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<\/p>\nMulholland Drive is a simple movie, for the first three quarters. It is after that when the audience is really thrown. We are led to believe that the movie is a mystery where someone was sent to murder \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Rita\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, who has lost her memory, and a wonderful hero, Betty, is going to help her recover her memory and save her from whoever is out to get her. Like a Hitchcock movie, this appears to be a type of a Magoffin. There is a clue into the true outcome of this movie within one scene, however. Everything that happens within the club\/theater \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Silencio\u00e2\u20ac\u009d can be used to sum up the entire movie. Within this scene we are given the main idea of the movie. Also, this scene encompasses both the blue and red color themes through out the movie.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153\u00c2\u00a1No hay banda! \u00c2\u00a1No hay orcestra! \u00c2\u00a1Silencio!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Betty and Rita enter the theater\/club hoping for answers, but it is us that get the answer, though you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t realize it until later. The man is yelling, telling everyone there is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153no band, no orchestra, and yet we hear one, it is all a recording, it is all an illusion.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Betty\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life is the same as this play, it is a mere dream, and illusion, there is no life, yet she, and we, see one. We see several illusions, both visual and audible, all of which are meant only to lead it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s audience on.<\/p>\n
In \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Silencio\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, blue lights flash as the man disappears in a cloud of smoke shortly after mentioning that everything is an illusion. The color blue seems to represent uncertainty and mystery. This can be seen in several different scenes. The flashing blue lights are first seen on the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Mulholland Dr.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d street sign at the beginning of the movie when Rita gets held at gunpoint in her own limo. It flashes on the same street sign near the end of the movie when Diane is on her way to meet Camilla. At both of these moments, the women are completely clueless as to what is going to happen next. Blue is also the color of the box and key that Rita has in her purse (the purpose of these items are still kind of a mystery to me). The hat box that Betty hides them in is also blue. When Betty goes on her audition, she, and the actor both are wearing blue shirts. Before performing, Betty even takes off her jacket to show off the whole shirt. Here both are acting, and acting is usually used to conceal the truth. After the audition, she goes to watch another audition, where she sees Adam. When they make eye contact, the camera shows a close up of her eyes. Her eyes are a bright blue color though up until that point, I would have guessed her eyes to be green. They both act as though they know each other, but they are not sure of where they know the other from. There is also a scene where Diane and Camilla are on a movie set. Diane is both saddened and confused when she sees the relationship between Camilla and Adam unfold. She is wearing a blue dress in this scene.<\/p>\n
At \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Silencio\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, the color red also plays a large part. Everything is red; the seats, the curtains. During the end of the scene at \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Silencio\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, there is a man in a red suit who introduces Rebeka, a singer, who is wearing a red dress and red earrings.. Rebeka walks up to the microphone and sings a Spanish version of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Crying\u00e2\u20ac\u009d by Roy Orbison., a song about love (at the end of her performance, the singer \u00e2\u20ac\u0153dies\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, so she does not have to live without her love, a bit of foreshadowing for when Diane kills herself). Red is also used throughout the film representing passion. Rita wears the most red, but this makes sense since it is a dream world created in Diane\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mind. When we first see Rita and Betty in the same room, Rita is wearing a red towel. She then changes into a red robe, which is one of two red robes she wears in the film. Rita is also almost always wearing red lipstick. Outside of this imagined world, Diane\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bed sheets are red, and when she is making coffee and hallucinates and sees Camilla, Camilla is in a slinky red dress with red lipstick.<\/p>\n
I think that the color red also shows when Camilla\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s passion shifts from Diane to Adam. During the scene on the movie set, mentioned above, where Diane is wearing blue, Camilla, in a red dress, is sitting in a car taking direction form Adam and kisses him. While kissing him, she glances over at Diane, it seems, to make a point. Also, when Diane arrives at Adam\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s party, Camilla is wearing a red scarf. This is the scene in which Camilla and Adam announce their engagement. I thought it was very interesting to watch the part of the party scene when the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Camilla\u00e2\u20ac\u009d from Diane\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dream world kisses the real Camilla and Camilla\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s red lipstick transfers to the other woman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lips, then she looks over at Diane as if to just shove it in her face that she had lost Camilla\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s love. ![](\"http:\/\/blogs.elsweb.org\/myblog\/wp-admin\/Image5.gif\")
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I find it interesting the places in which you find both colors at the same time. At the beginning, right after the car accident, a cop car goes by with its lights, both red and blue, signifying the uncertainty and the passion to come. The hotel sign, where Adam hides out, is also both colors. Here he hides from the men who are after him, but also, he talks on the phone with his secretary who appears to be flirting with him (note that she has a red necklace and red nail polish). And lastly, to close out the film with the same two colors that open it, and we are able to see the final thought of the movie. We are shown the stage at \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Silencio\u00e2\u20ac\u009d with a blue haze, the confusion and uncertainty of the film, then the blue fades, and the stage is its usual red, where we are left with the real story, love. It then ends with a picture, that encompasses both themes, and their corresponding colors. The lady in the balcony has blue hair and blue eye shadow, but is also wearing very red lipstick. She appears to close out the movie with the confusion still felt by the audience (or at least me) and the passion that was the basis for the whole movie.![](\"http:\/\/blogs.elsweb.org\/myblog\/wp-admin\/Image9.gif\")
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On page 717 of our FTC book, Robin Wood makes a list of twelve American film concepts. Number 12 on the list is the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153erotic woman (adventuress, gambling lady, saloon \u00e2\u20ac\u0153entertainer\u00e2\u20ac\u009d), fascinating but dangerous, liable to betray the hero\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. I think that this is how Diane sees Camilla. In her imagined world, she is the hero, trying to help save poor Rita. It then turns out that, in reality, Camilla\/Rita has betrayed the hero, herself, for the love of another. This movie also follows a Hitchcock idea when it comes to sexuality. On page 725 of our FTC book, Woods says \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the key to Hitchcock\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s films is less suspense than sexuality (or alternately, that his \u00e2\u20ac\u0153suspense\u00e2\u20ac\u009d always carries a sexual charge in ways sometimes obvious, sometimes esoteric); and that sexual relationships in his work are inevitably based on power, the obsession with power, and the dread of impotence being as central to his method as to his thematic\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. I think this movie also has the color theme in common with Hitchcock\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Vertigo\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, where, as we discussed in class, the color green signifies who is in charge.<\/p>\n
I feel that Stephanie H., <\/a>though talking about Vertigo and Portrait of Jennie, describes the idea behind not only those two films but Mulholland Dr as well. She brings up this issue of obsession, which definitely is the entire setup of this entire movie. Without Diane\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s obsession with Camilla, her alternate\/dream world would not exist. Also, at the bottom of this page, there is a comment that so greatly says “There is a fine line between reality and an obsessed person\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s made up world”, what better way to some up this movie.<\/p>\n \u00c2\u00a0In another blog, Beth<\/a> talks to an old woman who says “that to be in love is to be obsessed with the another person, that it is like an addiction. Upon me asking how one can get that feeling, that obsession to last a life time, she said that you can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t expect it to last. I found that a little sad, at first, but then she went on to say that there is always love and a deep connection, but the obsession comes and goes”, if only Diane could have talked to this woman \ud83d\ude41<\/p>\n Here<\/a>, someone else writes about the use of color, using Vertigo. There is a quote with in the post about the color red being associated with obsessive love, much like in Mulholland Drive<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mulholland Drive is a simple movie, for the first three quarters. It is after that when the audience is really thrown. We are led to believe that the movie is a mystery where someone was sent to murder \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Rita\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, who … Continue reading