"Mulholland Drive"

Paper Summary:

This paper examines the film, "Mulholland Drive," directed by David Lynch. Specifically, it chooses three or four aspects of the film and discusses how these aspects work within the film narrative, while explaining how these aspects are connected and related to psychoanalysis. It looks at how the function of dreams is central to this strange film, as are the performance of the uncanny and the representation of gender and sexuality. It explores how the film uses many specifics of psychoanalysis to create a feeling of unrealistic fantasy and to create a mood of dark unknowns. "Mulholland Drive" is not your average afternoon matinee; it is a disturbing and artistic look at Hollywood, its successes and failures, and the underlying secrets we all keep hidden deep inside our own psyches.

From the Paper:

"Throughout the film, which has a dreamlike and unreal quality, it is difficult to determine when the characters are awake or dreaming, and why some of the characters even exist, such as the strange couple who bid Betty farewell at LAX, and hoot merrily after she leaves. In one dreamlike and strange scene, the MC at a nightclub mentions, "This is all a tape recording. It is an illusion," as the music plays and the musicians pretend to perform. During the visit, Betty and Rita begin to weep, and "Betty shakes and weeps in some hyperemotional response to the music. Without explanation, she finds a glistening blue box in her purse" (Wyman, et. al. 1). Indeed, this club, "Silencio," seems to bring to mind all the glamor and glitz of old Hollywood, which could be why the women weep, they are weeping for a time gone by, even if it is only a very bad dream."

More papers on "Mulholland Drive":

• Film Review # 24033 : "Mulholland Drive"
• Essay # 20866 : "David Hockney's "Mulholland Drive"
• Research Paper # 61789 : "Women in Film Noir"

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