You know something that irritates me to the verge of homicidal insanity?
“You’re looking far into it” or “it’s just a movie, shut your brain off.”
No, I will not stop absorbing film on an intellectual level. It’s how I enjoy movies, I like analyzing and interpreting art. When you tell me not to, I’m not consuming the material I’m just present for it. You’re telling me to disobey my most basic instincts- thinking about what I see in front of me. And if you think it’s all just pretentious nonsense, you are blind. That’s like discovering fresh blood stains in your carpet and instead of looking for what caused it, you just sit there staring at the shape and color assuming that it’s there for your amusement.
There is not a single thing on this earth that does not say something. Imagine you find a vomit stain on the sidewalk. Who threw up? What did they eat? How long ago was it? Were they sick? Did they eat something toxic? Why would they do that? What society do we live in where someone throws up all over a sidewalk and just leaves it there?
The stupidest, most insignificant thing you can think of says something about where it came from, how it came into being, and the time period it came from. Analyzing art, like film, is looking at all of these factors and more. It is impossible to look too much into artwork.
This means, though, that there really isn’t a wrong way to interpret film. You can be wrong about the author’s intention, but when it comes to finding a deeper meaning or relevance it’s based around personal perception. This doesn’t mean that the incredibly insecure people who protested The DaVinci Code were in any way correct in their belief that the film’s intent was to attack their faith. You can look at the movie and come up with that conclusion on your own, but if you think that anyone in Hollywood is out there to get you or your own beliefs that says a lot more about you than it does the movie.
Let me give you an example:
David Lynch is a popular Hollywood name. He’s most famous for the show “Twin Peaks” but has made dozens of feature films. If you’ve ever seen one, you know that his work is near incomprehensible. Non-sequiturs are thrown into every scene and weird stuff just sort of happens out of nowhere. It’s weird and creepy, but also fascinating. Mulholland Drive is one of his most well known works and it goes to strange places without explanation. About three-fourths of the way through the movie, characters inexplicably switch names and the narrative shifts focus onto something almost entirely unrelated plot that came out of nowhere. People have spent ages trying to nail some sort of solid explanation for why the film is the way it is. What does it all mean?
Mr. Lynch refuses to elaborate. He is far from an incompetent director who can’t tell a story correctly, Mulholland Drive goes out of its way to show you how excellent of a story-teller David Lynch can be. None of what he’s put on screen is an accident. So what does it mean?
Whatever you want. No, really. David Lynch films aren’t so much about the narrative as much as they are about the experience. He wants you to feel something you can’t explain and be taken on a roller coaster of sights and sounds. More than likely, there are no direct allegories or metaphors for his work. There is just a movie in which he shows you things to disorient you and make you seriously consider what it was you just saw.
There’s a scene in Mulholland Drive where characters Betty and Rita wake up in the middle of the night to go to a place called Club Silencio at Rita’s insistence. We are treated to a song performed by a trumpet player-- only for the trumpet player to quit halfway through. The trumpet music continues, however, even while the performer simply walks off stage without bring the instrument to his mouth. A beautiful musical number sung by a lovely woman on stage and she faints in the middle of her performance. Yet again, the singing continues, even though she isn’t singing. A man with a creepy smile comes out and proclaims triumphantly that it has all been a recording, as if trying really hard to stun the audience with this revelation. But he says it over and over again, this scary Tim Curry wannabe is no longer talking to the characters on the screen but to the viewers watching the film. He breaks the fourth wall, revealing that what they are watching is simply a recording. He breaks the illusion, revealing that everything that has just happened was the result of several people pretending in front of a camera.
Of course the movie does not follow conventional rules of cinema, there are no rules. It’s a thing to be watched. Without hesitation, the director can change the story as he pleases. Mulholland Drive spends so much time confusing and manipulating you only to then stop and look into the camera to say “it’s a movie, who cares? I can do whatever I want.”
David Lynch’s films are created for you to find your own narrative and meaning. There is no explanation for anything because you the viewer are meant to take an active role in watching, piecing together whatever you find into your own logic. And just look at the results- there are thousands of interpretations for Mulholland Drive. There are thousands of people who swear that the way they see the film is the “correct” way when there is no correct way.
That is what art is supposed to do. It’s supposed to make you relate to it and see it in a certain way. It is meant to entrance you and make you notice. Saying that someone has read “too much” into it is like saying that a person savoring the flavor of their dessert is tasting too far into their meal.
