MULHOLLAND DRIVE IN 4K
Academy Museum of Motion Pictures
Los Angeles
July 25, 2024
Like the memory of its brunette leading lady, my relationship to David Lynch’s 2001 Los Angeles – based thriller Mulholland Drive is fuzzy. I can’t pinpoint the first time I watched it. Probably sometime in high school, on an old-model iPhone, or pirated, with ads popping up to obscure Naomi Watts’s face every 15 minutes. Whenever it was, these days I regularly encounter fragments of the film on the iPhone I’ve upgraded to in the time since, TikTok edits of the protagonists set to Chappell Roan songs. And now that I go to school in Los Angeles, I’m unable to pass by Canter’s or Swingers or Fred 62 without worrying about potential sinister presences lurking behind the dumpsters. Nor, for that matter, am I able to turn down a Thursday night screening of the movie at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.
In Los Angeles, I’ve learned, five dollars gets you an iced Americano — sans alternative milk. Alternatively, at least for those with a student ID, the same amount buys a ticket to a screening at the Academy Museum. Two weeks ago, Mulholland Drive played at the David Geffen Theater as part of the Academy Museum’s Summer in the City: Los Angeles, Block by Block series. That night, the Hollywood Hills were transplanted to the corner of Fairfax and Wilshire.
Audience members clad in everything from Twin Peaks merch to Paloma Wool filled the 1,000-seat theater to capacity. Because the David Geffen Theater is part of the museum, eating and drinking are strictly prohibited; a pack of Red Vines poking out of my bag at a screening of Double Indemnity (1944) earlier this summer earned me an indelible warning. This time around, I settled into the plush seats and air-conditioned atmosphere snack-free. Especially without sugar, the conditions were ideal for sleeping — not to mention perfect for a movie about dreams.
Ushers helped latecomers trickle into their seats after Watts’s Betty landed at LAX, and before the movie got really weird. Bizarreness aside, seeing Rita (Laura Harring) snip her hair in the sink affirmed my summer haircut. And experiencing the musical segments of the film in a multimillion-dollar theater felt akin to going to a concert, especially listening to, and feeling, Rebekah Del Rio belt her Spanish rendition of Roy Orbison’s “Crying.” My hearing protection was at home.
Still, though the theater’s Dolby Atmos was loud, it wasn’t quite loud enough to drown out the audience’s inevitable gasps of “What the fuuuuck?” and “Jesus Christ.” A thousand of us witnessed Lynch’s L.A. contort at every frame in 4K. I could tell that everyone was dissecting the film for meaning. Mostly, I wanted a Diet Coke and Sour Patch Kids.
As the credits rolled, phone screens started to turn on, some displaying Letterboxd, others Reddit — all slowly illuminating the theater before the house lights turned on. A few audience members opened the IMDb pages of Mulholland Drive’s actors; headshots of Watts, Harring, and even Billy Ray Cyrus popped up around the theater. Stargazing in a city polluted by light (and real-life celebrities).
Walking back down Wilshire to my friend’s car, I passed the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s 2008 Urban Light installation. The air smelled of the nearby tar pits and sizzling bacon-wrapped hot dogs. Not quite ready to leave the L.A. of the film, my friends and I headed to Swingers — yet the only sinister presence at the diner was my Diet Coke. It was flat, and it cost $4.50.
