“¡No hay banda! ¡No hay orcestra! ¡Silencio!” Betty and Rita enter the theater/club hoping for answers, but it is us that get the answer, though you don’t realize it until later. The man is yelling, telling everyone there is “no band, no orchestra, and yet we hear one, it is all a recording, it is all an illusion.” Betty’s 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’s audience on.

In “Silencio”, 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 “Mulholland Dr.” 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.

At “Silencio”, the color red also plays a large part. Everything is red; the seats, the curtains. During the end of the scene at “Silencio”, 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 “Crying” by Roy Orbison., a song about love (at the end of her performance, the singer “dies”, 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’s 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’s 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.

I think that the color red also shows when Camilla’s 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’s 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 “Camilla” from Diane’s dream world kisses the real Camilla and Camilla’s red lipstick transfers to the other woman’s lips, then she looks over at Diane as if to just shove it in her face that she had lost Camilla’s love.

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 “Silencio” 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.

On page 717 of our FTC book, Robin Wood makes a list of twelve American film concepts. Number 12 on the list is the “erotic woman (adventuress, gambling lady, saloon “entertainer”), fascinating but dangerous, liable to betray the hero…”. 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 “the key to Hitchcock’s films is less suspense than sexuality (or alternately, that his “suspense” 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”. I think this movie also has the color theme in common with Hitchcock’s “Vertigo”, where, as we discussed in class, the color green signifies who is in charge.

I feel that Stephanie H., 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’s 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’s made up world”, what better way to some up this movie.

 In another blog, Beth 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’t 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

Here, 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

 By the way, is the movie schedule not up yet? Or, am I just blind? (are we supposed to have seen the next movie for Friday’s class?)

 short and to the point, I know, I’m sorry.

 (By theway, I actually wrote this a couple days ago, andIjustfigured out howto really post it, not just save it…I feel so computer, or at least blog, illiterate)