from Ingmar Bergman’s film Persona, another film about the strong relationship between two women.
Rita starts to speak Spanish, and has an urgent need to leave.
Both of them go to the Silencio club.
As they hail a cab, the image goes out of focus, and in the Silencio club, the motif of flashing lights is repeated, together with smoke. Betty reacts violently to the flashing lights. The 68
performances at the club indicate the illusionistic relation between sound and image. Roy Orbison’s song Crying is sung in Spanish, and serves as exposition to the break-up of the relationship outside the dream between Camilla and Diane.
Finally, Diane finds a mysterious blue box in her purse.
Back at the apartment, Betty inexplicably disappears from Ruth’s bedroom. Rita opens the blue box with the blue key and also disappears. Ruth then enters the bedroom, but finds nothing unusual, and leaves.
This (and the next scene) is the most perplexing in the whole film. It constitutes another turning point in the film, as the film radically changes protagonists and direction, although it gradually begins to repeat what happened previously. This scene resembles the moment in Lynch’s Lost Highway when Fred Madison, in solitary confinement in prison, inexplicably transforms into Pete Dayton. At this point Lost Highway also radically changes protagonists and direction, and also gradually begins to repeat what happened previously.
The blue key is explained in the second section of the film. It is a sign that Joe has killed Camilla. The shot of Rita opening the blue box with the key therefore signifies Camilla’s death. The blue key is a sign to Diane that Camilla has been killed, and the empty darkness inside the blue box represents Camilla’s death.
This moment in the film is a major turning point, since we suddenly lose the two characters who have propelled the film forward. Both have gone through a radical transformation (they have disappeared). The camera no longer filters the narrative through the vision of the characters. Instead, the
director’s vision becomes prominent. The camera begins to wander
around in an attempt to attach itself to another character, in much the same way as Hitchcock’s camera in Psycho is disengaged from Marion, after she has been murdered in the shower, and wanders around her room, until Norman enters.
The camera then attaches itself to him.
The scene dissolves from the hallway in Ruth’s apartment to the hallway in Diane’s apartment. But it then dissolves back again. This is a very ‘self-conscious’ moment in the film, as if the director cannot decide which location to film. The dissolve 2 Film structure: narrative and narration 69
takes place once more from Ruth’s hallway to Diane’s. The shot of Diane’s hallway is in fact a repetition of Betty’s point-of-view shot as she approached Diane’s bedroom. Betty may have disappeared, but her point-of-view shot remains and is repeated.
This transitional scene contains three shots of Diane: she adopts the same pose in all three, but in two of the shots she is sleeping, and in the second (middle) shot she is dead (a repetition of Betty’s point-of-view shot discovering the dead Diane). The Cowboy appears and tells Diane to wake up. When he leaves, we hear the sound of knocking, and Diane wakes up. The
camera attaches itself to this ‘new’ character.
This first section of the film, although shown first, is a dream representation of events that take place in the second section.
The first section, the dream, begins to make sense once we see what events it is representing. The chronology of the film has been reversed (unless we believe that the dream is a premonition of events that are going to happen).
When we see Diane for the third time, she finally wakes up (to the sound of the knocking), and lets in her neighbour, De Rosa, who takes her belongings, including an ashtray. As she does so, we get a close-up of a blue key. One implication here is that Diane and De Rosa shared the apartment, had a casual lesbian relationship, but are now living in separate apartments. The blue key is shown outside the dream, but is still not explained.
Film Studies- An Introduction Page 9