There are probably no two films that outwardly seem more different than current Oscar hopeful La La Land from director Damien Chazelle, and David Lynch’s bizarre neo-noir classic Mulholland Drive. But are they really that different? Both movies are about a fascination with a kind of 1950s idea of what Hollywood is supposed to be, and at the center of both of these films is a young woman who moves west in the hopes of making her acting dreams come true in “Tinsel Town.”
Aside from the forlorn actress aspect, there’s a tragic sense of longing at the core of both movies as well. Of course, the real difference is tone — David Lynch always takes things to a really, really dark place in almost all of his films, and then adds a healthy does of surrealism on top of it. I’m not sure you can count La La Land’s ’50s MGM musical interludes as surreal, just whimsical.Nevertheless, the good folks at CineFix have taken footage from the La La Land trailer and recut it to match the tone of one of Lynch’s movies, imagining what the movie might have been like coming from the maestro of weird. It’s amazing what slowing things down and adding a dark Angelo Badalamenti-esque synth score can do to totally change the tone of a movie. It’s crazy that just adding a different score and a few hat tricks can make such a huge difference, because now the movie genuinely feels like it really could have come from the mind of David Lynch.
Aside from references to Mulholland Drive, there are a few references to other Lynch works. You can’t do a proper Lynch tribute without at least one reference to the backwards-talking Little Man from Another Place from Twin Peaks after all. Watching this recut trailer, you’ll really wish there actually was a Lynch film starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone.
What do you think of this Lynchian version of La La Land? Are you now jonesin’ for a Gosling-Stone reunion in a much, much darker film? Give us your thoughts down below in the comments.
Image: Summit Entertainment