Theories of Lost Highway

From 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, a subsequent question arises: did Fred murder Andy and/or 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 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 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 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 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.