Watch Mulholland Drive: live!

As part of the Guardian and Observer Film Season, welcome to our inaugural liveblog of a film. We pressed play on the DVD of Mulholland Drive that came free with today's Observer at exactly 7pm. And, with the help of uberfan Steve Rose and film scholar David Thomson, we tried to decipher this most mysterious of movies
Now choose which film we'll liveblog from the TV on Monday
Mulholland Dr
Seriously, Justin, you're only going to truly understand this movie when the Guardian liveblog it in nine years. Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive

6.30pm: Good evening! At 7pm we'll be kicking off our inaugural liveblog of a film on the Guardian's film site as part of our month-long Film Season. So there's still time to get a copy of Mulholland Drive, free with today's Observer, if you haven't already (and the garage/newsagent still has some in stock).

Steve Rose, the Guide's film editor, will be here negotiating our way around David Lynch's labyrinthine thriller, while in San Francisco, David Thomson will be sending us half-hourly pointers on what might actually be going on.

Please join us then, and join in the conversation too, either on the comments thread at the bottom of the blog, or by emailing Catherine Shoard.

We want to know your thoughts not just on what's going on, but what works and what doesn't, what the references are, whether you can see the hallmarks of the film's earlier incarnation as a TV show … to be honest, almost anything you'd care to share as you're watching the film.

6.35pm: Some reminders of how we got here … initially we were going to liveblog Airplane! which was given away free with yesterday's Guardian, but many of you felt it'd be more pointful to try Mulholland Drive instead.

We're actually going to be liveblogging films on TV (terrestrial and freeview) all this coming week on the film site. We'll run polls each morning from midnight to noon asking which film you'd most like us to tackle later that day. But for Monday's choice, we're launching the poll now – so click here if you'd like to help decide whether Michael Hann will be liveblogging Meet Me in St Louis, Mean Machine or Layer Cake tomorrow.

6.53pm: Just before we begin, here's some quick primers. First, David Thomson initial bit of advice for all those about to take the journey down Mulholland Drive

Mulholland Drive is a long, winding road that runs from downtown Los Angeles to the Pacific along the mountain crest that separates the San Fernando Valley from LA itself. Stars live there; vagrants live there – there is a paved section and then dirt road. It is like a parable. And it is named after the city engineer who brought the necessary water to LA. It is history, and it is Chinatown. It offers views of LA, at night, like diamonds spilled on black velvet. It is where Satan or God would take you to tempt you with fame or disaster – if they existed.
But it is also Mulholland Dr (the film's precise title), where "Dr" signals dreaming. Think of what you are going to see as a parade of dreams (a drive with changing views, but a drive against a projection) – and as in dreams the pieces will be arresting without always making sense. But as with your own dreams, relax, try to sleep. Watch before you need to understand.  And don't count on understanding.

Hello folks, writes Steve Rose, who's now taking over the commentary

Let me be straight - Mulholland Drive was voted number 3 on the Guardian's best film of the noughties poll, and in my opinion, that's two places too low. I didn't storm over the film editor's desk and pour pink paint on his keyboard or anything, but to me it's about as perfect a Hollywood movie as anything else ever. I have to accept that not everyone thinks the same. My wife's reaction when I took her to see it was more like, "huh". Nor did the two friends I dragged along to a later screening do much more than scratch their heads and mumble about dinner when we came out the cinema - I don't see those friends much any more. But I'm (or rather WE'RE) still in good company. It was named as best film of the decade by some of the snobbiest film mags in the firmament, including Cahiers du Cinema, Slant, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, IndieWIRE and The Village Voice. And surely you all agree, right? Or if not, consider this a mission to change your mind.

Yes, of course, it's confusing, and I've seen it at least 10 times without ever really figuring it all out. Partly because I get so carried away watching it, I forget to keep track of things. Should we try and crack it tonight or should we revel in the mystery? Given that David Lynch has insisted the whole thing does make sense, we might as well try and figure some things out. In fact, let's just remember the 10 clues he gave out at the time:

Notice appearances of the red lampshade. -
Is it mentioned again? - An accident is a terrible event... notice the location of the accident. -
Who gives a key, and why? -
Notice the robe, the ashtray, the coffee cup. -
What is felt, realized and gathered at the club Silencio? -
Did talent alone help Camilla? -
Notice the occurrences surrounding the man behind Winkies. -
Where is Aunt Ruth?

