[ID-ea]

Heureka! Why didn't we think about it?

The Winkie's scene where Diane apparently orders a hitman to kill Camilla is not a subsequent scene to the dinner party "humiliation", it's a flashback in Diane's mind during the dinner. Remember Adam is interrupted just before he can say what he and Camilla are going to do.

It was Diane who paid the hitman to scare Bob Brooker to cast Camilla in the lead role in the Sylvia North Story. That's why the scene at Ryan's appear in Diane's dream (first part) as it does. That's why no murder is mentioned.

At the dinner Diane thinks in flashback about what she did for Camilla for fear of infidelity.

So the first part (rather 2/3) is a dream with Diane, except the beginning when she lies down on the pillow to sleep.

Why does Diane then kill herself ? Is Camilla leaving Diane for Adam or has Camilla been killed in an accident ?? I think the jealousy is imagined, cf. my thread. The appearance of the detectives and the fact that Diane's no 12-neighbour says "it's been 3 weeks" and the contents of her dream all point to an accident, a car accident - on Mulholland Drive, which is why this is the title of the movie. Maybe Camilla is really missing from the accident scene and the neighbour is just indirectly telling Diane to give up any hope. That would explain Diane saying "you've come back".

And this is why MD is dedicated to Jennifer Syme who died likewise.

[HarryTuttle]

hey i like this story

[ID-ea]

Maybe Diane killed herself, because she from her wrongful interpretation of her own cut and interrupted flashbacks assumed that SHE had ordered Camilla killed, which she of course hadn't.

She sits on the couch and thinks for a while, looking at the blue keys, before the elderly couple manage to creep under the door.

So the cut flashbacks are appearing to Diane in Diane's own mind, not just as a dirty trick Lynch's is pulling on us.

Otherwise it's difficult to explain that the elderly couple from the dream materialise to Diane and drives her to suicide.

[unc84steve]

Originally posted by ID-ea
Heureka! Why didn't we think about it?

The Winkie's scene where Diane apparently orders a hitman to kill Camilla is not a subsequent scene to the dinner party "humiliation", it's a flashback in Diane's mind during the dinner. Remember Adam is interrupted just before he can say what he and Camilla are going to do.

It was Diane who paid the hitman to scare Bob Brooker to cast Camilla in the lead role in the Sylvia North Story. That's why the scene at Ryan's appear in Diane's dream (first part) as it does. That's why no murder is mentioned.

At the dinner Diane thinks in flashback about what she did for Camilla for fear of infidelity.

So the first part (rather 2/3) is a dream with Diane, except the beginning when she lies down on the pillow to sleep.

Why does Diane then kill herself ? Is Camilla leaving Diane for Adam or has Camilla been killed in an accident ?? I think the jealousy is imagined, cf. my thread. The appearance of the detectives and the fact that Diane's no 12-neighbour says "it's been 3 weeks" and the contents of her dream all point to an accident, a car accident - on Mulholland Drive, which is why this is the title of the movie. Maybe Camilla is really missing from the accident scene and the neighbour is just indirectly telling Diane to give up any hope. That would explain Diane saying "you've come back".

And this is why MD is dedicated to Jennifer Syme who died likewise.

I like this interpretation a lot!

I'm not saying it's the only one--but it fits in with Betty as a selfless lover for "Rita" the "first 2/3" story.

It also fits in with the David Lynch clue #8 "Did talent alone help Camilla?" by not giving the obvious answer of "no, she slept with the director."

BTW, I just got/saw the Blue Velvet DVD and am reading the Lynch on Lynch book. One interesting fact is that Isabella Rossellini mentions a good friend named Camilla as she discusses how she was cast in Blue Velvet.

[HarryTuttle]

if Camilla is dead, i dont think it is because of Diane directly. she doesnt feel directly responsible, she looks to me like she feels undurectly responsible, like if she havent done the right thing that could have saved her (thus why she sit and think hard, and replay the last moments with her).

the car accident is too much literal to be taken seriously in the dream. maybe she is really just "missing" after something turned wrong, and everyone is looking for her. Diane imagines it is a car accident in her dream to make it concrete, to fill the gaps.

i think the Cowboy in the dream is the representation of the Joe in the dream, who seem to be quite friendly with her (trustful, faithful), and had Adam scared to force him to hire Camilla, like u said. that is why the line "this is the girl" is repeated by Diane-friendly characters, who defend her interests in the dream and infuence Adam.

the only thing that doesnt make sense is the 2 Camillas...
why the kiss at the party? is it a code/sign (? weird one) to signify to Diane everything is under control. But Diane wonders if she did good, and worries that all she started would goes bad, and turn on her...

[ID-ea]

HarryTuttle,

Everything fits.

Two Camillas?

