Mulholland Dr. (France/USA: David Lynch, 2001)

 

What began as a rejected television pilot became the defining film of David Lynch’s career, a fearful love letter to movies and other invented narratives, including the stories we tell ourselves.

Movie moment: At the film’s turning point, its heroines, the new-to-Hollywood aspirin actress Betty (Naomi Watts) and the amnesiac Rita (Laura Harring), go to a sparsely attended nightclub called Club Silencio, where they’re told everything they’re about to experience is an illusion, from the sound of the orchestra to the thunderstorm. Both Betty and Rita respond fearfully. When singer Rebekah del Rio takes the stage to perform a heartbreaking rendition of “Llorando,” a Spanish-language version of Roy Orbison’s “Crying,” both are moved to tears (as, perhaps, are those watching the film). When del Rio collapses, the song keeps playing without her, shattering the illusion. But the melody and the emotions it stirs still linger. — KP

Mulholland Dr. (France/USA: David Lynch, 2001: 147 mins)

Ayres, Jedidiah, et al. "Mulholland Dr (2001)." The Projection Booth #296 (November 8, 2016) ["David Lynch's Mulholland Drive (2001) lived a double life as a television pilot and feature film. A neo-noir that plays with themes of identity, roleplaying, and obsession, the film stars Naomi Watts as innocent ingénue Betty Elms and Laura Elena Harring as Rita, a woman with a past hidden from herself. Mike talks to Patrick Fischler and Laura Harring about their roles in Mulholland Drive (and a lot more). Professor Erik Marshall and author Jedidiah Ayres help elucidate the mystery of Mulholland Drive."]

Bowen, Chuck. "Mulholland Drive." Slant (October 26, 2015)

Eig, Jonathan. "A Beautiful Mind(fuck) -- Hollywood Structures of Identity." Jump Cut #46 (2003)

Ebiri, Bilge. "Why David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive Is a Great Horror Film." (October 23, 2014)

Elsaesser, Thomas. "The Mind-Game Films." Puzzle Films: Complex Storytelling in Contemporary Cinema ed. Warren Buckland. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2009: 13-41. [In BCTC Library]

Falzon, Christopher. "Philosophy Through Film." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (August 12, 2013)

Ford, Phil and J.F. Martel. "On David Lynch." Weird Studies #184 *February 5, 2025) ["David Lynch passed away on January 15th, 2025, leaving behind a body of work that reshaped the landscape of cinema and television. Few artists have delved as deeply into the strange, the beautiful, and the terrifying as Lynch, and few have had as profound an influence on Weird Studies. His films have long been a touchstone for JF and Phil's discussions on art, philosophy, and the nature of the weird. To honor his memory, they decided to devote an episode to Lynch's work as a whole, with special attention paid to Eraserhead—the nightmarish debut that announced his singular vision to the world. A study in dread, desire, and the uncanny, Eraserhead remains one of the most disturbing and mysterious works of American cinema. In this episode, we explore what makes it so powerful and how it connects to Lynch’s larger artistic project."]

G'Sell, Eileen. "Uncanny Intimacies, Abject Desires." Film Quarterly (September 1, 2026) ["This article introduces the dossier “Mulholland Drive at 25.” What did Mulholland Drive (2001) say about female fantasy, suffering, and desire at the turn of the twenty-first century, and how might that matter today? Rather than debate Mulholland Drive’s degree of feminism or the extent to which David Lynch himself proved able to create feminist cinema, the authors of this dossier approach the film as an intricate text that frustrates traditional interpretive approaches based on the specter of the “male gaze” and the assumption of coherent, consistent character subjectivities. Consulting canonical feminist and philosophical texts as well as contemporary queer theory, sound studies, and star studies, the dossier authors write from the perspective of differing generations and disciplines, offering a lively array of critical reads."]

Koresky, Michael. "The Ache of Desire." Current (November 15, 2019)

---. "Altered Beast: Tropical Malady Meets Mulholland Dr.." Reverse Shot (May 19, 20005)

---. "Performance Anxiety: Mulholland Drive." Reverse Shot (January 1, 2010)

Lim, Dennis. "David Lynch's Elusive Language." The New Yorker (October 28, 2015)

McGoff, Jessica. "My Mulholland: On Mulholland Drive." The Cine-Files #15 (Fall 2020) ["The second-most mentioned video essay in the Best Video Essays of 2020 Survey conducted by Sight & Sound Magazine" - it is a reflection on the impact David Lynch's 2001 movie Mulholland Drive had on the author at 13 and now.] 

"Memories of Mulholland." Current (October 19, 2015) ["Fourteen years ago today, David Lynch’s haunting masterpiece Mulholland Dr. opened in theaters across the United States. Take a look back at critics’ initial reactions to Lynch’s mystifying “love story in the city of dreams.”]

Richardson, Ronald B. "Into the Abyss: The Mise en Abyme, the Art Work Within the Art Work." (Personal website: November 10, 2010) 

---. "Top Twenty One Metafictional Works: The Story That Swallows Its Tale." (Personal website: February 25, 2017)

Rodley, Chris. "Lynch on Mulholland Dr." Current (October 30, 2015)

Rowin, Michael Joshua. "This Magic Moment: Mulhollad Dr.." Reverse Shot (July 27, 2006)

Theroux, Justin. "On the Magical Mysteries of David Lynch." The Current (October 29, 2015)

Toles, George. "Auditioning Betty in Mulholland Dr.." Film Quarterly (Fall 2004): Reprinted in Annual Editions: Film 07/08 191-198 [Available in BCTC Library PN1993 A6285]

Treadway, Dean. "Film #81: Mulholland Dr.." Filmicability (November 2, 2008)

Westengard, Laura. "The Radical Intimacy of Rot: Mulholland Drive’s Queer Proliferations." Film  Quarterly 80.1 (2026): 31 -35. ["This article by Laura Westengard, part of the dossier “Mulholland Drive at 25,” uses the lens of decomposition to show how Mulholland Drive (2001) demonstrates the multiplicity of life that always already exists within individuals that are falsely perceived to be singular. Turning toward rot as a model for queering an understanding of life, death, and self, this article provides a framework for analyzing the film's overlap and divergence of characters, the jumble of temporality that challenges a linear narrative, and the recursive merging, gaps, and doubles, offering us a vision of a kind of reproduction that occurs within, outside, and beyond normative understandings of self/other, life/death, gay/straight. Positing the film itself as decomposing corpse, Westengard suggests that the queer proliferations of rot open up not only a new reading but a queer way of engaging life, death, and the messy entanglements of existence."]

Wyman, Bill, et al. "Everything You Were Afraid to Ask About Mulholland Dr.. Salon (October 23, 2010)