I'm confused already, but this is an experiment, so here goes!

7.00pm: We're pressing play now!

7.03pm: The first thing we see - the couples jitterbugging - now looks like an iPod ad. Is that where they got it?

The happy mood doesn't last long, though, does it? Who are the old couple? That's a key question people have tried to decipher, but let's pay attention.

Pink pillow. We sink into it - darkness - the first of several indications that this is a dream.

7.03pm: Just to confirm, the commentary, when you read it, will be Steve Rose's; unless it's David Thomson's half-hourly pointer. Catherine Shoard may make random interjections in the comments section.

7.06pm: David Lynch's house is in fact just off Mulholland Drive, in the Hollywood hills. People who've been there say his studio is a mess. He chain smokes and chucks the fag butts on the floor. There's no film stuff in it I'm told, just painting and craft stuff.

"What are you doing? We don't stop here." Rita knows where she's going. Where is she going?

7.09pm: Lynch has form with amnesiacs and car crashes. Remember Lara Flynn Boyle - wasn't it? In Wild at Heart, picking her brains out by the side of the road. Ugh.

Note the position Rita (Laura Haring) was in when she fell out of the car. That might be important later.

Rita passes the Sunset Blvd sign - movie reference alert - there are lots of parallels but the fact that Sunset Blvd had a dead narrator is surely a hint. Lynch has said he loves the movie.

"The boys found this" says the detective - holding up Rita's pearl earring - do we ever hear of it again?

In fact, isn't Aunt Ruth's courtyard house a bit like Norma Desmond's in Sunset Boulevard?

Winkie's – we're already out of the Rita narrative and some place else. The talk is all about dreams – but what does it mean.

There are a lot of doublings in this film – everything that happens in the first "dream" half happens in the second half somehow. sort of. "You're in both dreams" says the guy in Winkies. And, the man round the back – if he's there, then it's a dream, right?

Note the cars slowing down to watch the filming on Sunset Blvd in the background - never noticed that before

Scary man in the backlot! Switches straight to scary Hollywood mogul (Michael J Anderson - Lynch's regular dwarf character) - a parallel. Then we get lots of phones. The red lamp and the ashtray - I think they're in Betty/Diane's apartment later - we'll have to keep track!

Those cosy scenes of Betty at the airport. And the inanely grinning couple. Who are they? There's an amazing artificiality to these scenes isn't there? The score is so soft and soothing - like Naomi Watts' sweater (not the pink colour btw).

Mulholland Dr
Mulholland Dr Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive

Coco is amazing - Ann Miller - this was her last film. What a way to go out. Unlike Orson Welles - whose last film was Transformers, the cartoon movie ...

Mulholland Dr
Mulholland Dr Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive

Just noticed how Betty looks in the mirror, in the exact same way Rita does moments later.

Another dream clue: There NEVER was a woman like Rita.

"We're asking you to keep an open mind".
"What was it last time?"
"Well try the next one."
Again, what are they talking about?

You gotta love the Castigliani brothers.

Camilla Rhodes - isn't that Betty in the photo?

Dwarf mogul guy is listening in - proof of the power structure.

"This is the girl" - scary.

It wouldn't be a Lynch film without some coffee scene. Has anyone tried his own brand coffee?

That's Angelo Badalamenti - the composer - spitting the coffee out. Brilliant.

"That girl is not in my film"
"It's no longer your film" That's how they roll.

