Actually wanted to write about Wild at Heart, but I guess I let someone borrow it, because I cannot find it. So here’s Lost Highway.
Update: I found my copy of Wild at Heart. So I’ll write about that one next month.
David Lynch’s “Difficult” Films
Years ago, when I first watched a “difficult” film from a filmmaker like David Lynch or Terrence Malick I hated it. This was the case with Mulholland Dr. and other films that follow non-traditional narratives. My impulse at the time, and to this day to a slight extent, is to be dismissive of a film that feels intentionally confusing. When a film isn’t very accessible, it annoys me, but only if I find that the film doesn’t have much to say and uses confusion to mask this fault. With David Lynch, I always know that there’s a lot going in amongst the weirdness, and while I prefer his more straightforward films (Blue Velvet is one of my favorite movies of all time), I am willing to watch movies like Lost Highway multiple times even if I hate them after the first viewing.
With Lost Highway, I was taken in by the trailer. I was thirteen at the time, and I prided myself on liking weird shit when it came to movies. The preview made this movie look so cool and mysterious; I had to know what the fuck was going on with Robert Blake’s character. After finally getting to watch Lost Highway, I came away thoroughly confused. I can’t remember exactly, but I’m sure my initial response amounted to, “What the fuck did I just watch?” I just did not get it. I didn’t understand how Bill Pullman turned into Balthazar Getty and everyone just seemed to go with it. And was there time travel? And who was Robert Blake supposed to be? And...just...what? Despite my disappointment, I knew there was something more to the movie (the soundtrack was amazing, at the very least), but it was beyond me. I didn’t write off Lost Highway so much as I told myself, “Let’s try this one again in a few years.”
A few years later, Mulholland Dr. came out, and I had the same reaction, although I wasn’t as drawn to the film as I was to Lost Highway. In fact, the praise for Mulholland Dr. actually made me want to rewatch Lost Highway. I was completely confused by Mulholland Dr., but with Lost Highway, I knew, somewhere deep in my brain, that I had a theory that would make the movie make sense for me. (I plan on revisiting Mulholland Dr. soon, since I haven’t watched it since it first came out. I imagine I’ll enjoy it much more the next time around.)
I’ll get to that theory in the next section, but I wanted to explain a bit more why this movie sticks with me more than the more beloved Mulholland Dr. Lost Highway is simply cool. I think this is easily Lynch’s coolest movie. The creepiness of Robert Blake, the cast, the dark mysteriousness of it all, I just found it all to be very cool. But the soundtrack and score resonate with me the most. The sound design in general of the film is extremely effective. Many moments are truly jarring and disturbing largely thanks to abrupt changes in sound (the quick cut to the saxophone performance, the overly loud phones, etc). But the soundtrack makes the film memorable. The haunting Bowie song during the opening credits, the multiple uses of Rammstein for brutal/dangerous moments, Lou Reed’s cover of “This Magic Moment” during Alice’s introduction; all of these moments stick with me years later.
Because of all these elements, Lost Highway was a film I know I liked even though I didn’t understand it at first. Lynch’s films, like any art, can be enjoyed without being understood. But it’s his style that makes me want to understand. And when it comes to Lynch’s “difficult” films, Lost Highway has the most style.
Personal Theory
“In the East, the Far East, when a person is sentenced to death, they’re sent to a place where they can’t escape, never knowing when an executioner may step up behind them and fire a bullet into the back of their head.”
The above quote is spoken by the mysterious man played by Robert Blake, and it plays heavily into my personal theory about Lost Highway. Despite my confusion after first watching the film, I still found myself thinking that I might be able to figure the film out. This is why I prefer this film to Mulholland Dr. For whatever reason, at the time after watching Mulholland, I just wasn’t taken in enough by the film to want to puzzle out a meaning behind it. Maybe because it was even less straightforward than Lost Highway, in my eyes. With Lost Highway, I knew if I watched it again I would figure something out. Here is my simplistic reading of the movie.
Lost Highway is all about a man’s mind right before, during, and after being executed by electric chair. As far as I’m concerned, there may be nothing real in this movie aside from the fact that Fred kills his wife and is executed for it. I would argue that the events actually take place up to the moment Fred transmogriphies into Pete except that the movie begins (and ends) with Fred telling...Fred that “Dick Laurent is dead” after going through all of the events of the film. Because of that element, not to mention the fucked up interaction with the Mystery Man at the party, I believe everything is happening in Fred’s mind. He’s reliving these moments, and they can’t be trusted exactly, because as he says at one point when asked about why he hates camcorders, “I like to remember things my own way.” (Of course, per my theory, he’s saying this in his own mind, so does he believe this? Better not to delve too deeply into that line of thinking…)
I believe that Fred does in fact kill his wife and get executed for it because of all the lightning strikes throughout the film post-transmogrification. Each time lightning appears, Fred/Pete becomes more distressed and reality seems to blur a bit more. This is his brain dying through electricity. Fred is working out his psyche and what happened to him, and his execution keeps getting in the way. A major reason why I think this is because they make a point to state that Fred is set to die by electric chair, even though the film takes place in California, and the electric chair has never been used as a form of execution there. The electric chair is the method of execution because Lynch wanted to use the lightning as a signifier.
