Film 1 – Mulholland Drive
Mulholland Drive is David Lynch’s 9th feature film, we follow Rita who is a survivor of a car crash but is stricken with amnesia after the accident. She finds herself in struggling actor Betty’s aunt’s house, where Betty finds Rita and is willing to help Rita find her identity.
Mulholland Drive at heart is a critique of the film industry and in particular how women are treated by the film industry. How the film industry will make or break a woman’s career if they don’t do something they are uncomfortable with, and the shady behind-the-scenes of controlling producers and egotistical directors.
The film is also incredibly surreal and dreamlike. Mulholland Drive constantly has this dreamlike aroma to it, the way the film is shot, edited and how the music and sound design are used blend together to make a nightmarish tone.
The film’s composer is Angelo Baldiamati who is a frequent collaborator of David Lynch working on many of his other works like Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet. Angelo creates a score full of deep brooding drones, the track Mr. Roque Betty’s Theme is a great example of this.
The track is occupied by a consistent drone with sounds drifting in and out. The main drone sounds airy, engulfed in this beautiful and long reverb. I found this really interesting and important to me working on the alphabet, by incorporating heavily reverbed drones into my piece, these drones can be found throughout most of Lynch’s films. The piece then breaks into a soaringly beautiful synth string passage which makes for a very emotional piece of music.
Film 2 – The Wizard Of Oz
The Wizard Of Oz is the 1939 adaptation of the book of the same name by Lyman Frank Baum. This film starts with our main protagonist Dorothy (Judy Garland) living a normal ‘black and white life in Kansas, she has a hard-working family and a dog called Toto. After the attempted euthanization of her dog, Dorothy’s house is swept up in a tornado, when the house has landed she walks outside into the land of oz.
The Wizard Of Oz is very much a surreal film, everything from the sets, characters, music, and special fx, everything feels surreal and dreamlike. This film also feels haunted, everything that could’ve gone wrong on a film set went wrong on The Wizard Of Oz. Directors came and went throughout filming leaving the finished work being directed by 4 different directors. Actor Margaret Hamilton being set on fire by a malfunction on set, using asbestos for some of the special effects e.g. snow. All of this makes watching the film feel very uneasy and uncomfortable at points, especially when you can point out when these things happened.
I’ve always been mildly creeped out by The Wizard Of Oz, but believe it to be a surrealist masterpiece. The way they introduce the characters felt very appropriate and worked to create the dreamlike feeling the film is going for. The film is very colourful in particular with the colours Green, Yellow, and Blue. The way the colours are very bright, and still, and are used heavily makes the film feel very hypnotic.
The Wizard Of Oz has apparently also been a big inspiration for David Lynch, recently a film called Lynch/Oz has been doing the film festival circuit to great reviews. I cannot find much information on David Lynch in The Wizard Of Oz but it’s clear how the dreamlike feeling of The Wizard Of Oz could have inspired him as a child and even as an adult.