Who are you without your identity? Your mind? When all is lost and your expectations truly evade reality. Or what you think is reality. Trust in yourself is one of the most important concepts to life so where do you turn when even you are the lost soul?
"Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I've ever known." - Chuck Palahniuk
Who are you without your identity? Your mind? When all is lost and your expectations truly evade reality. Or what you think is reality. Trust in yourself is one of the most important concepts to life so where do you turn when even you are the lost soul?
"Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I've ever known." - Chuck Palahniuk
[00:00:00]
Gabby Browne: who are you without your identity? Your mind. When all is lost and your expectations truly evade reality. Or, what you think is reality.
Trust in yourself is one of the most important concepts to life. So where do you turn when even you are the lost soul? Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I've ever known. Chuck Palahniuk. I'm Gabby Brown, here with Aaron Couser. Silencio. And Jonathan Van Sickle. Hey, Gabby. And this is The Limelight by Spotlight Studios.
Aaron Couser: Mulholland Drive. To me, it is a masterpiece. It is a puzzle wrapped in a dream. Clues are carefully crafted by the genius director, David Lynch. David began his brilliant career as an aspiring [00:01:00] painter, developing a style that blended with the surreal and the dream world. His... This uncompromisingly stubborn character molded his creativity, turning his paintings into experimental short films.
Throughout the years, his films show total control in artistic creativity, such as Eraserhead, Elephant Man, Blue Velvet, and the critically acclaimed TV show Twin Peaks. These are poetic, magical, dream like experiences that have left audiences spellbound. Unfortunately, one film, his version of Dune, would be one of his biggest regrets of his career.
During the filming, he agreed to give Final Cut and creative control away to the studio. It would be a mistake he would regret for the rest of his life. But, without this terrible feeling of compromising his art, we would not have been given the masterpiece, Mulholland Drive. [00:02:00] The dreamlike beauty of aspiring fame to the dreadful rejection in a crooked system of control.
It is also Lynch's warning to anyone who chooses to take the shortcut and compromise your soul for fame. Let's take that trip together, ride up Mulholland Drive. We want you to watch these movies. Yeah. Before you listen to this show. Absolutely. Definitely. Especially this one. Because if you're listening to this podcast without watching this movie.
It'll ruin it. You're going to be totally lost. You're already going to be totally lost. Yeah. Yeah. We're going to try it. I'm going to try to hold your hand a little bit and lead you to the promised land of what this movie means. But I kind of like how... Aaron will be your shepherd. Kind of like how Camilla led Diane up to the party.
I'm going to lead you to the understanding of what I feel like this movie means. [00:03:00]
Gabby Browne: Do Pe pe peeeew!
Aaron Couser: Gabbie, have you ever competed in a jitterbug competition before?
Gabby Browne: Oh, no, I haven't. Uh, but, sure looks fun. Starting out our movie with a nice little jitterbug scene. Pretty chaotic, beautiful purple background.
Aaron Couser: Diane's maybe happiest moment. She wins this. Competition. Do you think it's her
Gabby Browne: happiest moment? Oh, for sure.
Do you think it's her happiest moment or do you think it's the moment she aspires for? Yeah, that's
Aaron Couser: a good question. Or is it the moment that ruined her life?
Gabby Browne: It could have been the r I think they're all very valid. Truly. She will never feel in that moment that she felt. Any other time in her life. Yeah, I'm making it big now.
Doin it!
Aaron Couser: In high school, you're pretty good at acting, and someone tells you you're great, and they pump you up, and you think you can go off and... [00:04:00] I'm gonna
Gabby Browne: make it, Dad. I'm gonna make it, Mom. I'm gonna show all those kids back home who's the boss.
Aaron Couser: And maybe sometimes that works out and sometimes it doesn't.
Diane chose to go after her Hollywood dream. And then immediately after this happens, we have a first person point of view of her going to sleep. Her immediately going into her dream.
Gabby Browne: Yeah, the red pillow. The red pillow. That's the transition.
Aaron Couser: And then we immediately follow a limo that drives up Mulholland Drive.
With a totally different lead actress, who we're gonna call Camilla. Let's just
Gabby Browne: go ahead and tell the audience that as for confusion and continuity for the episode, we will be referring to, well, I may call her Naomi still, cause that's my, that's my woman. I
Aaron Couser: think we should call her... Betty in the, in the dream.
[00:05:00] Okay. I think so too. Yeah. Yeah. She's Betty in the dream and Camilla is Camilla in the dream. Even though she called herself Rita. She really is Camilla. Okay. So
Gabby Browne: Camilla is always Camilla even when she's Rita. Yes. And Naomi, awake Naomi, is Diane. A sleepy time dreamy Naomi is
Aaron Couser: Betty. It's Betty. Correct. Okay.
With that out of the way, we open the movie with a limo winding up through Mulholland Drive. The limo suddenly stops and the driver turns and points a silencer towards Camilla, telling her to exit the
Gabby Browne: car. She says, we don't stop here and it cuts immediately to Two topless vehicles racing down the streets with chitlin little kiddos screaming hands in the air.
They're obviously racing, being dumb kids, right as Camilla is about to pop out of the car. BAM! [00:06:00] We are head to head car accident. I would assume most people would be dead throughout this, but no. Camilla hops out of the car. She's a little, like, fallen all over herself, but she's alive.
Aaron Couser: Yeah, she's disoriented, for sure, kind of meandering around through the streets, stumbles upon this apartment building, and falls asleep in the bushes.
