Name: Jolanta Jasiulionyte

Unit title: Postmodernism

Word count: 2212 + 183 (footnotes)

Essay question: How Postmodern Ideas of Deconstruction Relate to David

Lynch’s Film Mulholland Drive
Unit’s lecturer: Phil Gomm

Date: 10 December 2010

Introduction
1
As Keith Booker, writer on Postmodern Cinema, notes, what David Lynch
produces have been central in academic discussions of postmodern film. This
essay analyses Mulholland Drive (Lynch, David; 2001) and how postmodern
ideas are reflected there or could be used to interpret it (the film).

Postmodernism1 is both a historical and cultural phenomenon, which gained a

reputation for complexity and inaccessibility.“ One of the key problems … is
the overwhelming scope of theoretical and popular media definitions of what
constitutes postmodern culture… it can encompass everything in the
contemporary cultural sphere” ( Garret; 2007:15). It is a vast topic which
holds many writings on a variety of complex ideas it holds. In order keep this
essay direct and focused a reader will be presented with the key ideas behind
deconstruction, only one of postmodern thoughts.

Essay will lead you trough the basic plot of the film after what a note on film’s
purposeful likeness to Hollywood’s cinema will be made. Further and following
analysis then attempts to explain the evident difference to the typical
Hollywood film and possible ideas underneath it by first concisely explaining
the thoughts and theory of postmodern deconstruction and paralleling
examples. Following this model step by step essay leads to new and more in-
depth interpretations of the possible meanings of the film towards its
conclusion.

Main Body

To begin with, the main plot of Mulholland drive is as it follows; at the very
beginning dark-haired beauty ( actress Laura Elena Harring) survives a car
crash on a remote section of Mulholland drive after she was about to be killed.
Dazed and shocked she goes back like a “broken doll” to the civilized part of
the city into an apartment she finds open. Soon after she realizes loss of
memory, she doesn’t remember her past or identity anymore. Meanwhile full-
1
The term Postmodernism in Thesaurus Dictionary is defined in its most concise essence, as any of a number of
trends or movements in the arts and literature developing in the 1970s in reaction to or rejection of the dogma,
principles, or practices of established modernism in.
2
blooded blonde, newly arrived to Hollywood, Betty Elms (played by Naomi
Watts) settles in the same apartment, while she attempts to break in to
movies in her own right. Two women encounter each other and from that
point on both try to piece together Rita’s (one which lost her memory)
mystery and discover her real identity.

At first sight, the audience is being introduced with a typical Hollywood film
plot. “Mulholland Drive… draws upon numerous classic Hollywood motifs to
construct a narrative that situates itself within a number of traditional
Hollywood genres “(Booker; 2007:25) The author of Postmodern Hollywood
emphasizes the use of established film conventions of Hollywood cinema in
Lynch’s film. Director includes genre’s iconography (recurrent visual icons),
stock characters, typical themes and central narrative patterns. To give an
example, the character who experienced the car accident takes her name
from a poster for the Rita Hayworth2 (Vidor, Charles; 1946) and as Booker
notes, she indeed has the sultry sexiness of Hayworth.

Fig.1 Character (Laura Elena Harring) names herself Rita after noticing poster
of Rita Hayworth in Gilda (Vidor, Charles. 1946)

An identifiable grammar and conventional syntax in Mulholland Drive is used

to construct a recognizable Hollywood’s product, to generate the energy and
interest, it is a starting point on which other ideas are further constructed.

On the other hand film doesn’t stop with the conventional guidelines, there is
an introduction of something not clear at first sight. Reviewer Roger Ebert
2
Rita Hayworth is an American film actress, who attained fame during the 1940s
3
marks, “The movie is hypnotic; we're drawn along as if one thing leads to
another--but nothing leads anywhere”. (Ebert, 2001) Like word by word we
expect an idea to be finally explained and revealed, a scene by scene we also
expect to reach the closure in Mulholland Drive , as it would be delivered in
any other conventional Hollywood film.

