[The second installment of the monthly feature The Conversations has now been posted at the great multi-author film blog The House Next Door. This series is a venue for Jason Bellamy and me to discuss a wide range of cinematic subjects: critical analyses of films, filmmaker overviews, and more. In this piece, we discuss David Lynch's Mulholland Dr., with tangential references to Lynch's Lost Highway and influences like Vertigo and Kiss Me Deadly. A brief teaser from my opening remarks is included below; click through to the House to read the full discussion.]ED HOWARD: David Lynch is a filmmaker who has haunted my mind since the first moment I saw one of his films. This is especially true of Mulholland Dr. I vividly remember my confused, stunned reactions the first time I saw this film. It was in the afternoon, and when I stumbled outside afterward, into bright daylight, everything looked strange, somehow subtly changed. I'd spent over two hours in Lynch's world, and in the time I'd been lost there it was as though the real world had been infected with Lynch's unsettling aesthetic. It was a unique experience. I can't remember another film that shook me up and destabilized me so thoroughly, and I've returned to it, and to Lynch's work in general, compulsively ever since.