We cut to two police officers surveying the crash site. They found pearls, these white pearls, white pearl earrings. Meaning they know someone has left the site. Yeah,
Gabby Browne: escaped the, escaped the scene of the accident. But what I thought too was pretty crazy when she's running down the street, she sees a police officer, she sees police lights, but hides from them still.
She's very obviously confused. I don't think she realizes or understands what just happened to her. When she
Aaron Couser: wakes up, she sneaks [00:07:00] inside an apartment of someone going on a long trip, got a lot of bags. She's able to sneak into that apartment to get maybe a little more comfort, shelter, and she falls back to sleep.
Cut to Winkies. Winkies, which is basically like a Denny's. Yeah, hell yeah. Uh, I don't know if you like
Gabby Browne: Denny's. I love Denny's. Good Denny's pancakes. Oh my god, Grand Slam Combo for 5? My god, can you get it anywhere else? I don't think so.
Aaron Couser: Delicious, affordable, um, place maybe people can go to to chit chat.
Gabby Browne: Diners, amazing. Also, maybe where some shady stuff happens too.
Aaron Couser: Oh, apparently. Mm hmm. This Winkies in particular. Two men are sitting talking. One of them seems a little concerned, and he talks about this dream he has about this Winkies in particular. He says he has had two dreams.
Gabby Browne: In this interaction with his Friend he [00:08:00] confides in him about both of these dreams that have happened and they're both the same and they're both very prophesizing to the point that He's afraid and he confides in his friend about his fear and tells him step by step What is going to happen?
You're going to be standing at the counter looking at me very concerned There's this fear in your eyes that the same fear is in my dream. And the guy goes to the counter, confused, obviously, about his friend telling him this very strange dream, and he's looking at him concerned. Homeboy realizes that he just prophesied his own dream.
So he is upset and scared, obviously, knowing that Something is about to happen to him. There's a
Aaron Couser: 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.
Jonathan VanSickle: He sees the face, the horrible, [00:09:00] disgusting face that makes this all happen.
Aaron Couser: That face gives him this horrible, God, awful feeling.
He brings his friend there because he wants to make sure it's not real. He wants a witness. And so they. Proceed to go behind the Winkies to investigate this entity. The bum comes out. It frightens him so much that he basically dies. Well, in the
Jonathan VanSickle: suspense that David Lynch sets up in this scene, it kind of sets the tone for a lot of the movie.
The sound design, the fear that you could see. Who's this actor's name who plays this guy? He is
Aaron Couser: incredible. Oh yeah.
Jonathan VanSickle: He's incredible because he's. At this point, describe the entire way the dream is going to happen, and as you're watching him, go through the exact steps that you already know. The fear is, it mounts quickly.
The suspense, you can see it in this guy's face. He can't even bear to face it. It's incredible the way that this scene especially is shot, and sets up, like I said, the tone
Aaron Couser: for a lot of the movie. [00:10:00]
Gabby Browne: We need to talk about the bum. Can I just talk about the actress who plays the bum real quick? Bonnie Ahrens, a specified horror actress.
This woman plays the nun in the Conjuring movies. She has like a very distinct look, distinct nose, and that's like something so so beautiful about that. Truthfully, as an actress that can find a specified role like that through her own looks, it's another like true Hollywood thing. Like it's a point with this movie.
I was about to this like not conventionally who they would say conventionally beautiful being this like. Scary esque creature. Bum person. Such an interesting thing for a woman to be able to play something ugly with what Hollywood has to say about conventional beauty. I always love any actress who is conventionally pretty.
Make an ugly [00:11:00] face, bitch. Like, seriously, this is real life. That's so cool and pointed that he did that for her. To me,
Aaron Couser: the bum just kinda represents reality. It's the death of the dream, the Hollywood dream. The man who initially had the dream about winkys. Mm-hmm. sees the bum's face, sees reality. His naive spirit just immediately just dies.
It can't exist.
We see a short disabled man sitting in a chair behind the wall who gets a call to tell him the girl is still missing. The short man immediately calls a phone number. And a phone from under a red lampshade begins to ring. The dream begins. But is that
Jonathan VanSickle: when the dream begins? Or has it already begun?
Gabby Browne: I kind of feel like it's begun already.
Bright [00:12:00] eyed, beautiful Betty arriving to the airport. She's in Cali. You can tell she is living her best life. Girl is here to be a movie star. She's also here with this old lady that has been adventuring with her. And real granny behavior. This woman is like grinning cheek to teeth. Smiling so happy, she's with another man, and they tell Naomi, Good luck.
Good luck on this adventure. You can do it, girl. The smiles really don't fade. Not at all. They keep going and going and going for an uncomfortable amount of time, while the old couple drives away in the car. Manically. Manic, well, manically, but forebodingly ominous. The first thing that came to my head after seeing those old people is, geez, what's gonna happen to my girl?
What did they do to her? Honestly, the old people are probably my favorite characters, too. They're so weird. They're
Aaron Couser: so weird. The [00:13:00] Hollywood dream begins. In your mind, you would think bright, sunny California, the world is your oyster, and anything is possible, and everyone is supporting you and wanting you to succeed.
Gabby Browne: Hollywood, yeah.
Aaron Couser: Betty tells the cab driver, 1612 Havenhurst. Which doesn't exist in real life. But it is on the corner of Sunset Boulevard, where a very famous apartment complex called Chateau Marmont sat on. The movie is telling you she is going into this classical, historic place where all the great actors would stay at.
The Hollywood Dream. She is greeted by Coco, played by Ann Miller, famous Hollywood icon from Hollywood's golden era, and shown her new apartment, which is her Aunt Ruth's, who we have seen going on her big trip where Camilla has basically moved into. She stumbles upon Camilla in the shower, freaked out.
