I've always been fascinated with mulholland drive. Definitely one of those movies I had to get online afterward and read about what I just watched. Similar to Blue Velvet and Donnie Darko (not David Lynch but a fav). I can understand how an a lot of people won't want to do outside research, but personally that's just part of my appreciation. In a way it takes me back to highschool english and reading Paradise Lost. Everything is open for interpretation so it affects everyone differently. Thanks for the post Scott.

Lynch is one of the rarest individuals working in film today. He can take a genre film (you won't recognize it as that once he's done with it) like say Blue Velvet or Mulholland Drive and completely reinterpret the definition of the genre. After I saw MD I was perplexed. Weeks later I started to form an opinion of it and found meaning in its images. I don't pretend to get all of it but that is fine with his films. It's closer to literature in some ways.

Each film gets progressively more and more embedded into this dream world he has created. It works for him because it is him. It's something that most screenwriting books don't really teach -- having a voice.

Great thoughts from Mr. Lynch, there. Reading it reminded me of a writing meeting I had recently with two friends with whom I'm collaborating on a script. Just as background, I had written two scripts before, so I had something of a feel for the process (though with much to learn, as well), while this was the first go-round for both of them. At this particular meeting, we basically hashed out an outline for the script. When we were done, I said, "Now comes the hard part, actually writing a good script from the outline." One of my friends was incredulous. He genuinely believed that, now that the outline was done, the movie would pretty much write itself. Ha! He was totally discounting the alchemy that occurs as you write, the grace notes Mr. Lynch and Scott referred to, letting the story sometimes take its own turns regardless of the rigid outline you've made. It's at these moments of near-improvisation--when you go into the story as someone once said--when a script rises above a roadmap of plot points and becomes something truly special. I wholeheartedly believe that.