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LinkedInNLP Patterns In Hollywood #1 – “How Many Drivers Does A Buggy Have?” David Lynch – Mulholland Dr.
OK, this is going to be creepy.
There are some movies, which apply trance induction patterns and other hypnotic techniques to have a huge effect on the viewer.
So this is the first article of the Hypnotic Writing in Hollywood series.
We’re going to take a close look at “The Cowboy Scene” in Mulholland Dr. by David Lynch.
I’ll also provide a transcript and go through commenting on it line by line so that you’ll know what’s going on.
Here’s a little background info.
We’re in the scene where Adam meets the mysterious Cowboy. For those of you who haven’t seen the movie, Adam is a film director, who has refused to hire an actress for a specific position.
The investors behind the movie come after him, and start tearing his life apart piece by piece, freezing his bank accounts and his assets.
When he phones home to his girlfriend, she tells him “there is a Cowboy” and he wants to meet him out at the Beverly Hills hotel at nine pm sharp.
Adam, not having made the connection between his decision regarding the actress and the day’s events feels something is off, gets in the car and meets the Cowboy.
And the following scene ensues.
| TRANSCRIPT | EXPLANATION |
|---|---|
| COWBOY Howdy! |
|
| ADAM Howdy to you. |
|
| COWBOY Beautiful night. |
Pace – an obvious statement that’s supposed to make a person feel more comfortable. Usually paces are used in groups, and are usually followed by a ‘lead’. |
| ADAM Yeah. |
Adam complies |
| COWBOY Sure want to thank ya for drivin’ all the way up to see me from that Beverly Hills Hotel. |
Pace, Pace. |
| ADAM No problem. What’s on your mind? |
Adam starts to get nervous. |
| COWBOY Well now, here’s a man who wants to get right to it. Kinda anxious to get to it, are ya? |
“Evil” pace. |
| ADAM Whatever. |
Adam shows attitude. |
| COWBOY A man’s attitude … a man’s attitude goes some ways toward how a man’s life will be. Is that somethin’ you agree with? |
Paces the attitude problem by verbalizing it immediately, and then uses a causal linking pattern to point out how “a man’s” attitude has an effect on how things will turn out for Adam. At the same time the Cowboy uses a general referential index saying “A man”, while apparently referring to Adam. Although everyone understands the statement is about Adam, “A man’s attitude” is general enough. This draws the viewer into the scene and makes him feel the Cowboy is talking about him, while at the same time the Cowboy makes the sentence sound cold and impersonal. After that the Cowboy also makes sure Adam is on the same page with him, and engages him in interaction. The Cowboy’s tonality presupposes that one had better agree with him, or he might find himself in trouble. |
| ADAM Sure. |
Adam senses giving the Cowboy the attitude might not be so smart and starts complying again. |
| COWBOY Now… did you answer cause you thought that’s what I wanted to hear or did you think about what I said and answer cause you truly believe that to be right? |
The Cowboy makes sure Adam is on the same page and is not giving him the attitude anymore. |
| ADAM I agree with what you said…truly. |
Adam shows humility, and is broken into final compliance. |
| COWBOY What did I say? |
With this sentence, the Cowboy puts Adam into the position of a subdued child. From here Adam and the viewer feels themselves to be in a teacher-student, father-child relationship. |
| ADAM That a man’s attitude determines to a large extent how his life will be. |
Adam complies almost automatically from here on out like a good child with his strict father. From here on most of the viewers will have a knot in their stomachs just watching that happen. |
| COWBOY So since you agree I guess you could be a person who does not care about the good life. |
The Cowboy applies an “evil” causal pattern with a presupposition that steers the conversation to a very bad direction for Adam. |
| ADAM How’s that? |
Adam is scared of the father figure doing that. |
| COWBOY Well, just stop for a little second and think about it. Will ya do that for me? |
Look at the artfulness of the way the Cowboy introduces the first embedded trance induction, saying “Stop for a little second and think about it”. This sends the viewer – and Adam – inside their head. When you look at the clip, you’ll see that he fails to do that. However when we hear something like that we normally comply. We “stop for a little second”, and then “we think about it”. We are basically in trance from here on, complying with whatever is said to us. But Adam resists and doesn’t go into trance. |
| ADAM(scoffs) Okay, I’m thinking. |
Apart from being really scared at the moment, Adam’s has just a little bit of pride left, and so he scoffs. He of course announces compliance by saying “I’m thinking”. But it’s too late. |
| COWBOY No. You’re too busy being a smart aleck to be thinkin’. Now I want ya to think and quit bein’ such a smart aleck. Can ya do that for me? |
The Cowboy does a really aggressive thing here. After sending the viewer and (and also trying to send Adam) into trance, he addresses the attitude issue immediately. He is not doing that because he’s not sure he’s in control, but because he wants to humiliate and subdue Adam by having him give up every last bit of his will and his pride. |