[00:14:00] Camilla is disoriented, at first doesn't know what her name is. Betty gives her a minute to kind of settle herself, and Camilla sees a poster of Rita Hayworth on the wall. My name's Rita. Betty tells Camilla that she has come here to be a movie star. She calls this her dream place. She's basically acknowledging that this is her subconscious.
She's
Gabby Browne: from Ontario, so it's like not only the Hollywood dream, but the American dream too. My god, of course you did that to this level, David.
Jonathan VanSickle: Well, throughout the whole movie too, Betty is so caring and always says the right thing, and she's just so happy go lucky and just ready to help people out. It's
Aaron Couser: very, very Canadian.
Gabby Browne: She puts that robe over
Aaron Couser: Camilla and Camilla goes right back to sleep. She probably has a head injury there So she needs yeah, she needs to go back to take a nap. Probably
Gabby Browne: shouldn't though
Aaron Couser: That's what Betty tells her it's probably not a good idea, but yeah, she [00:15:00] goes back that girl is
Jonathan VanSickle: not
Aaron Couser: in my film It's not long.
We all film Adam Kesher a hotshot director going into a meeting with some film executives to talk about replacing the lead actress in his film The Castigliani brothers steps into the room. Very stoic, very foreboding, very mafia style characters come in and basically stare at Adam. One of the brothers pulls out a picture of blonde actress Camilla Rhodes.
Not dark haired Camilla, but a new actress, Camilla Rhodes. Luigi asks for an espresso, and one of the talent lawyers... is very excited about getting him this espresso because they never get it right. No,
Gabby Browne: he was like so, he was so anxious. He was like, we gotta get this right now. Like, I'm going to be the best host that I possibly can be.
Like, we are getting this [00:16:00] man his espresso right
Aaron Couser: now. We know how hard you are to please. Yeah.
Gabby Browne: But you give me an espresso with no fucking napkin? What the hell? Like, oh my god, this espresso already is
Aaron Couser: tasting bad. And then he just
Gabby Browne: spits it out. All over the table.
Aaron Couser: But yeah, in a very disgusting way. He's just, and
Gabby Browne: he said, this is shit.
It's shit.
Aaron Couser: This is not what the Castigli brothers are used to. Castiglianos. Um, but also, it's hard to drink coffee when you're dreaming. That's one of the reasons they kind of spit it out. You are in a dream. What's the photo for? It's a recommendation.
A recommendation to you, Adam. This is the girl. Luigi says this is the girl that Adam must cast in his new movie. Which makes Adam absolutely furious. He's going into this
Jonathan VanSickle: meeting like you can't tell me what to do. He's very protective. He has his weapon on the table [00:17:00] ready to
Aaron Couser: go. He is forced to cast an actress he knows nothing about to star as his lead actress in his new film.
And one of the Castigliano brothers says this is not your film. This is no longer your film, which drives Adam absolutely insane. So when he's told that
Jonathan VanSickle: he has to cast this woman, as he's having the valet pull up his car, he says, keep this running for a minute. And he asked if that was the limo that the Castigliani brothers showed up in, bashes in a few windshields, then he's on his
Gabby Browne: way.
Well, it's also Dune, you know. Imagine a director being taken creative liability away. You don't get the lead actress you picked anymore, it's not your film. This is David Lynch's fear right
Aaron Couser: here. Yeah, so this is Lynch basically showing kind of what Hollywood will do to you. You have a decision to make.
You can go along with it or they can just shut you down. They call the mysterious Mr. Roque. I always
Gabby Browne: call him Twin Peaks [00:18:00] bro, Red Room Guy. Like, that's the red Every time I saw him on the screen, I was like, Red Room Guy! It's the Red
Aaron Couser: Room Guy! Mr. Roque basically suggests that they shut it down. Yep. Nope.
Gabby Browne: You don't get it. Knock
Aaron Couser: it down.
Gabby Browne: Mm hmm. Okay. You you don't want this actress that we're picking for you, buddy? Ah, sorry. No more. Chip drop.
Aaron Couser: I always say, The film is the thing. You work so hard to get this thing built in this beautiful language called cinema.
David Lynch just does something to me. You know you're in for an unpredictable, surrealist journey that has his soul tied into it. I think the way David
Jonathan VanSickle: Lynch plays with people's emotions, the way he crafts these stories to be confusing and yet compelling enough to stay not only invested but like trying to pick up every clue, every hint you can.
I think it's really incredible [00:19:00] and the way he wrote this movie and it really reminds me of Louis Bunnell and a lot of the films that he did in the late 70s, early 80s. I think they both take a lot of cues from each other and I just think the storytelling. Was absolutely top-notch by Lynch on this. He leaves no stone unturned.
And where other people would make a surrealist movie that's just visually striking from a story perspective, absolutely
Aaron Couser: ironclad.
Gabby Browne: But in the terms of visually striking, yes, it's visually striking, but the cinematography is not phenomenal. Lynch has such a specific type of cinematography that when you're watching it, you're not thinking that this is a big budget film.
Truthfully, like when you're watching it, you're thinking the room, you're thinking trolls too. It's very, it's the small,
Jonathan VanSickle: uniquely him. Yeah. It's this decisions he makes in decor and cast.[00:20:00]
So, uh, this is a movie that is so surreal and so out of this otherworldly at times. To know that he is that rooted and is telling that tight of a story is just so impressive, and I just wanted to say that
Gabby Browne: about him. This is the difference between Kubrick and Lynch from when we did 2001 A Space Odyssey earlier.
