Psychoanalysis and Mulholland Drive

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itself.
Viewed simply as an art film, the scenes are lavish, spectacular, murky, and classic film noir. Just like its' setting of Los Angeles and Hollywood film industry, the film is sensual, eccentric, bizarre, and complicated. Lynch may have blown in just a smidgen of smog to create diversions, too. Viewed as a study in psychology, the film delves into each character differently, and in the end, the characters are nothing like they seem, which is often true of dreams, life, and the human mind.
Throughout the film, which has a dreamlike and unreal quality, it is difficult to determine when the characters are awake or dreaming, and why some of the characters even exist, such as the strange couple who bid Betty farewell at LAX, and hoot merrily after she leaves. In one dreamlike and strange scene, the MC at a nightclub mentions, "This is all a tape recording. It is an illusion," as the music plays and the musicians pretend to perform. During the visit, Betty and ...

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We are only here for a short time, and then we are gone, just like an illusion or a dream. These dream sequences are absolutely crucial to the film, which is why the film opens with a dream - making it difficult to know if what the viewer is watching is reality or only a dream. One reviewer notes, "The [opening dream] scene is crucial because in the anxiety dream we're witnessing it signifies the release of the dreamer's id" (Fuller). Indeed, the subconscious plays a huge part in this film, making the viewer quite conscious of the fact that they really have no idea what is going on, or what is going to happen next.
In another interesting twist on film and psychoanalysis, the two ...

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