In part 2, there is only one Camilla, the darkhaired. The person Camilla is kissing at the party is not named Camilla - that's only in part 1 (the dream) she has this name.

Car accident too literal?

Why is it too literal ? Syme was killed in a car accident, and cars play a big role in the dream, e.g. Adam crushing the frontwindow of one. Why would the detectives else come around without arresting Diane, if it wasn't "bad news" so to speak. But you're right, Camiliia could also just be missing, but I don't think so.

Kissing at the party?

It's all in Diane's imagination that they kiss like that. Maybe it's just a friendly kiss, but Diane herself distorts the impression out of jealousy. Nobody would kiss like that with Adam and Diane present.

[Griff_MR]

Originally posted by ID-ea
HarryTuttle,

In part 2, there is only one Camilla, the darkhaired. The person Camilla is kissing at the party is not named Camilla - that's only in part 1 (the dream) she has this name.

Kissing at the party?

It's all in Diane's imagination that they kiss like that. Maybe it's just a friendly kiss, but Diane herself distorts the impression out of jealousy. Nobody would kiss like that with Adam and Diane present.

ID-ea,
I think that the reading (at the start of this thread- that the scene at winkies is a flashback) you propose is persuasive.
unc84steve says he likes it but thinks it's "not the only one".

I would add to that the fact there are problems with this idea.
Camilla doesn't originally look like camilla, she is blonde in the photo resume(I'm pretty sure it's not Betty, I at one point thought it was the Wink'y waitress 'Diane') Anyway- there are more examples but you 'cover' them by making the sweeping statement that the whole movie is a dream before this, last 2/3rds where the blonde is 'Diane' and the burnette 'Camilla'.

First then, I would say: the film undermines this 'dream' reading by having the hallucinations (?) of Diane on her deathbed. And most espcially by framing this 'second chapter' with the final appearance of club silencio. The film, in this way places both chapters within the same sphere of ontological status. In other words, the same status of being; if the first 'chapter' *is* a dream, the film positions the second chapter as, if not equally a dream, then comparablly dreamlike (iow- even if the first part is a dream dn the second isn't, the film wants to question the rigid ontological compartmentalisation that makes normative distinctions such as that between 'dreams' and 'reality')

Second- Since you will probably conveniently say something like 'oh, the hallucinations and club silencio are dreams too but all the rest of chapte 2 isn't'. This is the same as you've done by saying that the kiss is imagined- because it won't fit nto the rest of your theory. I would respond: how boring is it to try and fix a film like Mulholland Drive in some kind of literal 'grounding'. I wrote a whole response to this way of reading films in an earlier thread of yours but noticed afterward that you'd since abandoned it in favour of this-- have another look at 'Did Diane Imagine Camilla's Unfaithfulness'.

ps- the whole 2 chapter thing makes some sense to me whether one or either is a dream or not. Which wouldn't preclude me from saying that this reading is inflected (if not undermined) elsewhere by different occurences in the text.

[ctyankee]

Originally posted by ID-ea
Heureka! Why didn't we think about it?

The Winkie's scene where Diane apparently orders a hitman to kill Camilla is not a subsequent scene to the dinner party "humiliation", it's a flashback in Diane's mind during the dinner. Remember Adam is interrupted just before he can say what he and Camilla are going to do.

It was Diane who paid the hitman to scare Bob Brooker to cast Camilla in the lead role in the Sylvia North Story. That's why the scene at Ryan's appear in Diane's dream (first part) as it does. That's why no murder is mentioned.

At the dinner Diane thinks in flashback about what she did for Camilla for fear of infidelity.

So the first part (rather 2/3) is a dream with Diane, except the beginning when she lies down on the pillow to sleep.

Very interesting idea!

Assume for the moment that the party is a cast "wrap-up" party. The beauty of this is that Adam and Camilla might just be announcing that they are going to work together on another film.

You can then look at the scene in the convertible as one of the scenes from the new movie. Keep in mind that for all we know the Sylvia North Story/Bob Brooker film could have been a couple pictures before.

Griff_MR does make a valid point. We need to look at the upside and downside of the idea.

Downside. We need to believe that DL was quite deceptive with us. I don't think that noises tend to put people into flashbacks but to take them out of the daydream. DL shows Diane turning to react to the broken china at the party and we then see her turn her head to react to it in the diner (both places). But we don't hear crash, crash - we hear one crash. This would be very deceptive and while I know DL wants to put on a good mystery - that would seem to cross the line.

We would then have to believe that Diane is capable of paying money to see that some mobster will see that Camilla will be named the star of a movie, yet won't pay the money to see herself as the star? That's a problem.

Creative thinking .. nonetheless and (of course) if you choose to make the film (all dream) all things are possible.

