Club Silencio

A slight tangent from the 16 vs. 17 thread...

How certain are we of the real living arrangements at Sierra Bonita? Not in the sense of which apartments were occupied, but in the sense of who was living with whom and why any switching occurred.

A different twist occurred to me today. We've typically looked at the apartment switch from Diane's point of view: why she might want to switch, and why DeRosa might accomodate her. But what if we're looking at it backwards?

What if DeRosa wanted to switch? Why? Maybe to get away from Camilla. Perhaps she and Camilla had been roommates, and she became disenchanted with Camilla and her manipulative ways. Whether they were lovers too or "just" roommates probably doesn't really matter. For whatever reason, she wanted out. And Diane, who knew Camilla from The Sylvia North Story, was happy to oblige. Perhaps Camilla and Diane were lovers by that point, perhaps that began after they became roommates... again, probably doesn't matter.

I'm starting to wonder whether the sex-on-the-couch scene, followed by throwing Camilla out, actually takes place after the dinner party. Now that Camilla and Adam are apparently engaged, "we shouldn't do this (sex) anymore," even though they were still roommates after the party.

I suspect maybe Camilla just saw their relationship as friends and roomies who sometimes fooled around, while Diane saw it as much more. Camilla probably wasn't completely blind to that, but presumably didn't realize the danger she courted by manipulating Diane's affections. So Diane wasn't invited to the engagement party as one of Camilla's current or former lovers... she was invited because she was Camilla's buddy and roommate.

Diane seems much more angry when throwing Camilla out, even than she was at Adam's house. (She'll put up with public humiliation, but tells Camilla "don't ever say THAT!"). So maybe throwing Camilla out immediately precedes hiring the hitman.

If Diane and Camilla were living there at the end, then the boxes in Diane's living room (other than DeRosa's box) might be stuff of Camilla's that Diane has started packing up, rather than stuff of Diane's that she hasn't unpacked since the switch. And if DeRosa had been Camilla's roommate before that, this would explain why DeRosa kind of looks cursorily into those boxes, seeing if she spies anything else in them that might be hers. If they were Diane's boxes from her previous apartment, of course DeRosa would have no reason to think stuff of hers might be in them.

This interpretation might explain a few other things too, such as:

• The barely-concealed disgust with which dream-DeRosa regards Rita.
• Why so much of DeRosa's stuff is still in Diane's apartment (which seems more suggestive of leaving a situation where belongings were intermingled, than it is of just vacating an apartment).
• Betty's comment to Rita that perhaps Diane Selwyn is her roommate (perhaps she is indeed!)

Thoughts? Glaring holes I'm overlooking?

Watched the relevant parts again yesterday, and I have to say... I'm now almost convinced that the couch makeout scene, and Diane throwing Camilla out of the apartment, take place after the pool party...

Possible Reality Timeline

1. Diane meets Camilla on The Sylvia North Story.
2. They become friends (possibly roommates as well at some point), and Camilla brings Diane along for the ride as her own star rises.
3. At some point, they also become sexually involved. Camilla probably just sees this as casual/for fun -- Diane is likely a call girl, after all, and Camilla (not knowing about Diane's history of abuse) probably assumes Diane's approach to sex is as casual as her own. But actually Diane is emotionally invested and sees it as a relationship; she's becoming obsessed with Camilla.
4. While working on an unnamed Adam Kesher film, Camilla and Adam become involved. Diane is jealous and hurt, but too obsessed with (and emotionally dependent on) Camilla to walk away.
5. Adam and Camilla throw a dinner party (perhaps for the wrap of that movie, perhaps just to announce their apparent engagement). Diane is invited; she's Camilla's friend and (I suspect) roommate, after all. Her jealousy and obsession are still growing, and she interprets everything Camilla and Adam do as intentionally causing her pain.
6. Some time soon after the party, Camilla and Diane are again fooling around at Diane's (their?) apartment. But newly-engaged Camilla decides this needs to be the last time ("We can't do this anymore"). That's the last straw for Diane ("Don't ever say that!"); she was willing to share Camilla despite the jealousy, but can't handle the thought of losing Camilla entirely. Diane seems to equate sex and love (very common in abuse victims), and sees Camilla cutting off sex as Camilla cutting off love. In truth, Camilla obviously still cares about Diane, and doesn't seem to want to end her friendship with her ("Don't be mad... don't make it be like this!").
7. Diane throws Camilla out, and in her anger, contacts Joe (a customer who smokes brown-filtered cigarettes and shares them with Diane just like he does Laney in the dream), who she either knows or thinks might be able to get a hit put on Camilla.
8. Diane and Joe meet at Winkie's as shown in the film.
9. The deed is done, and the key is left behind Winkie's for Diane to later find.
10. Some time later (days? "three weeks?"), with time to cool down, Diane realizes she's lost everything. She's not only murdered someone, that someone was her best friend and her best contact in the business. And on top of that, she's given all the money she had in the world to have her killed. Seeing nothing left to live for, Diane kills herself. Silencio.

why the out of sequence flashbacks?

guess I want to suggest that flashbacks, and non-linear story telling has a point, and doesn't just exist to disorient the viewer. for instance, in PULP FICTION, the movie would be quite different, and probably not the amazing movie it is, if it was just told in linear fashion.

