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Mulholland Drive-Partie Ye

David Lynch considers himself outside of the Hollywood system despite working in Hollywood. His films transmit strangeness, darkness, and confusion through their surreal elements and unconventional style. In contrast, mainstream Hollywood films aim for mass appeal through adherence to conventions like specific lengths, focused narratives, visible editing, and use of stars and sound/music to ensure global understanding and profitability. Lynch intentionally employs an unintelligible style through raw emotional imagery, tension, and ambiguity rather than logical translation. This causes confusion for some viewers accustomed to Hollywood's simplicity, but Lynch aims to reflect the complexity and lack of sense in life rather than provide mere entertainment.

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115 views

Mulholland Drive-Partie Ye

David Lynch considers himself outside of the Hollywood system despite working in Hollywood. His films transmit strangeness, darkness, and confusion through their surreal elements and unconventional style. In contrast, mainstream Hollywood films aim for mass appeal through adherence to conventions like specific lengths, focused narratives, visible editing, and use of stars and sound/music to ensure global understanding and profitability. Lynch intentionally employs an unintelligible style through raw emotional imagery, tension, and ambiguity rather than logical translation. This causes confusion for some viewers accustomed to Hollywood's simplicity, but Lynch aims to reflect the complexity and lack of sense in life rather than provide mere entertainment.

Uploaded by

Tea512
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Mulholland Drive

Partie Ye CAO

Lynch's speciality VS Hollywood


Lynch's

"I'm not within the Hollywood system. I've never made a studio picture. I live in Hollywood and I

love Hollywood. But there is no such thing as the Hollywood system. It's always changing. And

I'm surprised that I've been so fortunate, that I keep getting to make films. But I'm not part of

the system."

-- David Lynch

Miller, Prarie. "Interview." in: NYRock. 2001. (English).

After a series of films, Lynch became a contemporary American representative of

non-mainstream films. His works transmit strangeness, darkness, confusion and black humor,

super-realistic effects.

But what are mainstream films? What is the difference between Lynch and Hollywood?

Generally speaking, Hollywood films have certain requirements:

1) specific length;

2) narrative story which focus on one or a few main characters (heroes, stars -) ;

3) with specific (mostly colorful saturated) photography requirements;

4) (invisible, less attention) for editing style;

5) a large use of sound and music.

These requirements serve the goal of Hollywood: Pursuit of interests. And when it wants to

make profits from worldwide, it must reduce the risk, it must make sure that the audiences from

all over the world can understand and appreciate the film. So it use stars, the special sound effect,

the high technology to attract the attention and a story that is understandable.

And I will show you that Lynch did sometimes its opposite: the unintelligibility. Some

people express their confusion after seeing Lynch's films, and some people even gave up watching.

I think there are two reasons for this "unintelligibility": Lynch does this "on purpose", that is to say,
he has his own film language; and we are too used to the logic of Hollywood films.

Some quotes that may help to illustrate my points of view.

1. "Most people have strange thoughts, but they rationalize them. David doesn't translate his

images logically, so they remain raw, emotional. Whenever I ask him where his ideas come from,

he says it's like fishing. He never knows what he's going to catch. "

Isabella Rossellini, as quoted in "Dark Lens on America" in The New York Times Magazine

(14 January 1990)

2. "Life is very, very complicated and so films should be allowed to be too."

As quoted in The Los Angeles Times (20 April 2003)

( Sometimes Hollywood films are very simples, that is not to say they are superficial. But indeed,

these films aim to provide entertainment, relax and fun to people, instead of deep reflection. On

contrast, Lynch's works often let people remain in a state of tension.)

3. "Being in darkness and confusion is interesting to me."

As quoted in Nightmares in Red, White and Blue: The Evolution of the American Horror Film

(2004) by Joseph Maddrey, p. 160

4. "It makes me uncomfortable to talk about meanings and things."

As quoted in My Love Affair with David Lynch and Peachy Like Nietzsche: Dark Clown Porn

Snuff for Terrorists and Gorefiends (2005) by Jason Rogers, p. 7

5. "I don't think that people accept the fact that life doesn't make sense. I think it makes people

terribly uncomfortable.It seems like religion and myth were invented against that, trying to make

sense out of it. "

As quoted in My Love Affair with David Lynch and Peachy Like Nietzsche: Dark

Clown Porn Snuff for Terrorists and Gorefiends (2005) by Jason Rogers, p. 7

6. "A film is its own thing and in an ideal world I think a film should be discovered knowing

nothing and nothing should be added to it and nothing should be subtracted from it. "

Scene by Scene interview BBC 2 (1999)

Even Lynch doesn't like being too much distorted and refused to give a meaning in his films,

his works cant avoided being interpreted from a range number of ways. There are too many

elements and I just want to show you my own way to interpret this confusion and strangeness in 2

aspects: technological aspects and psychological aspects in Mulholland Drive.


Technological aspects and psychological aspects in Mulholland Drive
1．T
Technological aspects
1) "Fetishism"
etishism"

Lynch likes using repeatedly some objets which all have certain meanings.

� Theatre

Theatre is one of David Lynch's favorite places. It combines true and magic, like a story in

another story, a dream in another dream.

� Blue box

Il works as a symbol. It is so mysterious that it seems it can help us to reveal the secret. After

Rita opened the blue box, we fall in the dark and the film changed into the part "reality".

2) Editing style

As mentioned before, Hollywood films have an unobvious editing way. But Lynch uses an

obvious way to create an abrupt effect. (Ex 1)

3) Zoom

Zoom doesn't correspond with our visual habits. Our eyes can change the visions, can focus

on something then blur the background, but our eyes can not zoom.(Ex 2)

2. Psychological aspects
Here I want to use the theory of Freud: identification. In the dream, Diane becomes Betty.

Betty can be considered as a virtual personality, she has the traits that she doesn't have in reality:

she is beautiful, she is quite successeful, capable and self-confident, etc.

These 2 extracts show Diana's position- active or passive in theirs relationships. (Ex 3)

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