As far as Camilla being a blonde in the picture when the mobsters meet Adam keep in mind that that would be a dream and not the Bob Brooker film - therefore not a problem that I can see.

[unc84steve]

Originally posted by unc84steve
I like this interpretation a lot!

I'm not saying it's the only one--but it fits in with Betty as a selfless lover for "Rita" the "first 2/3" story.

It also fits in with the David Lynch clue #8 "Did talent alone help Camilla?" by not giving the obvious answer of "no, she slept with the director."

BTW, I just got/saw the Blue Velvet DVD and am reading the Lynch on Lynch book. One interesting fact is that Isabella Rossellini mentions a good friend named Camilla as she discusses how she was cast in Blue Velvet.

Okay, here's what Isabella Rossellini says on the Blue Velvet DVD bonus feature "The Mysteries of Love."

She says that David Lynch was in New York trying to cast the Blue Velvet. Dorothy Valens role. They both were dining at the same restaurant separately with friends who knew each other. Isabella Rossellini's friend Camilla brought her over to make the introduction and they ate together.

David Lynch talked to Isabella about getting Helen Mirren to read for the role because they had just completed White Knights together. She said she didn't know Helen that well.

A few days later, David thought about having Isabella herself read for the role. He then was very happy she did.

[simon-piman]

Sure, it's a great idea, but it's totally implausible.
Who would ever hope to be succeed getting a director to cast some unknown actress in a project by threats from some unkempt thug.

If this was the core idea behind Diane's situation, then this film would be junk. And it isn't.
It would reveal Diane as someone who is just stupid (and the scriptwriter). There is something much darker here - a soul in the balance. The murder isn't mentioned because it is unmentionable.

"Something bad is happening" - not something stupid.

What relevance does the key arrangement have in this scenario? And the "Don't show me this f**king thing" remark? If nobody is going to get killed, why all the paranoia?

PS. Camilla was neither in a car accident nor shot in a bedroom. Why would the killer tell Diane what he was going to do to Camilla? She might give it away to the police - then trouble for him. Less she knows the better. These possible consequences are all her imaginings - just like her mind also suggests the killer's blue van as being a sinister black hole. "The girl is missing!!!"
We shouldn't expect Camilla's fate to be what we see in Diane's dream, because the dream is her imagined version.

[ID-ea]

Originally posted by simon-piman
Sure, it's a great idea, but it's totally implausible.
Who would ever hope to be succeed getting a director to cast some unknown actress in a project by threats from some unkempt thug.

If this was the core idea behind Diane's situation, then this film would be junk. And it isn't.
It would reveal Diane as someone who is just stupid (and the scriptwriter). There is something much darker here - a soul in the balance. The murder isn't mentioned because it is unmentionable.

"Something bad is happening" - not something stupid.

What relevance does the key arrangement have in this scenario? And the "Don't show me this f**king thing" remark? If nobody is going to get killed, why all the paranoia?

PS. Camilla was neither in a car accident nor shot in a bedroom. Why would the killer tell Diane what he was going to do to Camilla? She might give it away to the police - then trouble for him. Less she knows the better. These possible consequences are all her imaginings - just like her mind also suggests the killer's blue van as being a sinister black hole. "The girl is missing!!!"
We shouldn't expect Camilla's fate to be what we see in Diane's dream, because the dream is her imagined version.

1. Who would ever hope ....?

Well, the mobster that got the blonde Camilla Rhodes into Adam's 50'ies movie did succeed, though it is Diane's dream ...

2. Movie junk ...

Lynch admits in Lynch on Lynch several places that once you solve the mystery the thrill is gone. That's it - it's plain and simple and you just can't accept it. (Sorry, no offence)

3. Diane stupid ...

You're right, she's in love over her head. Stupid girl. (Irony intended)

[Griff_MR]

Originally posted by ID-ea


Lynch admits in Lynch on Lynch several places that once you solve the mystery the thrill is gone. That's it - it's plain and simple and you just can't accept it. (Sorry, no offence)

Maybe it's because I accept deconstructionist premises but frankly really just want to scream everytime someone wants to make their argument apear as the film-maker's; for that matter I disagree with the idea that if we could identify the film-maker's own reading of their work it would matter.

The work is out of the hands of the auteur at the moment of ennunciation. This doesn't mean the author didn't neccesarily have a clear intention for his work but we can never arrive at it in it's purest form. Even if we could, the nature of any language or semiotic system more generally (film is at once, both of these simultaneously and each respectively).

Cinema is like dreaming- the film-maker is expressing, ot the audience and, most especially, themself. But dreams are expressions of repressed material and symbols must hide their true meaning. Yet once something is symboized, it can never be quite the intention (the 'signified') lying behind it, because symbols escape themselves. They become lost in the infinite dimension of connotative meaning. Once Lynch chose a blue key to represent whatever signified it was meant to, the connotative relationship of the signifier 'blue key' to other signifiers forever strips it f its essential relationship with its signified.

