Section 4 of five · FACES
Nobody in it is only one person
Watts, Harring, Theroux, and the doubling.
Watts had been working for a decade before this film. Two minutes in a casting room changed what she was offered.Photo: Naomi Watts at the 2024 New York Film Festival 3 · Wikimedia Commons
4 pieces in this section
The audition scene is the best acting in the film about acting
Betty rehearses a scene badly in her apartment and then plays it completely differently in the room. It is a performance of a performance, and it is the moment the film stops being about Hollywood and starts being Hollywood.
Rita Takes Her Name off a Poster on the Wall
The amnesiac chooses 'Rita' from a Gilda poster. A character naming herself after a film is not subtle, and the film is not trying to be.
The Cowboy appears twice and both times it is a warning
A corral at night, a man with a hat, and a line about attitude. The scene has almost no plot function and is impossible to forget.
The score is doing the exposition
Angelo Badalamenti's music tells you when to be afraid of a scene in which nothing has happened yet — a habit he and Lynch had been refining since Blue Velvet.