Title: The movie is divided into a real part and a dream part. In order to distinguish the difference between the names in the two stories, the names appearing in the dream part are all added with "double quotes" to distinguish them.
This article involves a lot of spoilers, please read carefully.
1Dream and reality
The first three-quarters of the film is filming a dream of the protagonist Diane. The dream part revolves around "Betty" (Diane's appearance) and "Diane" (Camilla's appearance) looking for the true identity of "Diane" who lost his memory after a car accident (" "Diane" was temporarily named "Rita" in his dream), which was accompanied by some encounters with the director "Adam", as well as many behind-the-scenes actions by the police and mysterious bosses. The material of the entire dreamland comes from the real story that happened in the last quarter of the movie. The dreamland has distorted and modified the heroine Diane's real memory to a certain extent. The seemingly suspenseful and absurd dreamland actually hides a lot of Diane's subconscious activities. .
The film directly impacts Diane’s subconscious mind into the viewer’s heart in the form of a dream. This subconscious resonance triggers a bloody feeling of pain and disillusionment. The dream part of the story has a contradictory feeling of joy and depression. This is actually the interweaving of Diane's desire and fear. Diane strives to build a pleasant world with dreams. In the dreams, the terrible real memory is temporarily concealed, but the nightmare is still approaching step by step. When the "Diane" in the dream opened the blue box that marked the mystery of his identity, the dream began to collapse, and Diane fell into the real world in a tired and desperate posture.
Diane woke up at the moment when she was close to the memory of reality. This dream was a journey of her disillusionment. Sadness is greater than death. After waking up, Diane used suicide to let her life end. Her death happened to fulfill the scene of death in the dream. ). It can be said that the movie actually filmed the dying mental state of a small town girl with disillusioned ideals.
David Lynch’s shooting techniques are faithful to the logic of dreams, and the way the dreams are constructed is in line with the principles of dreams described in Freud’s "Analysis of Dreams".
This article attempts to use the perspective of psychoanalysis to interpret the dream part of the film, compare the dream part and the reality part in the film, reveal the relationship between the dream and reality, and try to understand the psychological meaning of those dream fragments to Diane.
2. Reality part:
The dividing point between the dream part and the reality part of the movie is the moment when Diane wakes up with a knock on the door. After getting up, Diane recalls many frustrated past events in reality. Diane comes from a small town in Canada. After winning a jitterba dance competition, Diane had her dream of becoming an actor. Her aunt was a Hollywood actor. After her aunt passed away, she left her some legacy. Wanting to walk in the footsteps of her aunt, Diane came to Hollywood to run around. But her career was not going well. In a certain movie, the director Bob did not choose Diane as the protagonist, but chose Camilla. Diane met Camilla and got some performance opportunities with the help of the latter. Diane and Camilla get along in a homosexual relationship, but the relationship between the two has been conflicted because of the intervention of director Adam. Camilla, who is bisexual, continues to maintain contact with director Adam, and twice used the way of showing affection. Hit Diane. In Adam's family gathering, Diane discovered that Camilla's relationship with the director Adam has not only continued to deepen (it has grown to the point of talking about marriage) but also made new girlfriends. (According to the camera, the angry Diane overturned the coffee cup on the spot because he lost control of his emotions. The scene should be chaotic.) The angry Diane decided to hire a murderer. She gave the money and Camilla's picture to the killer at the Winkies coffee shop. The killer. Diane was given a blue key, implying that a blue box would be obtained in the hands of a beggar after the event was completed. Evidence of Camilla's death could be found in the box. "). After opening the blue box to confirm that the assassination was successful, Diane's mental state fell into a sluggish state. At the same time, the detectives had begun investigating Diane, and it was almost impossible to avoid being arrested in the future.
3. Dreamland part:
3.1 Symbol of name
Before analysing the dreams, I will introduce some characters. The names and appearances in dreams are mostly confused. On the one hand, the dislocation of names and appearances is a unique way of expressing dreams, and on the other hand, it can directly symbolize the ambiguity of Diane’s inner self-image. And confusion.
