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Zeekmoont's Replies
I agree that the plot is nonlinear, but that doesn't mean that the scenes are not logically connected. After the dance scene, we hear some very heavy breathing, and it looks like someone is falling into bed. What happens next, the accident on Mulholland Dr., is a dream. Later, we see Rita sleeping under a table in Aunt Ruth's apartment. So, the meeting between Dan and Herb at Winkie's is Rita's dream. Someone is dreaming about Rita, who is in turn dreaming about Dan, and Dan's own dream is connected to what happened at Mulholland Dr.
When, Dan tells his dream to Herb, he remembers a light. Herb was also there, and both men were scared. Dan's dream parallels the fact that Rita was frozen with fear and staring into bright headlights just before the collision on Mulholland Dr. Notice that a limo driver was standing in front of Rita and holding her arm just before the collision. After the crash, Rita came out from the back of the limo, and we saw the dead limo driver on the ground. At Winkie's, Dan was walking in front of Herb. When the 'dirt monster' appeared, Dan collapsed into Herb's arms. Mulholland Dr. and Winkie's are yin-yang versions of the same event.
https://www.ancient.eu/img/r/p/750x750/968.jpg
You can have yin-yang oppositions in almost any imaginable way. Male vs female, conscious vs subconscious, life & death, Heaven & Hell, odd & even, etc. Also notice that the black side of the symbol (yin) has a small white dot (yang) within it, and vice versa. The accident at Mulholland Dr. happens at night, and headlights punctuate the yin version of the event. Likewise, the 'collision' at Winkie's happens in broad daylight, and the 'dirt monster' is the small point of yin within yang. Rita and Herb are yin-yang versions of whoever was left standing after both incidents. Notice the similarity between the names Dan and Diane. Diane is Camilla's ego; a conscious that was destroyed by something too glaring and/or too ugly to witness, namely Freud's primal scene.
[quote]Mulholland Drive loose ends include but are not limited to: Cowboy character, dirt monster, pandora’s box, Betty’s convulsions, death of Singer at Silencio, man in underground chamber, Italian financiers, phone line characters, original Camilla, change of characters into other characters, white-trash hitman asking presumed prostitute “Any new girls on the street? a brunette maybe, a little beat up?” obviously alluding to Rita (still Rita) but this goes nowhere, etc.[/quote]
I'm still in the process of analyzing the film, so I don't have an answer to every one of your loose ends. I'll stick to the one that I'm pretty sure about.
[u]Dirt Monster[/u] - I assume you're talking about the 'black guy' behind Winkies. Let's go back to the scene where Dan is telling his friend, Herb, about a dream he has been having.
Dan - "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 [i]ever[/i] outside of the dream. That's it."
Herb - "So, you came to see if he's out there."
Dan - "To get rid of this God awful feeling."
Herb - "Right then."
Herb pays for breakfast, the two men leave, and, out back, they encounter the 'dirt monster'.
https://images2.imgbox.com/df/d6/r4NGU9Zg_o.jpg
So, who or what the Hell is he? Well, Dan told you. "He's the one who's doing it." Doing what? Dreaming. If you agree that this entire film is one crazy dream, then someone has to be dreaming. More accurately stated, the man in the back of Winkies is the dreamer's shadow. Who or what is the dreamer's shadow? Ask Carl Jung.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_(psychology)
[quote]It is an unsolvable maze, comprised of a series of loose ends which never tie up no matter how many times the film is re-watched.[/quote]
Lynch says the film can be understood intuitively, but I don't agree with him. This is my second attempt, and I still don't have a clear understanding of what I'm seeing. I bet the meaning of the film will continue to be debated for another hundred years.
I think the film would be a lot easier to understand, if I knew more about the theories of Freud and Lacan. You have to imagine that YOU are Sigmund Freud. You have a patient in your office sleeping on the couch. There are wires attached to his/her head that feed into a machine. Thanks to state of the art of technology, you are now permitted to [b]SEE[/b] a person's dream displayed on a monitor. Your task is to make some sense of all the confusion. Perhaps the meaning of the dream will always remain just as mysterious as the subconscious. But I STRONGLY suggest that you use a psychoanalytical approach. This Youtube vid will get you started, but you've got a long way to go.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2Qcmhsvcms
[quote]I have to question the writer’s taste and pop culture knowledge when claiming The Matrix was original or intelligent.[/quote] I agree. The Matrix has its merits. The idea that sometime in the future computers may evolve to become an intelligent life form is intriguing, probably even correct, but not novel. The film also suggests that one day machines may take control of our world. Interesting, but not novel. There's also the idea that machines and humans may enter a symbiotic relationship, where we may become co-dependent on one another. Interesting, but not novel. What I didn't like was the idea of turning the film into some sort of video game, where the human player has to fight against dozens of computerized opponents. I see no obvious connection between a simulated conflict and the three themes I just mentioned.
That cos' Christian is their ANIMUS. The masculine side of the human soul that all females are born with. It's the spark of their imagination, the source of raw, physical power, a sense of ambition and individuality, and the gateway to their subconscious desires.
Christian is good, but he's only half-way there. All the money in the world will not make him happy, and he knows it. He's got to get in touch with his spiritual nature, which in his case is feminine. His ANIMA is a source of compassion, empathy, a sense of aesthetics, and LOVE.
Like Ying and Yang, the animus and the anima complement one another, as do Dante and Beatrice, and, with patient nurturing, so will Christian and Anastasia.
I saw that movie many years ago. As I recall, it was actually pretty good. But I can hardly remember anything about it now. I may have to see it again.
