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Zeekmoont's Replies
---You don´t think that the woman Betty and Rita see leaving IS Aunt Ruth? You take this `leaving` event the key to place the corpse right AFTER the murder?---
Yes
---What is the reason these two scenes are so far apart in the movie?---
There is no chronological order to dreams. You have to connect the scenes with sounds and images.
There's just one more puzzle.
"What'd I say?"
"That a man's attitude determines to a large extent how his life will be."
"So, since you agree, you must be a person who does not care about the good life."
"How's that?"
"Well stop for a lil' second and think about it."
So, I thought about it, and still don't get it. Since when does agreeing with someone prove you don't care about life? Unless, the cowboy means to suggest that Adam acts like he doesn't care. But, then again, Adam has a fancy car, a big house, a sexy wife and pool in the back. He certainly looks like a guy who wants to enjoy life. Have a look at this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgNt1C72B_4
[quote]The Cowboy says to Adam that he´ll see him two more times when he does bad. ... My point is that we DO see him a second time, but it´s in the second segment. How can this segment precede the first when a `prediction` come true in the second?[/quote]
At the moment, I'm not sure that the second segment with Diane/Camilla came before. I'm not even sure that it came after. Maybe it's just a repetition of the Betty/Rita segment. Except, it seems different. So, I'm still puzzling over how the two segments are related.
As for Adam's first meeting with the cowboy, if I were to take an educated guess, I would place this event at the same time the hitman shoots three people in the Ed's office.
1) Cowboys have guns.
2) When, the hitman shoots the vacuum cleaner, he starts a short circuit. We hear electricity and see lights flashing. This corresponds to the light flashing and the electrical noise we hear in the Beachwood Canyon corral.
Of course, we see no shooting at Adam's showdown, but we do sense the gravity of situation. They meet alone in the middle of the night, with no witnesses. It's dark, lonely, and spooky. And, there's a skull on top of gateway to the corral. It seems like a death threat to me.
https://ulozto.net/file/0thOJM8S7RfZ/mulholland-dr-showdown-mp4
[quote]If it´s Rita´s desire to be at the center of attention and indeed be Camilla, does this mean that she at one time was Camilla but became Rita due to the resurgence of the trauma? Does this mean that the ending of the movie is in fact the beginning of the resurgence of the Dreamer´s trauma?[/quote]
This is the point of the film that still has me confused. Specifically, it's the change of characters and settings that occurs after the event at Club Silencio. Lynch gave the cards one last shuffle, as if the plot wasn't already convoluted enough.
The Diane/Camilla part of the story mirrors in some way the Betty/Rita story, but the two story lines are not in agreement. What happened to Rita was an accident, but what happened to Diane was intentional. I'm pretty sure that the woman in the back of the limo lost her mind when the accident occurred on Mulholland Drive. I know she becomes Rita after the accident, but I'm still not sure who she was before the accident. There is an obvious connection between Diane and Rita. Both were riding in the back of the limo on Mulholland Drive. When the limo stops, both women say the same thing.
"What are you doing? We don't stop here."
[quote]Why do you think it is Betty that the magician is `mind fucking` and not Rita? Do you consider the magician and Betty recreating the actual act of the Dreamer´s Parents and Rita watching it? Now, when it is the Dreamer´s instinctive desire to have sex with her father, than why does she imagine her father to be the perpetrator and her mother to be the victim? Would,´t she imagine these roles to be reversed?[/quote]
Yeah, I guess you're right. It's Rita who gets mind fucked. LOL. However, I now see Betty and Rita as alter egos of the same person. Yet, at the same time, I see Betty as the mother and Rita as the child.
[quote]Instinctive desire? So because she had this desire she is so shocked to find her parents having sex? Than the real culprit is this desire and not the trauma and henceforth you put the blame in and all of itself on her. Is it this trauma that is bothering her OR does she blame herself for `causing` this trauma?[/quote]
Some of the trauma is due to what she witnessed. Some of the trauma is self inflicted; her attempt to punish herself for her own wrong doing. I think we both agree that it's not her fault, but she doesn't necessarily know that.
[quote]You believe the Bum represents the Dreamer self?[/quote]
"There's a MAN...in back of this place. He's the one who's doing it. I can see him through the wall. I can see his face. I hope that I never see that face EVER outside of the dream."
