Photo by Jeremy Yap, via Unsplash.
by Selina Kromer-Anton
As a reflection of reality, cinema often straddles the boundaries between actuality and fantasy. Both a copy and critique of the human experience, film twists the familiar and returns it to viewers in altered form. As an example of this uncanny nature of cinema, Mulholland Drive serves to complicate the familiar in typical Lynchian style. Relying upon a dreamlike framework, the film consists of logical gaps which cause the viewer to interpret the driving forces behind the narrative over and over. Critically, this includes a style which lends an ambiguity about perspective to the film’s scenes. Lynch’s film consists of conventional camera shots, yet the perspective from which they originate remains unclear. This gives rise to a troubling possibility: do the images composing a film have ‘intentions’ beyond those of their director? As familiar camera work returns to cinema without evident ownership of perspective, the once comfortable viewing experience shifts to include uncanny undertones, in which images possess an odd autonomy. Likewise, Lynch incorporates sensations of uncanniness into the film in presenting a double-like phenomenon: when a duplicate exists, one must question the sovereignty of the original’s identity. One cannot attribute a perspective or selfhood to one character only. The filmic medium only amplifies this doubling as Mulholland Drive replicates reality in itself. As uncanniness riddles both the characters and viewers of the film, reality intrudes upon fantasy through form. As Mulholland Drive exhibits formal self-consciousness, the film engages in a form of philosophy bordering on independent thought. This causes assumptions regarding illusion and actuality to become unstable. Throughout Mulholland Drive, the filmic medium creates an uncanny tone; Lynch complicates the ownership of perspective as well as identity, ultimately blurring the distinction between reality and fantasy as film philosophizes on its own.
From the outset of the film, Lynch gives camera shots ambiguous perspectives to complicate notions of familiarity, thus hinting at the presence of autonomous desire in camera shots while creating a sense of uncanniness. Conventionally, one classifies a film’s images as belonging to one of two primary categories: a character’s subjective experience or the omniscient narrative. In assuming a scene connects to a character’s optical view or the greater narrative, the audience assigns ownership of perspective according to cinematic conventions. However, this framework does not always apply to Mulholland Drive. At times, camera shots lack a perspectival anchor. For example, the opening scenes of the film do not immediately attach themselves to a character’s view, nor do they exist merely as part of the film’s omniscient narrative. As this sequence depicts people dancing in pairs, Lynch’s stylistic choices do not attribute this view to anyone in particular. For one, Lynch does not introduce a character prior to this dancing scene. As a result, one fails to connect this sequence to an individual’s perception. Likewise, Lynch sets this scene against a solid purple backdrop, effectively eliminating the scene’s connection to the film’s objective narrative. As Lynch does not ground the dance in a physical setting, the viewer cannot consider it an omniscient shot belonging to the narrative itself. Seeing as this scene fulfills neither the criteria of a subjective nor an objective shot, the film troubles perspective. The viewer must acknowledge that neither a character nor the storyline itself possesses the opening sequence. Without a perspectival anchor to refer to for context, the viewer must interpret each image on its own. They must make sense of the image based on its content, not its connection to the film. It is at this point that some visual art scholars, such as W.J.T. Mitchell, propose that one “shift the location of desire to images themselves and ask what pictures want” (71). Rather than attempting to make sense of a camera shot without any perspective attached to it, one could consider the image as intending to make meaning on its own. While conventionally, one considers an image in a film to be sharing a message on behalf of a character or a director, Mitchell suggests that an image may have a sort of independent intention. Arguing that images are not just visual tools which convey meaning to a viewer, Mitchell moves beyond the effects of a picture to pinpoint its ‘will’: he shifts “from power to desire” (74). Not only do pictures do something, but they may want to do something. Critically, this ‘want’ of the image is not always that of the character, artist, or director for which it speaks (81). Of course, one cannot ignore that images contain symbols which are there for interpretation. A director often designs a camera shot aiming to evoke a certain sentiment in its viewer. Usually, someone intends for another to interpret an image. However, Mitchell argues that one must separate this role of an image from its own ‘desire’. In his view, “we need to ask what the picture wants in terms of lack” (77). He exemplifies this claim in analyzing an Uncle Sam recruiting poster for the U.S. army from World War I. The picture depicts a grey-haired man breaking the fourth wall as he points at the image’s viewer. As Mitchell outlines, the image contains exactly what it does not want— an elderly man incapable of fighting for his country (77). From this, one can deduce what the image does want: a young, patriotic man willing to partake in the war. While one may object to the idea of an image having wants (since it is not alive), Mitchell’s framework provides a way of making sense of an ambiguous