Kubrick had over 200 hours of footage left after Space Odyssey. Doubt that with Lynch. I bet he literally had every scene plotted out to the exact point of what his story was going to be. It's
Aaron Couser: a dream about a dream, and it's basically David Lynch's Hollywood dream, or how he perceives Hollywood to be. A cutthroat conspiracy.
There's a deep rooted evil that Hollywood shuts down, or it silences it from being known. And Camilla basically [00:21:00] represents the casting couch. And you have Betty, who is that aspiring, naive actress who wants to be a star. She sells her soul. To accept the casting couch and finally becoming one with the casting couch and doing the things that take her to the shortcut, the Hollywood success, being at the top of the hill, being at the top of Mulholland Drive, I think, as they say,
Jonathan VanSickle: backdooring your way.
Yeah, literally
Gabby Browne: backdooring your way. Exactly.
Aaron Couser: Yeah. And it's the struggle between do I want to be a true actress and earn it or if I, if it doesn't work out. Do I choose this path to get ahead? But what does that do to your soul? Exactly.
Gabby Browne: And it's the, I think it's so interesting that he chose the conversation around the women.
It's the story of these two women, but it's Naomi's grief. It's Camilla's grief. It's, it's not the people who are actually in the wrong that are being hurt from this situation at [00:22:00] all. It
Aaron Couser: is definitely the female's version of these events because you see that their dread and what they lose. But Lynch is also showing himself as like the director.
This is who he was when he was making Dune. He bent over to Hollywood. to make money, to make dune. He says it was the most saddest experience of his life because he compromised his artistic integrity for success in Hollywood when that's not where his happiness resides. His final cut version of what his idea is, of what his visions are, he wants to put that on the screen without any compromising decisions being made.
There's multiple stories kind of being told under a multi layered dream film, which is fascinating. On Dune, I started selling out even in the script phase, uh, knowing I didn't have Final Cut, um, and I, I sold out and a [00:23:00] terrible, terrible experience. Never ever do a film without final cut. And, um, why would I have done it?
I don't know how it happened. I trusted that it would work out, but, um, it was very naive and, um, the wrong move.
What's up, bro? God, you look good. What have you been doing? Yeah, you know, just doing some stuff for this guy. A small, kind of dingy office with two gentlemen laughing it up.
Gabby Browne: Giggling. Giggling. Snickering.
Aaron Couser: One of them's talking about the car accident.
Gabby Browne: Mm hmm, the long haired bro. The other bro has two different colored eyes, which I thought was very interesting, green, blue, different colors.
Very
Aaron Couser: David Bowie esque. Yeah.
Gabby Browne: Then he moves a little too quick and the guy shoots him, you [00:24:00] know, just pow pow. The
Jonathan VanSickle: little black book that this assassin is killed over,
Aaron Couser: it's the actresses. He's basically a casting agent. If you look behind him, he's got keys. He's got a telescope, so he's looking for talent.
You know, it's kind of implying he's looking for Oh
Gabby Browne: my god, that's so literal. I hate you, David Lynch. For for
Aaron Couser: new, you know, uh, young actresses. And he's got his big black book. The hitman wants that. But he bungles it. Well,
Jonathan VanSickle: he kills the friend, and then as he's trying to wipe off the gun and frame the friend, he shoots a woman through the wall.
And then...
Gabby Browne: She's hurt tolerant. I
Jonathan VanSickle: think it's hilarious too, whenever she's like, Something bit me real good!
Gabby Browne: Like, you just got a shot in the ass. Yeah, I do. He literally starts the room. There's... The janitor
Jonathan VanSickle: guy. The way the camera does that move is brilliant. Like down the hall, he's dragging her. And then all of a sudden we just see this janitor standing there.
It's kind of [00:25:00] like Le Samurai actually. Whenever he comes out of that office and it's like, I need your help. Come on,
Gabby Browne: buddy. Please. Like, I can't do this by myself. She hurt herself. I need you to come help me. Homeboy just like, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. He just walks in and gets shot. The way. In a dream, you have no free will.
Sometimes you are doing something that you do not understand, your body does not understand, but something happened where your mind told you to do this. Right. And no matter how scary it is, you know it's a wrong situation in a dream. Like, you still are doing
Aaron Couser: it. And we should understand that everything in this dream is a metaphor.
And this could be Hollywood trying to clean up its mess as the janitor, and even that gets bungled. Hollywood just kind of trips over itself all the time.
Gabby Browne: He just keeps fucking up even more until the fire alarm ends up going off and he just decides, I, I, I'm gonna go out the window. There's [00:26:00] no way, I literally have killed three people on a, a one, a vacuum, on a one hit mission.
I've killed three people. This is very obviously a murder, not suicide now. So we gotta. Like we gotta get, get gettin Right. So, hop out the window, time to go.
Aaron Couser: Back to Betty. She's on the phone with Aunt Ruth, asking Aunt Ruth about Rita, a. k. a. Camilla. Ruth is very concerned. She does not know who Camilla is. She doesn't want Camilla in her house, in her apartment, and she wants Betty to call the police. Camilla tells Betty that she has lost her memories. She has this amnesia based off an event that has happened.
Betty hands Camilla her purse and tells her to find out who she is. Betty wants her to find her driver's license so we can find out [00:27:00] who... This person's name is. Camilla does not seem like she wants to do that. As
Jonathan VanSickle: Rita slowly opens the bag, you can see how nervous and how unsure she is of what she's about to find.
To their surprise, stacks of bills. Cash on. She's just like. It's almost like a clown car of thousands coming out of this tiny purse.
Gabby Browne: Man, I want that purse. Oh my gosh.
