Today I watched ** Mulholland Drive ** for the first time and I can see why it would be considered confusing. Even after a 2nd veiwing, including what I felt to be key parts, I am still perhaps only 75% sure what actually happened.
It made me remember other confusing movies, but I could only come up with a few off the top of my head.
The official world’s most confusing film is Last Year at Marienbad. Generally, European art-house cinema is more likely to be confusing than American films ( though Hunsecker has mentioned some notable exceptions and no doubt Cervaise can give us some more): films such as Day of Wrath or Innocence Unprotected. The most confusing are probably experimental films, those of Kenneth Anger, for example.
To most people “The Matrix” was confusing. I guess because some couldnt tell what was supposed to be real, from what was supposed to be virtual. It was one of those flicks where you have to watch a second time and say to yourself “ohhhh I get it now.” I’ve had to explain the plot of that movie several times to those that didn’t get it.
Incidentally I think that’s why some people didn’t like the movie. Or maybe they dont want to have to “think”, just be entertained.
I didn’t find The Forbidden Zone confusing at all. I thought it was pretty straight-forward. Of course they never explained why everyone walked around in their underwear, but that’s what they do in the other dimension. This is one of my favourite films. I wish they’d release it on DVD. Anyone up for an e-mail campaign?
I agree with the Mulholland Drive comments, although I don’t think there is any real explanation. Sometimes I think David Lynch doesn’t even know where he’s going with something. Regardless of the confusion, Mulholland Drive is an excellent film with some of the most memorable imagery I’ve ever seen. I guess it was supposed to be a television show. Damn that would have been good!
Saw Vanilla Sky. I didn’t find it confusing. I guessed the plot twist about 1/2 through the film (I got some of the details wrong, but the main idea was right).
It was apparently supposed to be a TV show pilot that never made it, so it was turned into a film (where they added the wierd final half hour).
But my opinion of it was:
Betty was Diane, and the entire thing was her life flashing before her eyes, up to the moment she kills herself (and after ordering her ex-lover murdered), Albeit with a wierd dreamlike twist. Dreams don’t make sense sometimes, so maybe that is it
Still haven’t figured out the deal with the guy behind Winkies yet.
But then again, it may not make any sense at all, and all theories are vain(Though I was thinking I need to take a class on symbolism to figure it out). But I like a challenge.
It makes slightly more sense upon reading the book.
The room was a human habitat for him to live in. The mutiple aging images of himself represents either his living the rest of his life in that room, or something being seriously wrong with space-time. The “Star-baby” is him evolving to a higher form of life, sort in keeping with nieztche’s “Beast to Man to Superman”.
Now I remember that. Even my mother, who loves Noir and has seem that film many more times then I have, doesn’t know exaclty what’s going on.
Well, I’m thinking more in the terms of keeping everything straight, because you have to think at what will happen even though it’s presented as it has happened. Can be hard on the brain to keep up with what is going on and what will happen simultainously.
And there are unresolved questions, like:
How much of what teddy said was truthful? He’s already so much as admitted that he manipulated lenny, can we be sure he wasn’t still doing so?
Yeah after seeing the film a few times and reading the book I got what 2001 was going for. I think the power of Kubrick is that it was equally good after I knew what it was trying to say.
Well, like 2001 this makes slightly more sense after reading the book. But not a whole lot more. The book still doesn’t explain who killed the driver and why (which seems important, it being the thing that gets the cops watching marlowe and brings the film into act 2)
David Lynch is always a little vague. Did you see “Eraserhead?” I have no idea what it’s about, and I’ve seen it a couple times. Sheesh! But I still like it!
Eraserhead? Oh Jesus, that movie is f*cked up! I feel like I have a fever when I watch that movie. I remember reading an analysis of that movie once, and feeling that it sort of made sense, but I’m not sure if it was correct. Like all things David Lynch, analysis becomes pointless after a while. The analysis said that it was a film about someone being thrust into parenthood without a choice, and the anger and confusion this can cause. Remember the dreams with the fetuses? It also said that the only happiness this man has is in a fantasy world with the woman in the radiator. Remember what she was doing while she sang?
HPL–Your summing up of Mulholland Dr. sounds right to me. That’s how I interpreted it after the first viewing, and by the time I’d seen it a few times there wasn’t a lot that didn’t make sense. As for the guy behind Winkie’s:
I think he was just another version of the dwarf: someone behind the wall who controls everything.