image. One must simply “ask what the picture wants in terms of lack” (77). In other words, one can determine what the image ‘wants’ by pinpointing what it is missing. In applying this framework to Mulholland Drive‘s opening scene, one must wonder: what do these images want? Drawing on Mitchell’s approach, this question narrows to consider: what is missing from this scene? In this case, it is a perspectival anchor. Since the camera shots making up the dancing sequence do not connect to any one character, this connection is the very thing Mitchell would propose these images want. Likewise, the missing background indicates another potential desire of this scene’s images: a link to the film’s objective narrative. Since the opening of the film is set against a solid purple backdrop, the scene lacks connection to the film’s greater context. Following Mitchell’s logic, this lack of connection implies that these camera shots ‘want’ a connection to the film. These images desire a link either to Mulholland Drive‘s objective narrative or to a character’s subjective experience. While some may object that Lynch reveals this scene as belonging to Diane’s memory of a jitterbug contest— thus anchoring the opening to a character’s consciousness— this revelation only occurs near the end of the film. As such, the viewer cannot attribute the opening to a character for the majority of the narrative. Therefore, the sequence still troubles the ownership of perspective. In this sense, one may conclude that these camera shots possess a sort of desire of their own— they want a perspectival anchor to tie them to the film. As these camera shots fail to belong to a specific perspective, Lynch alters a conventional cinematic strategy to complicate familiarity. As the scene subverts the viewer’s expectations regarding a camera shot’s perspective, an uncanny tone begins to permeate the film. Just as Freud aims to “proceed beyond the equation ‘uncanny’ = ‘unfamiliar’” (221), Mulholland Drive evokes uncanny feelings not through the use of unfamiliar cinematic techniques, but in altering its use of conventional ones. As Lynch troubles the ownership of camera shots, he distorts a familiar cinematic tool. Images are no longer mere symbols of a character’s or director’s intentions; they seem to have ‘desires’ of their own. This stands to unnerve the viewer as it transforms a cinematic convention into a strategy that furthers perspectival ambiguity. This stylistic choice produces “that class of the frightening which leads back to what is known of old and long familiar” (220). While the camera shots align with familiar cinematic conventions, their ambiguous ownership causes the viewer to engage with them differently. They must wonder what the camera shots themselves ‘want’. The audience encounters camera work reminiscent of most cinema, yet without clearly assigned perspectives. Essentially, the familiar world of cinema returns in a strange form, thus sparking unease. The warping of familiarity creates an uncanny tone.
Extending this distortion of familiarity to Mulholland Drive‘s characters, Lynch builds an uncanny tone through the complication of identity, revealing cinema as a form of Freud’s doubling. As previously established, Mulholland Drive’s cinematic style causes doubt as to whom a camera shot belongs. This uncertainty of ownership then moves to encompass identity. At first, the viewer may confidently assert that both Betty and Rita possess unique identities. While Rita’s past self remains a mystery, there is no doubt as to whether her identity is exclusively hers. She merely needs to regain her memory to reclaim her selfhood. Yet as the film wavers between fantasy and reality, the clear connection between character and self begins to crumble. Specifically, the emergence of Diane and Camilla troubles the ownership of identity. As characters begin to resemble Betty and Rita, the viewer must face Freud’s “phenomenon of the ‘double’” (234). This phenomenon occurs throughout the Club Silencio sequence, as Diane and Betty’s emotions begin to interchange. As Rebekah del Rio’s performance shatters Diane’s delusions, her repressed heartbreak comes to the fore of the film. Betty embodies Diane’s emotional collapse in the form of tears and uncontrollable shaking. As a result, the viewer can no longer consider Betty’s identity entirely her own. This sparks suspicion regarding Freud’s “doubling, dividing and interchanging of the self [where there are] mental processes leaping from one of these characters to another—by what we should call telepathy—, so that the one possesses knowledge, feelings and experience in common with the other” (234). As Betty and Diane’s emotions blur, Lynch challenges the ownership of identity. Neither woman is distinct from her double. Similarly, the boundaries between characters and identity disintegrate as Rita adopts the physical appearance of Betty through the use of a blonde wig. As the Club Silencio scene captures Betty and Rita side by side, the wig facilitates a physical resemblance which troubles the independence of their identities. To put it simply, Rita becomes Betty’s double by going blonde. However, it is critical to note that Rita is merely a fantastical version of Camilla. As such, it is actually the already distorted Camilla who undergoes another transformation via the use of the wig. While Diane already envisions a malleable version of Camilla (Rita), her fantasy allows the wig to transform Rita into the even safer figure of Betty. Essentially, Diane distorts Camilla’s image twice. First, Camilla becomes Rita in Diane’s fantasy world. Then, Rita ‘becomes’ Betty by adopting her hair colour. It is in doubling the characters of her fantasy that Diane attempts to