[ID-ea]

Griff_MR,

Basically, I think you're wrong. When it comes to auteurs, you're no doubt wrong.

Hitchcock's The Birds was all about the liberation from the mother, but at the same time a wonderful thriller. But the thing is, for me at least, I can't enjoy one without knowing the other. I feel emotionally abused. That's Me.

[Griff_MR]

Originally posted by ID-ea
Griff_MR,

Basically, I think you're wrong. When it comes to auteurs, you're no doubt wrong.

I'd appreciate it f you'd provide an argument to back up your opinions rather than smply saying 'you're wrong'

Hitchcock's The Birds was all about the liberation from the mother

Okay, well I wrote a long response to this and then *****ed up and wiped it so this is going to be disapointing but I still feel I must respond.
First of all, let me use your own example- The Birds. I certainly don't discount the rage of the Mother (which sees the Bird atacks as manifestations of the Jessica Tandy Mother character) argument which is first made by Horowitz, M., 'The Birds- A Mother's Love' in
Wide Angle vol. 5 No. 1 (1982). It is an interesting and enlightening argument. But let's take a closer look at that film. I'm going to provisionally agree with that 'mother's rage' reading (which btw- hardly sees the film ending in such a way as to encurage an interpretation that Mitch is 'liberated' as you say) and I will expand on its connotative dimension in order to show that reading there are possiblities of reading more deeply even than that--

Here is an excerpt from an essay I wrote (wrote a direct response last time but as I say, it got erased and you know how annoying that can be):
This critique of modernity, its destruction of its own origin, its lack of purpose and resolution, is all the more overtly thematized in the postmodern narrative form. Alfred Hitchcock’s film The Birds belies neither resolution of, nor explanation of the origin of its conflict- the attack of humans by birds in the sleepy California town of Santa Rosa. Like in Kafka's The Trial the modern world, with its notion of a social contract (entailing law and order), and the technology which supports it, is highly implicated in the false notion of authentic textual opening and closure. The birds themselve operate on one level, as a trope of the natural and wild, caged (in the pet shop at the beginning of the film) by man and modernity. Counter to this are posed characters such as Mitch, the lawyer, and the various other human characters who (while equally caged by it) accept the yoke of modernity with its values of the social contract, law and an ordered (temporally) rational universe. The revenge of untamed nature upon modernity is foregrounded in the key attack at the center of Santa Rosa. It is a gas station which is centrally wounded in the attack,. All forms of transport are one by one destroyed by the birds: a horse and cart (nature tamed for the benefit of modernity), numerous cars, and significantly, the gas station, a trope of refined nature, ‘fuelling’ the entire movement of modernity. Indeed the equation of modernity with transport echoes the relationship of modernity with a certain form of temporality; an unimpeded, unending, movement forward.
Finally, The Birds occupy the whole screen as if nature has taken back the town. It is often said that The Birds ‘has no ending’ (no conclusion) and this is true, but only insofar as the attacks are not explained; in other words, only insofar as the origin of the attacks, and therein of the text itself, is not explained. I assert that this is a feature of the post-modern critique of temporality (the temporality of modernity, of the nation state) which is not yet realized in late-modern critiques such as that of Kafka. Apart from the fact that Kafka includes some form of conclusion with K.’s death (however overtly empty it is) the key feature it retains is a problem of resolution and a problem of origin each autonomous of the other (however interdependent). In contrast for Hitchcock’s text, the (absence of) conclusion is indistinct from the (absence of) origin. In this way, the absence of textual conclusion is indistinct from the absence of textual origin. [end excerpt]

This reading[ignorng the Kafka stuff- which was relevant in the wider context of the essay] positions the birds as very different from manifestations of Mother's rage, but I would assert that this reading exists as well.