Jonathan VanSickle: But then they find something else, kind of a mysterious object. Mysterious object,
a blue
Aaron Couser: key, blue key. They pull
Jonathan VanSickle: out the key. They look at
Aaron Couser: each other. Where did this money come from and where did this key come from?
Gabby Browne: Camilla is crying nonstop. I feel like it's very obvious that she doesn't remember, but the only thing that she can associate it with is just. Like, fear and, and anguish.
It's emotional response [00:28:00] versus an actual memory. Any new
Aaron Couser: girls on the street lately? No. Brunette? Maybe a little beat up?
I haven't seen any. The hitman is trying to a new girl on the street. This hitman also is also kind of like a pimp for the Hollywood. Young Hollywood
Gabby Browne: actresses, yeah. Yeah. Fresh to town people thinking that this is what they're going to make their living
Aaron Couser: off of these are the the ones that Receded from being actresses and now they are making money on the street.
We cut to Adam
Jonathan VanSickle: on the highway He's been given news by his secretary or assistant that the production has been Shut down. What did you
Aaron Couser: say?
Gabby Browne: They fired
Aaron Couser: everyone. Who fired everyone?
Jonathan VanSickle: Poof. He's like, shut down. Like, what? For the day? And they're like, no. Like, everyone's been sent home. It's shut down. It's over,
Gabby Browne: buddy.
It's over. Fired.
Aaron Couser: [00:29:00] Ship chopped. Things are starting to go bad for Adam here. Because he's chosen to not play along with the big studio.
Gabby Browne: He rolls up to his house. There's a, uh, interesting looking vehicle in the front. Yeah, Gene's cleaning. Because his car is so raggedy and like, everyone is driving like, bougie cars this whole movie, limos and stuff.
Honey must have the cleaners over. Yeah, little did he know he was about to walk into Billy Ray Cyrus doing his lady. Yep, they are cuddled up in bed together. Uh, what looks like, what we can assume is his partner and Billy Ray Cyrus.
Aaron Couser: So Adam is just having a hell of a day. Bad day, man. Um, his movie has been shut down and now he's going home with his wife cheating on him.
Takes his wife's jewelry and puts pink paint all [00:30:00] throughout just ruining the jewelry. Uh, while Billy Ray Cyrus and his partner comes and attacks, basically kicking him out of the house. So he has no home, he has no job. I
Gabby Browne: literally just ruined all of his wife's valuables that he could have taken in a divorce probably, or, you know, could have pawned himself.
If we're gonna be honest here, yeah, I want hot pink pink all over my jewelry. Camilla
Aaron Couser: remembers that she was on Mulholland Drive. That's where I was going. Mulholland Drive. So now we finally have our clue. We know that her last memory was Mulholland Drive. Mm hmm. And Betty wants to investigate. This has got Betty all kind of excited. You know, this is an adventure. There's a possible crime.
Something to uncover. A
Gabby Browne: random woman in your aunt's house? When you first arrive into Hollywood, this already sounds like a movie, you know? She's ready [00:31:00] to go. She is ready to Nancy Drew this. She is ready to investigate.
Aaron Couser: A great line that... That Betty says to Camilla is, it will be just like the movies. We can pretend to be someone else.
Gabby Browne: They stashed the money in the key in a hatbox. In a blue hatbox. In a blue
Aaron Couser: hatbox.
Gabby Browne: Blue, David Lynch, he likes blue. Betty puts her hand out to Camilla, they shake hands after they, they put everything in the box as kind of an understanding that like they are on the same team. That they're supposed to be a team.
Aaron Couser: So they are doing this now together. This is a mission. They're complicit.
Gabby Browne: Mm hmm. Just to see. Just to see if there was an accident on Mulholland.
Aaron Couser: Camilla agrees to help Betty investigate her accident. Or her Identity.
Gabby Browne: Yeah. She's here to help her solve this mystery. She, like [00:32:00] Nancy Drew, Scooby Doo, she is here.
She wants to play detective. This is Naomi putting on her detective hat. She's
Aaron Couser: ready to go. She calls the police to see if there are possibly any accidents on Mulholland Drive. On
Gabby Browne: a payphone, kids. This is 2001. Just so everyone knows, you know. This is the wire, everyone.
Aaron Couser: And the police confirm that there was.
There was an accident, but that's all that he's willing to say. And he wants to know who this is, and how they would know that there was an accident on Mulholland Drive. But she hangs up the phone. Betty quickly hangs up, yeah. Slams the phone and they immediately go to Winkie's to see in the paper if there were any accidents reported in the news, which there were not.
Their server,
Gabby Browne: who has a very similar, similar look to her, uh, has a very Short blonde hair. Yeah, short blonde hair is the move for this movie. Camilla's First real look of realization. The Waitress's name tag reads Diane and she goes, [00:33:00] Diane, she's thinking, she's thinking, she knows the name. Diane Swick May.
Maybe I'm Diane Swick.
Aaron Couser: So they look through the phone book and find there. There's one Diane Selwyn in the book, and they start to call her. And Betty makes this really strange line to say, It's strange to be calling yourself.
Foreshadowing! Oh, it's me.
Gabby Browne: Message.
Aaron Couser: When Betty and Camilla call Diane, it goes to a voicemail. Camilla knows that's not her on that voicemail, but she recognizes the voice. And she agrees with Betty to go to the address to investigate more. I know her. Adam is... Now living in this shady hotel. Uh, he's down on his luck and there's a knock on the door and it's the manager [00:34:00] telling him his credit cards are basically maxed out on top of everything else.
Yeah, he's now broke. The manager tells Adam that whoever he's hiding from, they know where you are. There's no escape for Adam. He calls his secretary and tells her the situation. She tells him that he's basically broke. She tells Adam that the cowboy wants to see him and tells Adam where to meet him up top of the corral.
