...but did we know just how black and evil she is? Here's an idea spurred in me today after I read someone's post about things seen on the back of the newspaper Betty holds in Winkie's while looking for Rita's accident:

"...the back page read : "THE BARRY CONCEPT" "

Apparently, Barry Kaye owns a financial firm and is the writer of a book called 'The Invest Alternative'. This person posed that Diane has 'invested' into an alternative reality, a fantasy.

Well, I really liked the idea, my wheels starting turning and I ran with it. I think it's been posited before that the first two hours of the movie is someplace that she goes, in her mind, while something bad is happening to her...like sexual abuse. Her visiting this place again and again would explain Dan's reference to having a recurring dream.

Let me add this (because I did some reading on Freud and Jung this past weekend):

Freud has deduced that some things we see and experience in our dreams actually correspond to real things (well, he's not the only one, but I'm going to post one of his ideas). Freud believes that dancing, in dreams, is representative of the act of sexual intercourse.

The first thing we see in this film are couples dancing. (When the dancing is over we see Naomi flanked by the old couple.) Next we come to reality where we hear someone breathing heavily, and then we follow their head to the pillow. What we see next could very well be this person's escape from reality as the abuse continues (the act/abuse wasn't over yet).
******************
What if the root of Diane's problem is this: While she is in the midst of a cruel act against her (abuse) she escapes to this dream that includes Rita and Betty. She has run this dream (fantasy, really) through her head so many times that she actually loves the "Rita" that is present in this fantasy. This Rita in her fantasy is based on a star she's seen in a movie.

Because of the 'love' (obsession is probably more appropriate) she nows feels for this "Rita", she tries to conjure the fantasy when she is NOT in the act of being abused, just to be with 'her'. However, the fantasy is quite different and not pleasant (or just not the same) when abuse is not present.

Examples of her trying to conjure her? The blurring we see while she masturbates and the blurring we see at the dinner party...and don't forget the "Rita" that shows up in her kitchen.

She would HAVE to suffer abuse in order to get to the "Rita", and the 'pleasant fantasy', that she loves. Without the abuse, the fantasy is a bad experience. (The second half of the film, the flashbacks, show us these unpleasant fantasies.)

How messed up would that be?! You can't have the pleasure without the pain.

Maybe the brunette Joe was looking for is a look-alike for Diane (she paid him to find her one) so that she can try a new way of 'conjuring Rita'.

The girl we see in the bed (during the Cowboy scenes) is the look-alike that Joe found for her. She's locked in an apartment nearby - being kept prisoner - and that is what the blue key Joe gave her is for.
**********************
She began to suffer the abuse as a child, at the hands of these two older people. This is also when the fantasizing started. The "Rita" that she loves is from a movie she saw as a child. And seeing Wizard of Oz may have spurred the ability to fantasize during these 'abuse' sessions.

Now that she has had Joe find her her own personal "Rita", she has become the monster behind Winkie's. And she's even more wicked than the two older people who chase her.

This prisoner, that she paid for, is her 'financial investment' in her fantasy.
**********************
Also, did the prisoner die? Die while Diane was sitting around deciding whether to actually go through with it or not? Or did she escape out of the kitchen window?

The girl is still missing...this is either Diane impatiently asking Joe if he's found a girl yet or (more likely) asking Joe if he has found her 'escapee'. If the prisoner has escaped and Joe is looking for her (for Diane), then this would be why Joe knows she is a little beat up.

So revising what I said above, either she paid Joe to find this girl in the first place or paid him to recover her after her escape. Or both. I'm thinking both.

So revising what I said above, either she paid Joe to find this girl in the first place or paid him to recover her after her escape. Or both. I'm thinking both.
Now I'm REALLY thinking both...
This could be why Dan's recurring dream involves 'this' Winkie's and he has it twice. Diane had to pay Joe twice. Once to find the girl in the first place, and then again to find her once she had escaped. Two separate instances where the same thing happened...she paid Joe to find a girl.

What I think may be going on at the beginning of the film is Diane having a 'sexual abuse' session with someone (willfully) so that she can 'visit Rita'. The girl that she plays this fantasy out with now (the one Joe found for her) has escaped (or has died?)...she's still missing when this occurs...so the only way she can visit "Rita" is to have abusive sex with someone else...the thing she hates and is what drove her to seek out a look-alike in the first place.

I'm still thinking about Adam...not sure how he fits in, but I think that he either knows Diane's secret, or she suspects that he knows. She may have had Joe kill him, and this is what the whole Ed scene is about.

All I know is that in her 'pleasurable fantasy' Adam has no control over her destiny. But in the 'unpleasurable fantasy', he does. She's afraid of him. I think Dan is a version of Adam...she killed Dan. Maybe Adam works at Winkie's. BTW - this makes Diane the Cowboy in the 'pleasure fantasy'. She controls Adam's destiny (the reverse of reality). She tells the girl in bed what to do.
*****************

On a side note, we see Diane nurturing Rita in the 'pleasurable fantasy'. This represents what she didn't get in her childhood.

Ha! (Y'all must think I'm a nut posting every single notion I have...but I can't help it...lol!)

Here's why we see Rita sleeping, book-ending, the Dan scene. Dan's/Adam's discovery (or her suspicion of his discovery) of her secret means she has to do something about him. This matter is so pressing that it intrudes on the fantasy...so she puts "Rita" aside for a moment (puts her to sleep) and handles it. Then it's wakey-wakey for "Rita" and back to the fantasy.

