Lost Highway (film)

Lost Highway
File:Lost-Higway-01.jpg theatrical release poster
Directed by	David Lynch
Written by	David Lynch Barry Gifford
Produced by	Mary Sweeney
Starring	Bill Pullman Patricia Arquette Balthazar Getty Robert Loggia Robert Blake
Cinematography	Peter Deming
Edited by	Mary Sweeney
Music by	Angelo Badalamenti
Distributed by	October Films
Release date	15 January 1997
Running time	135 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$15,000,000 (estimated)

Lost Highway is a 1997 American psychological thriller film that exhibits elements of both neo-noir and surrealism. Written and directed by David Lynch, the film stars Bill Pullman, Patricia Arquette, Balthazar Getty and Robert Loggia. Lynch co-wrote the screenplay with Barry Gifford, who also wrote the novel that served as the basis for Lynch's Wild at Heart (1990). Angelo Badalamenti composed the score for Lost Highway. The film features the last film appearances of Richard Pryor and Jack Nance, as well as the most recent film to date for Robert Blake.

Lynch has declined to offer an explanation of his intentions for the narrative. The film tells the story of a saxophonist who is accused under strange circumstances of the murder of his beautiful, supposedly unfaithful wife.

Plot

Fred Madison (Bill Pullman) is a wealthy Los Angeles saxophonist who, after a long night's work, receives a message from an unknown man on the intercom of the front door of his house saying, "Dick Laurent is dead." When he looks out his window, police sirens are heard in the distance, but the streets outside his house are empty.

Fred then plays his saxophone at a nightclub that night where his beautiful, mysterious wife Renee (Patricia Arquette) does not join him. Fred calls his house during a break, but she does not answer. Arriving home later, Fred sees Renee asleep in bed and when he asks her where she was she tells him that she hadn't left the house all evening. Fred suspects that Renee may be cheating on him. The next morning, there is a mysterious package that arrives on the front doorstep containing a videotape of their home. As the days pass, more tapes arrive, showing the interior of their house and even shots of them in bed sleeping. Fred and Renee call the police, but the two detectives Al and Ed (John Roselius and Louis Eppolito) say that there's nothing they can do about it.

That evening, Fred and Renee go out to a party held by Andy (Michael Massee) a band manager friend of Renee. There, Fred meets a strange looking Mystery Man in Black (Robert Blake), who tells Fred that he is at his house right now and the one who sent the videotapes to him. Fred phones his house and the voice of the Mystery Man answers at the house whilst he's standing right in front of Fred. Fred walks away and asks Andy who the Mystery Man is and is told that he is a friend of Dick Laurent, a millionaire. Back home the next morning, another tape arrives and Fred watches it alone. To his horror it contains images of him killing Renee. He is then arrested for her murder. Tried, found guilty and sentenced to death, Fred is locked away on death row in prison. Shortly after arriving, Fred is plagued by frequent headaches and is perplexed by strange visions of the Mystery Man, a burning cabin in the desert, and a strange other man driving down a dark highway.

One morning, during a routine check of the cells, the prison guards are shocked to find that the man in Fred's cell is not Fred. The man is discovered to be Pete Dayton (Balthazar Getty) a young, confused auto mechanic. Pete is released into the care of his parents Bill and Candace (Gary Busey and Lucy Butler) and taken home to their house in Van Nuys while at the same time, Pete is being followed by two detectives named Hank and Lou (Carl Sundstrom and John Soiari) to find out why and how Pete ended up in Fred Madison's cell. Pete goes out that evening with his friends Steve V (Giovanni Ribisi), Teddy, (Scott Coffey), Lanie (Heather Stephens) and Carl (Al Garrett) along with Pete's girlfriend Sheila (Natasha Gregson Wagner). The next day, Pete returns to work at the garage where he is welcomed back by the owner Arnie (Richard Pryor) and his co-workers including veteran mechanic Phil (Jack Nance). Pete is called on by a certain Mr. Eddy (Robert Loggia), a charming but hot-tempered gangster, to fix his Mercedes. Mr. Eddy takes Pete for a drive where Pete witnesses him wave a tailgater (Greg Travis) on, then rams into the guys car and he and his two cohorts attack the driver. Pete goes out that evening with Sheila where she questions him on his moody behavior, but lets lust sidetrack her again.

The next day, Mr. Eddy returns with his Cadillac for Pete to repair and also inside the car is a beautiful blond woman named Alice Wakefield (also Patricia Arquette), Mr. Eddy's mistress. At the end of the day, Alice arrives at the garage and invites Pete out for dinner. Soon, Pete and Alice begin a secret liaison by meeting at run-down motels every night. Alice begins to fear that Mr. Eddy suspects her and Pete of seeing each other and gets Pete to agree to a plan to steal money from her friend Andy so they can leave town. After being confronted by his worried parents and receiving a threatening visit from Mr. Eddy and his associates at the shop, Pete enters Andy's house through a door left unlocked by Alice and, while searching the house, discovers a projector playing a porno film featuring her. As planned, Pete ambushes Andy and after a struggle, Pete accidentally kills him and he and Alice escape with the money. Arriving at a cabin in the desert, Alice reveals to Pete that Mr. Eddy is actually a porno producer named Dick Laurent and he forced her to do the tapes. Alice then seduces Pete and then says, "You'll never have me."

