What do you think?
Rate this book
Devious Dreams: Reimagining David Lynch's Mulholland Drive
Puzzling and elusive, David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive (2001) refuses easy interpretation. Critics have said the film is “outside logical explanation,” that it lacks “any semblance of rationality,” that “people who try to work out what is ‘really’ going on in it are wasting their time.” Given Mulholland Drive’s unorthodox narrative—Is the story a dream? The visions of a dying mind? A depiction of alternate realities?—it’s no wonder audiences struggle to make sense of it.
In Devious Reimagining David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, John Thorne argues that a simple story hides beneath the film’s chaotic surface. Through a study of Mulholland Drive’s production documents, shooting script, and original configuration as a television pilot, and through analysis of David Lynch’s approach to editing, sound design, scene arrangement, and camera movement, Thorne offers compelling evidence that the first part of the film is an exaggerated reflection of the latter—that a dream interpretation is the most coherent way to read Mulholland Drive.
Supplementing Thorne’s analysis, Devious Dreams features in-depth interviews with Mulholland Drive’s lead Naomi Watts, Justin Theroux, and Laura Elena Harring. Each actor shares vivid memories of making Mulholland Drive (both as television pilot and film) and offers personal interpretations of the film. Originally published in Wrapped In Plastic magazine in 2001, these interviews enhance our understanding of Mulholland Drive and provide a rare glimpse into its unusual creation.
Mulholland Drive is a film that warrants in-depth interrogation. Here, in these pages, it gets due consideration. Cogently argued and meticulously researched, Devious Dreams is an unprecedented look at this landmark film.
In Devious Reimagining David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, John Thorne argues that a simple story hides beneath the film’s chaotic surface. Through a study of Mulholland Drive’s production documents, shooting script, and original configuration as a television pilot, and through analysis of David Lynch’s approach to editing, sound design, scene arrangement, and camera movement, Thorne offers compelling evidence that the first part of the film is an exaggerated reflection of the latter—that a dream interpretation is the most coherent way to read Mulholland Drive.
Supplementing Thorne’s analysis, Devious Dreams features in-depth interviews with Mulholland Drive’s lead Naomi Watts, Justin Theroux, and Laura Elena Harring. Each actor shares vivid memories of making Mulholland Drive (both as television pilot and film) and offers personal interpretations of the film. Originally published in Wrapped In Plastic magazine in 2001, these interviews enhance our understanding of Mulholland Drive and provide a rare glimpse into its unusual creation.
Mulholland Drive is a film that warrants in-depth interrogation. Here, in these pages, it gets due consideration. Cogently argued and meticulously researched, Devious Dreams is an unprecedented look at this landmark film.
- GenresNonfiction
212 pages, Paperback
Published August 5, 2024
9 people are currently reading
28 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 18, 2025
I started this after a rewatch of Mulholland Drive, two months before David Lynch passed, and finished it today, with his loss fresh in my mind.
This was the first Lynch film I ever watched, and the one that made me a fan for life. Thorne (as he always does) does a wonderful job of digging into the the minutiae of the film, including lots of small details I hadn't picked up on across multiple viewings. His read of the film's narrative (the most popular one, with the first part of the film as a dream, and the second part as 'reality') is one that's never totally sat comfortably for me given how dream-like the latter section is - it's always seemed to me like two halves of the same story, each looping back into the other - but his discussion of the film never precludes such other readings.
The interviews from the Wrapped in Plastic days are also wonderful, with the actors - particularly Watts, Harring and Theroux - right at the moment of realising what a monumental thing they've made, having just had it rescued from being completely abandoned.
Thank you, David Lynch, for this and many more miracles.
This was the first Lynch film I ever watched, and the one that made me a fan for life. Thorne (as he always does) does a wonderful job of digging into the the minutiae of the film, including lots of small details I hadn't picked up on across multiple viewings. His read of the film's narrative (the most popular one, with the first part of the film as a dream, and the second part as 'reality') is one that's never totally sat comfortably for me given how dream-like the latter section is - it's always seemed to me like two halves of the same story, each looping back into the other - but his discussion of the film never precludes such other readings.
The interviews from the Wrapped in Plastic days are also wonderful, with the actors - particularly Watts, Harring and Theroux - right at the moment of realising what a monumental thing they've made, having just had it rescued from being completely abandoned.
Thank you, David Lynch, for this and many more miracles.
September 15, 2024
Having read John Thorne’s previous title Ominous Whoosh (a behind the scenes and intriguing analysis of Twin Peaks: The Return) it was wonderful to share in John’s commentary of the background and potential meaning behind David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive. I love this film to begin with its surreal and mind bending look at stardom unrealized with a heaping dose of tragedy. John takes the time to really dig into this story and what Lynch may or may not have been constructing as part of his artistic masterpiece. A wonderful volume peeling back the layers of an incredible film.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews