First of all, I must thank you all for this forum and for the site. They are absolutely wonderful, a way to know more about this amazing movie and talk about it with other fans. This site is a precius help for me to undersand more and more the complexity of Mulholland Drive

I searched and I didn't find any topic that specifically talks about this subject but I'm sorry if there is. I have been wondering in which year the movie is set. I don´t think it's set the time it was made (99/00). There is a poster in Mulholland Drive from 1940's film, of which Camilla retires her name (Rita), so maybe the film takes place around that time - 1940's/50's...

What you think?

(I'm sorry if my english sounds bad but I'm not english...)

Welcome Forbidden! Very happy to hear you enjoy the site.

Whilst I think it's not massively straightforward to pin down exactly when MD is set, the fashions and technology (we see Adam using a mobile phone) and language all seem to point to it being modern day.

However .. there are definitely influences from other times, and I guess one of the questions that might be worth looking at are what are they, and why are they there?

blu wrote:Welcome Forbidden! Very happy to here you enjoy the site.

Whilst I think it's not massively straightforward to pin down exactly when MD is set, the fashions and technology (we see Adam using a mobile phone) and language all seem to point to it being modern day.

However .. there are definitely influences from other times, and I guess one of the questions that might be worth looking at are what are they, and why are they there?

Thanks for the answer, blu.

You must know much more about the movie than I, but if it's set in modern days (1999/2000) why don't we see computers or cds? We don't see much modern technology, I think... I haven't notive the mobile phone...I know that Adam uses a telephone...an old model - which inclines me more to think that it isn't set nowadays. Besides that, when Adam is making the tests for the leading actresses, is looks like the old movies (when the blonde camilla is singing...) don't you think?

I don't know...maybe Diane uses de 1940's influence in her dream to have a more 'pure' and 'clean' atmosphere in her drean... to escape from the pollution and corruption of the actual days...

Forbidden wrote:You must know much more about the movie than I, but if it's set in modern days (1999/2000) why don't we see computers or cds? We don't see much modern technology, I think... I haven't notive the mobile phone...I know that Adam uses a telephone...an old model - which inclines me more to think that it isn't set nowadays. Besides that, when Adam is making the tests for the leading actresses, is looks like the old movies (when the blonde camilla is singing...) don't you think?

I don't know...maybe Diane uses de 1940's influence in her dream to have a more 'pure' and 'clean' atmosphere in her dream... to escape from the pollution and corruption of the actual days...

All it takes is one deliberately modern object to set a film in present day which we get with Adam in a modern day Porsche talking to his secretary via hands-free phone. Additionally, we are shown modern day LAX airport with modern day limos, taxi's, vans, etc.

This isn't an episode of 24 ... Lynch's films have never been centered on techno stuff so we shouldn't expect things like computers ... that's not his thing. Conversely, Lynch loves things from the past and to my mind is a bit of a romantic that way. Have you seen Blue Velvet?

Adam's on some kind of hands-free thing when he's driving home after the meeting with Castigliane brothers. He's on the phone to Cynthia when she's talking about them closing the set of his film down whilst driving. I assume that's a mobile on hands-free.

We don't see any CDs or computers so far as I remember, you're right, but there's nowhere really in the film where they might crop up as a part of the story. Perhaps we might expect to see a computer in Ed's office, but other than that I don't think we would expect to see them.

The two film sets we see, both when Adam is auditioning and when Adam is directing Camilla in the convertible towards the end definitely have the look of old movies, I definitely agree with you there. Plus the Jitterbug seems to be a throw back to a past era and even the inclusion of Ann Miller as Coco seems to be a reference to Hollywood's 'Golden Era', so I do agree that those reference points are there.

But are they there because they're significant to Diane and her story, or are they there as part of the background to the story and just David Lynch harking back to those eras?

I don't know that answer to that question.

Edit: I got distracted in the middle of writing this post and posted before I saw ctyankee's post.

ctyankee wrote:

Forbidden wrote:You must know much more about the movie than I, but if it's set in modern days (1999/2000) why don't we see computers or cds? We don't see much modern technology, I think... I haven't notive the mobile phone...I know that Adam uses a telephone...an old model - which inclines me more to think that it isn't set nowadays. Besides that, when Adam is making the tests for the leading actresses, is looks like the old movies (when the blonde camilla is singing...) don't you think?

I don't know...maybe Diane uses de 1940's influence in her dream to have a more 'pure' and 'clean' atmosphere in her dream... to escape from the pollution and corruption of the actual days...

All it takes is one deliberately modern object to set a film in present day which we get with Adam in a modern day Porsche talking to his secretary via hands-free phone. Additionally, we are shown modern day LAX airport with modern day limos, taxi's, vans, etc.

This isn't an episode of 24 ... Lynch's films have never been centered on techno stuff so we shouldn't expect things like computers ... that's not his thing. Conversely, Lynch loves things from the past and to my mind is a bit of a romantic that way. Have you seen Blue Velvet?

I'm sorry, I don't repare in all that details... There were also airplanes and taxis in 1940'S/1950's so it didn't seem an objection to what I said... but well, you can have it right. I think that Mulhollans Drive leaves you the doors open to your opinions... it's not a movie in which is all know and certain...

I put this question because there are evidence that put the story in another time: the hairstyles and clothes of Betty and Rita seems like 1940's/1950's... even the architecture did not fit in the 1999/2000...

Yes, I have seen Blue Velvet - that's the only Lynch film I saw besides Mulholland Drive, but that's not the same case. In Blue Velvet all fits in the 80's: the hairstyles, the clothes... it's not like Mulholland Drive...

Forbidden wrote:Yes, I have seen Blue Velvet - that's the only Lynch film I saw besides Mulholland Drive, but that's not the same case. In Blue Velvet all fits in the 80's: the hairstyles, the clothes... it's not like Mulholland Drive...

Yeah, it is, even more so with Blue Velvet. 50's music, 50's dress on the girls at school, rotary phones, 60's ambulance plus things in the 80's. Seems like you need to watch it again. Torch song singer with old microphone from 30's/40's ...

ctyankee wrote:

Forbidden wrote:Yes, I have seen Blue Velvet - that's the only Lynch film I saw besides Mulholland Drive, but that's not the same case. In Blue Velvet all fits in the 80's: the hairstyles, the clothes... it's not like Mulholland Drive...

Yeah, it is, even more so with Blue Velvet. 50's music, 50's dress on the girls at school, rotary phones, 60's ambulance plus things in the 80's. Seems like you need to watch it again. Torch song singer with old microphone from 30's/40's ...

I think the 80's is the actual time of Jeffrey and the 50's the time he lived with his parents: Dorothy and Frank... I'm not sure if the father od Jeffrey is Frank or Dorothy's husband... maybe he demonizes Frank because he destroyed the relantionship of his parents...

The final scene of the film with Dorothy and her son seems a memory of that time...

(we should create a Blue Velvet topic... it's a shame we don't have a topic for such a good film!)