The "Betty" (Diane appearance) in the dream is the personality representation of Diane's early sunshine mentality. The dream borrowed the name of Betty, a cafe waiter in reality, to mark the sub-personality of Diane. In reality, I saw Betty the waiter when Diane was hiring a killer. Betty had a sunny and cheerful personality, which was similar to Diane’s original simplicity. As a waiter, Betty had a humble status, which made Diane think that she came from a small town and came to a big city to work hard. Similar to life situations. In this short encounter, Betty happened to also smash a coffee cup, which reminded Diane of her experience of smashing a coffee cup at Adam's house. When one or more of the same elements appear in two things, the subconscious metonymy function can play a role here. In reality, the three logical elements of Betty's character, status, and the broken coffee cup make the name Betty become A mark of Diane's self-awareness. (The metaphorical symbols are equivalent. The names of Betty and Diane are interchanged subconsciously, so the waiter in the dream is called "Diane").
The dialogue between "Diane" in the car and the driver in the dream was the dialogue Diane had said in reality. "Diane" who lost his memory after the car accident temporarily searched for a name "Rita" from the movie poster. "Diane" in the dream is the ideal self-image of the reality Diane, borrowing the appearance of the reality Camilla, the image of "Diane" is superimposed on the reality Camilla and the reality Diane, she is "mixed", "composite", with Metaphorical effect. ("Diane" is both the object image and the self image, which can be understood as "mirror personality", "self outside the self").
Becoming another person in a dream will have a variety of psychological effects. This experience is like letting your soul enter the role of another person, and you can control others by becoming another person in your heart. Becoming another person in a dream is also a way to try to understand the heart of another person, like a "deep empathy for the other person" psychology. When "Diane" acts as the object representation function, Camilla's representation is controlled by Diane's dreams. Diane uses dreams to keep Camilla in fantasy away from rivals, and always accompany and rely on herself.
The "Diane" in the dream has the reality Diane wants to become Camilla. The reality Camilla is idealized by Diane, and Camilla becomes the embodiment of the dreamer's ideal self. Camilla's image is a coat that dreamers desire. Diane the dreamer wants to wear this coat, that is, "want to be her". The externality of the ideal self is not under Diane's control. She is condescending to invade the dreamer. When the dreamer cannot reach this ideal position, an attack on the ideal self will appear. Diane's attack on Camilla is actually self-punishment. Attacking her, so killing her ideal self is tantamount to suicide. This is the deep reason why she saw the corpse of "Diane" in her dream. She found out that she was dead.
3.2 Dreams and dream interpretation
After a dance silhouette shot, there was a gasp, and the shot was Diane's subjective perspective. With uneven breathing, Diane fell asleep on the pillow in a dizzy state, and the dream officially began. (The cheerful dance is a retrospect of the winning dance competition. The form of this clip is abstract. Only the superimposed silhouette has no sense of real space. It is not a dream in the standard meaning. This dance can be understood as an illusion in a semi-sleep state. Experience. The phantom of this dance and the phantom of the smile at the end of the movie form a closed ring structure, from the beginning of the illusion to the end of the illusion.)
After a mental shock, people will rely on sleep to cut off realistic stimuli to protect themselves. When falling asleep, Diane’s strongest mood is to deny the fact that she bought murder and want to deny that her lover Camilla empathizes with Adam, and is Adam, who had frustrated his experience, and director Bob have an urge to retaliate. Dreams are the satisfaction of wishes. Diane's denial and desire, hatred and fear are all expressed in the dream in a hidden and euphemistic way.
The beginning of the dream is a car accident. Diane likened her experience of frustrating a banquet in reality to this car accident, a "heavy injury" to her heart. The escape of "Diane" after the car accident also means escaping from the road to the banquet, so that it can avoid being insulted. In addition, a car accident can also be a metaphor for a homicide, (when "Diane" acts as an object representation) so "Diane" being pointed at can also imply how Camilla was shot, and "Diane" who was injured in the car accident when he escaped from the scene means assassination. Failure, this is what Diane hopes in her heart. The possible meaning of a car accident is Diane's desire to take Camilla away and keep Camilla away from Adam's home. Throughout the dream, "Diane" has been accompanied by "Betty", without meeting anyone. Their relationship is separate from other stories. There is Diane's possessiveness for Camilla. In addition, the car accident may have Diane's self-punishment for buying murder. A car accident is the expression of multiple thoughts. This is a condensed and refined feature in the expression of dreams. The amount of information from reality to dream must be compressed. Dreams are a "compressed file."