Far from being lead towards the closure, the audience discovers new plots
and characters. “Lynch strives to kill the Hollywood dream and icons,
revealing both as nothing more than false imitations of false ideal” . After the
plot is set using conventions of a typical Hollywood film purposefully, the film
quite literally resets itself. Established characters are reestablished again,
continuously used subplots suggest new genres of the film and so on. This all
perhaps serves to convey director’s alternative point of view towards cliché
scenario: the idyllic Hollywood dream being nothing else than (Hollywood’s
itself) social construct3.

It could be said, that the film illustrates one of the main postmodernist points.
That is relativism and skepticism4 towards presented realities. As it will be
discussed further in the essay, it questions the singularity and competence of
truth by employing the means used to convey it.

But to get back Mulholland Drive, in the first part of the film, Betty, the cheery
optimistic soon-to-be-famous film star finds herself in the safe and nurturing
world, (the perfect flat to stay, promising people she meets and so on).

3
Social construct, idea/phenomenon “invented” or “constructed” by a particular culture or
society.

4
Skepticism – philosophical position holding that knowledge is limited, because of the existing
mind ( or other) limitations
4
 Fig. 2 Betty meets Los Angeles

But she insists on helping the lost and confused Rita and finding out the truth
in the mystery (the transition point in the film). The peek point is reached
when two women are in the club “Silencio”, where all shows are weird
pantomimes. Show’s lead performer then explains: “It’s all an illusion”
(Mulholland Drive; 2001). Booker makes an interesting note that as Betty is
told everything is an illusion her body physically convulses as if trying to
reject what’s just being expressed.

Fig 3. Rita and Betty in Club “Silencio”

Its as if confidence in the stability of the everything she had prior to this
point was taken away by only this short, mind-opening phrase. Seyla
Benhabib notes in Postmodernism, a very short introduction, “Transcendental
guarantees of truth are dead” (booker; 2002; 29). Afterwards her world is
flipped to a somewhat unstable place ( the alternative representation) where
illusions and unfulfilled dreams are constant players, and we get to see Betty
no more, now she is her opposite, Diane, emotionally decomposing and
depressed, second rate actress.

Figure 4. Diane’s World

5
To continue the analysis of the film, it is necessary to introduce substantial
figures in forming postmodern notion. Jacque Derrida5 is one of the
philosophers who worked on some of the key ideas of postmodernism.
Derrida’s work takes up Ferdinand Saussure theory of signs developed in 19th
century, which essentially states that a sign is constructed of two parts, the
signifier and the signified. The signifier is the part we perceive (for example,
shots within the film) and the meaning we associate with it is the signified.

Christopher Butler, concisely names French philosopher’s major contribution

to postmodernist attitude. : “Derrida goes on from form of conceptual
relativism to suggest ways in which all conceptual frameworks … can be
criticized ‘ (Butler; 19) He suggests new views towards conceptual systems 6.
Derrida suggests what is known as deconstruction and it is means to question,
analyze and subsequently reorganize the classical views of the world and what
is regarded as “the truth”. Deconstruction is used to break, bring disorder in
well-established notions about reality.

Film language can be seen as another form of conceptual system (it has
symbols, rules, set conventions which serve to signify certain meanings),
which might as well be used to break the false representations of reality
(idyllic Hollywood dream) by deconstructing the well-established views and
introducing alternative ones. That is essentially what was done in Mulholland
drive and what audience gets to experience when seeing the rest of the film
after characters’ visit in the club “Silencio”.

But just to get back to Derrida, he suggests in what particular way languages
corrupt to represent the reality or ideas. As Butler concisely summarizes it: all
conceptual systems are falsifying and distorting hierarchies. Languages tend
to structure and categorize themselves into binary oppositions (for example
man’s opposition is woman; day’s opposition is night and so on).To add more,

5
Jacque Derrida (15 07 1930 – 8 10 2004) – French-Jewish philosopher who’s works are
associated with post-structuralism and postmodern philosophy.
6
Conceptual system is a symbol, typically associated with a corresponding representation in
language or symbology, that denotes all of the objects in a given category, their interactions,
relationships between them. Examples of conceptual systems are language, philosophical
theories, film grammar.
6
not only many of the relationships are made wrong or are too rigidly fixed, but
also one side of the opposition is held as a transcendental7 signifier, a
preferred one.

