779 Mulholland Dr.

[giovannii84]

Does anyone know if any Mulholland Drive-era interview footage with Ann Miller exists?

Ann miller is one of my favourite MGM stars & would be cool to have some sort of archival interview footage of her discussing the film if anything existed.

[swo17]

Oct 27

[Finch]

The Lynch interview will be 15 minutes of them throwing questions at Lynch and him just sitting there in silence, smiling amusedly.

[merzbau]

I really hope the "more" in Mulholland Drive's listing will include the missing shorts that weren't on the Eraserhead disc- "The Cowboy and the Frenchman" and I think one or two others? Absurda would be a perfect fit, of course, and I really hope they can sort out the rights for Lady Blue Shanghai...hell, I'd even take some Dumbland.

[djproject]

I really hope the "more" in Mulholland Drive's listing will include the missing shorts that weren't on the Eraserhead disc- "The Cowboy and the Frenchman" and I think one or two others? Absurda would be a perfect fit, of course, and I really hope they can sort out the rights for Lady Blue Shanghai...hell, I'd even take some Dumbland.

"The Cowboy and the Frenchman" was the only one not included in Eraserhead but was in the Lynch self-released DVD The Short Films of David Lynch. It may be possible that it would be included. But honestly, I never cared for that one.

[flyonthewall2983]

Maybe the TV pilot?

[swo17]

"The Cowboy and the Frenchman" was the only one not included in Eraserhead but was in the Lynch self-released DVD The Short Films of David Lynch. It may be possible that it would be included. But honestly, I never cared for that one.

It would fit here for obvious cowboy comedy-related reasons. Dumbland (which Criterion has the rights to) would also fit here for chronological reasons.

[whaleallright]

I suppose that -- for any number of reasons -- it's unlikely that we'll get the TV-pilot version of Mulholland Dr. (which largely conforms to the first half of the feature film).

[smokes]

Meh, it's not even close to being the best Lynch film.

i have to say i agree with you. this is possibly my least favorite work by lynch (i even score 'on the air' much higher). for me, the story is just too incomplete and comes off like watching 'fire walk with me' without a 'twin peaks' ever existing.

i'm really glad criterion is releasing lynch's work (he's without a doubt one of my favorite working artists) but my choice would've been inland empire (which i thought was probably his best film since eraserhead. or perhaps even the elephant man?

[Numero Trois]

but my choice would've been inland empire

Mine too. Mulholland is an excellent film, but to me there's a purity about Inland Empire that's just palpable.

[Roger Ryan]

but my choice would've been inland empire

Mine too. Mulholland is an excellent film, but to me there's a purity about Inland Empire that's just palpable.

But I think we can agree that a 4K restoration of INLAND EMPIRE wouldn't amount to much picture-wise, right? Whereas MULHOLLAND DRIVE has the potential to look spectacular.

[Zot!]

but my choice would've been inland empire

Mine too. Mulholland is an excellent film, but to me there's a purity about Inland Empire that's just palpable.

But I think we can agree that a 4K restoration of INLAND EMPIRE wouldn't amount to much picture-wise, right? Whereas MULHOLLAND DRIVE has the potential to look spectacular.

Right, I happen to disagree with the low assessment of MULHOLLAND DRIVE, as I thought it was far superior to INLAND EMPIRE, which for me is a career low, but regardless of that, there is very little additional that can be done for INLAND EMPIRE, and there are already multiple BD releases available for a film that was originated on Standard Def DV video.

[Mel]

The image always looked a bit soft, so I'm very curious how the Criterion compares with the Studio Canal version image-wise. I think the BD from Sudio Canal is quite good with some nice extra's. But this is a movie I don't mind buying again. So I'm looking forward to the first reviews in october.

[Robin Davies]

Meh, it's not even close to being the best Lynch film.

i have to say i agree with you. this is possibly my least favorite work by lynch (i even score 'on the air' much higher). for me, the story is just too incomplete and comes off like watching 'fire walk with me' without a 'twin peaks' ever existing.

I'm baffled that you think the story of Mulholland Drive is "more incomplete" than that in any of his other "difficult" films like Eraserhead, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, Lost Highway and Inland Empire. For me Mulholland Drive is Lynch's masterpiece, just edging out the four I've just mentioned.