My initial problem with my own theory was time. How is all this happening during an execution? But time in the subconscious is different than how we perceive time while awake. You can be asleep and dreaming and months can seem to pass by in the dream, but you wake up and it’s been five minutes. I also like a theory about the afterlife I first encountered of The Eric Andre Show of all places. Dominic Monaghan was the guest. When asked what he thinks happens when you die, he said that Timothy Leary had a theory that since your brain is active for around ten minutes after death, and dreams that feel like hours are only a few seconds of brain activity, then perhaps the after life is simply your brain dreaming for what seems to be an eternity. With that theory in mind, this makes the hallucination while dying or even after theory a bit more plausible. (I’d attribute the afterlife theory directly to Leary, but I can’t find a source anywhere, and I’ve never read anything by him that confirms Monaghan’s quote.)
Because of this, I just find the entire film to be Fred’s subconscious melting down as a kind of defense mechanism against the execution. Fred’s mind becomes the titular Lost Highway, as he tries to figure out what exactly happened. Why did he kill his wife? What is wrong with his mind? I’ve come across other, more detailed, theories focusing on the film on a Freudian level, and I completely agree with most of it. I won’t copy it here because you can just check it out yourself here, and because when I first watched this movie I didn’t much about Freud and his theories about ego and superego and all that stuff.
While I didn’t really have names to apply to the different forms of Fred, I still picked up on the idea that this was a man with a split mind that was trying to put itself together at the end of his life. You see him dealing with so many issues: his violent nature, his impotent sexual performance, his fear of infidelity, etc. It all plays out in this neo-noir in which Fred has become this subconsciously idealized version of himself: young, cool, good with his hands, good at sex, etc. While this fantasy plays out, however, his demons are constantly attacking him in the form of Mr. Eddy and his rage and the Mystery Man and his capacity for evil. (Once again, the article I linked to above goes into much more informed detail about this.)
The fight within Fred’s mind comes to an end with the death of Mr. Eddy, yet his appearance at his own door to deliver the message makes it seem as if he’s stuck in an endless loop. Perhaps that’s what Fred’s afterlife will be: an endless trip on the Lost Highway, battling his own subconscious demons.
Watching Lost Highway again for the first time in years, I find my theory to be pretty obvious, what with all the lightning flashes. But it’s up to the viewer what a lot of things represent and how much, if any, of the film is “real.” My main takeaway this time was that even if this is a film that requires a little theorizing to be understood, it’s still a stylish, entertaining, and effective film even if you don’t take the time to try to “figure it out.” This is why it’s one of my favorite Lynch films.
Why Do I Own This?
Well, I just wrote that it’s one of my favorite Lynch movies, so there’s that. But if you want to appreciate any of Lynch’s films, you should just buy them because all of his work needs at least a second viewing to really appreciate it. Also, his films are the type that can feel radically different to a person at different times in their life. I certainly watched Lost Highway with a different mindset at thirty-six than I did at thirteen.
Random Thoughts
The only scene that messes with my theory is the one with the cops near the end of the film. It bothers me because Fred is not in the scene. When a movie is supposed to take place in someone’s mind, I think the person needs to be present at all times. I can’t recall ever having a dream in which I was not present, but that doesn’t mean I never have. And how could I dare to claim what goes on with other people’s dreams. In other words, my own little rule is moot, so the scene with the police is not a problem for my theory...but it still bothers me a little.
What an odd cast: Henry Rollins...Richard Pryor...Gary Busey...Marilyn Manson.
...and Robert Blake as himself.
Patricia Arquette really brings it as the femme fatale in the second half of this film. It's not a role in her wheelhouse, and she's perfect. She definitely deserved more notice for this film, certainly more than some random asshole devoting three sentences about it in some obscure blog 20+ years after the fact.
“That’s fuckin’ crazy, man.”
The landlord from Big Lebowski being a prison guard is hilarious to me.
“This is some spooky shit we got here.”
Robert Loggia’s driver’s safety rant is one for the ages.
Pete fucked up. If Robert Loggia offers you a porno, you take that fucking porno.
Pete having an ear for car problems makes sense since Fred is a musician.
This movie was the first time I heard “This Magic Moment” covered by Lou Reed. I still picture this scene every time I hear the song.
Of course Gary Busey would play a normal character in a David Lynch movie.
Pete listening to Fred’s saxophone playing messes with his head. It’s like his subconscious trying to wake him out of this fugue state.
Robert Loggia, holding a gun: “I’d take this and shove it so far up his ass it’s come out his mouth. Then I’d blow his brains out.” I think he’d need to scale back that gun shove to blow out the guy’s brains. But who am I to argue with an angry Loggia?
This movie would be a good double feature along with Eyes Wide Shut what with the themes of fidelity and male insecurity and marriage in general.
I love the use of Rammstein in this movie.
Watching Robert Loggia watch porn is pretty disturbing, even for a David Lynch movie.
The mind being a lost highway is a great metaphor, especially for a mentally ill person.
Watching it again, all the lightning flashes throughout, especially during moments when Fred/Pete is losing it, make it pretty fucking obvious what’s going on.
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