"Because obviously a handsome billionaire can get just about any woman he wants..."
Christian may have THOUGHT that was true, but by the end of the first film, she had left him. '$$$ can't buy you love.'
"... so the real fantasy is about dominating HIM, reshaping his tastes, and making him into the man you want him to be."
Agreed. In a dominance & submission relationship, it's the 'sub' who is really in control. It's a bit like being a passenger in a car, but you're the one who tells the driver where to go. Of course, the driver literally has your life in his hands, so you have to TRUST him. And, because of this responsibility, he's really the one who is under greater stress. For the 'dom', it's really more about SELF-CONTROL, because it's his hand that moves the whip. And, ironically, for the 'sub' it's also about self-control.
The 'sub's uses the 'dom' in much the same way we use our right arm, to control sexual tension and the ecstatic moment of release. However, Anastasia is not really a 'sub'. She's one of many women who have little interest in BDSM, but they do it only to satisfy either their lover or a client.
"Being free to jump ship if the hammer ever does come down is exactly why women would never fantasize about being the billionaires themselves."
Your probably right if you say that MOST women don't want to be billionaires, but I think it would be presumptuous to speak for all of them. Last I heard Oprah was worth 2.6 billion. That's even more than Donny Boy. Of course, Oprah isn't fantasizing about being ridiculously wealthy, since she actually is. And, whether or not she ever dreamed of becoming wealthy before she actually did is another question altogether. But, once it's clear that it's POSSIBLE to earn that much money, I wouldn't be surprised if at least SOME women do dream of becoming fabulously wealthy.
"Mueller and Washington Post said Iraq had WMDs. Those are the real gangsters. Stop drooling. You should be the one to die in Iraq if you like them."
Whether or not I like them, and, for that matter, whether or not Mueller is a criminal has no bearing on whether or not Donald Trump is feeling nervous at the moment. There may be a law against robbing someone, but that's hardly any reassurance if someone's pointing a gun at you.
"You don't want safety and security. If you did, why couldn't you be the billionaire?"
Besides the simple fact that few of us will ever be one, regardless of whether we want to or not, that wouldn't necessarily be any more secure. Is Donald Trump secure with Mueller breathing down his back? It seems that many of Trump's friends and associates are being indicted, Roger Stone being the latest in a list that continues to grow. And, if you do a little research, you'll find Trump's connection to organized crime dates back more than 30 years.
[url]https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/are-trumps-mob-connections-a-coincidence-fuhgeddaboudit/2018/08/10/24b62e2c-9cad-11e8-843b-36e177f3081c_story.html[/url]
"A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle, the feminists say."
In other words, feminists don't want to start a family. And, if all women took that attitude, it would simply be a question of time before the human race went extinct. Besides, women aren't the fish, men are.
Who wears the pretty dress and the make-up? Who's the one who dangles the bait from a hook and then wiggles it?
"What you want is what people want when they go on vacation to a hotel room and get to abuse the furniture because it isn't theirs."
But what do Anastasia and Christian want?
Anastasia wants a lover, and Christian wants to be in complete control.
"The contract was a joke and couldnt be legally enforced anyway, any courtroom would laugh a lawsuit of Christians right out of court after seeing his dirty perversions and sexual fetishes, it would be at best defamation of character and because if was true it wouldnt really be even that."
That was the point where I stopped watching the film. Just like you, I thought it was ridiculous pretense. But, even if the contract isn't legally binding, it's still important to make one, even if it's not written.
[url]https://bdsmcontracts.org[/url]
And, if you watch the film all the way to the end, you'll notice that she never actually signed it. Christian knew all along that the actual written contract is not actually what mattered.
" Christian would be humiliated and treated like a freak by the entire media, he would lose clients and money, it would ruin his reputation."
Agreed, but why would Anastasia do that to a man she loved, especially since she knew that he loved her too? This is not really a story about BDSM. It's a story about a young virgin who is lucky enough to find the man of her dreams, only to find that he is not ready for love. Don't forget the clause in the contract where it states that she cannot touch him without his express permission. It's one of the most important points of irony in the film.
Initially, when Anastasia first meets Christian in his office, we have the impression that Anastasia is far too shy. Eventually we realize that Christian is the one who is too timid. We know he loves Anastasia, but he is not brave enough to tell her so, and he's too afraid to commit to a relationship that he cannot control. His playroom is the only place in his rather small world, where he is the sole master. Yet, as you've just finished pointing out, he really can't do anything to her without her express permission. So, like it or not, she is not really his slave, and he can't stop her from leaving him.
<<I didn’t like Christian, he was really rude. Cute but I couldn’t take his controlling attitude and his anger issues.>>
You just put your finger on what the film was really about. It had little to do with his being obscenely wealthy. He was a control freak, who didn't want to fall in love. At first we think that Anastasia is shy, but in reality Christian is the one who is really afraid to be touched. He even spelled that out in the contract.
The problem is, Christian is really the central character of the story, but they tell us very little about him. It makes sense for him to be a perfect stranger at the beginning of the story, but by the time we got to the end, Anastasia should have been able to get through to him. But the film ends with the story unfinished. Other than his troubled childhood, they don't really make it clear why he can't get off without the BDSM ritual.
I have yet to see either of the sequels. Do they finally get around to explaining to us what this man's problem is?
BTW, words like cute and rude don't come to mind. Overprotective and over-possessive seem to fit better. It's ironic that the guy goes out of his way to make sure that she doesn't get hurt, only to turn around and whip her ass.