After that fantastic bit with the coffee, here's the second David Thomson primer:

Still there? So where are you? There's a pink bed, empty, with breathing noises – listen to the sound, there's a "presence" a lot of the time, like pressure or dread.
There's this femme fatale type who goes up to Mulholland Dr at night, driven in a car. The car stops, and she says, "We don't stop here" – it must be a regular happening, or a scene they keep shooting. The driver tells her to get out of the car. There's a gun. But then joy-riders like furies collide with the car and femme fatale staggers away, head bleeding – is it a concussion? Don't fall asleep if you have a concussion? She goes down the slope to L.A. in bad shape and takes shelter in an apartment complex.
Along comes Betty (from Deep River, Ontario), a pretty, bright-eyed blonde who hopes to make it in movies – is this the 1950s? She has an apartment lined up that her Aunt Ruth has left for her. (Ruth was the real name of Bette Davis – is that important? I don't know, but try forgetting it.) Coco manages the complex and she is Ann Miller as in "Ann Miller", a sort of mother figure to the dream, and she still walks like a dancer. But femme fatale is naked in the apartment shower, as in "naked". She decides her name is "Rita" after she sees a poster for the Rita Hayworth movie, Gilda – concussion or dreaming? Will these girls be pals? They are knockouts – another concussion? Is this helping?

Do you want us to shut everything down? That's what the henchman asks Mr Roque - scary dwarf mogul. Then we'll shut everything down. Is this Betty/Diane's subconscious? Just before that scene we see Betty about to wake up Rita - implying it's near the end of the dream, ie. near Diane's death.

It should be noted that Steve was sniggering through that assassination bit …

The hitman scene is such a relief - After all that confusion, it's suddenly slapstick - punching fat women, really. And the hoover man.

But the black book comes in later.

"I thought when I woke up. I thought sleep would do it" says Rita on the bed, tearful.
"You wanna know don't you?" says Betty.
It's like two halves of her talking to each other.
She opens the bag and it's full of money - another presentiment.

And the BLUE KEY - that's dead important, and very difficult to keep track of in the latter stages. Let's concentrate!

Hitman dudes asks clearly battered prostitute, "any new girls on the street lately? A brunette?"
God it's confusing … Tell me it makes sense, David, give me a sign …

Mulholland Dr
Mulholland Dr Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive

I wonder where you were going?
"Mulholland Drive" says Rita.
"Maybe that's where the accident was," says Betty. Is she implying her own road to stardom met with an acccident
"I'll pretend to be someone else," she says after.

Billy Ray Cyrus! Has Miley seen this? In some parallel universe, is the Hannah Montana creation myth?

Meanwhile, fishing for clues - there's a pink chair and a blue chair beside the pool when he walks in. Pink and blue tins of paint in the shed. He picks the pink one. She's wearing a blue dress. She ends up pink and blue - is there a colour clue scheme going on?

Pouring paint over a woman's jewellery box - we don't need to decode that one too much do we?

Betty and Rita just hide the bag and the key - which will unlock her subconscious, perhaps - and then they shake hands. Her two halves are in agreement again.

They're in Winkies again. Sitting in the same place, when "Diane" comes and pours the coffee.
It's Rita who stares at the name tag and remembers something.
"Diane Selywn. Maybe that's my name"
But then Betty says, "It's strange to be calling yourself."

Mulholland Dr
Mulholland Dr Photograph: THE RONALD GRANT ARCHIVE

Justin Theroux apparently walked off the plane straight to the audition for Lynch dressed exactly how he is in the film.

I hadn't realised before how much else is going on in this first portion - we actually only see Betty and Rita in short scenes. Is this ALL dream?

"You don't belong here," says Louise. "That one is in my room and she won't get out."

Note Coco's GIGANTIC pearl earrings. Another subconscious reminder?

The Cowboy - another great Lynch character and a Hollywood archetype perverted into pure menace: this is how the Hollywood machine works. Lots of other Lynch tropes in the cowboy scene - lines in the middle of the road at night, flickering light. I love this scene. Not the way the cowboy has no eyebrows. And a white hat - is he a good guy?

The Cowboy could write one of those "How to get what you want in business" books.

