I figured out how to make this pretty brief. a real quick listing.

Suffice to say I know there's probably a few who have seen MD but not Twin Peaks, so this is for those who have seen Twin Peaks.

In Twin Peaks it is commonly understood that there are character groupings.

http://twinpeaks.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_characters_in_Twin_Peaks

One grouping stands out:

1) Black Lodge Inhabitants:
The Man from Another Place Enigmatic dwarf, inhabitant of the Red Room. Michael J. Anderson

MIKE Spirit, former associate and now opponent of BOB, inhabits shoe salesman Phillip Gerard, "The One-Armed Man" Al Strobel

Killer BOB Malevolent spirit, haunts the woods and inhabits humans, killer of Laura. Frank Silva

The Giant A supernatural giant who appears at key moments and provides Cooper with cryptic clues. Carel Struycken

Mrs. Tremond/Chalfont Link to the Lodges and intentions unclear Frances Bay

Pierre Tremond/Chalfont
Mrs Tremond/Chalfont's grandson, link to the Lodges and intentions unclear Austin Jack Lynch/ Jonathan J. Leppell

This list neglects to include Laura's angel.


The rest of the characters in Twin Peaks are, well, characters even if some of them have some pretty cool powers like talking to a log or something.

So real quickly, what are the Lodge Inhabitants of Mulholland Drive (lodge association in parenthesis)?

1) Mr. Roque (beyond good and evil)
2) Back of Head Guy (white) and Hairy Armed Guy (black).
3) Luigi (white) and Vincenzo (black).
4) Joe (white) and Ed (black).
5) The Cowboy (beyond good and evil).
6) Coco (black) and Louise (white).
7) Aunt Ruth. (beyond good and evil)
8) Wally (white) and Bob (beyond), and Rita Taggert. (black)
9) Irene and her bald friend. (beyond good and evil)
10) Emcee/Cookie (white) and Magician. (black)
11) Blonde Camilla (Camilla's angel, white)

Characters who are not Black Lodge Inhabitants...

1) Diane/Betty/Laney/Dan/Bum
2) Camilla/Rita/Carol/DeRosa/Herb
3) Adam
4) Lorraine

these lists might help to clarify some of the character relationships. this should really explain the entire movie for those who understand how The Black Lodge Inhabitants function in Twin Peaks.

How do you arrive at who is/isn't an inhabitant?

How do you arrive at which inhabitants are black/white/BG&E?

Once you know this, how does it explain what's going on? Perhaps you could use (less controversial?) examples from TP and then we can argue how that might translate to MD?

there are specifics concerning each, you're asking for a short essay on every character so I will try to be real brief on one classification.

Luigi needs things to be clean and Major Briggs vision of the white lodge describes an immaculate setting.

Vincenzo is like the Phantom from Inland Empire with his arched eyebrows and combustible mannerisms.

Just one example to show what I put together there quickly is not completely random, there is some intuition mixed with my understanding of the rest of Lynch's work.

In order to back up the entire list, I'd have to put together posts on each, so this is more for folks who are more open to these ideas in general.

In short, I'm not going to defend it! The listing works for me if no one else.

Oh, i do note that those who are beyond good and evil, they tend to wear gold colors.

but just to be honest about how a lot of this is just intuition. I see the Cookie/Emcee as wearing a crisp clean white shirt, and he has a benevolent demeanor about him. The Magician wears grey colors, and he's clean cut too and he may be beyond good and evil, but I do have the intuition of malevolence about him. That's another example. I do interact with Lynch's movies on that level.

Sometimes it is just as simple as "hey they guy seems like a bad guy to me," and then just going with it. The emcee seems to want to take care of people, the Magician wants to shatter their worlds and condemn them to their most despicable selves. If the Magician met Adam out on the range, the Magician would be more inclined to just say "You're lying to yourself, you're screwed!" NOT give Adam another chance to get in the buggy.

now doesn't that mean The Cowboy might be from the White Lodge, he could be, he has that big giant white hat on, so one of the things I would want to point out, if there was a venn diagram on this, The Cowboy would probably be Beyond Good and Evil but also in a part of that circle that overlaps with the white lodge. if that makes sense.

so there's some more random thoughts on this.

oh, so where does Ray Hott, or Gene fit into all this? Oh, guess what, I don't know, but just because I don't have an absolute grasp on this, that doesn't mean the grasp I do have is absolutely incorrect.

Hey I'm totally open to this, I just need a bit more help to get into the mind set. First time I saw MD in theatre in 2001 I assumed that the little man in the curtained room was, well, a ref to the little man in the curtained room. So I was reading it as supernatural.

Re-watched TP in the summer so I remember it pretty well, although I wouldn't claim to understand most of it.

Crossed posts.

In TP it's more obvious and simple, I think. There are two playing fields: real and supernatural, both are places where Laura's fate is contested. In the real world that all happened in the past because she's already dead (in the TV series. In FWWM we're back in that action of course), while in the supernatural Black Lodge world it's going on as Dale investigates - so we have real/supernatural. past/present, alive/dead.

Clearly black is bad and not so good for Laura and white holds the promise of redemption for her. The two worlds inter-relate and real world players can be good or bad. The whie lodge is less clearly manifest, its players less obvious, its motives more ambiguous.

So far so good, and all very much like earth/heaven/hell in traditional Christian cosmology.

Now for the plot...

well i'm leaving out a big piece of the puzzle, maybe, although i figured it was a given. (i've said it before and like to at least try to minimize repeating myself).

I believe the entirety of MD happens in a Black/White Lodge realm. For instance, in the Winkie's scene, there is a White Lodge (guadalajara) behind Dan and Herb going down the stairs into the Black Lodge.

The arrow on the back door even tells them they are going the wrong way.

I really don't think what I'm putting down here is going to fit together perfectly. My venn diagram idea works the best. it's not three separate circles that never overlap, it's three circles that do overlap.

i am MOST unconfident about the Coco/Louise associations. There's one scene where Coco's red and BLACK motif costume is replaced with a white and red dress. I get really ticked off at Lynch when he breaks some of that kind of consistency. Coco really could be from the White Lodge is what I'm saying.