Refused by American TV, the series became a film!

Died on Thursday January 16, David Lynch suffered from pulmonary emphysema for a little less than a year. Having left at the age of 78, the artist left behind a truly original filmography and will be honored this Wednesday evening by Arte. The Franco-German channel broadcasts at 8:55 p.m. one of its most notable works, Mulholland Drive. A film as violent as it is dreamy, which was originally supposed to be… the pilot for a series!

Mulholland Drive : Los Angeles under the eye of David Lynch

Worn by Naomi Watts, Laura Harring, but also Justin Theroux, Dan Hedaya and Ann Miller, Mulholland Drive takes us to the heights of Hollywood, to meet two rather opposite women. On the one hand, we have Rita, victim of a car accident, completely haggard and previously pursued by obscure characters. On the other hand, we face Betty Elms, a young woman from the Midwest, seeking to find a place among the stars of the City of Angels. Following her accident, the first will be taken care of by the second. Rita, amnesiac, will try to put the pieces of her past back together, helped by a new soul mate obsessed with the rhinestones and glitter of cinema…

Originally, Mulholland Drive was to be the pilot episode of a series

A very special film in the purest tradition of David Lynch, Mulholland Drive was shot to become nothing less than the pilot of a series! Initially lasting 1h59, the feature film was reduced to 1h30 to pass the small screen test and please the decision-makers at ABC. Efforts which did not pay off, because the American channel simply vetoed any possible broadcast. According to ABC, not really in the picture, Naomi Watts, then aged 31, and Laura Elena Harring, 35, were too old to become TV stars. A blessing in disguise, because with the production of new sequences and a budget reassessed to 15 million dollars, Mulholland Drive has become a cult film. Two awards are there to prove it, the prize for directing at Cannes, received in 2001 and the César for best foreign film, gleaned in 2002.