Gotta
Gabby Browne: head over to the
Aaron Couser: corral.
Jonathan VanSickle: She also offers him a place to stay
Gabby Browne: multiple times. Yeah, she says, Don't worry, you can stay with me. Okay. But you don't know what you're missing.
Aaron Couser: But Adam chooses not to. Adam really has no other choice but to meet this mysterious cowboy. See that cowboy? Camilla is definitely getting nervous now about finding out what they're going to see in Diane Selwyn's apartment.
There is a knock at the door and a neighbor comes by, older neighbor, [00:35:00] and tells Betty, Someone is in trouble. Something bad is happening. And she peers into the apartment. She, she can't, she can just see Camilla sitting on the couch.
Gabby Browne: And she tells her she's not supposed to be staying there. Louise
Aaron Couser: says, that's not your name.
That's not what Ruth said. So that's very strange. Betty's name isn't really Betty. That's not who really she is.
Gabby Browne: If some random woman comes to my door and says, You're not Ruth's niece, I don't know who you are. I'm like, okay, ma'am, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know how, how, um, upheaved I would personally feel by the random lady telling me that I'm not who I, I am.
Well, even
Aaron Couser: Coco kind of admits it. Yeah,
Gabby Browne: she's like, hey, she's kind of, you know, I'm just Just deliverin some faxes here, sorry, I will get her back to her
Aaron Couser: room now. And that's when she's escorted away by Coco. Coco's there to give Betty the audition script. And when Coco and Louise leave, Camilla [00:36:00] is very frightened.
Man's attitude. Man's attitude goes some ways, the way his life will be. Is that something you might agree with?
Gabby Browne: We are driving up, driving up this dusty, dingy V Rodeo. LA does not have that same type of farm culture, big city life. This is very outside of any other scene we've seen in the movie so
Aaron Couser: far.
Yeah. It's kind of maybe a wink and a nod to the old Western movies of Hollywood's past. The cowboy emerges tells Adam that a man's attitude Depicts how his life will be. Asks Adam to think about his life. And basically calls him a smart aleck, because Adam is shooing the things he's saying kind of away.
It's
Gabby Browne: interesting as well, their dialogue together. The cowboy asks him, Is that answer because you thought [00:37:00] that's what I wanted to hear? Or are you answering genuinely? This is the down to earth, western cowboy. This is like the intrinsic idea of what a macho man, and like, both of, uh, so many of the, the macho men in this movie, either the people who have been portrayed as gangsters, or like, possibly mobsters, he is making the rules now.
The
Aaron Couser: cowboy tells Adam that he is driving the show. He tells him to go back to work and audition many girls, but he has to. to pick Camilla Rhodes. He has to. He says when you
Jonathan VanSickle: see her, you're going to say, this is the girl
Aaron Couser: again. This is the girl. The cowboy tells Adam he will see him one more time if he does good.
And two more times. if he does bad. This is the girl.
Gabby Browne: Betty and uh, Camilla practicing lines, and she goes, Before [00:38:00] I kill you. And they go, Ah ha ha ha ha And they all, they both snicker together when I'm like, Why was that line so funny, huh? Why was that line so funny, Lynch? Why did we do that giggle there, huh?
I
Aaron Couser: wonder. Coco comes by again, interrupts the impromptu rehearsal that they're getting ready to do for the big audition. Tells Betty that her aunt wants Camilla to leave the apartment. This has gone too far. Coco doesn't believe the story that Betty is telling about Camilla. Or
Gabby Browne: does she not believe the story that Camilla is telling Betty?
It could be both too, you know. Coco doesn't care, she needs her out, you know. But Coco's
Aaron Couser: been around the block a few times. Yeah, yeah. She knows that this is a fishy situation.
Gabby Browne: Yeah, she doesn't want a rando staying in her
Aaron Couser: building. She says if there's trouble... Get rid of it. Camilla asks is is it okay for me to be here instead of Betty's saying it doesn't seem like it's the best idea She goes everything is a
Gabby Browne: okay Don't worry about it girl.
[00:39:00] Everything's good We can have another sleepover Louise Bonner said there's trouble in there. Remember last night?
Jonathan VanSickle: Coco also spills another little piece of information, talking about the neighbor last night who came over. You know, sometimes she's wrong, but other times, and she doesn't really finish, but it very much implies that she took that threat, even though it was from a crazy lady kind of hooting and hollering at the, you know, Shaking her fist at the sun.
She seems to have heeded her words.
Aaron Couser: Yeah, she thinks there might be something behind what Louise has been saying about Camilla. As Betty tells Camilla everything's okay, she gets ready to go to her big audition.
Gabby Browne: Yep, it's in an hour, she's gotta get
Aaron Couser: rolling. This is what she came to Hollywood for. Yeah. This is the big, this is her big moment.
There
Gabby Browne: are agents across the street. Driving by. Driving by. watching her. Mafiosos. Mafiosos. Oh, it's kind
Jonathan VanSickle: of ramps up the
Aaron Couser: paranoia aspect. Betty is in her big audition. How [00:40:00] many people who come to Hollywood get an audition with the director, with the casting agents, with the producers, all in one room? What a lucky gig.
Jonathan VanSickle: Reading with the guy who they have to do their...
Gabby Browne: That's already been cast as the lead actor, you know. Sorry, yeah, no, the guy who's already been cast as the lead actor, there's literally one role left. Everything has been put out. Everything is ready to go. We just need this one last missing puzzle piece.
And is it you, Naomi? But she knocks it out of the park. Not before Homeboy says, Nice and close like the last one. I want to do it with like the other one. says, the other one.
