Collaborative Interpretation of Lost Highway

From Lost Highway

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Directed by David Lynch
Written by David Lynch, Barry Gifford
Starring Patricia Arquette, Bill Pullman, Balthazar Getty, Robert Blake, Robert Loggia, et al
Music by Angelo Badalamenti, Trent Reznor, Barry Adamson, et al
Produced by Deepak Nayar, Mary Sweeney, Tom Sternberg
Distributed by October Films
Runtime 135 min.
Aspect Ratio 2.35:1
MPAA Rating R for bizarre violent and sexual content, and for strong language
Filming locales Los Angeles, CA; Barstow, CA; Death Vally Junction, CA
Filming dates Sep. 1995 - Feb. 1996
Release dates Jan. - Apr. 1997
Budget $15,000,000 (estimated)
IMDb Listing and DVD Comparison

Contents

Introduction and General Overview

In a note at the beginning of the screenplay, David Lynch described Lost Highway in what reads like a series of taglines:

"A 21st Century Noir Horror Film.
A graphic investigation into parallel identity crises.
A world where time is dangerously out of control.
A terrifying ride down the lost highway."

Lost Highway is a dark and erotic psychological thriller that explores themes of infidelity, jealousy, and violence. It is an example of contemporary film noir combined with surreal images and plot developments.

Linear plot outline in three parts

Lost Highway can be described as having three parts.

  1. In the first part, Lost Highway introduces jazz musician Fred Madison and his wife, who are played by Bill Pullman and Patricia Arquette. Though no acts of infidelity are shown to the audience, Fred is portrayed as fearing that Renee is cheating on him. And though Fred does not express his sexual anxieties, a tense and uncomfortable sex scene portrays Fred as fearing that Renee does not want him and that he does not satisfy her. The first segment of Lost Highway ends with Fred murdering Renee and mysteriously transforming into another man, Pete Dayton, in his jail cell.

  2. In the second part, Pete Dayton, a young auto mechanic played by Balthazar Getty, has a passionate sexual affair with a woman named Alice Wakefield, played by Patricia Arquette. However, Alice is virtually under the possession of a powerful and violent mafia-boss-like man named Dick Laurent, a.k.a. Mr. Eddy, played by Robert Loggia, though Alice and Mr. Eddy are not married. Moreover, Alice is portrayed as a pornographic actress and as using sex for personal gain. The second segment of Lost Highway ends with Alice defying Pete's desire to possess her and Pete transforming back into Fred Madison.

  3. In the third, and shortest, part, which may or may not a remembering of earlier events, Fred finds Renee and Dick Laurent together, having sex, at the "Lost Highway" hotel. As well, it is now Renee who is shown in a pornographic film. The film ends with Fred murdering Laurent and driving into the desert in flight from the police.

General overview

One way to present a general overview of Lost Highway, without committing to a single theory of "what really happened," is to say that Lost Highway unfolds and explores the inner workings of Fred Madison's fears and fantasies regarding his wife Renee. Fred’s fantasies and fears are full of contradictions, but they play themselves out in the following ways:

  • Fred murders Renee (first portrayed in Fred's dream, prior to the murder)
  • he is her virile lover and she cannot get enough of him (as portrayed through Pete Dayton and Alice)
  • she is possessed by another man (Mr. Eddy) and she is a whore (as depicted through her relationship to Andy, the pornographic filmmaker)
  • he finds her with another man and kills him (this happens twice: Pete finds Alice with Andy, and Fred finds Renee with Laurent)
  • she eludes his possession (Pete: "I want you Alice." / Alice: "You’ll never have me.")

Another way to present a general overview of Lost Highway is to say that it is a "metafilm," that is, a film about film. More specifically, Lost Highway uses non-linear narratives to examine multiple facets of a prototypical film scenario: the adulterous wife and the jealous husband.

Narrative Method and Plot Development

Lost Highway develops by means of the carefully orchestrated repetition and reconfiguration of thematic elements.

After revealing Fred’s murderous desire to possess Renee, the film introduces doubles (Pete and Alice) while inverting key characteristics: Fred is an inadequate lover, whereas Pete is a virile lover; Fred is middle-aged, whereas Pete is young; Renee is unsatisfied, whereas Alice is insatiable; Renee is a dark brunette, whereas Alice is a platinum blonde.