So I think, yeah, you are precisely right in the timeline you just described.

Yet, was there a point to then placing those scenes out of sequence in the movie?

Just something else to consider on this.

I like the point-by-point organization, and I believe the clues suggest that the "reality/post-dream" sequences are out of order (something about "watch for the ash tray" or "watch for the coffee")

derekfnord wrote:I'm now almost convinced that the couch makeout scene, and Diane throwing Camilla out of the apartment, take place after the pool party...

but I think one hole in that idea is when Camilla stops Diane, Diane says, "it's because of HIM, isn't it?" That'd be an odd thing to say if the Camilla/Adam relationship was publicly announced as an engagement.

But maybe you're right -- the new thing I noticed recently was that the dinner party has two extreme-blur/coming-back-into-focus moments, as does Diane's crying/masturbation session on the couch. I'd say that implies that the crying scene takes place AFTER the dinner party, that she's flashing back to the dinner party.

Anyway, not enough time to go into all of it now, but I think the making coffee/full coffee cup will put those scenes in order, and whether the ashtray is there or not tells us if its before the "DeRosa says it's been 3 weeks" time or not.

KyleOrKyla wrote:but I think one hole in that idea is when Camilla stops Diane, Diane says, "it's because of HIM, isn't it?" That'd be an odd thing to say if the Camilla/Adam relationship was publicly announced as an engagement.

I take it as "He's putting you up to this, isn't he? HE wants you all to himself!"

Here's a pulp fiction infographic.




Here's an INCEPTION infographic.



I wish I took graphic design in college instead of english lit, cause I'd love to see something like this put together for MULHOLLAND DRIVE.


Sorry if this is offtopic (but I don't think it is), I just thought I'd share.

And I hope the auto re-size BB code on this works cause those are HUGE images.

!WOW!

Thanks for these kmkmiller!

I'm getting the crayons out right now!...

Those diagrams are very cool!

I wonder if anyone has one of those 3D molecule-modeling software packages...that might be better-equipped to diagram the interrelations of the scenes in MD than a linear flowchart;

Or at least, better at accommodating all the connections for different theories...each atom/vertex would be a scene, and the bonds/connecting lines would be color-coordinated by theory.

derekfnord your timeline is good and makes sense. But why switch 5. and 6.(party and doorway argument)? What difference does it make?

Siku wrote:derekfnord your timeline is good and makes sense. But why switch 5. and 6.(party and doorway argument)? What difference does it make?

I think it speaks to Diane's character. If it goes argument -> party, then her public humiliation is the "last straw" that causes her to break away from Camilla (and ultimately have Camilla killed). If it goes party -> argument, then Camilla telling her they can't have sex anymore is the last straw.

Each of those possibilities tells us something about Diane. If she's so humiliated by the party that she wants Camilla dead, I think that implies a level of ego and self-worth that I'm not sure Diane has -- "How dare you treat me this way?!! I'll show you!"

I think it's more likely that Diane is a victim of sexual abuse in childhood, and like many such people, her self-worth is tied entirely to sex. When Camilla rejects her sexually, and tells her they can't do this anymore, that's when Diane actually snaps. She's used to people treating her like she's worthless in other ways (even if it hurts), but when the object of her obsession tells her that even sex isn't giving her worth anymore... that she can't take.

On a more superficial level, I think it may also just help explain a couple of oddities like the packing boxes. I think they likely contain Camilla's stuff rather than Diane's (for the reasons discussed above), and if Camilla had been living there, then the doorway argument seems like the likely end point of that arrangement, as it would show Diane actually kicking Camilla out.

But is there any evidence to establish which happened first?

Not that I've noticed between those two scenes specifically. The ashtray and such can tell us when some of the flashback scenes occur before others, but some of the flashback scenes don't appear to have firm on-screen indications of their order.

So maybe it doesn't matter. Rather than a sequence of cause-and-effect events, what we see is more a montage or collage of their relationship.

Still a good insight though derekfnord.

Thanks, Siku! :-)