transfer Betty’s innocence and trust to her unwilling lover Camilla. While Diane recognizes that the sexual stakes at hand are not in her favour, she aims to reverse her fortunes in blurring the distinction not only between Camilla and Rita, but also Camilla and Betty. This transforms Camilla into a safer figure, one who would love Diane without question. As the wig proves that “we have characters who are to be considered identical because they look alike” (234) Rita/Camilla and Betty blend together: they resemble one another much like doubles do. As such, Lynch complicates the independent ownership of identity. The viewer must consider an identity within the film as belonging to numerous characters at once. Notably, this notion of the double extends to encompass cinema’s very medium. Essentially a sequence of pictures, a film is constantly presenting its viewers with split-second re-creations of the real world. Cinema duplicates reality. While strategies aiming to enhance viewer immersion give film the illusion of reality, the medium itself is simply a re-presentation of the real world. This is particularly striking in Mulholland Drive, as the Club Silencio sequence uses form to externalize the workings of cinema. By presenting a theatrical performance as a tape recording, this scene parallels Mulholland Drive in itself: both the scene and the film are imitating another reality. In this sense, Mulholland Drive does not allow its viewers to forget that they are engaging with a replica of reality. Rather, it draws attention to its medium through its formal self-consciousness, thus breaking the viewer’s immersion with the film. In externalizing its form, Mulholland Drive reminds its viewers of its own nature. The film does not disguise that it is a double; it demands that the viewer acknowledge its cinematic medium. Critically, understanding cinema as a double of reality in some ways animates it. Of course, an art form cannot actually be alive. Cinema simply uses visual tools to give a sequence of images the illusion of life. However, it is in treating cinema as a double of the real world that these images seem to come alive. Mitchell articulates this process in considering the possibility that images are “self-created automaton[s]” (73). In suggesting that images have ‘desires’ of their own, Mitchell argues that “pictures are things that have been marked with all the stigmata of personhood: they exhibit both physical and virtual bodies; they speak to us, sometimes literally, sometimes figuratively. They present, not just a surface, but a face that faces the beholder” (72). In highlighting the overlapping qualities between a person and a picture, Mitchell proposes that the latter functions much like the former. Both engage in some sort of dialogue with their viewers: a person may talk with another, while an image may convey a message its observers will internalize. Mitchell suggests that if one suspends their disbelief regarding animism, one could consider images “quasi-agents, [or] mock persons” (81). This framework proposes that images possess a certain life and autonomy resembling that of a human. This holds particular weight in the context of cinema: when a filmmaker places images in sequence, the figures within each image seem to come alive. This animation creates an illusion in which the image’s characters have the same level of agency as their actors. They appear to act of their own accord. In this sense, a film becomes an active entity mirroring the real world. For example, in Mulholland Drive, Betty and Diane become doubles of one another through Naomi Watts’ performance. Each camera shot including Betty or Diane captures doubling in action, since Watts’ performance produces two distinct selves from the same body. Her acting contributes to her re-presentation. Overall, these examples of intermixing identities, both between characters and worlds (one filmic and one real), reveal the presence of a double-like phenomenon in Mulholland Drive. This doubling ensures that an uncanny tone continues to characterize the film. Freud exemplifies this in stating that “the quality of uncanniness can only come from the fact of the ‘double’ being a creation dating back to a very early mental stage [. . . which now] has become a thing of terror” (236). Though Betty was once a comforting escape to Diane, she “has become a thing of terror” (236). While Diane originally sought refuge from her own insecurities by envisioning her ideal self (Betty), it is ultimately this self which shatters her fantasy. For Diane to fulfill her desires, she must distort the truth within her fantasy. As such, the characters of her fantasy must be malleable. However, as Betty realizes that she exists as a result of another’s imagination, she seems to begin behaving of her own accord. The distress she portrays forces Diane out of her fantasy, and exposes her dreams as an illusion. Therefore, Betty is not terrifying merely because she is Diane’s double, but because of what she represents. The fragility of Betty’s fabricated existence signifies the impossibility of Diane’s fantasy. Thus, Lynch integrates an uncanny tone into the film by turning Diane’s repressed hopes into her double. This double becomes everything she wants to be, yet is not. These repressed desires which fill the gap between the doubles— such as the cheery Betty and the unraveling Diane— cause the viewer to feel discomfort. As Lynch complicates the ownership of identity through doubling, a sense of uncanniness builds. An identity no longer belongs to one person only. Likewise, Mulholland Drive‘s form proves reminiscent of the phenomenon of the double. As the film recreates reality, it troubles the singularity of the original world.
