Getting into “Twin Peaks” in the nineties hipped me to the
idea that television could be cinematic, experimental, genuinely scary, and
uncomfortably challenging. I tried to sate my yen for such shows with things
like “Northern Exposure” and “The X-Files”, but nothing came close to
recapturing that air of dreamy creepiness and creeping dreaminess unique to “Twin
Peaks”. So when I read that David Lynch would finally be returning to the
little screen with a new show called “Mulholland Dr.” for ABC in 1999, I was
thrilled. Unfortunately, after seeing Lynch’s pilot, the confounded ninnies at
the network passed on it in favor of contemporary classics like “Oh, Grow Up”
and “Odd Man Out”. Though heartbroken, Lynch has never been a guy who allows a
good idea to go to waste. He reclaimed his 90-minute pilot, shot a new ending
for it, and released it theatrically in 2001, thus cobbling together the best
feature film of a decade that had barely begun.
(Spoilers Ahead, so
you may want to skip to the next bolded heading.)
As far as I’m concerned, a truly great film transports the
viewer in ways that transcend mere issues of plot mechanics, it reveals
something never before seen, something that conjures a completely realized
world in which the viewer may dwell for the duration of the film. With the
possible exception of Stanley Kubrick, no filmmaker ever did this better than
David Lynch does. In Mulholland Dr.,
that world is ostensibly Hollywood, but as the film unfolds, we come to learn
that the real landscape is a psychological one (which is the case in most of
Lynch’s films). Naïve, beautiful ingénue Betty (Naomi Watts) has traveled from
Ontario to L.A. to make it big in the movies. When she meets sexy but damaged
amnesiac Rita (Laura Elena Harring), Betty discovers that delving into a
real-life mystery (Who is Rita? Where did she come from? Why is her purse full
of cash and a mysterious blue key?) and striking up a romantic relationship
with her new friend is more rewarding and exciting than any role in a movie.
As the T.V. pilot portion of Mulholland Dr. reaches its conclusion, Betty’s concept of reality
crumbles, her true self emerges, and it ain’t pretty. The transformation of
sweet Betty into seething Diane Selwyn halfway through Mulholland Dr. is utterly devastating. Part of this power derives
from Lynch’s direction and script, but a great deal of the credit must also go
to Naomi Watts. When I first saw Mulholland
Dr., I thought, “Gee, she’s cute, but she’s not a very good actress” as
Watts enters the film as the kind of two-dimensional “I’m gonna be a big star!”
rube one might see in a thirties musical. Then came the famed movie-audition
scene, which forced me to completely reevaluate that opinion. Lynch obviously
intended the revelation that goofy Betty is actually a brilliant actress to be
a shock, but that surprise would have completely fallen flat had Watts not been
able to shift gears so radically while remaining true to the character she’d
already established. I would say that Watts gives the performance of the decade
in Mulholland Dr. if that didn’t completely
underestimate what she actually accomplishes in the picture; it’s the finest
acting I’ve ever seen.
As well as a film that houses one of the cinema’s most
fascinating plot twists and the cinema’s greatest acting feat, Mulholland Dr. is also a trove of
wonderful, unforgettable individual scenes: Adam Kesher’s unnerving encounter
with a buggy-ridin’ cow poke with an aversion to smart alecs; the scene in
which he gives his wife’s jewels a bath in a can of pink paint, which leads to
fisticuffs with Billy Ray Cyrus; Betty’s exchange with a meddling medium; a
thug’s increasingly disastrous attempt to pull off the theft of an address
book; a perky starlet’s lip-syncing of “I’ve Told Every little Star”; a
songbird’s annihilating a capella rendition
of Roy Orbison’s “Crying” at a surreal nightclub. Lynch also crafts several of
the most unexpectedly frightening sequences in film, as when a man recounts a
nightmare to a friend only to live the nightmare while awake, Betty and Rita’s
discovery of a rotting corpse in a bungalow, and a feverish confrontation
between Diane and a pair of old folks at the film’s climax. For its rich
atmosphere, magnificent acting, mesmerizing music, and provocative twists— its
eroticism, humor, scariness, humanity, and epic structure—Mulholland Dr. gets my vote for the greatest film of the
twenty-first century thus far.
(Now entering a
spoiler-free zone.)
I’m not the only one who holds this opinion, and Mulholland Dr.’s blu-ray debut has been
highly anticipated for years. That anticipation just got higher when rumors
that the Criterion Collection would be handling the film’s U.S. hi-def release
started circulating several years ago. Now, those rumors have become reality,
and film fans are being treated to an absolutely gorgeous transfer of what
could be Lynch’s final work shot on celluloid. Mulholland Dr. is probably Lynch’s most colorful and textural film
since Blue Velvet, and those elements
look sumptuous on Criterion’s blu-ray, while the celluloid grain remains intact.
Extras are dominated by contemporary interviews. We get
Lynch and Watts sitting together to discuss the project’s TV origins (and Lynch
confirms that Mulholland Dr. did,
indeed, begin life as a “Twin Peaks” spin-off), the casting of Ann Miller, and
the harrowing shooting of Watt’s masturbation scene and the audition scene that
made her a star. Composer Angelo Badalamenti’s interview is just as
illuminating, as he discusses his early musical and career experiences before
getting to working with Lynch, being cast in a minor role in Mulholland Dr., and being permanently
banned from ever acting for Lynch again! Watts, Laura Harring, Justin Theroux,
and casting director Johanna Ray share an interview featurette largely devoted
to the casting process. Theroux's explanation of how he became a human idiot
board for Monty Montgomery is the highlight of this one. In the final interview
featurette, production designer Jack Fisk and cinematographer Peter Deming talk
about the look of the film, the terrifying scene behind Winkie’s Diner, and how
the pilot was expanded into a feature film.
There are also 26 minutes of on-set footage, which is an unedited
version of a six-minute extra on the old Japanese edition of the DVD, and a
brief deleted scene that shows a bit more of Robert Forster’s cop character so
briefly glanced in theatrical cut. It isn’t a great scene, but it is of some
historical importance since it is the only scene from the TV pilot that Lynch
cut from the feature. Rumor has it we may be seeing Forster play a cop for
David Lynch again soon since he was the director’s original choice to play
Sheriff Truman on “Twin Peaks” and Michael Ontkean will not be reprising that
TV role. While we wait another year or two for “Peaks” to return, we Lynch fans
can fill our time by diving into Criterion’s dreamy new edition of Mulholland Dr. I’ll eat my hat if
there’s a better home video release than this one in 2015.