Here's an excerpt from a different essay:
In Psycho, the ‘bar-pattern’ of parallel lines (as we have noted: a Hitchcock archetype since the earliest frames of The Lodger and overtly circled for the first time in Spellbound) is replete throughout the text. This trope opens and closes the film through the credits; it is carved into the steps of the stairs that lead to mother’s room and the banisters that surround them. In this way, the bar series will be a weapon, explosive and invasive, (perhaps possessed by the murderous mother); it ‘cages’ Lila Crane behind the banisters as Norman enters the house in the film’s second climax; it is also a figure of repetition, like the stabs with which Mother will penetrate (visibly) Marion and Arbogast (who references the arbor, the trees- in some way an original, where he like fossilized trees will be sent by Mother, through Norman: the bog).
However, Mother herself is menaced by the bar series. Lila and Sam, the figures who will bring mother (transparently) ‘to justice’ (in the token gesture of normative punishment which the psychiatrist’s ending offers the audience, and which is indefatigably robbed from them by Mother’s ‘last word’) are themselves associated with the pattern. The back of Sam’s truck, for instance, is scored with these lines. But Sam is empowered with the trope of the bar series to an extent which will leave mother for cold. The hardware store in which Sam works is introduced, a site of destruction of pests, one which the ‘good-guys’ pretend to assert as ‘painless’. Amongst other things, the store is filled with rakes. First of all, the rake is a kind of possible origin for the bar series, since it is the device which can create this pattern. It is simultaneously linked with images of blinding light, in a key arrangement where two rakes form a rising (setting?) sun pattern.
The sun will have been encountered elsewhere by Hitchcock’s ‘public’ as linked with, at once, empowering and dangerous knowledge; a citation which extends its grip back to Ancient Greek mythology and the god Apollo. Light is what both menaces and entertains London in Sabotage, and is also (in that text as elsewhere) revealed as the (banal) ‘origin’ of cinematic projection (or, perhaps, a reversal thereof). Knowledge and light are intertwined also, in The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) where a, kind of, ‘curse of Cassandra’ trope (a knowledge simultaneously doomed and empowering, and, interestingly, one bestowed by Apollo) is something both experienced by, as well as a tool/weapon of, the ‘Sun-Worshippers’. [end excerpt]

Let's relate this argument to the Birds, seing them as both manifestations of Mother's rage and therein, used by her to gouge eyes (remember farmer fawcet- the first victim who's eyes are gouged- and consider the film's setting, Bodega Bay, a cove which is figuratively gouged, itself). To look at To Catch a THief with it's own Mother figure who puts her cigarette out in a 'sunny-side-up' egg. Again this tropes both an eye (in it's resemblance) and the sun which is linked to two things- knowledge and light(which, to the Ancient greeks were intrinsically linked) which codes a link to cnematic projection (which will crop up in Sabotage as well).

Which is to say nothing of the interplay between 'attacks from above in North by Northwest and The Birds (a crop-duster innthe former and the birds themselves in the latter which both somehow destroy an oil tanker; a figure link to transportation and therein wheels (the sun, the eye, the cinematic reel).

The Point
I may sound like I'm jumping around across Hitchcock's canon. However this is exactly what the differance (as Derrida calls it) of the connotative signs and motifs (eg- Mother, the eye, the parallel lines etcetera) do themselves.
Hitchcock may be a very different film-maker t Lynch but this is still true of the latter. You can't read MD without LH (or any other Lynch film for that matter.
My purpose is merely to give the example of how trying to fgure out 'what happened' in the film (according to the auteur or whatever) reveals only one layer of meaning and there are always more. The text is infinite and I wouldn't have it any other way.

[Griff_MR]

Originally posted by bellabuddy
Griff_MR:

What if the "key" was symbolizing the key? That would make it more like a sacrament, right? A sacrament is a "sign" that doesn't diminish, in the way that you described. That's what I think that MD, and almost everything within MD IS, a symbol that somehow IS what it is SYMBOLIZING.

Interesting- I find it a connundrum with signs that they are in fact both 'sacraments' and eternally 'differing' (and no that's not mis-spelled) meaning. It's a bizarre paradox don't you think?
The key is most profoundly 'a key' because that in itself means nothing except through connotation. Know what I mean?

ps- I look forward to your response ID-ea in the spirit of a friendly exchange of ideas (a process I think can be even more interesting for its confrontational moments)

[simon-piman]

ID-ea quote:
-----------------------------------------
"1. Who would ever hope ....?

Well, the mobster that got the blonde Camilla Rhodes into Adam's 50'ies movie did succeed, though it is Diane's dream ...

2. Movie junk ...

Lynch admits in Lynch on Lynch several places that once you solve the mystery the thrill is gone. That's it - it's plain and simple and you just can't accept it. (Sorry, no offence)

3. Diane stupid ...

You're right, she's in love over her head. Stupid girl. (Irony intended)"
------------------------------------------
Why do you highlight my remarks then fail to refute them?

One might expect a qualitative difference between strategies devised in a dream, and those in the real world - even for a delusional person in a fictional work.

Of course Diane is stupid - anyone who expects anything good to come from bad actions is stupid.
This stupidity is most likely to find expression in the destruction of the object of her obsession and/or rivals. A response which is only too common. (Please refer to Lost Highway, the Robert Bardo/Rebecca Schaeffer case mentioned elsewhere in this forum, as well as the Ellicot City, Maryland murder which is in the news today. Also probably the papers tomorrow...and the day after...)
Lynch is interested in real human disfunction, not some Hollywood fantasy version.