[warren oates]

I don't get it either. The only Lynch film I never feel like watching again is Dune, the one work he himself has sort of disowned. Even parts of Wild at Heart still get me every time. He's one of the greatest directors in the history of cinema. And this is some of his very best work. Mulholland Dr. is neither the "good save" repurposing of a failed series nor the reductive puzzle film some people seem to want to make it out to be. It's an existential horror film about identity in the mode of Persona, a cautionary tale about Hollywood that's equally indebted to Sunset Boulevard and a full flowering of the obsession with multiple interpenetrating realities (one that takes on even greater dimension in Inland Empire) that Lynch began exploring in his earlier films. It's so beautiful, powerful, dark and genuinely frightening that I have to be careful about how often and under what circumstances I screen it. Whereas, as much as I love and admire it, too, I can watch a film like Blue Velvet anytime.

[domino harvey]

Why is it reductive to see Mulholland Dr as a puzzle film? It objectively is one, there's not a small cadre of "some" viewers considering it so. It offers more than that, I agree, but still

[warren oates]

That view generally ignores the extent to which, for Lynch, in this film and a number of others, there's not really a single referent "reality" for which one can solve.

[domino harvey]

That view generally ignores the extent to which, for Lynch, in this film and a number of others, there's not really a single referent "reality" for which one can solve.

That's true for many of the best puzzles films though-- I don't think there's any one satisfying "answer" for L'Annulaire or Isabel either (though I'd argue Mulholland Dr offers a fairly clear explanation, one well-disseminated online since its release)

[colinr0380]

(though I'd argue Mulholland Dr offers a fairly clear explanation, one well-disseminated online since its release)

That's the one where they all turn out to have been rabbits, right?

[domino harvey]

The one where Naomi Watts wakes up next to Suzanne Pleshette

[warren oates]

That view generally ignores the extent to which, for Lynch, in this film and a number of others, there's not really a single referent "reality" for which one can solve.

That's true for many of the best puzzle films though-- I don't think there's any one satisfying "answer" for L'Annulaire or Isabel either (though I'd argue Mulholland Dr offers a fairly clear explanation, one well-disseminated online since its release)

You might as well throw some Resnais films in there too. The titles you mention are much artier than the sorts of films I think more generally get pegged as puzzle films, thrillers with Nolanesque clockwork plotting and one true answer that's revealed in the end. To agree on what happens to Betty/Diane at the end of Mulholland Dr. is really just the beginning of a conversation about what's going on at any given moment in the film -- not the end, as it would be with any number of lesser puzzle narratives I'm not sure this one deserves to be grouped with. I get the impression that some people who don't appreciate this film get hung up on the seeming clarity with which any detail of the multiple realities is elucidated, missing the point that the world(s) he's showing us don't really work, ontologically, as either/or but more like both/and.

[smokes]

i think lost highway and inland empire are masterpieces, but this could be just due to taste. don't take my opinion to be gospel or even a negative stab at what criterion have done. mulholland drive was a bigger commercial success than those two films so my opinion is obviously a minority.

my favorite scenes in mulholland drive are with the cowboy
"well now, here's a man who just wants to get right down to it. kinda anxious to get to it are ya?"

[warren oates]

"who's driving this buggy? how many drivers does a buggy have?"

[Roscoe]

Well, as someone who disliked MULHOLLAND DR's empty hall of mirrors puzzle games on sight when the film was first released, I can't say I'm all that enthused to see this get a Criterion release. I mean, it's certainly prettily made, and I liked the Club scene well enough, but I just couldn't work up any particular interest in the film's ever-so-carefully-set-up elusiveness -- the mysteries could just stay unsolved for all I care. And the blatant Pale Cowboy scene felt like a leftover from a TWIN PEAKS episode, man oh man.

I went on at some length about this film at the old MUBI site. Sorry for my first post to be a comparatively negative one, not looking to troll, honestly. At least we're getting KWAIDAN that same month, for me at least an essential OMFG Gotta Have It NOW release.

[warren oates]

I should have just waited for somebody like Roscoe to post and been like: "See, that glib dismissiveness is exactly what I'm talking about. Q.E.D. I rest my case." But, nah, it's too late for that now.