I said before that most of us can't see our own face when we dream. As for the few who do, they often get a very distorted picture of themselves. I don't think the dreamer really looks like that. But, the boogie man represents the dreamer's self image. That is, the dreamer thinks that s/he is ugly. Ever hear of the 'Picture of Dorian Grey'? It's an elaborate way of saying that 'beauty is only skin deep.'
[quote]This suggestion indicates that there is a positive and a negative Camilla. How do you consider them in this light and how do you view the kiss at the party?[/quote]
Adam makes a toast to love, and Camilla says nothing. Diane makes a toast to love, and Camilla says nothing. The kiss represents Camilla's love for herself (narcissism), which normally wouldn't be too bad. But, in light of how Diane is effected...
[quote]What do you believe the meaning of the use of Spanish is? And what about the colors red and blue? Do you think they have a particular function?[/quote]
As for Spanish and French, that just shows that the essential meaning of something is independent of the words we use to describe it. It could also be clue about the dreamer. For example, the lady with the blue her spoke Spanish, which connects her in some way to Rita.
As for whether or not individual colors have any special meaning, I don't know.
[quote]La Llorona is indeed an interesting folk tale. In what way do you think it is relevant to the Dreamer and the trauma?[/quote]
It goes back to the loss of a loved one that you can never regain. La llorana killed her own children, so there may be a connection there as well.
[quote]Is it possible to have more than one Object A´s? Is it inherently linked to the loss of the Ego and can this Object change over time? Or rather that when you think you´ve found it, got disappointed and ´create` another Object A? Isn´t it essentially an eternal search just for searching sake? Just to have a goal on a subconcious meta-level? To occupy once mind in order to avoid the unbearable emptiness of being?[/quote]
For the most part we agree. I just thought it was related to the loss of the mother. But, I suppose you could equate the mother with the ego, since the ego forms during the mirror stage, and it's the mother who serves as a template for the child's identity.
[quote]Why would Adam repress this image? Don´t you believe it is the Dreamer who is repressing this and that Adam is just the persona the Dreamer is using for this?[/quote]
Well that brings us back to a conflict of interest between the part of the dreamer's mind that wants to repress the image, and the part of dreamer's mind that wants to force Adam to see it. It's the ego, represented by Adam, that tries to repress things. The subconscious, represented by Mr. Roque, is the part of the psyche that wants to bring the truth to light.
[quote]You stated that the Boogie man represents the black dot and the headlights of the car causing the crash the white dot in the yin and yang symbol. Yet this symbol is about polar opposites, right? How do you consider the headlights to be positive?[/quote]
Daytime is yang and nighttime is yin. Therefore the accident on Mulholland Dr. is the yin version of the primal scene. Withing this context, a bright spotlight represents the small white spot in the middle of yin. During broad daylight, on the other hand, dark things/places represent the small point of yin in the middle of the yang.
So, for example, the corpse in apartment 17 is the small point of yin inside the yang. At Sierra Bonita, Betty and Rita saw a man and woman carrying luggage to a car. At 1612 Havenhurst, on the other hand, Rita saw Aunt Ruth and a cab driver, who were just leaving. So, the event at apartment 17 occurred AFTER the collision on Mulholland Dr., and the corpse may represent someone that died in the accident. This could be Rita's ego, except Rita was not yet Rita. So, perhaps Diane Selwyn is who Rita was before the accident.
[quote]You believe the accident represents the loss of ego of the Dreamer in real life?[/quote]
In Freud's view, the ego is protected by repressing the event. So, presumably, the dreamer simply forgot what happened early in her childhood. But, this repressed event could surface later in life, which could cause mental disorders. According to Melanie Klein, splitting the ego is another way that the psyche can protect itself from trauma. But, as you pointed out earlier, the accident could represent the dreamer's desire to become someone else. It seems clear to me that the dreamer does not like herself.
[quote]WHY do we see Rita disappear when she has such a strong connection to the Dreamer?[/quote]
Because the accident is what gives birth to Rita. Before that event, Rita was someone else, at least in terms of her ego. The blue box magically appears just after the magician finishes 'mind fucking' Betty. So, somehow the blue box represents birth, perhaps Rita's birth.