This Is The Girl
Was the photo of Camilla Rhodes actually Naomi Watts?
"You will see me one more time if you do good, two more times if you do bad." How many more times do we see the cowboy?
Is this really Adam doing good or bad? Or Betty/Diane?

The fake audition scene - Rita is a terrible actress. Does this mean Betty/Diane is really? Is that why she really failed in Hollywood, and the whole Adam Kesher thing is her imaginary justification?

Now for the first time, Betty isn't in pink - she's got blue underrneath.
Her grey suit makes her look a bit like Kim Novak in Vertigo. Come to think of it, are there similarities? Both films have two part structure - one half dream, one reality. Hmmm.

The "real" audition scene - incredible. So Naomi Watts basically plays three roles in this movie, all brilliantly.

"I hate you, I hate us both," she says at the end. In blue now.

She seduces a roomful of old men (in her fantasy world), in reality she's screwed over by Hollywood's old me. This is surely one of the points of the movie - the power balance, cycle of cruelty, dynamic, whatever, between young women and old men. They're all a bunch of arses, especially the clueless director. "That poor old fool Wally." And this is just before they introduce her to Adam Kesher.

Mulholland Drive
Mulholland Drive

The 16 reasons song - again note the blue and pink colour scheme. Is there a pink, "nice" Betty and a blue "nasty" Betty.

Hers and Adam's eyes meet fatefully - this is meant to be. In Betty's world, she would have got the part, if the machine and the "this is the girl" mechanism hadn't hijacked the film.

Then "who's next?" "Camilla Rhodes". It's all pink this time.

Going to Rita/Diane's apartment - the courtyard building is a bit like a downmarket version of Aunt Ruth's - the source for her fantasy construct, perhaps.

There's a lot of people putting bags and cases into car boots and things in this film. They see another couple doing it here. When the cases are in the boot, Betty says "I told you there's nothing to be afraid of"

"I switched apartments with her" "She hasn't been around for a few days"
If Betty and Rita are really Diane, who is the woman who answers the door?

It makes Christopher Nolan's Inception look very linear and pedestrian doesn't it?

Mulholland Drive
Mulholland Drive

8.32pm: Yikes … with that we can give you David Thomson's latest update

If Betty wants a film job, there has to be a director – Adam. You know he's a creep, from his hair and his inert way of staring. He's casting a picture and there's a sly, knowing close-up into the camera that says Camilla Rhodes is the one. Adam has to go meet Cowboy (in a cowboy hat) and Cowboy tells him it's Camilla – or else. But Betty is up for the part, too. She has a fierce scene with Rita until you realize they are only rehearsing a scene - there's a clue: anything that feels dangerous and real, like life, may simply be a scene someone is acting. So Betty goes to an audition to do her scene and she is sensational, so good she must be Naomi Watts. (And the tanned guy she runs the scene with is Chad Everett – wasn't he in pictures once?) The scene is very sexy – were you excited? Was she? Why do people act? Because it is more satisfying than life? I'm just asking. Adam sees Betty (I mean he really looks at her) but then he still casts Camilla – are directors creeps, or what?
But wait a minute? Betty and Rita are going to a different apartment, looking for "Diane". Another woman appears, the woman in 12 (one tough dame), who says Diane is in 17 not 12 (do numbers interest you?). And in 17 there is a woman on the bed (it's that pink bed), dead and decomposing. This is not nice.

Horrible when the discover they body. Isn't she in the same position Rita was in when she fell out the car?
The illusion is falling apart. Rita and Betty are merging back into one character.
"I know what you have to do," says Betty. Then Rita becomes blonde. They look into the mirror as one.

8.38pm: Lots of critics have pointed out the similarity between their mirror merger and Bergman's Persona.

Scene from Mulholland Drive, directed by David Lynch
Scene from Mulholland Drive, directed by David Lynch

8.38pm: A lot of lesbians rate their sex scene. Others have criticised Lynch for inserting some steamy action into his old man fantasy. But in the context of Betty and Rita being two halves of the same person, there's surely no alternative.