Through the doubles, implicit themes and dynamics are made explicit:

  • she is possessed by another man (Mr. Eddy/Dick Laurent)
  • she is a whore (as depicted through her relationship to Andy, the pornographic filmmaker)
  • he is threatened by the possessive 'other man' (literally: Mr. Eddy threatens Pete with a gun)
  • he kills the man associated with her whorishness (Andy)

The character inversions are then exposed as lies driven by the truth that she eludes his possession:

Pete: "I want you Alice."
Alice:"You’ll never have me."
(...Pete transforms into Fred...)
Fred: "Where's Alice?"
Mystery Man: "Her name is Renee! If she told you her name is Alice, she’s lying. And your name?... What the f*ck is your name?"

Reintroducing the original pair of Fred and Renee, the concluding section of the film synthesizes and resolves the plot’s development (compare with the following with the preceding list of bullet points):

  • Renee is with the possessive 'other man' (Mr. Eddy/Dick Laurent)
  • she is a whore (as depicted with Renee in the porn film)
  • Fred beats the possessive 'other man' with a gun, while wearing his counterpart's virile clothes (Fred wears Pete's motorcycle jacket throughout the concluding section of the film)
  • Fred murders Laurent (with the help of the Mystery Man)

For more detailed analyses of the repetition and reconfiguration of thematic elements, see Psychogenic Fugue: Musical below and Lost Highway Scene Analyses: Repetitions in Lost Highway.

Freytag analysis

Though originally based on an analysis of five-act plays, Gustav Freytag's model of dramatic structure has been applied to plot structures in various mediums and genres and can be used to interpret the structure of Lost Highway.

Freytag's pyramid

Freytag divided a dramatic structure into five components:

  • Exposition (and inciting incident)
  • Rising action
  • Climax (or turning point)
  • Falling action (and resolution)
  • Dénouement

Freytag's model is sometimes represented visually as Freytag's Pyramid.

Exposition (and inciting incident) The exposition introduces the central characters and the central conflict of the story and ends with an inciting incident which set the remainder of the plot in motion.

Rising action During the rising action, the central conflict may be intensified, or may be complicated by the introduction of additional conflicts; additional obstacles that frustrate the protagonist's attempt to reach his or her goal; and/or additional antagonists, who may work with other antagonists or independently, by and for themselves.

Climax (or turning point) The climax, or turning point, marks the culmination of the central conflict for the protagonist and is typically characterized by the protagonist's effective or imminent success or defeat, a stalemate, a redefinition of the protagonist's goals, etc..

Falling action (and resolution) The falling action may unravel the aftereffects of the climax; the protagonist's additional conflicts; and/or the fate of additional antagonists or other characters. The falling action completes or ends with the resolution of the plot's conflicts and the characters' fates, whether in confirmed success or triumph, irreversible failure or loss, resignation, preparation for a new direction, etc..

Dénouement The resolution may serve as the plot's dénoument, or the dénoument may a feature a final reflection on the protagonist, the central conflict, or its outcome; a recognition of the protagonist's virtues or flaws; a recognition of self-knowledge gained or lost; a recognition that the success achieved has an uncertain future or does not satisfy the protagonist as hoped; a celebration or mourning of the conflict's outcome; etc..