Aaron Couser: Or brunette or whatever. Just like the movies. You're
Gabby Browne: playing a dangerous game here.
Aaron Couser: First she's kind of resistant to this intimate touching.
But then she grabs his hand and makes sure it is on her rear end. And she now is getting into the scene. She's actually accepting what's [00:41:00] happening and going through with it. She does an incredible job and everybody is absolutely amazed. ovation. The casting agents are so excited. Except Bob Booker, who is the director, he's kind of aloof.
Most people that are in the room actually don't even listen to
Gabby Browne: really what he's saying. He literally even says, That was forced. Forced but humanistic. Yeah,
Aaron Couser: good, real good. But yeah, forced but humanistic. Forced is such a specific
Gabby Browne: word to
Aaron Couser: use.
Jonathan VanSickle: And then what does he say, don't play it for real until it,
Gabby Browne: until it gets real, until it gets real.
And that's when it gets real for her is when she realizes it's like she has to put her hand, his hand there. She has to commit. And if she doesn't commit, he might rush that line again. And Lord knows what might happen when he rushes that line. But the director makes sure to say, don't do it again. Because acting is reacting.
Acting is reacting. You have to be in the moment. That guy
Aaron Couser: actually was a really good actor. Yeah, I
Gabby Browne: thought so too, but I also was like, Yo, [00:42:00] we do not need that leathery old white guy skin archetype. I'm very classically handsome, and then like 20 year old blonde ingenue with this like 65 year old man. Get out of here.
Get out of here. There it was.
Aaron Couser: Yeah, there it was, all right. Baby,
Jonathan VanSickle: you got away with you.
Aaron Couser: It's kind of disgusting,
Gabby Browne: watching it. It's absolutely disgusting.
Jonathan VanSickle: The thing that I took away from it, as you know, this older guy has his hands all over her. It took me a minute, but I said, why would she dream this? Why would she dream that her audition was like this?
And I said, you know what? Maybe it was completely the opposite. Maybe these people weren't interested in her. Maybe this older man did try to make an advance at her and she rejected him. And so in her dream, her reality has been so distorted at this point that she dreams that she used her sexuality in an empowering moment to take over the scene and completely rule the situation.
And the sad [00:43:00] truth of it is that's probably exactly opposite of what happened. Yeah,
Gabby Browne: different. different, taking a different route. The same way that the director is giving up his piece of art is the same way that she is giving up how she feels about herself, her body, her, her sanctum, basically.
Jonathan VanSickle: Well, and not only that, the pleasure that everybody else gets from it, the excitement that everybody is like, wow, that
Gabby Browne: was incredible.
The women in the room do not. feel the same way as all the other men. And as soon as they leave the room, this isn't even going anywhere. They're just doing this to appease this guy. I would like to show you something that you could actually do. And then they cut to a scene and it's all women basically.
That's the difference there. A room full of men watching her be groped by a man into a different situation of a woman taking Stage and presence there. The autonomy that actors and actresses have over their own bodies. You're selling [00:44:00] yourself. You are literally selling yourself, your face, your body, your mind.
You are selling yourself physically. How far do you go at that point?
Aaron Couser: And she went all the way. God, that was awful. Not you, Betty. You were stellar, and I mean that. But poor Wally. He'll never get that picture made. Yeah, Wally's days were up 20 years ago. The audition goes so well that the casting agents, they know that that movie isn't ever really gonna get made, but they know of one movie that she would kill in.
The Sylvia North story, which is what Adam is now being forced to do casting calls for his lead actress. Camilla Rhodes sings the song that all the auditioners have to do. Betty walks in with the casting agents, and almost like slow motion, Adam turns to Betty. They lock eyes. It's almost like he's mesmerized by her.
He has a moment. He [00:45:00] knows that Betty is the girl. He knows that Betty is the one. He sees it. It's an immediate. Recognition, this is what's going to make my movie, but he's made that deal. Turns back, the mafia people come in, and he says that Camilla Rhodes is the girl. The mafia has already picked this Camilla Rhodes to be the star.
She's losing out on two roles for two different reasons.
Gabby Browne: It's never fair. That's also what they're trying to say. It's, it's, it's rigged. It's not a game that people play for fun and pleasure. It's a game that has already had winners picked. A
Aaron Couser: part of him basically dies forever. And that's the last time you see Adam in...
the dream. Betty, who was about to audition for the North Sylvia story, says she has somewhere to be and immediately runs off. Which is strange. This is like her big break. Well, she has to meet up with
Jonathan VanSickle: Rita to investigate their newest lead.
Aaron Couser: To go to the address of Diane [00:46:00] Selwyn. You're seeing more of these mafia people.
Watching them. They hide in
Gabby Browne: the bushes. Yeah, the women are being Sneaky now. Sneakin around.
Aaron Couser: They finally get to Diane's apartment.
Gabby Browne: After going through a pretty dreamlike little labyrinth
Aaron Couser: there. Right, yeah, so they're getting closer to maybe the core of what they need to be doing in the dream. They arrive at Diane's address and a different woman answers the door and says that Diane switched apartments and Diane's is on the 17th.
Gabby Browne: No longer room 12. She hasn't seen her in a couple days. She's starting to get a little concerned.
Aaron Couser: Yeah, Diane's been missing. The mysterious lady goes back to answer a phone call, and Betty and Camilla sneak into the house through the back window.
Gabby Browne: Instead of waiting. Instead of waiting. And it's Betty's idea to do it too.