After the car accident, the police began an investigation. This investigation can show Diane's concern about the police investigating the murder. The police also symbolizes reason and logic of reality. The fantasy of escaping reality in dreams is contrary to reality cognition. Therefore, rational logic always "captures the logic of fantasy".
The boss behind the scenes kept calling to find the girl. This boss is directing something behind the glass. He can symbolize the hand of fate (the other). He has the power to determine the development of events, and ordinary people cannot get rid of it. The cowboy (the executor of the big brother's will) said to the director "Adam" that "people's attitude determines one's life" and "the film is no longer under the control of the director". This is actually what fate said to Diane, and Diane himself suffered. Beating by fate, others are also training her. In her heart, she feels that her own attitude has ruined her life. From then on, her dreams have gradually fallen out of her control like "Adam" movies. Since then, reality logic has continuously poured in (Diane's dream is a journey from avoiding reality to touching reality again). The cowboy made a teasing awakening when Diane was about to wake up. As the incarnation of the big Other, the cowboy is the real force that suppresses everyone.
The superimposed effect of the meaning of nouns and images. The meaning of nouns and the meaning of images in dreams coexist. The role of "Camilla" has at least two meanings. She is also a superimposed image. The noun dimension can express Camilla's appearance, and the appearance dimension can be Represents the rivals that Diane encounters in reality. The casting event in the dream is a metaphor for the love event in reality to some extent. Starting from the meaning of the picture, the girl named "Camilla" was forcibly pushed to "Adam" by the big guy. This includes Diane hopes that Adam is not in love with Camilla. It was someone else, so Diane wouldn't have to lose Camilla. Starting from the meaning of the name, that is, when "Camilla" refers to the appearance of Camilla, "Camilla" with strong background protection means that it can avoid the danger of being murdered, which is also Diane's wish. The big man's manipulation of the "Camilla" casting incident also indicated that Adam and Camilla fell in love is an irreversible fact. The power of fate inevitably kneads Diane's lover and rival. The casting event is also a multiple expression, which contains a lot of contradictory thoughts. This involves the inherent mechanism of dreams. The level of consciousness cannot accept "antinomy", but the process of dreams can do it. Dreams can blatantly express "very black and white" and "flame as cold as ice." The subconscious mind can put contradictory things in one place. The way of expressing dreams is not only a Dali-style mix and match, but also a Picasso-style multiple perspectives. The ambassador of fate, the big man behind the scenes in the dream world, while forcibly arranging "Camilla", also helped Diane punish the rival "Adam" by the way. This punishment is roughly based on a logical deduction, conveying some of Diane's hatred of Adam: " If you often walk along the river, there are no wet shoes, one day you will be green, and then you can taste the taste of being green" (this is the idea expressed by the "Adam" wife and the worker’s fornication. ). "Fate is cruel to everyone, I don't believe you have the final say" (this is a potential expression of "Adam" encountering "Brother Kas"). Is more critical, as "Brothers Kas" said "this is the Compared to the silent grinning, it is more creepy. The old man's weird smile is also a face of scrutiny, Diane's imaginary gaze from relatives. This gaze is felt as terrifying because it puts too much pressure on Diane. The smiling faces of the two old people reflected Diane's fear of the superego. Diane felt guilty for betraying her aunt. It was the old people's expectations that made Diane unbearable for her frustration and depravity. The weird smile in the taxi is a progression of the illusionary experience of Diane's collapse when the aunt turns into Li Gui. The image of Li Gui is the power of self-punishment. Behind their hideous faces is Diane's severe self-attack. The self "Betty" and "Diane" in "dream place" meet in "Betty"'s aunt's house, and the host of "Betty" is Adam's mother Coco in reality, because in reality Coco's understanding of Diane and Adam's marriage to Camilla Dissatisfaction makes Coco's appearance become a kind role in Diane's subconscious mind. She is Diane's ally and maintains Diane's narcissistic experience. There is a red-haired woman in my aunt’s house who is leaving by taxi. This red-haired woman is holding the key of "Betty"’s aunt’s house, implying that she is the image of the aunt in Diane’s dream. I can live in my aunt's house and be protected by my aunt. When "Betty" said that his aunt's house was a "dream place", "Diane" appeared dizzy. This dizziness was manifested in the dream as a head trauma caused by a car accident on the one hand, and actually expressed as "
