For a story as complex as David Lynch's Mulholland Drive, there is always the simple source material to use as a launch pad for further analysis. What we see in this film amid the myriad of dreamscapes and surreal moments is a traditional tale of a naive girl looking to make it big in Hollywood as an actor. From here, we can attempt to interpret some definitive thematic elements buried within the film. Lynch uses the inherent characteristic of film, its illusory nature of still images, as an approach to this conventional tale, expanding to the related aspects of creating fantasies and facades. Here, I will observe Lynch's use of the facade, the art of acting, as my vehicle of exploration, since it is the application of being someone else that perplexes the main character, Diane (even getting the names right is important as you will see, this is not Betty), so much that it divulges her into an inescapable nightmare.
There are a few essential plot points to bring into the foreground because they are crucial into understanding why the film unravels the way it does. First note that Camilla develops amnesia due to the car accident, losing any trace of identity, so she must construct one quickly when she is found out by Betty, which is importantly Rita from the film Gilda (who was a femme fatale in the film noir, hinting at the destructive relationship towards Diane). The next point to note is Betty, who is introduced in such contrast compared to Rita, stepping out of the airport as the warm sun lights up her excited face. At story's end, you will see how much of an act this is. For now, we see that Betty wants to make it big in Hollywood and, conveniently, has an audition set up already because of her aunt's connections. The last note to point out is the initial exchange between Rita and Betty. Betty suspects that Rita is a friend of her aunts, which is clarified quickly. Nevertheless, Betty meets Camilla acting as Rita and a, for a brief moment, a friend of the aunt.
A fragmentation of identity; a search for a facade.
During the first part of the film, Betty can be said to take on a couple of roles. One role is obviously the one in which she is auditioning for. Consider the quietly intense scene where it begins, unbeknownst to us, with Betty and Rita reciting the lines of that same role. The lines spoken echo the love relationship yet to blossom and the coldness it brings along with it. When Betty does finally audition, she must completely remove herself as Betty and become the lady in the script in order to get the part. Of course, that is what you need to do in any audition, but in the context of the film it serves as another identity Betty assumes. The other role, more of a stretch, is the role of a detective (in the vein of the film noir, once again) as she and Rita try to find out the identity of Rita. I say this a role because she must detach herself from really acting (she leaves the set in one scene to be with Rita) and assume the role in order to uncover the identity of Rita.
The pivotal moment of the film, the span of time between discover the grotesque corpse in "Diane's" apartment and the performance in Club Silencio, visualizes a complex dynamism between the two characters and the build up and disintegration of the facade. When Rita breaks down and cuts her hair, wearing a wig similar to Betty's hair, we start to to see a gradual coagulation of character between Rita and Betty. More than the love scene earlier, this coagulation flourishes while they spectated the performance in Club Silencio, which showcase an eerie and tragic exercise in illusion. Again, this can mean both the fantasy manufacturing of Hollywood as a whole or, more personally, the facade an actor must construct to play a role and wrap themselves in a new identity. They hold hands tightly and bring themselves closer to each other, especially after Betty convulses, almost as if she is being exorcised of one entity inside of her to be replace by another, Diane. At the same time, the tears of Rita seem to hint at the release of her facade. This anxious-ridden crescendo shifts into a abruptly quiet climax that inverts the story as a whole and reveals a total transformation of characters.
This collage of transfiguration can be observed, analytically, as an 'X'. What do I mean by that? Well, if we graph the the process of identity changes throughout the film, we can see this occurance:
Note that, in a more complete graph, everything before the point of contact is fantasy/dream and everything after is reality. One could also say the same thing between the left path and the right path where Betty is the reality of Camilla and Rita is the reality of Diane. In terms of the conventional film plot, Rita starts out as 'the nobody' but ends up as 'the somebody' in Camilla and vice versa for Betty/Diane. The facade is shattered forever, there is no more acting Diane can do to pretend and assume another identity; her identity is the tragic figure it is. Note the realization of Camilla using Diane for sexual satisfaction, another role she plays in spite of Diane's well-being. In the end, the only road Diane could take it the one to end all realities through suicide. Acting can transport an individual from their state of actuality into another that lives in another universe, parallel or perpendicular. Diane tried to incubate herself in layers that detached herself from herself as well as detached Camilla from Camilla to create Rita.
Diane and Camilla are not the only characters that transform. This thematic element can even be applied to the most subtle of characters, like the director's wife. In a case of he extra love affair, you could apply the same 'acting' treatment to her role. Or even, again, a stretch, the role of the hitman, acting as the friend of the guy he then kills in a darkly amusing slapstick of murders.
The power that draws viewers to a character in film is the belief of emotions through acting as if you are not acting, but being (or reacting, Jimmy Stewarts methodology). This is then hinged upon the belief of the actor's absorption of the reality they now accept as real. Thus, one can fully create another identity. It is a fortified illusion of illusions, cinema's articulation of a piece-wise reality into a continuous and moving image. Lynch uses the mechanism of acting as a way to visualize a loss of innocence and self and its relation to a loss of and grasp to reality. Despite the graph I presented, the film runs through this presentation in a manner far more complicated. Lynch brilliant litters the fantasy part of the film with fragments of the harsh reality, essentially the 'clues' to the detective case (the rotting corpse, Diane, the key, etc.). There is a sort of quantum chaos that Lynch plays with through genre inversions and tone shifts that keep the viewer compelled to try to contemplate an absurd depiction. Mulholland Drive is an American cinema tragedy Lynch is honest with. Take note of the scene where the director views the candidates for the lead role in his film. It seems saturated in 50s lore and innocence with the slow pans of the singers and their impossibly ideal figures. Lynch looks at American cinema past to craft a film that deconstructs such illusions presented. The allure of become a movie star has consequences and Lynch exposes such darkness among the glamour.
There's more to be said about this film, honestly. If you want to understand more, might I suggest the 1939 film, The Women? This almost random recommendation seems fitting to end this piece.
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