To start off, everyone’s own interpretation of this movie is valid, etc etc… now, the first observation that got me thinking about this, is the superficial resemblance between Rita/Camilla and the Woman in Number 12, who many people theorise to be irl Diane’s ex, due to her being quite lesbian coded and the disdainful look she gives ‘Rita’ when the two women turn up on her doorstep. Yes, Camilla is far more glamorous and bombshell-adjacent, but I think that’s the point- Diane so disillusioned with her own mundane existence as a struggling actress in LA, she has become a maladaptive daydreamer, putting a more glamorous or less traumatic spin on her own day to day existence as a coping mechanism. This includes pretending she is in a love triangle with her far more successful coworker/friend and director boyfriend, when in reality she is simply sleeping with her neighbour, who dumps her when she realises she is a stand-in for Camilla (which is why she gives Rita a dirty look in Diane’s dreamscape).

There is a lot of ‘mirroring’ in this movie, where later scenes mirror previous events that happen earlier in the movie. Some may be intentional, others accidental, and I’m sure we’ll be debating on this subject until the end of time. But to further my theory, I want to look at these two apartment door scenes in the third act… in the ‘reality’, the woman in #12 comes over simply to collect her remaining dishes, and while Diane is quite short with her, it’s hardly a big blow up and she simply closes the door or her on the way out. This then leads to Diane fantasising about her and Camilla sleeping together, only for Camilla to abruptly bring Diane back to reality when she says they shouldn’t do this anymore and Diane angrily angrily asks if it is because of ‘him’ i.e. Adam. If you assume that real Camilla and Diane never actually slept together, we could view this as the more rational part of Diane telling herself that she needs to stop fantasising about Camilla, as she has just been to the party where Adam and Camilla have announced their engagement. In her delusion, she believes that Camilla kissing Adam on set, inviting her to the party where she kisses the blonde Camilla and announcing her engagement to Adam is her way of being spiteful, when in reality Camilla is just trying to be a good friend, getting her a minor role on the Sylvia North story and inviting her to a party with big industry people to network. It always seemed weird to me that Camilla would flaunt her other conquests in front of Dianne so cruelly, so I could only assume Diane is quite often an unreliable narrator.

Diane yelling at Camilla in the doorway is either a complete delusion on Diane’s part, or this is the aftermath of the engagement announcement, where Diane admitted her feelings for Camilla, only to be rejected and for Camilla to establish some healthy boundaries with her, after realising how her nice deeds were misinterpreted as attraction.

Other examples of Diane being delusional or a maladaptive daydreamer is the slight blonde women who appear throughout this movie, such as Betty the Waitress and Laney the Prostitute. Diane likely took on these jobs as a means to get by when acting wasn’t bringing enough money in, but she decides to put different faces on these women, because these jobs don’t fit her delusion of being a successful up and coming actress in Hollywood.

I’m sure people here can pick a million holes in my theory, but I like that I can still come back to this movie all these years later amd get something new out of it! Best re-worked TV pilot ever!

Hello everyone,

could you recommend books on transcendental meditation? I would love to get more into it and practice it in my life

I was just on one of those "Which movie is this" subreddits and from the description of the movie that the OP gave, it sounded like this 80's schlocky James Bond rip-off called Order of the Black Eagle. But, the fact that he didn't mention the Baboon in the movie made me think it wasn't. I suggested the movie just in case, and then I started thinking about the Baboon. I knew it was the same Baboon from David Cronenberg's The Fly, and from a low-budget, killer animal movie called Shakma, but was curious as to what else he was in, so I checked his IMDB page.

Turns out, he only did 4 movies. The Fly, Shakma, and two low rent James Bond movies. But then I glanced at the trivia for Typhoon the Baboon and, well.... that's why I'm here. It said this:

> Director David Lynch, who was a fan of Typhoon's performance in Shakma (1990), upon hearing of the death Typhoon, offered to pay for a memorial service and interment in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park. To date, Typhoon is the only animal to be buried in the graveyard.

Does anyone know if this is true? This just seems so random and odd. Don't get me wrong, Typhoon is the best thing about Shakma, but it's an incredibly dull and terrible film. And I say that as a huge fan of cheap and schlocky killer animal horror movies.

Maybe this is obvious to most of you.

I had always assumed that David had put Song to the Siren in Lost Highway because he adored the song but hadn’t had enough budget to include it in Blue Velvet, and also because it fit the mood of the scene he wanted in Lost Highway.

But today I saw The Odyssey by Nolan, and when asked about the Sirens’ song, Odysseus says something along the lines of: "it’s everything that men want, and everything they will never have".

And I immediately thought of the "I want you / You will never have me" lines in Lost Highway, and realized Alice was literally the siren in this context.

Plus I remembered (my own way) that Nolan had recently included Lost Highway as one of its Criterion closet picks, so it all clicked in my mind.

No sure this was valuable, but I wanted to share it with you :)

Rewatching Eraserhead reminded me why it has stayed with me for decades. Every viewing seems to reveal another layer rather than solve a puzzle. That experience became part of this essay I wrote on why some surreal films continue to grow long after we've seen them.