Longtime lover of this movie. It's my first time posting on this forum.

Can someone point me to discussions about the high aerial cityscape shots in Mulholland Drive? I'd like to know what significance they have.

Welcome aboard!

I really don't remember much discussion. Obviously it's a rather short scene. I remember discussing the red objects seen from above ... but that's about it. Perhaps others will weigh in.

ok. ok. you twisted my arm cause i'm the doofus who actually watched Mulholland Drive so many times i started noticing things like this.

if you pay attention to the wee wee tiny tiny ant sized cars criss crossing the streets of LA, you'll see they are all three distinct colors. White, red, and black. the colors of.......... The Black Lodge from Twin Peaks.

now i have misgivings about this because to the extent one actually notices such a thing is semi-probably unhealthy and pathological, and probably even just seeing what I want see anyway.

but i was comforted when someone else i forget who (not me, and unsolicited. HONEST!) noted the color of the cars you see parked on the side of the road when Adam drives up the road to meet The Cowboy. (still love the way Justin says "cowboy" in that half-hearted snide way like what the hell?? anyway..... Cowboy.... it's been that kind of a day)...

of course there's also blue boxes on the side of the road adam is driving on. In America those are what we normally call recycling bins, and they can be found on just about every street in America on a certain day each week. Ain't that a hoot, everyone in America has a blue box!!!!

i apologize this was so cranky, but it's been a rough few weeks (what the hell is that ferretlike thing on that guys puffy face?), and well, if one wants to go even further with this, the cars outside Winkies as Dan and Herb walk down the path, those cars are also, I am absolutely convinced, not ... randomly ... hued.

anyway, yeah, the significance. They're just interstitial scenes to frame the episodic nature of the movie. All directors do it. I bet even Paul Verhoeven, though i've never seen one of his movies more than once, and so have no way of saying for sure.

I LIKE em!!! the aerial shots i mean. Slo-mo.... mood setting.

Yeah they call that sort of shot an 'establisher', it's used for a change of location. Typically you get a few in succession getting closer in each time. From memory don't we see LA skyline, outside of Ed's building, inside of Ed's office.

I never though about these much, but with Lynch everything can mean more than it seems.

Kmkmiller are you suggesting they brought in a whole load of cars to drive around LA before they took up the chopper to get the skyline shots?

BTW TaperChuck you may like post 10 on this thread

Thanks I appreciate the responses.

Sorry for the delay, I thought you might be a robot. There's been a plague of them recently.

Kmkmiller are you suggesting they brought in a whole load of cars to drive around LA before they took up the chopper to get the skyline shots?

i'm suggesting that when you (or, more specifically, I) start noticing the uniformity of the colors of the cars shown in an establishing shot, it's time to start watching OTHER movies.

here's a screenshot (i don't have blue-ray)...



i honestly think i see, primarily white cars, with a few black, and maybe one or two red.

Oh I see! Lol!

Don't worry, quite probably they are. The most common colours of car are white, black, silver, grey and red, according to this site at least.

BTW The colours of the black lodge are red (curtains) with beige and brown stripes (floor):



In the scene just before the appearance of the Lodge Leland listens to Glen Miller and dances with a picture of Laura while in the background Laura's mum screams "What's happening in this house?". Leland's jacket is the same pattern and colours: the black lodge is a journey INTO Leland. This scene is a massive reveal.



BTW any ideas on the significance of the image of the needle going onto the record? This image reccurs many times in TP and opens IE. Destiny? Inevitability? Recurrence?

I don't know if the aerial shots "mean" anything but I see a link between 3 main establishing/master shots in MD.
The first is an aerial shot that captures the city's skyline and surrounding hills. As you would see sitting on a plane or helicopter.
the second shot looks straight down for just above buildings as in the screenshot posted above.
The 3rd are the fast moving street level views of what I assume is downtown LA before they enter club silencio.
The point is here is that we have progressed, "zoomed in", from the initial high level view (wide perspective, slow camera movements) to a progressively closer view (with faster movements). This, I think, reinforces the progression in the story as we get closer to the down and dirty reality.

Aerial shots are usually a filmmaker's technique to remind the viewer they are in a particular pace... in this case, L.A.

The visual shots themselves are not very interesting, and they shouldn't be read into for deeper meanings. However, what is interesting is the dark dream-like sounds under these shots. This, I assume, is to remind the viewer that something sinister is happening in this town, or that we are still in a dream, or both.

Speaking of those sound effects -and this is purely subjective on my part -- here is an article that might explain a lot of the low rumbling noises one hears in Lynch's work, especially when out of focus shots come into focus...

http://zidbits.com/2011/12/whats-that-sound-you-hear-when-you-shut-your-eyes-tightly/

kmkmiller wrote:Speaking of those sound effects -and this is purely subjective on my part -- here is an article that might explain a lot of the low rumbling noises one hears in Lynch's work, especially when out of focus shots come into focus...

http://zidbits.com/2011/12/whats-that-sound-you-hear-when-you-shut-your-eyes-tightly/

Hmm... That's a really interesting thought! I think you may be on to something there...