I've been wondering whether there might be any significance or pattern to which scenes follow scenes where we see Rita sleeping (and which, therefore, might be thought of as potentially "Rita's dreams"). Unless I missed something, they are:

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Rita Sleeping ... Scene That Follows
In the bushes outside 1612 Havenhurst ... Detectives Domgaard and McKnight at the crash site

Under the table in Aunt Ruth's kitchen ... Dan and Herb at Winkie's

Still under the table in Aunt Ruth's kitchen ... Phone call chain ("The girl is still missing"), which bleeds into Betty's arrival at LAX via the echoing ring on the last phone

In Aunt Ruth's bed, covered by the robe left for "Bitsie" ... Aerial segue into Ryan Enterprises meeting with the Castigliane brothers

Still in Aunt Ruth's bed, when Betty checks on her ... Ray talks to Mr. Roque and decides to "shut everything down"

In Aunt Ruth's bed, after Rita and Betty make love. ... Rita and Betty go to Club Silencio

---

Does anyone see a useful pattern or other info by looking at things this way? One thing that jumped out at me is that each of those scenes seems to include one of the characters who seem the least "realistic" or the most "dreamlike," or however one might put it.

The detectives seem very un-lifelike and stiff in a very dream-like way. The bum behind Winkie's seems to scare Dan to death. The phone call chain between the shadowy faceless figures seems to virtually create "Betty;" they say the girl is still missing, then the echoes of the final call are still heard as "the girl" appears. The Castigliane Brothers, with their presumed agent, The Cowboy, wield great power over the lives of the main characters. Lastly, the Magician, the blue-haired lady, and the others at Club Silencio begin the process of "shutting everything down."

It's as if some of the most surreal parts of Diane's dream are "buried" another layer down by being the sub-dreams of one of Diane's dream characters (Rita).

Any other thoughts? :)

Great post!!!!

Yes. Winkies is a Camilla/Rita propelled vision and should not be confused with something Diane dreamt up.

Ok, maybe the detectives are too though not as important for that to be the case.

Ok, maybe the phone call chain though again not crucial that we see that scene from Rita/Camilla's perspective.

No, the Ryan entertainment scene is an Adam centric experience. We see too much of Adam's own journey for his introduction to be a self-contained dream of another character.

But yes yes yes this post is brilliant because it is crucial to see the winkies scene between Dan and Herb from the standpoint of a murdered Camilla who has no recollection of being murdered but does have some weird vision of some guy getting a confession out of another guy. And then leading him to the bum... Which is incidentally what Camilla does during the last 20 minutes of the movie (only they walk up a hill instead of down some stairs) see how that works?

Lynch is brilliant!!

kmkmiller wrote:Yes. Winkies is a Camilla/Rita propelled vision and should not be confused with something Diane dreamt up.
(snip)
No, the Ryan entertainment scene is an Adam centric experience. We see too much of Adam's own journey for his introduction to be a self-contained dream of another character.

Personally, I see all three of the "dream's" main characters (Rita, Betty, and Adam) as doppelgangers for different aspects of Diane. So wondering if these are "Rita's dreams" in some stylistic sense, doesn't imply (for me) that they're not really Diane's dreams.

kmkmiller wrote:But yes yes yes this post is brilliant because it is crucial to see the winkies scene between Dan and Herb from the standpoint of a murdered Camilla who has no recollection of being murdered but does have some weird vision of some guy getting a confession out of another guy. And then leading him to the bum... Which is incidentally what Camilla does during the last 20 minutes of the movie (only they walk up a hill instead of down some stairs) see how that works?

Lynch is brilliant!!

Wow, I hadn't thought of that! Yes, Camilla leads Diane up a hill, to a place where something happens that (eventually) results in Camilla's death, just like Dan leads Herb down a hill, to a place where something happens that results in Dan's death. I hadn't spotted that echo before. Nice!

Interesting too, that some have theorized (separately) that Dan doesn't really exist -- he's just Herb's imaginary friend -- and some have theorized that Camilla doesn't really exist -- she's just Diane's dream woman, or idealized version of DeRosa, or some such. Not that I necessarily buy either of those takes, but it's another interesting corollary. It gives each scene an odd flavor of "dreams dying" in a way...

derekfnord wrote:Yes, Camilla leads Diane up a hill, to a place where something happens that (eventually) results in Camilla's death, just like Dan leads Herb down a hill, to a place where something happens that results in Dan's death. I hadn't spotted that echo before. Nice!

Just had a "Whoah!" moment (as Betty would say). It's long been assumed that Dan was a stand-in for Diane (similarity of names; Diane saw him there when at Winkie's with Joe, etc.). But when Diane and Joe were there, Diane sat where Herb sits with Dan.

What if, in the Dan and Herb scene, Dan is Camilla and Herb is Diane? That not only makes the thematic echo work even better with the lead-in to the pool party, but it also might identify the "man in back of this place; he's the one who's doing it." It's not the bum, because the bum's not a man. What if the man is Herb?

Because when Herb/Diane becomes the man in back of that place by going back there, Dan/Camilla dies. If Herb = Diane, then he (she) is indeed "the one who's doing it" to Camilla...

Or he's Diane, mad at Dan for witnessing her paying Jo.