To put it in film’s context, Betty is a perky blonde, a promising soon-to-be

famous star with everything else complimenting her. Betty is Hollywood’s
idyllic dream’s preferred opposition and Diane is the binary opposite to her.

According to Derrida we then rely upon and employ the transcendental

oppositions to do the organization of our experiences, assumptions for us ( “I
should be this, do that because this is good and avoid all the other because it
is bad”). We establish our views towards the world accordingly disregarding
the possibility of many relationships might be wrong, therefore our
assumptions on reality as well.

For derridean’s the revelation of the hidden interdependence deconstructs

them. “Deconstruction … practices an overturning of the classical opposition
and a general displacement of the system … To deconstruct an opposition is
to undo it and replace it, to reinstate it with a reversal that gives it a different
status. ’’ (Cobussen,2007) When binary opposition is deconstructed it
uncovers the hierarchy within it and the attention is flipped away from the
privileged one to its opposite.

So Betty soon after club “Silencio” becomes Diane, and the attention now is
paid to that depressed and emotionally decomposing second-rate actress,
Diane is. The same is done with Rita’s character. The confused and therefore
scared Rita is in fact a highly successful actress with the happiness and fame
Betty once was meant to have.

But by no means has deconstruction seeks to replace the established meaning

with a new one. “It uncovers the contingent origin of the binary hierarchies
and it does so not with the purpose of providing a better foundation for
knowledge , but in order to dislodge their dominance and to create a space

7
Transcendental - surpassing, or superior
7
that leaves room for difference, ambiguity”. (Cobussen,2007) Once a binary
opposition is deconstructed, (likewise with Betty-Diane) it becomes an
inconsistent and equivocal concept.

Indeed ambiguous, for even after characters and plot changes it still doesn’t
offer a fixed meaning of the film or how it actually turns out to be. Both
Betty’s and Dian’s world , one might note , is constructed in a way not to be
fully believable: Betty’s world looks to be too light, too promising , Has a lot in
common to a fairy tail.

Figure 5. Betty in Los Angeles

On the other hand Diane’s world has elements of surreal playing in it:
miniature people, scary demons, smoky visions ect.

Figure 6. Diane’s suicide

But to put it in Lynch’s words: “Film is a language, it speaks to people, but

not always with words and solely with the intellect, so it takes a certain
attitude… to arrive with your own conclusion” (On the way to Mulholland
drive; 2001) It could be interpreted that director himself marks the intended
construction of ambiguousness in the film. For he notes one has to choose a
certain attitude, a standing point, under which differing meanings can be
come up with.

8
Therefore Diane’s-Betty’s and Rita’s-Camilla’s story fits under a term of
undecidable8, an unsettled concept. ”Undecidables are characterized by their
virtue of being able to function within certain oppositions that are essential for
certain argumentation, but undermine these oppositions at the same time
because of their double meaning” (Cobussen, 2007) In other words, if
something is an undecidable it both functions within the binary oppositions an,
at the same time, falls of its category because of the multiple meaning it
holds. Unsettled concepts sits between determined poles (in Mulholland Drive
we see both Betty’s and Diane’s depictions as two clearly pronounced
constructs without clear suggestion whether one of the characters is only a
projection of the “real” version of character) and suggest one meaning onto
another, bring together as well as separate the possible closures
simultaneously.

To sum up the point, the most you can get when a concept is unsettled
(deconstructed) is postponement of meanings. “Whenever it is two true and
honest arguments, there can never be one conclusion reached and rested on,
for it becomes a structure of postponing when you agree on one meaning
while suppressing the other” (Cobussen, 2007) The findings one comes up
with depends highly on the standing point one chooses, though still it is
instable and open to constant changing.

Postmodern man therefore no longer seeks for a unified truth within unsettled
concepts, so doesn’t this film: “This movie doesn't feel incomplete because it
could never be complete--closure is not a goal” (Ebert, 2001).