Again - the profile/face on shot - Bergman's Persona

There's no going back now. "Silencio"

8.41pm: On the way to Silencio in the cab - am I just imagining we see a red cross flash up, then a "don't walk" hand? As if to say, "don't go there"

8.42pm: Here's another of David Thomson's updates

Rita is so upset she goes blonde – it's just a wig. But she takes the wig off, and the towel, and gets into bed with Betty for what is called a good night's sleep. Do they get it on, or is it simulated sex? Wasn't this always likely with knockout pals? And in a film as strange as this any creepy director knows we need something to sink our teeth into, or our hands on – you know what I'm saying? I mean this is hot.

The Silencio scene. Artifice turned into theatre. "It is an illusion"

This is surely as close as a movie can get to reminding you that it's a movie without throwing you out of it completely. The more Lynch shows us it's all illusion, the more we're drawn in. Except it's not "real" - there are flashes of thunder, the "No ay banda" guy disappears in a puff of smoke.

But it's also the final moment for Betty's fantasy. Not the blue haired woman - the blue lighting turns to "real" lighting.

8.47pm: More from David Thomson:

So the girls go to the "Silenzio" which is a kind of theatre, where they see sinister acts, like the famous Rebekah Del Rio (I'd never heard of her) singing. But they have been warned that the acts are only an act – you see, it's all recorded. I mean, does acting work for you, or is it always fake? And can you tell life from the fake? After all, Rebekah collapses near the end of her song but her singing goes on. It was just a recording. And all this life-like stuff … it's just a movie.

Rebekah del Rio is the singer. Apparently Lynch flew to Nashville to hear her real-life cover of this, and this is the actual recording of her singing to him.

Even when it's exposed as a mime, it doesn't stop working, does it?

Note she has a red earring - no longer a pearl. Another stop light.
Note as well the position she falls in - again, the same dead position.
It's so sad …


Now the dream unravels.

Let's not forget in Blue Velvet the way Dennis Hopper sang to Roy Orbison, in front of a red curtain, also signalling it was a dream "In Dreams, I walk with you …"

I had to go back and reappraise that film realising this - it's all a dream too! But let's not go into that now.

The blue key. Don't open the box!

Then Aunt Ruth comes back and the room is undistrubed. The we're back to the pink bedsheets we saw in the beginning.

The cowboy again - "Hey pretty girl, time to wake up"

That's once more we've seen him.

8.56pm: Her coffee cups are the same as in Winkie's - she really was a waitress there.

So it's not "Rita" she's really on the couch with, it's "Camilla Rhodes" is that right?
She says, "It's him isn't it?"
The we're back on the movie set, and Diane sees Adam snogging Rita (or is it Camilla now?) in the car.
Poor Diane - Naomi Watts' frozen face is devastating.

Diane trying to keep up the illusion while masturbating. The whole first half is effectively about self-love isn't it? Then it stops working.

The Red Lamp and the ashtray - in Diane's apartment. This was the phone we say ringing near the start - was it dwarf mogul guy trying to call her and getting no answer? They were looking for her. Was she already dead? Was she the one in the car?

They're going to the party - on Mulholland Drive - but is this where we came in? No, but it could she says at the beginning about how they don't stop here. Diane says it again.

9.05pm: A little more from David Thomson

Rita and Betty are in the apartment, but Betty comes and goes (like a fading light) – is she weakening? There's a blue box and a blue key – don't dreams need keys? Isn't the blue like velvet? Then Betty is on the bed, in that fatal corpse position, and when she wakes up (so slowly) she looks sick, or beaten down, like a failure. Are things not working out for Betty in Hollywood? Is that why the hard-faced woman in 12 comes by and calls her "Diane"?  12 wants her dishes and things back. You wouldn't want to leave your stuff with a failure who might be dying, would you? And as Betty becomes Diane so Rita is shifting to Camilla. So it's Camilla who tells Diane to take the car up to Mulholland – the car is waiting outside, just like a smooth cut.

9.06pm: Camilla - ie Laura Haring (I'm getting confused myself with the names) - takes her on a "short cut" "a secret path" - is this the real route to Hollywood success?