Betty really wants to know. Betty
Aaron Couser: needs to know. That's all she really can think about now is who is the identity of this Camilla lady. There's an odor, you know, there's something horribly [00:47:00] horribly wrong with what's going on here and they eventually find Diane dead and it seems like she's been dead for a very long time in her bed And it is absolutely gut wrenching to Camilla.
Camilla has this reaction that is just terror Frightening terror.
Gabby Browne: And Naomi covers her mouth as quickly as she
Aaron Couser: can. And they eventually walk out the door. Camilla's still totally destroyed by what she has just seen. And you see the camera shifting. It's vibrating back and forth. A disorienting look from both Betty and Camilla.
As they go back home, Camilla starts cutting her hair
Gabby Browne: short. She's really frazzled. She's scared. She wants to change the way she looks and she needs to make that happen as soon as possible. I know what you have to do. You do it.
Aaron Couser: Truly,
Gabby Browne: Betty's character has to be taking [00:48:00] care of Camilla. She has to be caring for her in every instance.
I think that's why she doesn't feel fear upon seeing the dead body. She is so much more concerned with Camilla's well being than she is her own. As an actress, as a woman, your hair is your identity. Cutting your hair, by yourself too, that's not, you can't do that, sorry. Pretty extreme. As an actress, like, and especially during this time period of like, what they're trying to say about Hollywood, women have more of an identity.
with their hair than they do their own relationships, it seems like, you know, like a dress, their body, their hair, like they are their physical attractiveness and looks
Jonathan VanSickle: playing again to our identity. She, she wants to change. She feels endangered and she feels those around her or those that were around her all at Diane are also in danger.
You know, she wants to change. Her identity. She wants to change who she is at that point. Once again, Betty enables her to make that change. To
Aaron Couser: look exactly like her. [00:49:00] She gives her a blonde wig that looks exactly like Betty. So these two now are almost sharing now the same identity after they saw Diane dead in the
Gabby Browne: bed.
Thank god she didn't dye it though. It is just a wig, ladies and gentlemen. Just a wig. Which
Aaron Couser: she takes off that night. Camilla thanks her for everything she's done for her, and they have this night together. This is the first time they have sexual relationships, Betty and Camilla. I literally
Gabby Browne: put First David Lynch titties in the film.
That's like, I had a little tab out that said, First titties. Silencio.
Aaron Couser: After the intimacy is over, Camilla is seen sleeping with her eyes open. She starts saying, there is no band. Noi Bando. And Silencio wakes Camilla up and tells her she has to come with her at two in the morning. You have to come with me right now. Which at that point, Betty's gonna [00:50:00] do whatever Camilla wants her to do.
Gabby Browne: They're, uh, hitching a ride, they're, um. Taking a cab? No. Hitchhiking. Hitchhiking. Which is extremely dangerous for any woman to do. Don't ever hitchhike, ladies!
Aaron Couser: They go to this mysterious club called Solencio.
Gabby Browne: When they first arrive to the club, and they're so far away, and the camera just slowly, almost seems like it's running up to the bar, the cabaret that they're at.
It looks like a very sketchy space. A seedy joint. A seedy joint. Absolutely. Very different than the L. A. Samurai Club. This looks like, you know, you're gonna see some shady magic here, probably. Some haberdashery. Yeah, some haberdashery. Whoa, what a word,
Aaron Couser: Jonathan. Wow, that is good. They take their seat in this grand theater.
The host of the show, or the MC, basically says the same things that Camilla was saying in her dreams. Or in her Awake
Gabby Browne: y dream. There is no band. There is no orchestra. This is all a recording. It's all a [00:51:00] recording. An
Aaron Couser: illusion. An illusion. Unipod orchestra.
Gabby Browne: The instruments will be heard regardless if others
Aaron Couser: are playing. And he introduces a woman, possibly looks like kind of a prostitute, disheveled. The woman is singing a song about losing her soul. Losing a loved one.
Gabby Browne: She's also in the background of him the entire time too. And the ghost light is also, I feel like, kind of important too, because that's where he disappears as well.
A ghost light is a light that you leave on in the theater for good presence. Theaters across the country have always been haunted and spooky. It's for safety, of course, so there's always a light on in the theater, but it's also supposed to push away bad juju, bad presence. Any type of ghouls and goblins hiding in the dark, you know?
Supposed to truly be the light in the darkness. So, yeah,
Aaron Couser: she's singing. She's singing, but she's so emotional. She's, she's crying. Eventually, she [00:52:00] collapses, even though you still hear her singing. Music is still playing, even though the instrument is gone, which would be her voice. Betty is just convulsing.
Like, it is.
Jonathan VanSickle: They're both sobbing at this point. The song is basically just like, and I'm sitting here crying and crying and crying, much like Betty did in her scene as she was saying before, and then I cry and cry and cry and I say, I hate us both.
Aaron Couser: At the end of the song, we see the first image of the blue box.
Mm
Gabby Browne: hmm. Naomi pulls out her purse. Is it her purse? Who knows? But there's the blue box, looking very similar to that blue key from earlier.
Aaron Couser: They both seem to understand what it's for, look at it and acknowledge it in a certain way. And they rush right back home. The blue key in the hat box in Camilla's purse.
When Camilla goes to pick up the box, Betty has just disappeared, and it is only Camilla. Camilla goes around and looks for Betty, but Betty has [00:53:00] absolutely vanished. Silencio.
Gabby Browne: Silencio.
Aaron Couser: Camilla takes the blue key, unlocks the box, gets sucked into it, and the box falls onto the ground, and the dream is over.
Gabby Browne: And that's where we'll be leaving off. What happens next in Mahalan Drive? You're gonna have to come back next time for part two.
The Limelight.
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