Treating Lost Highway

  • Exposition (and inciting incidents): The exposition introduces Fred and Renee and explores their relationship, with Renee as the antagonist who prevents the fulfillment of Fred's desires. The inciting incidents are Renee's murder and Fred's transformation into Pete, though Fred's receiving that message that "Dick Laurent is dead" may also be considered an initial inciting incident.
  • Rising action: The rising action focuses on re-exploring the dynamics of Fred and Renee's relationship via the relationship between Pete and Alice, with Alice appearing not as an antagonist but as fulfilling Pete's desires. The rising action also introduces Mr. Eddy as an antagonist for Pete in his relationship with Alice.
  • Climax (or turning point): The climax consists in the re-emergence of Alice as an antagonist at Andy's house and in the sex scene at the cabin, culminating in Alice's rejection of Pete's desire to possess her ("You'll never have me.") The desire for possession having ended in failure, Pete's transformation back into Fred marks a turning point, immediately after which the identities of Pete and Alice are revealed as lies by the Mystery Man ("Her name is Renee! If she told you her name is Alice, she’s lying. And your name?... What the f*ck is your name?").
  • Falling action (and resolution): During the falling action and resolution, Fred finds Renee with Laurent at the "Lost Highway Hotel", Fred and confronts and murders the antagonist Laurent with the help of the Mystery Man. On some interpretations of Lost Highway, the resolution may be considered to include the remainder of the film, ending with Fred's death. See
  • Dénouement: If the resolution is interpreted as ending with the murder of Laurent, Fred's return home and delivery of the message, "Dick Laurent is dead," may be interpreted as Fred's acquisition of self-knowledge and his simultaneous state of being condemned to the psychological cycle he has just completed. See

Theories of Lost Highway

At the most general level, theories of Lost Highway as a whole diverge over questions about "what really happened."

Two questions in particular serve to differentiate several different approaches to interpreting the film.

  1. Does Fred transform into Pete in his jail cell, or does Fred imagine transforming into Pete?
  2. If one interprets Fred’s transformation into Pete as imagined, then a subsequent question arises: did Fred actually Andy and Laurent, or did Fred imagine these murders.

Depending on how one answers the above questions, the following interpretive approaches emerge:

  • Fred imagines transforming into Pete, and:
    • Fred actually murdered both Laurent and Andy: Fred murders Laurent, then Renee, then Andy. Then he imagines transforming into Pete, but the repressed realities of his past begin to creep back in. The chronology for triple-homicide is as follows: Fred murders Laurent prior to the scenes we see at the beginning of the film, and he murders Renee and Andy after Andy’s party.
    • Fred actually murdered Laurent and imagines murdering Andy: Fred murders Laurent and Renee, imagines transforming into Pete and killing Andy, then the repressed realities of his past begin to creep back in.
    • Fred actually murdered Andy and imagines murdering Laurent: Fred murders Renee and Andy, and then works through his repressed suspicions and desires via his fantasies, though he never actually caught Renee with anyone and he never killed a man named Dick Laurent.
    • Fred imagines murdering Andy and imagines murdering Laurent: Fred murders Renee, imagines transforming into Pete, and then works through his repressed suspicions and desires via his fantasies, though he never actually killed Laurent or Andy.
  • Fred transform into Pete in his jail cell, and the scenes are left in the chronological order in which they appear in the film: Fred murders Renee, transforms into Pete, becomes Alice’s lover, kills Andy, is rejected by Alice, turns back into Fred, catches Renee with Laurent, then kills Laurent. This interpretation cannot pretend to be realistic. Rather, it lets the film play out the surreal realization of Fred’s contradictory fears and fantasies about Renee, pushing them to their "logical", but contradictory, conclusions. This sort of surrealist interpretation is made possible by the fact that Lost Highway, unlike Wizard of Oz, It's A Wonderful Life, and countless other films, provides no definitive "return to reality" after entering an imagined or alternate world.

Mobius Strip

A mobius strip is continuous one-sided surface made by taking a regular two-sided strip (of paper, for example), turning one end upside down, and attaching it to the other end. One can now trace a continuous line beginning anywhere on the strip and return to the starting point, having traversed both sides of what had been a two-sided strip.

At the end of Lost Highway, Fred returns to the beginning of the film ("Dick Laurent is dead."), having traversed a parallel identity. Fred's journey can thus be seen as having the structure of a mobius strip.

Additional Internal Links

Screenplay

  • Paperback: Lynch, David and Barry Gifford, Lost Highway, Faber and Faber (1997) (ISBN 0571191509). The book also includes a 15 page interview of Lynch by Chris Rodley.

Published works and film reviews

  • The Art of the Ridiculous Sublime: On David Lynch's Lost Highway, (ISBN 0295979259) by Slavoj Zizek, 2000.
  • Numerous essays and reviews are available at City of Absurdity

External Links

Retrieved from "http://editthis.info/lost_highway/Collaborative_Interpretation_of_Lost_Highway"
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