Or Diane, mad enough at Camilla to have her killed...

The only time we see Diane at Winkie's she's in Herb's seat, looking across at Dan. Herb's blonde.

kmkmiller, you sometimes come across as "every idea that stems from a scene or exchange that I interpret differently is invalid and not worth discussing." So let me ask you... If we're not here to brainstorm ideas about various ways to interpret the mysteries of the film, then what the heck is the purpose of this site? "Let me explain the scene"? Man, unless you're David Lynch behind that avatar, your explanation is no more valid than anyone else's.

I totally realize that there's also of plenty of reason to think Dan represents Diane; I'm just toying with an alternate idea. I get that you want to "stay on track," but that seems to imply that there is some final "right" solution that we're supposed to arrive at, and that you'll acknowledge it when you see it. I just don't get that. I think the film can mean different things to different people, or even many things at once.

kmkmiller wrote:I tried to advocate for what I think is the more correct analysis even if in a way that could be perceived as confrontational.. You know I was thinking about not saying anything at all .. Is that really better?

Definitely not. :)

But you can advocate for your favored analysis without making it sound like yours is the One True Analysis, or like another idea is the "Wrong Way." "I've always taken that to mean 'x'" comes across a lot differently than "Let me explain the scene to you."

kmkmiller wrote:And I guess I do have to ask the question can Herb be both Camilla and Diane??.. Doesn't one idea cancel out the other?

You know, I'm not sure. Ordinarily, I agree with you that in any given scene, a character (if they're not simply representing themselves) typically represents one other character or idea. But in the Herb and Dan scene in particular, they almost do seem to each both represent Diane in one sense, and Camilla in another sense.

I really think that scene is one of the most pivotal in the film. (After all, Lynch could easily have removed that scene when going from pilot to feature film if he didn't think its inclusion was critical.) How one interprets that scene weighs a lot in how they interpret the whole film, I think.

I wish I had a good idea about the significance of the repeatedly changing elevation of the camera's perspective in that scene... Do you have one?

kmkmiller wrote:Just some thoughts. But I do think there are some right and wrong answers. On the upside I was the biggest cheerleader of the original post in this thread!!

Yes you were! And I guess I think there are some right and wrong answers too... I'm just inclined to allow a fair amount of leeway, since we are -- after all -- essentially doing dream interpretation here...

I just want to re-iterate my agreement with the idea that Camilla/Rita is dreaming too during Mulholland Drive.

So... should I go back and delete my posts now, so I don't look like an idiot having a conversation with myself?

More deleting of posts kmkmiller, what's going on?

What's going on is this is just how I am starting to deal with things that turn into meta discussions about behavior. or if i rethink something I posted and then decide I went too far.

i mean if we want to have that discussion it can be an interesting one, but should probably have a different thread. but I really don't want to be off putting and bicker back and forth about things and yet, well, here's the thing...

at what point should an idea be encouraged or discouraged, if at all, ever??? about art?? i have had professors and met several people in life who have all proposed a single minded approach to interpreting art. The art professor would point to a painting and deconstruct the method and meaning and if someone else had a different interpretation, well, that person was wrong.

but everyone has an opinion or an intuition, and this is not a college classroom.

oh, and it's always the guy who deleted the posts who looks like the idiot to the discerning reader, but maybe my stubbornness on the issue
made me look more like an idiot.

i just don't know what to do with a discussion thread that gravitates towards the "It's a Lynch movie so every observation is valid" reason for adopting a certain idea.

i am getting better at just keeping my mouth shut when I disagree. I have no idea what's going on in Kar's thread with all the Id, Ego stuff, but it's better off the way. I just got roped into this thread by my enthusiasm for it, and then it went in a direction I totally didn't expect and I replied to it and then got more direct about my disagreement. i'd like to go back and just pretend I kept my mouth shut on this one.

It's okay. I'm sorry if I got too defensive. Maybe I'm the one who shouldn't have tossed out the "maybe Herb represents Diane" idea in this thread. It wasn't fully-baked, and wasn't really all that germane to the original point anyway. I was really just what-iffing... for the most part, I agree it's much more likely that Dan represents Diane.

I really am curious whether you have any thoughts about the significance of the camera changing elevation throughout the Winkie's interior shots in the Herb and Dan scene...

i did think a good bit about how Herb could be a Diane iteration. and just cause i'm a dick, that doesn't mean you shouldn't pursue your own line of investigation... but onward and upward.

the wavy camera movements in Winkies.... couple things I remember from reading the main studies pages of this website. one is they had to rig up something special because the counter was so close, that diner was too small for a boom that would get the right effect that Lynch wanted.

Also, someone was interviewed and remarked how awesome it was that the camera was just making these figure 8s over and over, which sideways is the sign for infinity. so that alludes to the infinite nature of what Lynch believes is a repeating story in the human condition. it never ends. also ergo the mobius strip construction of the movie.

there was also talk of an idea that the wavy motion indicates that the murder took place near water, for instance the body stashed in the trunk of a car and then the car pushed into a lake. a muffled underwater sound effect is also said to accompany the moment Dan dies after seeing the bum.


that's all i know about it. personally, the infinity stuff sounds the most logical to me, and it comes from an interview. yalla yalla.