In loving awe as I rewatch Mulholland Drive today ~21 years later, feeling so grateful Delia and I saw it together on the big screen when it came out. 2001 according to IMDB, but we didn’t meet until 2002 so maybe it didn’t hit our small town until then so it would’ve been one of the first movies we saw together at our special local theatre.
It’s been a long time since I watched it. We own it on DVD but you know how it is (if you’re as old as we are and you love movies); you hardly ever pop a disc in but for some reason when it’s streaming on a service you’re subscribed to, you play it.
So many moments, scenes and people I hadn’t recalled since the last time I saw it. Like the electrifying earthquake-spasm-paralysis Naomi Watts has with the evocation of thunder (or lightning or whatever it is), and the evidence that “Theroux” is more than a vague inexplicable association I have with David Lynch that I couldn’t put my finger on when I was trying to write a review of a Paul Theroux book, but an actual concrete actor in this movie.
What stands out to me most this time, and is part of what makes me so glad “our first time” with this movie was with each other when it was brand new, is the music. Hardly a day goes by that I am not thinking about or actively listening to Lynch-y Badalamenti-esque songs and ambient scoring and aspiring to have or create MORE of it, but today’s viewing was an intense reminder of the effective use of the “fake fake music” (as Donald Fagan calls it) Delia and I delight in and are inspired by. With Betty and Rita’s first sexual encounter, the music is beyond perfect melodramatic soap-opera. It is exquisitely sad and resonantly sexy the way it puts you into a slow vibrating intimate deep blue trance of intimacy. And then in another scene when those strings kick in when the director (Theroux) turns to see Betty (Watts) and their eyes meet.
And then, you know, there are the diner scenes.
Theaters, illusions, diners.
Women feeling all sorts of things very deeply.
I love how David Lynch does grief so deeply and romance the disjointed mature woman exposed, while also being able to do silliness, schlock and just weird little short stories. I want to spend more of my life just watching and rewatching and studying faves like this.
I love how Delia is up for that. And all I have to do is pick them out and press play.
