One Man’s TV Reject Is Another’s Top Film

Congratulations, New York Film Critics Circle and Boston Society of Film Critics, for beating the year-end dead- line on what may be 2001’s definitive the-emperor’s-not-wearing-clothes cultural moment by naming “Mulholland Dr.” the year’s best picture.

That’s right, “Mulholland Dr.,” a 1999 prototype for an ABC television series that the network rejected, only to have director David Lynch take the leftover footage, graft on another hour or so of newly shot material and create a thoroughly incomprehensible film that, in its meager defense, can at best be described as visually stimulating. (Translation: The new footage contains gratuitous nudity.)

With apologies to these critics groups (“Dr.” finished second, by the way, with the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn.), their endorsement reflects the ultimate example of intellectual hubris--the assumption if you don’t understand it, it must be brilliant. Because, trust me, as someone who saw the 90-minute prototype back when ABC officials first did, the film was stitched together with less of a blueprint than Frankenstein’s monster, abandoning any of the coherence the TV series contained and serving up a surreal mishmash in its place.

The anointment of “Mulholland Dr.” tells us certain things about critics and perhaps the current state of movies. Oddly enough, it tells us less about television, other than that the line between film and TV continues to blur in a big-media environment that reduces everything to “content.”

Not to sound like an old fuddy-duddy, but the only real problem with “Mulholland Dr.,” the movie, is that due to the way Lynch patched it together--because it was conceived as a serialized TV show--it makes absolutely no sense. After building a degree of suspense about a beautiful woman with amnesia and people who might want to kill her, at the 90-minute mark plot lines simply disappear. Scenes near the end have no relation to those that occurred earlier. Lynch, in interviews, has pretty well admitted as much.

Although beautiful to look at in places, ask reasonable people who aren’t trying to position themselves as the next Roger Ebert what the film is about, and they would say, “I guess it’s about two hours and 25 minutes.”

Admittedly, I approached the movie with considerable anticipation, curious to see what would come of trying to bring closure to a proposed TV series that probably didn’t lend itself to running for five years or 100 episodes, generally considered the benchmark for success in television.

Lynch previously encountered this roadblock with an earlier series, “Twin Peaks,” which, as you may recall, caused a cultural stir but fizzled long before the “Who killed Laura Palmer?” bumper stickers began to peel and fade. In hindsight, most associated with the project agreed that the program would have been more satisfying had its story been wrapped up after the initial eight-episode arc, instead of flailing into absurdity as the producers went into a second season.

Unfortunately, the economics of television demand more endurance. “Mulholland Dr.,” the pilot, possessed some of the same eccentric flourishes as “Twin Peaks,” though the quirks felt more forced and self-conscious this time around. Those 90 minutes laid down numerous narrative threads set against a backdrop of Hollywood and slime--but you had a sense it would all get very old quickly if the mystery wasn’t dispensed within three or four weeks, raising the question, “Then what?”

Those who watch television with any regularity recognize this dilemma. Viewers frequently lament why so many series fail to fulfill the promise of their first episodes. NBC has even asked producers to provide second scripts with all new-series candidates developed for next season, hoping to resolve the problem of watching a prototype and saying, “Wow, that was great. But where does it go in Episode 2, much less Episode 22?”

Sometimes, this conundrum--a seminal difference between television and film, which only has to get it right once--can stifle originality. ABC took some grief a few years ago, for example, after passing on “Dear Diary,” a comedy pilot that went on to win the 1997 Oscar for best short film. To his credit, writer-director David Frankel conceded the show might not have thrived as a series, acknowledging that the 22-minute prototype was “intimidating to any sane network programming executive” from a commercial point of view.

It’s also worth noting there is precedent for blowing up TV shows for the big screen. The NBC miniseries “Uprising” received a theatrical run after its broadcast in November. In 1999, “Where’s Marlowe?,” another ABC pilot that didn’t make the grade, was expanded to feature length and released by Paramount. There has also been talk of transforming a recent Fox comedy prototype--a spoof of 1970s TV action series titled “Heat Vision and Jack,” which was directed by Ben Stiller--into a movie.

Though none of these projects have been major hits (“Mulholland Dr.” has grossed just $5.4 million at the box office thus far), it’s not a bad idea in theory, especially at a time when one can argue that there is more provocative material found on television than within sequel-packed multiplexes.

Perhaps that’s why these awards for “Mulholland Dr.” are, to anyone who saw the original made-for-TV version, worthy of ridicule. Because instead of highlighting network myopia--of which there is plenty--they expose the frustration that critics currently face.

More than anything, the acclaim for “Mulholland Dr.” reflects critics’ natural hunger for anything different. It’s the same impulse that tends to yield year-end “10 best” lists consisting of films that aggregately took in less at the box office than “Pearl Harbor” did on its opening night.

There’s no shame, of course, in exalting that which is daring, fresh or creative, and I share an appreciation for independent films that don’t hew to the blockbuster formula. Just as television critics are often drawn to shows that don’t thrive commercially, it’s understandable film critics who sit through 300 movies a year--seemingly half of them affixed with a “2” or “III” from May through Labor Day--would warm to any film where they can’t guess the dialogue three scenes ahead.

“Mulholland Dr.,” however, is only unpredictable because it follows no orchestrated path--depicting a mystery Lynch doesn’t feel compelled to solve, a road filled with twists and turns that lead nowhere. Even the performances of stars Naomi Watts and Laura Herring can’t add up to much in this context, though it does qualify the best use of Herring since “The Forbidden Dance,” one of two deliciously awful movies inspired by the Lambada dance craze hurriedly released in 1990.

If memory serves, neither of those films garnered year-end recognition from critics in New York, L.A. or Boston; still, one suspects if the narratives had been less straightforward and Lynch had received the “a film by” credit, they just might have.

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Brian Lowry’s column appears Wednesdays. He can be reached at brian.lowry@latimes.com.