Pete suddenly metamorphoses back into Fred Madison who searches the desert cabin and meets the Mystery Man again with a video camera who tells Fred that Alice is actually Renee, and that if she said her name is Alice, then she is lying. Fred drives to the Lost Highway Hotel, where Mr. Eddy and Renee are having sex, and waits for Renee to exit the motel. After Renee leaves, Fred breaks into Mr. Eddy's room, grabs him and takes him away in his Mercedes. In the desert, Fred beats up Mr. Eddy where the Mystery Man suddenly appears with portable TV and shows that Fred knows he and Renee have been having an affair. The Mystery Man then shoots Mr. Eddy to death and whispers something to Fred. The Mystery Man disappears and Fred drives off in Mr. Eddy's Mercedes. In the final scene, Fred drives to his house and he is in fact the one who buzzes the intercom and leaves the message, "Dick Laurent is dead," apparently to himself in the past. The two detectives, Al and Ed, appear looking for Pete Dayton when they see Fred at the front door of his old house. Fred runs back to his car and drives off with the detectives in close pursuit. As it gets dark, Fred speeds down the lost highway pursued by the police as he enters a dark vortex and apparently begins to metamorphose into another someone.

Production

Lynch came across the phrase "lost highway" in Barry Gifford's novel Night People and mentioned to the writer how much he loved it as a title for a film. Lynch suggested that they write a screenplay together. Gifford agreed and they began to brainstorm. Both men had their own different ideas of what the film should be and they ended up rejecting each other's and also their own. On the very last night of shooting Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, Lynch was driving home and thought of the first third of Lost Highway all the way up to "the fist hitting Fred in the police station - to suddenly being in another place and not knowing how he got there or what is wrong." He told Gifford and they began writing the screenplay. The two men realized early on that a transformation had to occur and another story developed which would have several links to the first story but also differ. While they were writing the script, Lynch came up with an idea of a man and woman at a party and while they are there another man is introduced who is younger than the first and, "out of place, doesn't know anybody there, comes with a younger girl who knows a lot of the people. The girl is actually drawing him into a strange thing, but he doesn't know it. And he start talking to this young guy who says strange things to him, similar to what The Mystery Man says to Fred Madison." Lynch recalls that the character, "came out of a feeling of a man who, whether real or not, gave the impression that he was supernatural." Gifford describes the Mystery Man as "a product of Fred's imagination" and is "the first visible manifestation of Fred's madness."

According to Lynch, the opening scene of the film where Fred Madison hears the words, "Dick Laurent is dead," over his intercom really happened to him at his home. During filming, Deborah Wuliger, the unit publicist, came upon the idea of a psychogenic fugue which Lynch and Gifford subsequently incorporated into the film. Lynch recalls, "The person suffering from it creates in their mind a completely new identity, new friends, new home, new everything - they forget their past identity." Lynch realized that, in addition to referring to a mental condition, "fugue" also refers to a musical term: "A fugue starts off one way, takes up on another direction, and then comes back to the original, so it [relates] to the form of the film." Gifford researched psychogenic fugues with a clinical psychologist at Stanford University so that there would be some basis in fact. From that point, he and Lynch began "creating this surreal, fantastic world that Fred Madison lives in when he becomes Peter Dayton." Despite this, Lynch rejects the notion that a psychogenic fugue is a complete explanation for the events in the film. In his book Catching the Big Fish, Lynch reveals that he only realized years later that the storyline was actually inspired by the O.J. Simpson trial. Blake, who portrayed The Mystery Man in the film, was responsible for the look and style of his character. One day, he decided to cut his hair short, part it in the middle and apply Kabuki white make-up on his face. He then put on a black outfit and approached Lynch, who loved what he had done.

The first cut of the film ran just over two-and-a-half hours. After a screening with 50 people, Lynch cut out 25 minutes of footage.

Interpretation and allusions

The storyline is similar to Ambrose Bierce's story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge", in which a prisoner is hanged, while imagining escaping and travelling home. Other movies based on the same idea are Jacob's Ladder (1990), an episode of The Twilight Zone based on the aforementioned Bierce story and the final sequences of Terry Gilliam's Brazil (1985).

Philosopher Slavoj Žižek interprets the film's bipartite structure as exploiting "the opposition of two horrors: the phantasmatic horror of the nightmarish noir universe of perverse sex, betrayal, and murder, and the (perhaps much more unsettling) despair of our drab, alienated daily life of impotence and distrust".