If you think the mystery of the film is gone for me because of this fatuous Bob Brooker-Terror-Blackmail-Plot theory you are sadly mistaken.
I do have an understanding of the film which satisfies me pretty well; and I still have unanswered questions, but I can even accept that.
What is hard to accept is a theory which transforms an exquisitely plotted narrative into illogical juvenilia.

If you want to refute my objection to this theory, please answer the points about the killer's paranoia re. the photo being seen, and the key.
If nobody is going to get killed, this actress resume photo reaction is just nonsensical melodrama on his part.
Also Diane will hardly need to find a key, since she will know the Bob-Brooker-Blackmail farce would have been accomplished when Camilla gets the part.

The role of the mobsters and the blond Camilla in the dream are very logical and obvious:
The mobsters are Diane's attempt to offload her responsibility. The Mafia are America's favorite crime scapegoat. As well as being in love with Camilla R, she is jealous of Camilla R's professional success, and also thinks blond Camilla has stolen the role she wants as Camilla R's lover. Naturally, in her paranoid dream universe, both Camillas must have used unfair means to get ahead.
I'm sure pressure is sometimes exerted to obtain important roles, but I don't think a director would take scruffy Joe's threats very seriously; he'd probably be more afraid of his investors' objections and failure.


griff_MR quote:
-----------------------------------
"I disagree with the idea that if we could identify the film-maker's own reading of their work it would matter."
-----------------------------------

If this is the case why would anyone ever trouble themselves to analyse a piece of art.

[Griff_MR]

Originally posted by simon-piman
ID-ea quote:
griff_MR quote:
-----------------------------------
"I disagree with the idea that if we could identify the film-maker's own reading of their work it would matter."
-----------------------------------

If this is the case why would anyone ever trouble themselves to analyse a piece of art.

Because (as I thought I demonstrated) we can find meaning despite the absence of the auteur's intended message. What s more important is that if you think about it, the 'author's intention' s neither accesible nor desirable:
I quote myself (like Lynch's film, my earlier writings is no more accesible to me than to anyone else)

The work is out of the hands of the auteur at the moment of ennunciation. This doesn't mean the author didn't neccesarily have a clear intention for his work but we can never arrive at it in it's purest form. Even if we could, the nature of any language or semiotic system more generally (film is at once, both of these simultaneously and each respectively).

And I tried to demonstrate this through an example of a way of reading in my discussion of Hitch.

bellabuddy writes

The quote that ends each of my messages, "Living words come from silence. Dead words come from other words." I think describes my reluctance to "enter" certain types, or "ways" of discussion. I think that Lynch has accomplished so much more than other directors because he seeks out these "living words", and he doesn't allow the "lie" to creep in that his intellect can operate "independently"

Apart from his overuse of inverted commas
I think bellabuddy has gotten my point (finaly some1). And (unlike some) offered truthful premises about why he disagrees.
All I can say, bella is- show me a "living word", explain to me why it is one and I'll believe you. Otherwse, I guess I just don't believe in pure, unmediated concepts. All concepts are mediated at some level (language at the most common level, or, where this i perhaps less significant then some other form- like cinematic syntax in the case of film)- which does not stop us from finding interesting illuminating and 'true' meaning in those mediated concepts and images we encounter in the texts of the world

[simon-piman]

quote from griff-MR:
___________________________________
"Because (as I thought I demonstrated) we can find meaning despite the absence of the auteur's intended message. What s more important is that if you think about it, the 'author's intention' s neither accesible nor desirable:
I quote myself (like Lynch's film, my earlier writings is no more accesible to me than to anyone else)"
___________________________________

No doubt we are living in The Tower of Babel, but for practical purposes it is necessary to pretend that we have an approximate understanding of each other's ideas - whether artist or critic.
Otherwise nothing is accessible to anyone.

We need to ask ourselves: what is the purpose of art?
Just as an example - 'More than anything else in the world' I think it would be desirable to access the inspirational source of Rumi's poetry.

[Griff_MR]

Originally posted by simon-piman


No doubt we are living in The Tower of Babel, but )for practical purposes it is necessary to pretend that we have an approximate understanding of each other's ideas - whether artist or critic.
Otherwise nothing is accessible to anyone.

We need to ask ourselves: what is the purpose of art?
Just as an example - 'More than anything else in the world' I think it would be desirable to access the inspirational source of Rumi's poetry.

