In my research for an essay I intend to publish on dream symbolism in cinema, I was searching for substantial evidence to support Alan Shaw's theory -that Diane was the victim of abuse at an early age.

It came to my attention that there was dispute over the identities of Irene and Dan, the old couple that re-emerge throughout the film, as the word 'grandparent' is not used once in the film. Having now read the original screenplay, I'm almost certain that these two are indeed her grandparents, as confirmed by Coco:

COCO
"I guess it was your grandfather, was
it ... he called me to check in, said you
were on your way and for you to call when
you get in. Nice man... farmer I hear.

BETTY
Yes, he is. He raises corn.

COCO
Damn lot of corn raised in Hollywood
these days too."

The phonecall exchange Betty has with her Aunt in the film was also originally a conversation with her grandfather. (The fact that their conversation is jovial does nothing to disprove the abuse theory, as although the Diane character exists in the pilot, there is no indication that Lynch has realised the Diane we know as of yet.)

The annoying part ( ) is that the old couple are still referred to as 'Irene' and 'The Old Gentleman'.

Can anyone help me with this? Here is the screenplay: http://www.lynchnet.com/mdrive/mdscript.html

I think the thing to bear in mind whilst scrutinising the pilot script is that it's not the script for the film you see before you. Some things may have changed meaning, some characters end up being not the way that they are intended, and some bits of information may mislead and not help in terms of you working things out.

It's a handy resource, but don't get too tied into thinking that everything David wrote in the pilot screenplay holds true for the film.

In the credits, the old fella is referred to as 'Irene's Companion'.

http://mulholland-drive.net/studies/credits.htm

There are no easy answers.

This page might give you a pointer or two though.

http://mulholland-drive.net/studies/sexualabuse.htm

Welcome.

Yeah, I think you have to remember that Mulholland Drive the feature film is not a true "super-set" of Mulholland Drive the TV series pilot. The film doesn't include everything the pilot included, and add some new material. It removes some material from the pilot and adds new material.

Perhaps we can't quite assume that every tidbit removed from the pilot is irrelevant to the film, but I think we certainly can't assume anything removed from the pilot is relevant to the film. It might be (especially if it seems like Lynch thought the idea it conveyed was adequately covered elsewhere in the film), but I don't think we can assume it is. :-)

That's spot on Derek.

The whole TV pilot is on Youtube now I think, and a very good way of looking at it is to ask what from the pilot did he leave in the film, what did he remove, what did he change ... and why?

That's the pertinent question, on the topic of this thread and beyond ...

the impression i get from the scene at LAX is that Betty met them, for the first time, on the plane.

what I mean is if, in the pilot, Betty has a grandfather AND that grandfather is the baldy dude chillin with Irene, then Betty's interaction with them would have been slightly different.

if that makes sense.

Perfect sense.

I wonder if she met them both on the plane, or just Irene. It's getting late and my brain is fading, but .. I think footage of Diane with the Oldies at LAX was shot AFTER the pilot (i.e. for the feature film). She doesn't come through the departures with both - she just comes through with Irene, her companion joins them outside. Betty doesn't know his name so he isn't named properly in the credits?

Just some incoherent observations.

I've thought for a very very long time that she only met Irene on the plane and that Irene's companion was collecting her from the airport.

But I've never been able to suss out if there's any significance whatsoever.

Although they don't spell it out explicitly, that's certainly the impression I was also left with... that Betty and Irene were on the plane together, and that Irene's Companion just met Betty when he came to pick up Irene.

The line that does it for me is "I'll look for you on the big screen," the implication being if they were her grandparents, they would hear from Betty about a huge new role in a movie long before a movie came out. Only an acquaintance briefly met on an airplane would say that line.

Just to hold out some hope for our dream interpretation paper writing friend, sometimes unknown acquaintances in a dream can represent real people in your family.

That's really the only way that interpretation works.

It's no mystery that when it comes to the old couple discussions I like to point out Irene and her bald bud are in fire walk with me, and Irene's demeanor is much MORE judgmental.

kmkmiller wrote:Just to hold out some hope for our dream interpretation paper writing friend, sometimes unknown acquaintances in a dream can represent real people in your family.

And I think that's even more possible than usual in this specific case. It's still speculation that they represent Diane's grandparents, but certainly not unreasonable speculation.

I think that, to some extent, during the dream portion of the film, "Betty" represents what Diane wishes her life was like (which largely reflects what Camilla's life was like, especially professionally), and "Rita" represents what Diane's life has actually become (she's lost her memory while Diane is trying to suppress her own; like Diane, she's hiding out from people trying to find her, etc.).

With that in mind, Irene and her Companion with Betty at LAX may represent what Diane wishes her grandparents were like. On the flip side, how they are after she wakes up (I won't call their appearance "reality," because she's possibly gone mad by that point) could represent what they, or her relationship with them, are really like.

For Betty-the-Fantasy-Diane, they're friendly and supportive (except for perhaps a hint of their grim nature peeking out in the limo). For the real Diane, they're figures of terror...

I am also not a huge fan of reading too much into the TV pilot screenplay. When I listen to Lynch interviews I get the feeling that the TV series was a failed project and that the movie emerged from its ashes to take on an very different form. I am not saying there are no clues in that screenplay but you shouldn't assume that ideas in the screenplay can be transposed directly into the movie.

I suspect that the series, had it proceeded, may indeed have gone in the same direction as the film, at least to a point. For example, Naomi Watts has said something in an interview that makes me think the plan was to have Diane wake up at the beginning of the second season, had it gotten that far. But it's hard to know for sure, and of course we have to assume DL pulled what he pulled from the pilot for some reason...

As kmkmiller says, it doesn't make sense for Irene & Companion to be Diane's grandparents in a pilot that also included Betty's relaxed, chatty phone conversation with her grandfather - the two forms of the grandparents cpmpletely contradict each other. By removing the phone conversation, Lynch removed this contradiction and opened up the POSSIBILITY of Irene & Companion representing Diane's grandparents.

It would certainly help to interpret the pilot if we know for certain that Lynch conceived it as a dream that the lead would wake from at some point.

A representation of her grandparents, yes....

Thinking of starting a different thread where we can discuss the pilot and how it might have played with respect to dreams, realities, waking up and falling asleep.

Grandparents, foster patents, whatever. One thing we don't see are warm, stable parental figures anywhere.

BOTWOOD wrote:Having now read the original screenplay, I'm almost certain that these two are indeed her grandparents.

I think that's reasonable BOTWOOD - the pilot demostrates Betty had grandparents at that moment in her development as a character. So many elements were carried forward into the movie. Why not grandparents? And we know Irene & Companion changed because a lot of their stuff was shot for the movie and didn't appear in the pilot.

After this discussion, i am more of the persuasion that Irene and her companion are not Betty's grandparents. But I am still having trouble with their return for the ending. If there was either:

a) sexual abuse
b) unresonable expectations by a parent or grandparent/guardain

what is the significance of their appearance at the end? Perhaps, like previously mentioned, they represent Diane's ideal guardians. But the final scene is a hallucination, not a continuation of the dream. So why is she chased by Irene and Dan rather than her real guardians?