Conclusion

To summarize this essay’s findings, the film starts of presenting conventional

plots to generate the energy. It then purposefully introduces confusion to
question the idyllic Hollywood’s dream truthfulness. As one could expect
security and fore most reliance upon old realities crumbles as characters (as
8
Undecidable - Derrida describes undecidables as verbal properties that can no longer be included within
philosophical (binary) oppositions; they resist and disorganize such oppositions without ever constituting a third term
(Cobussen)
9
well as the audience) encounter alternative representations of reality and
identities.

At the same time, film doesn’t attempt to replace or offer better meanings,
instead it tries to open up and leave some space for one’s own interpretations.
“ it does not explain, does not complete its sequences, lingers over what it
finds fascinating, and dismisses unpromising plotlines” (Ebert; 2001) The film
is purposefully ambiguous so to make meanings assigned to the film
inconsistent and equivocal, constantly postponing each other as it is viewed in
different ways. Therefore, as key postmodern thought suggests, there are no
universal truths, everything is only relative and depended on the standpoint
we choose , that all is only one’s own interpretations.

Illustration List:
Fig.2. David Lynch. (2001). Betty meets Los Angeles.[Film stills].From: Mulholland Drive. USA. Les Films
Alain Sarde.

Fig.3. David Lynch. (2001). Rita and Betty in Club Silencio.[Film stills].From: Mulholland Drive. USA. Les
Films Alain Sarde.

Fig.4. David Lynch. (2001). Diane’s World.[Film stills].From: Mulholland Drive. USA. Les Films Alain
Sarde.

Fig.5. David Lynch. (2001). Betty in Los Angeles.[Film stills].From: Mulholland Drive. USA. Les Films
Alain Sarde.

10
Fig.6. David Lynch. (2001). Diane‘s suicide. [Film stills].From: Mulholland Drive. USA. Les Films Alain
Sarde.

Bibliography:
Cobussen, Marcel. (2007). Introduction to Deconstruction.
http://www.cobussen.com/proefschrift/200_deconstruction/210_hierarchical_oppositions/hierarchical_o
ppositions.html. (Access date 26th Novemeber 2010)

Cobussen, Marcel. (2007). Undecidables.

http://www.cobussen.com/proefschrift/200_deconstruction/220_undecidables/undecidables.htm (Access
date 26th Novemeber 2010)

Cobussen,Marcel. (2007). Pharmakon

http://www.cobussen.com/proefschrift/200_deconstruction/220_undecidables/221_pharmakon/pharma
kon.htm (Access date 26th Novemeber 2010)

Cobussen,Marcel. (2007). Supplement

http://www.cobussen.com/proefschrift/200_deconstruction/250_supplement/supplement.htm (Access
date 26th Novemeber 2010)

Bartyzel, Monika. (2010) Cinematic Movie Club: Mulholland Drive.

http://blog.moviefone.com/2010/08/27/cinematical-movie-club-mulholland-drive/.(Access date 27th
November 2010)

Booker, M. Keith. Postmodern Hollywood, What’s New in Film and Why it Makes us Feel so Strange.
(2007). USA: Praeger.

Butler, Christopher. (2002) Postmodernism A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University
Press Inc.

David Lynch – On the Way To Mulholland Drive.(2001). 7 July 2009.

At: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJgf1PRxaQ8 . (Accessed on 5 November 2010)

Ebert, Roger. (2001). Mulholland Drive. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?

AID=/20011012/REVIEWS/110120304/1023 (Accessed 10 October 2010)

Garret, Roberta. Postmodern Chick Flicks. (2007). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Mulholland Drive. (2001). Directed By David Lynch [DVD]. USA: Les Films Alain Sarde

Kuersten, Erich. (2008) Naomi Watts. Cinema's Postmodern Mother of Mirrors

http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/59/59naomi.php (Access date 14 november 2010)

Richards, K. Malcolm. Derrida Reframed a Guide for the Art students. (2008) New York: Palgrave
Macmillan.

11