| ADAM Look … where’s this going? What do you want me to do? |
Both Adam and the viewer are scared out of their minds at this point. All Adam can say is “What do you want me to do”. At this point he’ll do anything to get out of the mess he’s in. |
| COWBOY There’s sometimes a buggy. How many drivers does a buggy have? |
The Cowboy introduces the second trance induction here: a pattern interrupt. Seemingly unrelated and not sure what exactly it has to do with the conversation so far, we’re talking about a buggy now. This also introduces another dimension in the conversation: the Cowboy is talking about a car and its drivers deliberately. I’ll show you why in a second. |
| ADAM One. |
Adam is obviously being subdued by the Cowboy. He is also humiliated like a child, and will comply immediately out of fear. He is also in a trance at this point, so even if he wouldn’t be subdued he would comply. Most of us would say “one” to that question. It also sends a hidden message through the metaphor, implying “of course a car can’t have two drivers”. |
| COWBOY So let’s just say I’m drivin’ this buggy and you fix your attitude and you can ride along with me. |
Now here’s where the importance of the metaphor comes in: The Cowboy further demonstrates his control through the metaphor, by saying he’s the one driving the buggy. Not as if anything else would have occurred to anyone at this point. The cowboy also gives an embedded command to Adam at this point: fix your attitude. It gives an incentive for Adam, the little child, to comply immediately too, because of course the little child wants to ride along with his father. Notice how the thought “I’m scared of you, I don’t want to ride along with you” simply never enters the conscious mind here. That’s because the embedded command fix your attitude presupposes your attitude is broken and needs fixing. Well it’s broken, and you’ll obviously fix it so what comes after can only be interpreted as a positive thing. A candy the child wants to have. |
| ADAM Okay. |
Automatic compliance. |
| COWBOY Now I know a few things. I know you have had a rough day. You’re probably thinkin’ I don’t know the half of it, but in actual fact, I know every part of it. The business of gittin’ thrown off your movie, the heartache of seeing your wife with another man… losin’ access to that precious film vault… |
Now this is the point where the Cowboy delivers the message he was sent to deliver. Very Lynch-like, he brings in a hint of almost transcendental knowledge. He knows exactly how Adam’s day went down and presupposes he might even have been in control of what went down. |
| Adam suddenly looks stunned, unsure. | |
| COWBOY(cont’d) … realizin’ you don’t have hardly a nickel to your name and then add on to that the sickenin’ feeling some men are gonna catch you and hurt you bad for bustin’ their vehicle. Some days are like that. They are rough, but what will tomorrow bring? Will it be better than today? The same … or worse? A lot of that is up to us individually. Up to us and our attitude. When the Castigliane brothers said “This is no longer your film,” they meant it, but they didn’t mean you were not going to direct it. I want you to go back to work tomorrow. You were re-casting the lead actress anyway … audition many girls for the part. When you see the girl that was shown to you earlier today, you will say ” This is the girl.” The rest of the cast can stay- that is up to you, but that lead girl is not up to you. Now, you will see me one more time if you do good. You will see me two more times if you do bad. Good night. |
While hinting at that presupposition Adam is given 10 paces in a row, starting from “getting thrown off your movie” to a lot of that is up to us individually”.(NOTE: The transcript contains a version originally written by David Lynch, but the scene was edited later, and you’ll see a shorter version of this message in the clip.)Then, after pacing Adam’s reality, he takes the lead, starting with “Up to us and our attitude” and continuing with embedded commands starting at “go back to work”, “audition many girls”, “when… you will say…”.Then he finishes with what looks like a presupposed threat: one you will see me one more time if you do good. You will see me two more times if you do bad. What does the two more times entail? After all of that both Adam and the viewer can imagine the terrible things that could happen that second time. Notice how the Cowboy chooses his words carefully and uses complete sentences when he says, “You will see me two more times if you do bad”.He is separating the second part of the message from the first part, doing that, and leaves no doubt by making a point saying, “you willsee me” twice. |
Now at first look it all seems a “random” Lynch-like scene in a movie that’s already kind of creepy and hard to understand… But now you see that it’s all very carefully written to achieve a certain goal.
I hope you liked this analysis. Stay tuned for more!
11:22 pm
Incredible interpretation of a movie dialogue by looking at its NLP patterns. Very instructive and original article. It is amazing to read this examination of character interaction through this theoretical approach.
8:03 am
It’s amazing how you can subdue someone by piercing at his thoughts. That was a simply brilliant metaphoric expression.