The problem simon, is this: how 'approximate' is it we need to be?
No, I'm afraid as much as I would like to agree with you (I would have, once) I think it's more useful to try and find a 'method', or at least another loose approach which operates without the need for an author's intention. Derrida has given us that (even if deconstruction is not a method).

ps- Hate to nitpick but the tower of babel was where all men *could* understand each other. When it came down was when (according to the bible) different languages were formed:
"And lo the city was called babel. And god made many languages and scattered them across the earth so that one man could not understand one another..."
pps- That's probably misquoted, I'm quoting from memory and not even memory of the bible but of the anime 'Patlabor' (great film

[Griff_MR]

Regarding Rumi:

here's a quote from him-
The wakened lover speaks directly to the beloved,
"You are my sky my spirit circles in,
the love inside love, the resurrection place

Let this window be your ear...



Isn't it interesting that, while Rumi mentions a lover who "speaks directly" to his beloved, he immediately notes a "window"- a device of mediation- between mouth and ear.
It seems Mr Rumi even agrees that "the message never arrives at its destination" (Derrida, in -I believe- The Post Card)

[simon-piman]

Rumi said a lot of things - it's like the Bible; we can all find something to make a point. But how much of it do we comprehend?

Here's a few lines which appear to contradict your example:

"Hear the wordless subtleties, and understand what catches not the understanding.
Inside the stonelike heart of man is a fire which burns up the veil, root and branch;
When the veil is burnt he discovers all the stories of Khidr and THE KNOWLEDGE OF US." (Not my caps)

I suspect that Rumi sometimes spoke from the point of view of one who is suffering from seperation, and sometimes from the point of view of one who has burnt the veil between the soul and its Beloved.

As for the Tower of Babel -I see it as a metaphor for the prison of Ego which seperates all of us. The tower is a symbol of what we humans build with our endless words - a useless edifice.
The languages in the story represent language itself and its imprecision. Words and intellectual methodology are simultaneously a crude means of communication and instruments of seperation.

[Griff_MR]

Originally posted by simon-piman
Rumi said a lot of things - it's like the Bible; we can all find something to make a point. But how much of it do we comprehend?

Here's a few lines which appear to contradict your example:

"Hear the wordless subtleties, and understand what catches not the understanding.
Inside the stonelike heart of man is a fire which burns up the veil, root and branch;
When the veil is burnt he discovers all the stories of Khidr and THE KNOWLEDGE OF US." (Not my caps)

I suspect that Rumi sometimes spoke from the point of view of one who is suffering from seperation, and sometimes from the point of view of one who has burnt the veil between the soul and its Beloved.

I think most of Rumi probably comes closer to disagreeing with the sort of metaphysic I've been pushing- I just wanted to show something which can be interpreted differently to show that even he can see the problems underlying such a faith in objective reality.

As for the Tower of Babel -I see it as a metaphor for the prison of Ego which seperates all of us. The tower is a symbol of what we humans build with our endless words - a useless edifice. The languages in the story represent language itself and its imprecision.

We might say that language is imprecise- but we might also say that language shapes the very fabric of existence: a linguistico-philosophical 'no' answer to the age old question- if a tree falls in the woods...etc.
...but back to MD

[ID-ea]

My original point was that we misinterpreted the sequence of events, because Lynch made os think that the hitman scene followed the dinner party humiliation when in fact it could have been the other way round. Further, he uses "Mountains Falling" to build an atmosphere of aggression during the dinner party scene. Furthermore, I questioned the humiliations of Diane being real or imagined out of jealousy. That's all!

I still think I am right. When I become very selfimportant, I even think Lynch deliberately made the sequence of events dubious, so that we could either imagine Diane as the killer or as not the killer depending on how we ourselves would react in her situation. Scary stuff, since everybody on www supposes she is the killer.

Why do you think Diane has all her stuff gathered in those big brown boxes. Maybe she is moving out after Camilla's death (corresponding to Aunt Ruth in the dream part) and the neighbour naturally wants her belonging. Diane goes through the stuff and finds the blue key that she got from the hitman years ago when she helped Camilla to her part in The Sylvia North Story. Remember Lynch's DVD advice no 8: Did talent alone help Camilla ? No, it didn't, Diane did.

Btw, dreams are one thing, hallucinations quite another. Jung unmentioned.

See you under the sycamore trees!

[HarryTuttle]

Originally posted by ID-ea
My original point was that we misinterpreted the sequence of events, because Lynch made os think that the hitman scene followed the dinner party humiliation when in fact it could have been the other way round. Further, he uses "Mountains Falling" to build an atmosphere of aggression during the dinner party scene. Furthermore, I questioned the humiliations of Diane being real or imagined out of jealousy. That's all!

I still think I am right. When I become very selfimportant, I even think Lynch deliberately made the sequence of events dubious, so that we could either imagine Diane as the killer or as not the killer depending on how we ourselves would react in her situation. Scary stuff, since everybody on www supposes she is the killer.

