Marquee Survivals: A Multimodal Historiography of Cinema's Recycled Spaces

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In this scene from Mulholland Drive, Betty and amnesiac Rita get closer to the truth of Rita's identity. While they do not arrive at any solid answers, the clues they do receive are terrifying. The coded message of the Club Silencio performance implies that the mission of discovering Rita's identity is itself a performance. Throughout the entire film, faces reappear and actors reprise, but in different roles. A subtle reappearance in this scene is actor Geno Silva. In this scene he plays the emcee, in an earlier scene with Adam Kesher he plays Cookie, the hotel manager. Just as Rita's waking from sleep in the middle of the night, speaking Spanish, Silva's introduction and the performance from La Llorona (a name Silva claims to have given the character) -- the presence of Spanish-language culture acts as a metonym for the story's deep, dark secrets.

Contents of this annotation:

  1. Club Silencio

Contents of this tag:

  1. Mexico lindo y querido