She sleeps again...what does the sleeping bookend? I'm gonna have to watch again...it's been a while.

Other thoughts I have developed regarding this idea (they're gonna seem scattered and I apologize ahead of time):

[In the future, I'm going to call the "pleasurable fantasy" surrounding "Rita" the "Rita fantasy" and the "unpleasurable fantasy" surrounding "Camilla" the "Camilla fantasy".]

I think that the scene where Diane is crying while masturbating is Diane trying to abuse herself in an attempt to bring on the "Rita fantasy", but it doesn't happen. She's crying because abusing herself doesn't work.
******************
She used a knife on someone. Whether it was her dad's best friend or her dad's 'best friend'. That is why "Rita" has a head injury. Maybe killed him? I don't know, but it would make the Beatrice Cenci painting more meaningful.
******************
This is what I'm starting to think about 'Aunt Ruth':

The older couple could be Diane's grandparents. Aunt Ruth could be her mother. The mother she didn't know because Mom was always away 'working on a film'.

She dissociates the old couple by turning them into strangers at the airport...they are nice to her. Opposite of reality.

She dissociates her mother by making her an aunt. She never meets up with Aunt Ruth...but Aunt Ruth talks to her over the phone. Something Mom would have done when she was a child. "Aunt Ruth" shows concern and wants to call the police. Opposite of reality.

If Diane's granpa abused Diane, then he probably abused Mom as a child as well. This means that Mom would have known (or had a big idea) what Diane was experiencing with Granpa. But she didn't save her...she left her there.

So Diane would have serious animosity towards all 3 of these people.

While the police were being talked about on the phone, "the connection was bad...and her plane was leaving". Mom didn't want to hear it when Diane tried to tell her about the abuse.

Why I believe that Aunt Ruth is her mother and the apartment is not "refuge" with an aunt: If Diane was with her grandparents, it would make sense that this "Aunt Ruth" is the one who left her with them. She is the one we always see with packed bags and on the go, just missing Diane. She is the one who we are told is off somewhere making a film...which I take as meaning she's making a life of her own that does not include Diane. She is the one Betty's talking to on the phone about calling the police. It's her 'legend' that Betty is attempting to 'carry on'.

As far as the apartment goes, remember that I said before that the fantasizing started when she was a little girl. The home where this fantasy takes place (Aunt Ruth's Hollywood apartment) may not have changed over the years...it may be a place where she imagined her mother lived (a mother that she missed), or a place that created herself...a place that felt like home, or it could be the place where the movie star, "Rita", was depicted as living in within the film Diane pulled her from. It's hard to say. But it would explain why Rita is comfortable enough to get undressed and go take a shower in it. The fact that we see an Aunt Ruth there (leaving, I might add) may not mean much...except the fact that Diane had no connection with her...she was always absent. Or it could be Diane's way of 'kicking her out' of her fantasy. She didn't deserve any 'part' in it. I don't think it ever belonged to "Aunt Ruth"..."Aunt Ruth" didn't know where the keys were kept, after all...
******************
I agree that the red lamp signifies that she is some sort of 'call girl'...she entertains 'clients'. In order to conjure the Rita fantasy, her clients would have to be ones who like to get rough.

Adam carries a golf club and shows his propensity for violence.

I think that Adam is one of her clients and his name is found in Joe's black book. Either he knows her secret, or she thinks he knows, and she's threatened by him. She uses the black book as a device to keep him silent. Joe stole the book from Ed, Diane's pimp.

I don't think that Adam is a director in reality. I think that Diane sees him as a director because her destiny is in his hands (a Jung archetype?). He 'directs' her future. He can tell someone of authority (the police) her secret and she would go to jail.

I think that in her Rita fantasy, Diane turns Adam into Dan for a few moments to achieve gratification in killing him. It is wish-fulfillment.
**********************
Adam spilling Diane's secret "steals" Rita from Diane. This is why we see Adam and Rita (Camilla) together at the party. It is symbolic. If Adam tells her secret and she goes to jail, she will not be able to see "Rita". He would have stolen that ability from her...in essence, Adam steals Rita.
**********************
Another, really bad, situation Diane finds herself in involving Adam:

"Someone's in trouble" - sometimes she's wrong...mother nature. Women can 'miss' their 'monthly visitor' for other reasons... (The word 'month' is NOT SPOKEN in this film. It is the only time reference not used. Second, minute, hour, day, etc. are all used except 'month'.)
"If there's trouble in there, get rid of it."

Diane is pregnant. It was an accident that happened during a session with Adam (well, that's what she's telling Adam, anyway.)

How did I come to this conclusion? That it's Adam's? The meeting with the Castigliane brothers. We hear Adam adamantly say that "that girl is not in my film" around the same time we see Luigi spit coffee into a napkin. This spitting is the suggestion of an abortion. Adam wants Diane to have an abortion.

The Cowboy puts Adam in his place. "Sometimes there's a buggy. How many drivers does a buggy have?" Not only does this refer to a baby buggy, but the one driving the buggy is Diane. Adam is not making this decision of abortion for her. The decision over abortion is hers alone and if she keeps the baby, he can choose to 'ride along' or not. But don't forget, she's got other dirt on him.
***************
This is it for now...a lot for one day. There's probably more to come, and everything is subject to change. Lol!