Soundtrack

Main article: Lost Highway (soundtrack)

For years, Trent Reznor had tried to contact Lynch to see if he would be interested in directing a video for his band, Nine Inch Nails, but had no success. After his work on the Natural Born Killers soundtrack, Reznor received a call asking if he would be interested in doing the same thing for Lost Highway. Reznor talked to Lynch on the phone and the filmmaker asked if he would also be interested in composing original music for the film. Reznor agreed and Lynch travelled to New Orleans, where the musician was living, and together they created music that accompanied the scenes where the Madisons watch the mysterious video tapes, a brand new song called "The Perfect Drug", and "Driver Down," featured at the end of the film. Reznor also produced and assembled the soundtrack album.

Lynch chose two Rammstein songs, "Heirate Mich" and "Rammstein". The band based the video for the latter song on this film. The majority of the video is made with clips from Lost Highway.

The movie soundtrack has one song not included in the album, a cover version of Tim Buckley's "Song to the Siren", performed by This Mortal Coil (with vocals by Elizabeth Fraser of Cocteau Twins), a song which was planned to be featured in Lynch's Blue Velvet (1986), but at the time proved too expensive to use.

It was later revealed that Lynch originally asked Reznor's friend Marilyn Manson to do the soundtrack, but Manson was going through depression at the time. Reznor had Manson and his band, with the exception of his Keyboardist Madonna Wayne Gacy, barred from the studio, preventing Manson and his band from not only working on the soundtrack, but their album Antichrist Superstar.

Reception

Lost Highway premiered on February 27, 1997 in the United States on a limited theatrical release. The film received mixed reviews, with many critics panning the film on its complexity and incoherent plot. The film received "two thumbs down" from Siskel and Ebert — though Lynch used this to his advantage by claiming it was "two good reasons to go and see Lost Highway." This 'two thumbs down' was used in newspaper ads. However, the film also received critical acclaim, with The Dallas Observer claiming it to be better than both Wild at Heart (1990) and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992): "His most thoroughly surreal work since Eraserhead, this two-hour-plus fever dream is more of one piece than Fire Walk with Me and less desperate and jokey than Wild at Heart."

The film received an average score of 52 out of 100, based on critics' reviews on the aggregate site Metacritic, making it one of Lynch's least acclaimed works. However, despite its initial poor reception, the film has achieved cult status, although it did not receive a DVD release in the United States until 2008. Many fans have devoted much time and research to uncovering what transpires during the film's events. It was ranked among the 1,000 greatest films of all-time, according to They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?, at number 852.

DVD releases

Lost Highway has had a poor release history in North America, but the Region 2 and 4 releases have had a two-disc treatment, with improved audio and visual, as well as a "Making Of" featurette and numerous interviews.

The film made its official U.S. DVD debut on March 25, 2008 through Universal Studios' Focus Features label. The film is presented in anamorphic widescreen in the proper 2.35:1 ratio with Dolby Digital 5.1 audio. Controversy over the release concerns the video transfer, which differs considerably from DVD versions already available in Europe (the new R1 disc has a decidedly darker and redder tone) as well as the mysterious absence of a 10-part multi-angle interview with Lynch that had been touted as a special feature by Universal prior to the DVD's release.

The release of the film on DVD in the UK has been minimal with Universal's release quickly going out of print and a 2 Entertain special edition with a slip case hanging in print for only 3 years.

Opera

Lost Highway was adapted as an opera by Austrian composer Olga Neuwirth with the libretto by 2004 Nobel Prize-winner Elfriede Jelinek.

The opera was premiered in Graz in 2003 at the Steirischer Herbst Festival of New Music with the live-electronics and sound design realized at the Institute of Electronic Music and Acoustics (IEM) using the open source software Pure Data.

It made its American premiere at Finney Chapel in Oberlin, Ohio and at the Miller Theater in New York City in February 2007, in a production performed by students from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. It was directed by Jonathon Field, with sound design by Tom Lopez, produced by Lewis Nielson ,and Set Design by Scott Dane Knowles. Barry Bryan portrayed Fred Madison.

It premiered in the UK in an ENO production at the Young Vic in April 2008. This production was directed by Diane Paulus, with set and costume design by Riccardo Hernandez, video design by Philip Bussmann, lighting design by Mimi Jordan Sherin and sound design by Markus Noisternig. The cast included Mark Bonnar as Fred Madison, Quirijn de Lang as Pete Dayton, Valérie MacCarthy as Renne/Alice, Christopher Robson as The Mystery Man and David Moss as Mr Eddy/Dick Laurent.

See also

• Detour (1945)

Further reading

• The Art of the Ridiculous Sublime: On David Lynch's Lost Highway, (ISBN 0-295-97925-9) Slavoj Žižek, 2000.
• Comparison between Lost Highway and Mulholland Dr.
• Lost Highway Explained
• Robert Blake - Mystery Man of the Lost Highway
• David Lynch directs traffic on the Lost Highway

David Foster Wallace, in A Supposedly Fun Thing I Will Never Do Again, includes a 40+ page essay on Lynch, the film's story and its production.

External links

• Lost Highway at IMDb
• Lost Highway at AllMovie
• Lost Highway at Rotten Tomatoes