As the medium of Mulholland Drive produces a sense of uncanniness, it is this tone which melds fantasy with reality, ultimately exposing cinema as capable of some level of independent thought. Overall, it is evident that ambiguous ownership of perspective and identity evoke uncanny feelings for Mulholland Drive’s viewers. Both of these cinematic strategies trouble notions of familiarity, drawing on Freud’s account of the uncanny, especially the return of the familiar in altered form and the phenomenon of the double to further an uncanny tone. Ultimately, it is this very uncanniness which serves to blur the boundaries between fantasy and reality. Specifically, as the Club Silencio sequence produces increasing sensations of discomfort within Betty and Rita, the viewer experiences similar confusion. At this point, the uncanny begins to drive the narrative by making the viewer doubt what is real. Just as Freud posits “that an uncanny effect is often and easily produced when the distinction between imagination and reality is effaced” (244), uncanniness overwhelms Mulholland Drive as Diane’s sanitized dream gives way to reveal reality. As the Club Silencio scene illustrates that “there is no band! It is all a tape recording,” Betty and Rita display signs of distress. The magician’s statements regarding the artificiality of the performance cause Betty to physically shudder, revealing how reality is encroaching upon Diane’s fantasy. The figments of Diane’s imagination begin to ‘gain consciousness.’ As Betty realizes she is a fantastical copy of Diane, her behaviour becomes riddled with uncanniness. As though overtaken by an external power, Betty’s uncontrollable shaking reveals the uncanniness she feels in recognizing that she is a product of Diane’s repressed struggles. Betty’s display of emotions then works to transfer uncanny sensations from the characters of the film to its viewers. Just as Betty perceives that she does not exist beyond the parameters of another’s mind, the viewer comes to understand that the film’s reality overlaps with fantasy. In this sense, the “tape recording” facilitating the Club Silencio performance serves as a metaphor for the construct of Diane’s imagination. Not only does this scene transfer uncanny feelings from its characters to its viewers, it also uses this uncanniness to trouble the border between reality and fantasy. In paralleling the film’s greater narrative, the Club Silencio sequence ultimately reveals that “it is an illusion”. On the one hand, this realization pertains to the illusory qualities of the film’s narrative: the majority of the film is a figment of Diane’s imagination. On the other hand, this sequence also reveals that cinema itself ‘is an illusion.’ As the Club Silencio sequence exhibits formal self-consciousness, it exposes cinema itself as imaginary. Reality intrudes as form. Seeing as a film is a copy of reality, it is deceptive in itself. As Mulholland Drive is a film, it engages in this cinematic deception. However, it draws explicit attention to its own illusory nature. Ultimately, this formal self-consciousness prompts some scholars to posit that cinema can engage in a sort of independent thought. Just as Mitchell highlights that we must “not confuse the desire of the picture with the desires of the artist, the beholder, or even the figures in the picture” (81), others expand this framework in separating the wants of a film from its director’s. Stephen Mulhall, a philosopher and main proponent of this separation, claims “that some films can be thought of as philosophizing” (279). Much like Mitchell believes one must distinguish the effects of an image from its ‘desires’, Mulhall proposes that one separate a film’s message from its own ‘thoughts’ (281). He argues that a film’s contributions to philosophy may deviate from the original intentions of the director. Of course, a film is not a living entity and thus cannot actually think. However, Mulhall suggests that in acknowledging its own nature, some films engage in a reflection akin to the act of philosophizing (281-282). Specifically, Mulhall outlines that “philosophizing can occur within any and every mode of human existence, insofar as those engaged in a particular form of human practical activity find themselves driven to question the nature of their own enterprise and the resources with which it is pursued, and to incorporate both the process and the product of this self-questioning into the practical activity from which it emerged” (292). In other words, philosophizing occurs within any human endeavour that reflects upon itself, and incorporates this