Why do you think Diane has all her stuff gathered in those big brown boxes. Maybe she is moving out after Camilla's death (corresponding to Aunt Ruth in the dream part) and the neighbour naturally wants her belonging. Diane goes through the stuff and finds the blue key that she got from the hitman years ago when she helped Camilla to her part in The Sylvia North Story. Remember Lynch's DVD advice no 8: Did talent alone help Camilla ? No, it didn't, Diane did.

Btw, dreams are one thing, hallucinations quite another. Jung unmentioned.

See you under the sycamore trees!

Diane ready to move out, rather than just moved in is a kool suggestion
she has accepted her fate. she doesnt dream of Hollywood anymore in the reality part, only Camilla and love is her concern! as opposed to the general feeling of the dream. this clash happens a the club silencio! ("What is felt at the club silencio?") when Betty shakes and later vanishes to leave the place (in the spotlights) to Rita.

Betty would never kill Camilla, even out of jealousy! this is ridiculous.
the movie tells me that Diane stepped down and pushed to favor Camilla despite of herself. She sacrified herself.

the movie is not a linear story to explain the murder of a woman (Camilla). but is as complex as life, and unexpected/unexplained events happen along the way that disturb the straight line of the main story. subplots may affect the main plot in such a way the planned ending will be changed.

[ID-ea]

Originally posted by HarryTuttle
the movie tells me that Diane stepped down and pushed to favor Camilla despite of herself. She sacrified herself.

Exactly, HarryTuttle, it's more correct than Diane knew at the time - a true tragedy.

A love story in the city of dreams!

[risingphoenix]

ok- this is my first post- and I see from the last post its been a long time, so I don't know if anyone will read this, but here goes:

I have seen this movie many times, and read alot of background stuff on it. I have an interpretation that's a little broader in scope than most- many may dismiss it outright, but this is what I think.

I think the whole movie up until the end is comprised of two dreams/fantasies. But I don't think the dreamer is Diane- its Ruth. Heres why:

I think the metaphor of the movie is the "Sylvia North Story." In real life, there never was such a movie, but in 1964 a movie called "Sylvia" was made about a 14 year old girl who is sexually abused by her stepfather, but then goes on to be a successful poet.

Now, Diane was abandoned by her parents and was raised by her grandparents, and very likely abused by her grandfather, and/or his friends. If Diane is actually Ruth, Ruth is one generation older, so it would be her father. And Ruth is portrayed in the film as being a successful actress. Which is interesting, because if we go with this theory, We see Ruth as "put together", but on the inside she's still a tormented, conflicted person on the edge of madness.

Many time when children go through repeated traumatic abuse, they will develop multiple personalities to try and protect themselves from the horrors of their reality. I don't think that Ruth outwardly was a split personality, but this movie shows a drawn out, frantic dream sequence in which her mind is trying to heal. I think in the dream she is both Diane and Camilla. Diane represents the struggle and torment she experienced growing up, and Camilla is the woman she wants to be.

That's why I don't think Diane was ordering a hit on Camilla- I think she was trying to help her. And in turn, Camilla seems to help her to a degree (we never see Ruth as a major star). However, in the end it all breaks down.

There are opinions of those who think the car crash, "a bad accident"- was really a metaphor for the abuse inflicted on Ruth. Since she is at heart Diane, she wants to spare Camilla having to experience it, because that's who she wants to be. Alas, Camilla does not escape unscathed. However, she has amnesia, which is what Ruth wants more than anything- to forget her past. This movie is a struggle in her brain to heal and reconcile her past.

I think the movie is split into two dreams, just like her two alter egos. (2's play a big part in this movie) The first dream is the one where she is hopeful and optimistic and confident for the future (and nurtures Camilla along as the "clean slate") but she can't overcome her inner demons. Because Ruth/Diane was abandoned by her parents, and abused and betrayed growing up- she can't escape it. Hence Camilla ultimately betraying her and leaving her for someone else. The dinner party is the ultimate crusher for Ruth/Diane, where her insecurities, lack of confidence and unresolved pain of betrayals get the best of her.

In the last scene, the two elderly people, whom I think represent the subversive evil of her past, rush in- she is overwhelmed and kills herself. I think the Club Silencio represents her necessity of quieting the torment in her head- of finding peace. That's why the magician says everything is an illusion- so she can try to pretend the pain of her past wasn't real. But in the end- she does find her "silencio"-through death. Just like Dan viewing the monster and the woman singing "crying."

As a footnote- I think the diner scene is cool- its called Winkies- I think its DL winking at us, the audience- the diner scene being a little "insight" into what the movie's about. And I think Dan is Diane. Dan collapses after being overwhelmed by facing the demon, and the woman singing in the club appears to collapse from overwhelming sadness.