To each their own I can respectfully disagree. It is entirely possible Diane knows about the painting enough to put it -- herself -- in her own dream. It's not the most esoteric of painting histories ever, but understandably, i don't think it falls under the category of common knowledge, either. I mean you can't really get through a high school education without knowing who shakespeare was (at least I HOPE that's still the case), seems to me you can very easily get through high school without knowing the story behind the cenci painting.

if that makes sense.

I’d like to explain in detail how I think Fantasy and reality are demarcated in the waking section of the film.

Lynch prepares us for the climax of Diane waking with Club Silencio, Crying, the disappearance of Betty, the opening of the blue box, and the anticipated reappearance of the Cowboy. Then everything changes and we are in an altogether grungier reality. The way it’s shot and lit is all less, well, dream-like, more humdrum.

So she answers the door, deals with the neighbour, then goes into the kitchen. Note her position at the right hand end of the kitchen counter.



As she stands at the counter we move round to her other side and zoom slowly closer and closer in to her head. Then something strange happens. There's no sound or movement or other clue, but Diane hears something.



She looks up and there is Camilla, in all her extravagant and hyper-real glory.



Camilla is standing on Diane's left, in front of the window we saw in the first screenshot. Notice the half drawn blind behind her. Lynch doesn't cross the line here, we’re stay on Diane's left and Camilla's right throughout this exchange.

Camilla doesn't respond to her surroundings or situation. She doesn't appear to have walked in or climbed in through a window. She doesn't react to Diane's demented gaze, she just smiles beautifically. She doesn’t fit her surroundings at all - she’s an ousider, a hallucination, a delusion. Diane is fantasising that it was Camilla, not the neighbour, who knocked on the door and came into her flat. Diane is overcome.



Then her expression changes to horror.

So what does she see? Whatever it is, it devastates her. And then another strange thing happens. We cut back to Camilla, but she's not Camilla anymore! We're still on her right (note the shade again) but it’s Diane, looking back at herself and standing where Camilla was.

Thus 'Camilla' is revealed to be a figment of Diane's imagination. The exchange was internal.



This new Diane regards the previous one with Disdain. She knows she was reacting to a phantom.

Diane 2 makes coffee. She takes over being the 'real' Diane. And NOW we've crossed the line. There's been a break in reality as Diane dipped into fantasy land and back out again. Not just the vision, but also this crossing of the line and a then a schism in time and space. Look - miraculously Diane 2 is at the other end of the kitchen!



So what does this tell us? Diane is having visions that undermine her perception of reality. And Diane knows it. She's as aware of this as we are.

Lynch is showing us two things at once: Diane’s reality, through the privileged 'fly-on-a-wall' gaze of cinema and Diane’s fantasy, seen through her eyes.

He clearly sets out his stall in these few brilliant shots and it’s from this paradigm that I interpret the remainder of the reality sections as split between Fantasy and Reality.

Apologies for the long post and blow by blow account but I feel every moment in this little sequence is contributing.

Here is another screenshot to add to that sequence.



hate to be contradictory but while Camilla does not respond to her surroundings, she does respond to Diane looking at her. the way her face turns into a smile is another piece of the puzzle, i think.

curious to see if the post i am responding too might be deleted by admins??

kmkmiller wrote:curious to see if the post i am responding too might be deleted by admins??

just to edit my post so it is on topic....

My New Theory
Level 1 - Dream
Level 2 - Fantasy
Level 3 - Reality

the thing is, without nitpicking, there's this sense i get from watching Lynch movies -- now moreso after watching INLAND EMPIRE -- well, long story short, these distinctions do not exist so much as we think they do (at least not in Lynch movies). In a way, what happened to Diane while she was Betty actually happened. It wasn't a dream in so far as she forgot it (like we do with most dreams) or even sort of ignored it. it is a reality that she became a part of for however long it could be sustained. now obviously this is contradicted when the Magician says "it is all a tape," so maybe I'm off base here, but look at this way. The Magician saying "it is all a tape" what if that was just a tape too? and how do we know the fantasy reality/reality segments aren't a recording too? there is a clear mobius strip construct referred to throughout.

If there is anything the movie tries to do is break down the barrier between recording and reality.

one other observation about this, I don't know about everyone else in the world, but i don't typically dream idealized versions of myself or others in my life. hope that makes sense without being too much personal experience added.