Mulholland Dr
Mulholland Dr Photograph: THE RONALD GRANT ARCHIVE

So. No we see at the party all the characters from the first half in their "real" or at least alternative roles.
Coco is Adam Kesher's mother. He's Hollywood royalty.

Out of focus - "I'm from Deep River Ontario. I won this jitterbug contest." Coco's clawlike fingers pick walnuts from a bowl. She's literally picking her brains.

The Sylvia North Story - is that the first time we've heard that? Wasn't that one of Lynch's clues?

Camilla got the part - the director didn't think so much of Diane - is this the real story of Diane's career?

Then we see the girl kissing "Camilla" who was recast as Camilla in the first half audition.

And there's the Cowboy again - that's twice. But who did bad? Adam or Diane?


Winkie's again. The waitress is now Betty - mirror image.
Again, "This is the girl" - the line is full of evil, whoever's saying it, it seems.
She's ordering the hit.
The blue key - "when it's finished you'll find this where I told you" On the table in her apartment?
The guy from dream one is there staring at her. Is that why she says "what' does it open and hitman laughs?" She's trying to pretend she's not arranging a hit?
Round the back again. The scary tramp and the box.
The miniature people - this really is confusing now.

9.15pm: More from David Thomson:

Adam is throwing the party – Coco is his mother. I told you she was the mother of the dream. Because Adam and Camilla are getting … well, whatever people in the picture business do get. (Ask Tony Curtis. He said he loved every film he ever made – like 130 of them. So you know how disturbing the life can be.) Diane hates them all – wouldn't you? And it looks as if she is ready to hire and pay a killer (I don't know where she got the money unless she got it from props – where do you get yours?) to off Camilla. If you can off a great star? But in your dreams don't you execute people you don't like? It's a freebie, isn't it?

Mulholland Dr
Mulholland Dr Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive


The key is on the table. The hit has gone ahead. It's all so bleak now. Listen to that music - it's like whale songs.

The little people - are they some symbolic couple - like the two cops who've been asking questions and are obviously closing in on her.

Christ I forgot how terrifying that bit is.


9.18pm: Wow. Final thoughts from David Thomson:

It's up to you; it always is. There's a legitimate theory that this is a picture about the very difficult time every Betty has coming to Los Angeles and hoping to make it on the silver screen (yet if she'd stayed in Deep River she might have drowned). And it's also a rather sad study in how, if you're an actress, the names and your hair colour may change but you're always saying the same things, opening a blue box or doing a nude scene (so make sure you have the breasts – yet how long do breasts last?). And while the picture feels full of dread, if you step back one step you can find it all pretty funny – or ridiculous. Oh! (as in "watch out!"), don't go back too far, because it's a steep slope beneath Mulholland and you could fall and get a concussion.
It doesn't "all add up" or "make sense"? You're right, but neither does the national budget. And if you kept watching,  then probably you want to watch the picture again. You're just like Betty, and you'll keep trying out until you get a part or you're curled up on the pink bed decomposing.
Until the next time. And if it all made sense you wouldn't want to have the dream again.

God. That must be about the 10th time I've seen it and it's still devastating.

The bit at the end is such a downer. It's like Diane/Betty's whole downer about her fantasy falling apart is our own disappointment at the movie coming to an end. No wonder we feel the disillusionment so hard. It's literally disillusionment isn't it?

Let me know if this experiment worked for you. I'm not sure if we've really unravelled the film. I've been following just one line of questioning in a way, but it's by no means the only one - and I wouldn't really want to ever feel like I've completely solved the mystery. Who knows? I hope you enjoyed it though. It's been an experience for me.

One final thing. I've only interviewed Lynch personally on the phone, once, and we weren't talking about Mulholland Dr, although I was dying to ask him so many things about it. One thing I remember though, he said he watches films in his home cinema all the time. I asked him if he ever got bored of watching stuff, imagining his standards must be way high, but he said no. Once the lights went down, no matter how bad the film was, he'd always have to carry on watching to the end.