[quote]Regarding this scene I have two questions: 1/ What do you make of this assassination attempt on the girl in the car? 2/ WHAT do you believe is the actual trauma of the Dreamer?[/quote]
If I were Sigmund Freud, I would probably say that the dreamer is recalling a time when she was only a child. The drivers represent her parents. The gun represents Daddy's penis. The trauma is caused by the child's instinctive desire to have sex with her own father. Since this latter idea is social taboo, the memory is repressed. Nevertheless, the experience remains in the child's subconscious. Years later, the event is re-experienced through her dreams. However, the true meaning is obfuscated. What looks from our point of view to be a car crash was Mommy & Daddy having sex.
[quote]Personally I think that all characters represent some aspect of the Dreamer´s subconscious or are involved in certain scenarios that depict the Dreamer´s trauma.[/quote]
I agree. There's the dreamer
https://thumbs2.imgbox.com/df/d6/r4NGU9Zg_t.jpg
There's the dreamer's parents
https://thumbs2.imgbox.com/0d/0d/E7rvGqqo_t.png
There are lovers
https://thumbs2.imgbox.com/e6/48/1PsHC9s3_t.jpg
And, there may even be siblings.
https://thumbs2.imgbox.com/c8/59/KxjDTLBM_t.png
[quote]You talk about Rita as if she has a will of her own. Do you see her as the alter ego of the Dreamer or does she represent a specific aspect of the Dreamer?[/quote]
Let's suppose that the dreamer is a woman. The dreamer is two people at the same time. On one hand, she is Betty, the talented young actress with a bright future.
https://thumbs2.imgbox.com/49/8c/hGFZq3qL_t.png
On the other hand, she's Rita the movie star, who slept with more than one director on her way to the top.
https://thumbs2.imgbox.com/08/9a/YZPdMsBL_t.png
Let's suppose that Rita's stage name is Camilla Rhodes. Whether she's a blond or brunette, it's clear that she's in love with herself.
https://thumbs2.imgbox.com/04/6c/a8tXa74N_t.png
The problem is, I still can't quite figure out who Diane Selwyn is.
https://ulozto.net/file/6nua5fHcCakw/mulholland-dr-calling-diane-mp4
The scene is intentionally ambiguous. We can't tell which of the two girls is Diane, if either one actually is, and we don't know who answered the phone. At first I thought that Rita was only pretending to have amnesia. But, the way she reacted to the corpse in apartment 17 and her bizarre dreams made me change my mind.
[quote]Moreover, when Adam is shown the picture, he and the audience sees another girl. Why does the id show this girl while Adam / the ego gets another girl to fulfill this demand?[/quote]
I take it your question is, how come there are two Camilla Rhodes? At the moment, I'm not really sure. But, for some reason the two make a matching pair. Look closely at Rita's earring. The part that attaches to her ear is shaped like a star. The part that hangs from a small stem is a pearl.
https://thumbs2.imgbox.com/58/c9/N4EtwSHN_t.png
Now look at the earrings of the two Camillas. They match. The blond Camilla has the star, and the brunette has the pearl.
https://thumbs2.imgbox.com/04/6c/a8tXa74N_t.png
So, it's as if Rita somehow got split into two people. Just like yin and yang, they go together as a matching set. You can't have one without the other.
All of this brings us back to Betty/Diane who seems to be the 'odd man out'. Betty had no dance partner, Diane had no husband. Apparently, Diane's relationship with DeRosa was important. Once the two separated, Diane wound up without a partner. Notice that Diane's apartment number, 17, is an odd number.
[quote]What is the reason why the id wants this girl?[/quote]
First of all, we notice that Rita is sleeping when the Castigliani brothers arrive at Ryan Entertainment. Moreover, the brief moment of flight we witness over the buildings is a clear suggestion that Rita is actually dreaming. Flight has many possible interpretations, but it seems as if Rita is 'on top of the world', so to speak.
https://thumbs2.imgbox.com/2a/81/1HHTzXfJ_t.png
https://thumbs2.imgbox.com/57/a7/LNUwKkBm_t.png
Why does she wish to be Camilla Rhodes? Judging from how Camilla behaves later in the film, Rita's demand may simply reflect her desire to be the center of attention, which mirrors Betty's desire to become an acclaimed actress.