self-reflection into the product of its activity. In applying this approach to cinema, a film is philosophizing if it questions its own medium, and presents this act of questioning within its storyline. Considering this criterion, one can assert that Mulholland Drive ‘philosophizes’ on its own. As the Club Silencio scene reveals, Mulholland Drive formally reflects on its own nature, and incorporates this awareness into its narrative. The tape recording of the band parallels the illusory nature of cinema, thus revealing how Mulholland Drive both “question[s] the nature of [its] own enterprise” and “incorporate[s] both the process and the product of this self-questioning into the practical activity from which it emerged” (292). The film acknowledges its own medium, and then exposes the nature of this medium in the art form from which it emerges. While this self-reflection does not measure up to the independent thought of a human, it nonetheless resembles a type of philosophizing. Particularly because the “question of what philosophy is just is philosophy’s defining question” (293), Mulholland Drive philosophizes by continuously questioning what film is. Just as Mulhall argues that philosophy depends on its own ambiguity to sustain itself, Mulholland Drive participates in philosophy simply by sustaining rather than resolving the question of what cinema is. It is not that Mulholland Drive contributes to the philosophy of film by defining what film is. Rather, it philosophizes by asking what film is through the questioning of its own nature. Mulholland Drive ‘thinks’ by rephrasing the question of what film is through its formal presentation. Ultimately, it is in scrutinizing its medium that Mulholland Drive emphasizes the illusory qualities of cinema. As Mulholland Drive externalizes the deception integral to its own functioning, the viewer must confront the ambiguity that lies between reality and its filmic replica. As this realization amplifies the film’s already uncanny tone, the once impermeable boundaries between actuality and imagination blur, causing Mulholland Drive’s viewers to grapple with their interpretation of the film. A once comfortable fantasy gives way to reality.
Overall, Mulholland Drive implies that the meaning of cinema is uncertain in nature. Built upon an uncanny foundation, the film complicates the interpretation of perspective and identity. For one, Lynch omits a clear point of view from a select set of camera shots. This yields confusion as to the ownership of a scene. Existing in the space between a subjective point of view and the omniscient narrative, the film’s opening sequence twists familiar cinema to exclude clear perspectival anchors. This stylistic choice distorts the familiarity of cinema, thus working to produce the strange discomfort of uncanniness. It is at this point that viewers must consider the potential for autonomous ‘wants’ within the film’s images. The lack of perspectival anchors ultimately suggests that the images desire a connection to the film’s narrative. Similarly, Lynch extends this ambiguous ownership of perspective to that of identity. In allowing physical appearance and emotional displays to shift between characters, Lynch doubles notions of selfhood, effectively contributing to an uncanny tone. As the filmic medium replicates reality, this doubling expands to encompass cinema as a whole. Alongside the revelations of the Club Silencio scene, this uncanniness merges fantasy with reality. Ultimately, the overlapping borders of dreams and actuality prompt the viewer to re-interpret their conception of Mulholland Drive. As reality intrudes upon fantasy through form, the film reflects upon its own nature. The film’s awareness regarding its medium parallels the process of philosophizing. In this sense, Mulholland Drive nearly ‘thinks’ on its own. Imagined narratives blend with reality, all within the fictionality of cinema itself.
Works Cited
Freud, Sigmund. “The Uncanny.” The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Vol. XVII (1917-1919): An Infantile Neurosis and Other Works.
Edited by James Strachey, translated by James Strachey et al. Hogarth Press, 1953, pp. 217-256.
Mitchell, W. J. T. “What do pictures ‘really’ want?” October, vol. 77, 1996, pp. 71–82, https://doi.org/10.2307/778960.
Mulhall, Stephen. “Film as Philosophy: The Very Idea.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, vol. 107, no. 1.3, 26 Oct. 2007, pp. 279–294,
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9264.2007.00222.x.
Mulholland Drive. Directed by David Lynch, performances by Naomi Watts and Laura Harring, StudioCanal, 2001.