What is the point of that scene with Chad Everett, Dianes audition?
This strikes us as possibly the heart of the movie. It’s the linchpin of Diane’s idealized image of herself. Yet beyond that, the care with which the sequence is set up and the scene’s immense punch seems to suggest that Lynch believes, perhaps passionately, that there is such a thing as acting, even great acting. It may be his tribute specifically to the miracle of character imaginings like Diane’s and, by extension, to the creation of self in our subconscious and the many selves we don’t know. Actors make it up out of nothing more than sheer imagination and persuade the audience to believe it. Lynch has been doing the same thing explicitly over his entire career. Again, Naomi Watts, the actress, should be given credit for balancing the many levels of control needed to convincingly act the part of a ground-down starlet imagining herself as a chipper and idealistic young thing who then can convincingly deliver a unexpectedly searing audition performance — and then have the levels of t