"Diane" is afraid of the word "dream", because this "dream place" is a dream place for Diane to escape reality and frustration, a dream cradle to avoid the pain of reality, once the dream is exposed, you need to face reality directly, without a lot of inner heart Diane is temporarily unable to accept reality when she is laying the groundwork, she needs to use fantasy to relieve pain. The whole dream is around the game between "dreaming" and "dream fragmentation", that is, the pulling between narcissism and reality At this time, Diane's heart is split. "Diane" amnesia is to forget the reality. The search for the true identity of "Diane" in the dream part has become an important story clue. The inner meaning is the process of Diane's re-acceptance of reality and the search for identity. It means that "Diane" is searching for herself again, because she has lost herself. The disaster caused by espresso: "Adam" was threatened by the brothers at the negotiating table. The film casting must be the designated candidate "Camilla", which is the tipping point of the conflict. There are common absurd colors in dreams. The brothers Kas were furious because they were dissatisfied with the taste of coffee. Here, the picky and toughness of the Kas brothers is enlarged like a comic. The image of the Kas brothers in the dream borrows from the Adam family in reality. A secondary person in the feast (at least for Diane, this person did not speak but had eye contact), because Diane’s experience of being contemptuous in reality led to the deliberate increase in the importance of secondary characters in the dream, and the secondary The important status given to important characters reflects Diane’s anger and dissatisfaction as a secondary character, and expresses the protest and vengeance of the neglected. The anger expressed by the brothers in their dreams is essentially Diane’s own anger that was ignored by others. The brothers are also the executors of the mysterious behind-the-scenes bosses in their dreams. Their brute force image also symbolizes the inviolability of fate.) The reason why this bridge put the conflict on the taste of coffee is because Diane fights in reality. Overturning coffee, overturning coffee is endowed with the meaning of anger in the heart. In reality, overturning coffee is a social accident and embarrassing, but it is sincere and fearful to turn it upside down as a coffee provider in a dream. This is Diane's humiliation for reality. Experience the process of shame. Compared with Diane, the more important character in reality is the cowboy character in the dream. In reality, he did not even make eye contact with Diane, but just walked past the background. However, the "cowboy" is in Very strong in a dream
The momentum educates "Adam", which directly leads to the latter's obedience to the boss's arrangement. It is a common way for dreams to be given important meanings to secondary characters. Dreams will use the “leftovers” from the daytime memory as organizational materials. Compared with reality, dreams are often inverted from black and white, putting the cart before the horse. The important information is covered up, but the insignificant is fanned out. Because my heart uses this method to "encrypt" in order to avoid some things I don't want to see, this also leads to dreams that are often absurd and bizarre. The reversal and transfer of dream content is the basic way of expressing dreams, and Mulholland Road follows this rule on this point. To maintain the dual relationship, I tend to subjectively divide the plot of the dream into two parts. The first part is the part where "Betty" and "Diane" get along, and the other part can be said to be the "outside world". Including: car accident part, restaurant part, "Adam" part, trial show part, killer part, bar part. You will find that the amnesiad "Diane" has always been with "Betty" in the dream. She never met with "Adam" and other people. In the dream, Diane completely gave the communication between the image of his rival Adam and the image of her lover Camilla. Cut off, there is Diane's possessive desire for Camilla behind this. (Diane is in the psychological position of homosexuality. In the early emotional prototype, the first love object was the mother, so in reality, the love rival Adam that Diane needs to defeat deep in the subconscious symbolizes the father who competes with her for her mother. This is a female version of Oedipus. The structure of the complex. In reality, Diane lost to Adam. In the process, she not only hated Adam's love, but also hated Camilla for "desire for the other." In the dream, Diane directly excluded this competitor.) In the dream, "Diane" spends most of the time with "Betty" at "Betty"'s aunt's house. Aunt's house is a "dream" who resists the real world.