Anyway, we refer to the first long part of the movie as a dream because of the pillow sequence and the convenience of explaining the movie to others, but that should never imply that what happened during the dream never happened.

just my two cents on this. I still see a movie that happens in sequence, no flashbacks, not a dream in the classical sense, but a shadow self world where Diane tries to hide from her guilt.

Admin!!

Please delete spam bot and move horse post to horse thread!!

hey siku. edited my post so it is on topic. well, i tried at least. just still pushing towards a continuum or spectrum of "dream"/"reality" sequences in MD.

Siku wrote:Admin!!

Please delete spam bot and move horse post to horse thread!!

Sorry. Been a bit absent recently (life) and my notifications seem to be playing up. Spambot gone. Send me a PM if anything arises and I don't seem to be around and I'll pick it up quicker.

Cheers

Which horse post, by the way?

nohaybanda wrote:Regarding Aunt Ruth being abused, too (by the maybe-grandparents), I've actually wondered that a lot myself recently.

I started writing up a theory on it the other night but lost it all due to very poor planning. I wondered also if there was any chance that Aunt Ruth was actually Diane's biological mother. You know, in one of those I-got-knocked-up-and-gave-my-kid-to-my-parents-to-raise situations. What would be creepier still is if Diane is the offspring of Ruth and Ruth's father. Specifically what has begun to seem weird to me is the black-and-white photo of Ruth and Diane/Betty that is in the Havenhurst apartment. If the photo is real in any way, why, exactly? An aunt and her niece would typically not go to a photo studio to have a picture taken, would they?

I like this theory a lot. As a matter of fact, I was going to create a topic about that.

This theory explains a lot of things. First, when an underaged daughter has a baby it's common for the parents to pretend that they are the real parent of the newborn child. So I think that's exactly what happened when Ruth was abused by her grandfather. Diane was raised as Ruth's niece. Or maybe as Ruth's sister.

Secondly, I think that Diane died but it happened in the 50's. Ruth drowned her in a river because she didn't want her daughter to be abused the way she was.

So the movie is Ruth's dream. She imagines her daughter didn't die and that she escaped by winning a jitterbug contest. The dream is supposed to happen in the 50's but this period is too traumatic for Ruth. So she imagines it in the 2000's. However, some non traumatic things from the 50's (the woman in the yello dress at sierra bonita) appears somtimes in the dream, which indicates us that the dream was supposed to happen at that time.

This theory explains the blackmail line. Diane's grandfather/father knew Ruth killed her daughter. So he used that to have sexual intercouse with her when she was grew up and he could not take her by force anymore.

derekfnord wrote:The line that I always puzzle over in the audition scene is "If you're trying to blackmail me, it's not going to work." Assuming the scene is indeed a flashback/clue to abuse in Diane's past, it's hard to imagine what Diane might have or have done that makes her think the abuser might be trying to "blackmail" her. The only thing I can think of is guilt... maybe the abuser knows something about Diane, and Diane doesn't want them to tell her parents? But guilt about what? The abuse itself? Some other secret? Dunno...

I was puzzled by that line too. When I saw the movie the other day I noticed something : Aunt Ruth sent to Diane the piece she had to perform. Aunt Ruth has definitely something to do with it. She knew everything Diane would say. And she even encouraged her to go to this audition. That's the reason why I think the audition is Ruth trying to get rid of her horrible thoughts about her past through art and Diane's performance.

The scene is defintely a reenactment. If the movie is Diane's dreams, then she is reenacting conversations with her grandfather. The grandfather knew she killed her baby and he is trying to blackmail her to get what he wants (sex).

rougenoir wrote:

derekfnord wrote:The line that I always puzzle over in the audition scene is "If you're trying to blackmail me, it's not going to work."

I was puzzled by that line too. When I saw the movie the other day I noticed something : Aunt Ruth sent to Diane the piece she had to perform. Aunt Ruth has definitely something to do with it. She knew everything Diane would say. And she even encouraged her to go to this audition.

Ooo... that's a good point. I'm not sure I go along with the "Aunt Ruth drowned Diane in the 1950's" theory, but I think you're probably right that there could be significance in the fact that the lines Diane speaks in the audition scene are actually given to her by Aunt Ruth. Interesting...

Interesting observation that Ruth set her up for the part. But I don't think Ruth faxed the pages of script that Coco gives Betty. I'd need to check that.

Rougenoir are you aware that the The Crying Lady (the name that Rebekah del Rio is introduced as) drowned her children after losing in love?