Mulholland Dr
We might as well start where the movie does. The mysterious brunette that we later come to know as Rita is involved in a car crash at the bottom of a hill on Mulholland Dr, the same place where the actual Camilla comes down to greet the actual Diane (no I won’t be doing the actual bit the whole time through) and bring her up to Adam Kesher’s party. This is the point in reality that motivates Diane’s dream world as the pitch-perfect Betty. The point where Diane crumbles into the realm of fantasy.
The clearest reasons for Diane’s dream are jealousy and love. Camilla is a leading actress, the fancy of the director’s eye, and the one who helps Diane get a start in Hollywood with a small part in director Bob Booker’s film. In the dream, Camilla is a blond unknown, a convergence of the real Camilla and Diane, being pushed through Betty’s world as Diane’s subconscious. The blond Camilla doesn’t get by on talent alone, she is forced onto the scene, similarly to what could have happened when Diane first arrived in Hollywood. She steals Betty’s parts and goes through life the immoral way. Her unnamed counterpart in reality the last person Diane sees taking Camilla away from her, kissing her, solidifying herself as an easy target to play the role of Diane’s subconscious in Betty’s created world.
Despite not being able to stop said subconscious, Diane sets up Rita to forget a Diane and Camilla ever existed. Rita loses her memory and identity with the crash, and the waitress by the name of Diane puts in motion a search resulting in the discovery of a dead, rotting Diane. There goes the link, there goes any hope for Rita to discover her past. It’s gone. This is Betty, she’s perfect. There never was a Diane, and there never was a Camilla.
Betty earns Rita’s love by taking her in, and is respectable due to her incredible acting talent. Rita plays the one in need, the sidekick, gladly accepting Betty’s warm coffee and robe, helping her recite lines for a role she ends up playing much better than a ‘black-haired girl,’ the same black-haired girl who gets the part in reality, Camilla. The same Camilla who accepts Diane’s coffee, while naked, before telling her things can no longer continue.
It’s far from the only role reversal in Betty’s world. Adam, the man who steals Camilla from Diane, suffers like a Coen brothers character, constantly barraged with shit. His wife cheats on him with the pool boy (Billy Ray Cyrus to make matters worse!), his money evaporates, he loses control of his movie (‘The Sylvia North Story’), and is threatened by a cowboy with an ultimatum. Diane makes Adam feel all the pressures and pain she endured while in Hollywood, and her loss of Camilla.
So who the fuck is the cowboy (I wish I could write it like Adam says it)? The cowboy is the mythical Hollywood icon, so ridiculous he can’t be real, yet created as a highly recognizable character in film history. He is imaginary. He is there at the point of Diane’s descent into her dream, and the one who wakes her back into reality.
Diane inputs others from that final scene at Adam’s party, where his engagement to Camilla is announced, into her dream. The expresso fellow, in a small part, regurgitates the coffee that isn’t good enough, representative of Diane as barista to Camilla, who shortly after, ends their sexual relationship. CoCo, Adam’s mother, becomes the gatekeeper to Betty’s aspirations, helping to shoo away other slips of the subconscious (the crazy psychic who denies that Betty was to stay at Ruth’s place in her absence, and that Rita is indeed in trouble - the real Camilla soon to be murdered - not safe in Betty’s care).
Where is Ruth then? She’s hardly in the movie, but a big clue into Diane’s past. Diane reveals that she is from Ontario, Canada, and shockingly agrees as Betty. As Betty, her Aunt Ruth is going to Canada to film a movie, according to Diane however, Ruth is dead. After the blue box is opened (the explanation for that is coming soon, be patient), Ruth returns to an empty house, a sign that Diane possibly reached out to her and was turned away. Where did Ruth go? Back home to Canada for a visit? It leads to a perfect entryway for Diane to introduce Betty to Hollywood.
The blue box is Diane’s fear. The MacGuffin that she attempts to hide from Rita in Betty’s life. The revelation that all this is nothing but a dream. She does a pretty good job for the extent of what was to be the pilot, but reminders of its significance prove too powerful to remain concealed.
The dreamer at Winkie’s is the first invader of fear in Betty’s world. He is Diane, another random fill-in from a moment in her life (she sees him at the counter at Winkie’s as she confirms to the hitman that she wants Camilla killed). The description of his dream gives us insight into Diane’s feelings while making the decision to have Camilla killed. He is a break into reality, something that could awaken Diane, something that scares her more just by the fact that he is there. The dreamer also knows about the terrifying man behind Winkie’s, the one who holds the blue box, the one who knows the truth. He collapses for her, a minor casualty of Betty’s world. This allows Betty to visit the payphone outside the same Winkie’s, and validate her dream, that there was an accident on Mulholland Dr. That Rita and Betty are real people.
This temporarily allows Betty to live in her world of red, before the blue tones and smoke take over again. After Rita witnesses the deceased Diane, Betty helps her cope by donning her in a blond wig, looking eerily like Betty herself. This satisfies Diane’s wish for Camilla to be jealous of her. However, when they make love, she doesn’t want the jealous, camouflaged Camilla, but the real thing. Only during their love scene, is Rita encouraged to take off the wig. Rita is made to understand Diane’s love and jealousy. After all, in Betty’s world, Rita is the one that becomes lost on Sunset Blvd (obvious reference to the Billy Wilder film of the same name).
‘Silencio. Silencio.’ And Diane’s dream is about to crash and burn by the dream of one of her own creations. Rita begs her off to Club Silencio and the truth is revealed. ‘There is no band,’ our host tells us, ‘it is all an illusion,’ he continues. Betty shakes uncontrollably and nervously, foreshadowing the coming events. Out next comes Rebekah Del Rio with her devastating version of ‘Llorando,’ and we (breaking the fourth wall here) become as involved as Rita and Betty, lost in the sadness and power of the moment. Only it’s fake. We (Betty, Rita, me, you) are told this, believe it, and then somehow immediately forget it, moved by this seemingly truthful relationship we’ve just formed, them with the singer, us with Betty and Rita (and the singer as well). And the dream falls apart for us, for Diane. The dream of Hollywood, the dream of love.
Rita opens the bag previously full of unexplained money (Diane once again hiding the truth to prevent reality from taking over) and instead finds the blue box, a perfect fit for the blue key hidden with the money earlier. Betty disappears, Rita opens the blue box, and Diane awakens back into reality. Rita having regained her memory, thereby ending Diane’s dream world. The deceivingly nice old folks (Hollywood) who originally welcomed her, released, chase her into her red pillow, into suicide, unable to hide from her dreams (plural folks, Hollywood and Betty’s world, essentially a dream within a nightmare).
And the phone, the one next to the red lampshade and ashtray, rings and rings. Diane, lying face down in her red pillow, unable to learn what she already knows: ‘The girl is missing.’ Camilla, also dead somewhere. Betty and Rita, vanished with the presence of the blue smoke. The dream and the reality of Hollywood sharing the same fate.
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