The plot of pre-dream logic. Dreams in dreams often hide deeper inner conflicts of the dreamer, and are mostly traumatic events. Because of the impact, they will be buried in a corner of the dream. The trial play of "Betty" can reflect Diane's traumatic emotional model (which may potentially reveal the growth history of being seduced by an elder). The trial play of "Betty" contains an element of being hurt by a lover, and both sides are strong and weak. Not equal, the role played by "Betty" is on the weaker side. Adler believes that the performance of the character in the dream is a reflection of a person's true character. Her handling of injuries in the play is consistent with Diane's impulsive killing personality traits in reality. The heroine in the play said "I hate myself and hate us both" is also Diane's emotional expression in real love relationships. Before the formal audition, "Betty" and "Diane" practiced a dialogue of a scene. This dialogue can almost be shifted to the emotional conflict between Diane and Camilla in reality. It is a return of real emotions in the way of games. "Betty" read the line and said "I'm going to kill you", which is indeed what he did in reality. The purpose here is to express that Diane's emotional model is buried deep in her personality, and her relationship with Camilla echoes the allegorical structure of this trial play. The dream has the hallucination effect of reducing the pain. After the end of the sentence, the two smiled at each other, as if it was all a joke. At that moment, Diane's heart denied the sad reality. The content of the audition is probably the emergence of Diane’s early traumatic memories. This audition is the key to understanding Diane’s character. Excessive handling and strong self-hatred are the deep reasons why Diane's life leads to destruction.
The role of a dumb man In his dream, there is a plot of an assassin. This is the assassination process in Diane's fantasy. The assassin is portrayed as an insecure comic character, which conceals his horrible things. The illusion that the killer is insecure may have two meanings. The first is that Diane is worried that the killer will leave too many clues after the murder. This is the anxiety of worrying that things will be revealed. The second is that the killer's stupidity and comicality alleviated the sense of fear, and the fear was defended by the form of humor. Dreams have the ability to be humorous, and some people even wake up with laughter. It can jokingly deal with pain. The target of the murder in this fantasy is a male, and a female was killed by the way. Camilla's appearance did not appear. The dream shifted the focus, as if there was an effect that had nothing to do with oneself. This effect of alienation from the actual memory directly concealed the painful event. Up. Diane recalled the process of contact with the killer in her dream. She appeared as an unscrupulous girl. This seems to be Diane's perception of another self-image, where her inner image is depraved and frivolous. The girl who hooks up with the killer may also be part of Diane’s reality of buying the murder. The killer may have used the opportunity to wipe oil (there is a sexual hint in the plot). "Diane" wearing a wig is a change of identity tag. After "Camilla" changed into a yellow wig, it was implied that "Betty" and "Diane" were actually the same, and the two divided selves began to merge. After watching the performance at the Silent Bar, "Diane" opened the blue box and recalled the memory of murder. At this time, the appearance of "Betty" as a sunny personality has disappeared, which means that Diane at this moment has lost all sunshine and self-confidence. Vitality, "Diane" is an empty shell at the moment. After she crosses the boundary of the dream, she becomes the extremely decadent Diane. "Diane" and "Betty" came to the "Silent Bar", where a piece of sound and picture was staged. The Silent Bar was a transitional space between dreams and reality, and a prelude to awakening. The performance on stage is intended to reveal the illusion of dreams, and the sad song conveys Diane's inner pain and despair. Visually, the singer’s falling to the ground implies death. It implies a tragedy in reality, but the singing still continues. This is an illusion created by a dream. The dream covers the true memory with the illusion. The illusion can continue, but the reality is irreversible. Elapsed, the current perception is vain. The fable on the stage is a sign of Diane's decision to accept reality. This is the moment of contact with the reality, and it is also extremely frightening.
The performance of the Silent Bar revealed that all the joys and sorrows Diane experienced in her dream were an empty illusion. There is also an expression of metaphors for real life. Life is like a dream, and in the end it is nothingness. Because life has an end, everyone's life will also have the day when it is cleared. "Dead people and things" can only exist in the form of "story". Does "story" exist? It was born in nothingness and died in nothingness.
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