As I was riding down the escalator after having seen David Lynch's new film, Lost Highway, I turned to one of my friends and asked him, "What the hell was that?" He responded that he had no idea, but he had liked it anyway.
As the night wore on, I found myself unable to drop the subject of the movie from my mind. I was trapped in a dream state, something that had never happened to me before. I was puzzled by the film, and kept trying to peel back its layers and decipher the hidden meaning, the code that would shed light on the mystery I had just spent two plus hours seeing.
In an effort to solve the puzzle of Lost Highway, I purchased the Faber and Faber edition of the screenplay, which contains a lengthy interview with David Lynch. In it Chris Rodley, the interviewer, divulges Patricia Arquette's own rationale of Lost Highway : "A man murders his wife because he thinks she's being unfaithful. He can't deal with the consequences of his actions and has a kind of breakdown. In this breakdown he tries to imagine a better life for himself but he's so fucked up that even his imaginary life goes wrong. The mistrust and madness in him is so deep that even his fantasies end in a nightmare." To which David Lynch responds, "But why though? Because of this person: the woman. No matter which place you first start walking, eventually you're going to walk into trouble, if you're walking with the wrong person."
As I was reading this interview, I began to think about the film piece by piece and I quickly wrote down an interpretation of the film, which I feel works for me. It solved the puzzles, and for the first time since March 7, I was able to view the film in a logical way, if such a thing is possible. I wouldn't advise you to read this if you haven't already seen the film: it will only give you a set of prejudices which might detract from your enjoyment of Lost Highway. If you have seen the film though, please read on and send me some email. I'm anxious to hear what you think of the film, and of my take on it.
David Lynch has called Lost Highway "A 21st-century noir horror film." This is a very apt description, because at its core, Lost Highway is really a horror film about relationships and how the inability to come to terms with the truth can have tragic consequences. Lynch also skillfully uses noir film devices such as the cuckold husband, the femme fatale, and an imaginative use of light and shadows to give us a glimpse into one man's personal hell that is both daring and completely original.
The first third of the movie takes place in darkness, in a house that is mazelike in its internal intricacies. Fred is trapped there with his wife Renee, who he feels may be cheating on him. When Fred meets the Mystery Man at Andy's party, he is terrified, because he assumes that it is the Mystery Man who has been placing the videotapes on his doorstep. I feel that he is right: the Mystery Man represents the truth in all of its ugliness. The videotapes are the truth, they are what is really happening inside the house. When Fred asks "How did you get into my house?", the Mystery Man responds "You invited me. It's not my habit to go where I'm not wanted." Subconsciously, Fred has invited the Mystery Man, or the truth, into his house. He wants to know what is going on with Renee. Is she cheating on him? Fred fears the Mystery Man precisely because he fears the truth about Renee, which he is unable to confront. Remember his comments to the police detectives: "I like to remember things my own way...How I remember them. Not necessarily the way they happened." In this part of the film the noir aspects are very apparent: Fred is a jazz musician who is seen playing at a dark club, his wife resembles a 40's pinup girl, and the lighting is almost uniformly dark and moody. Fred Madison is filled with paranoia, and yet he is unable to deal with it. It is this paranoia and repression which lead us into the next part of the film.
Fred finds himself in jail for the murder of his wife. Whether or not he did it is left up in the air, but in my view the truth is this: Fred did kill Renee, but has repressed it. The dream that he had earlier in the movie forshadows the night where Renee is killed. Fred is still unable to confront the truth, and so he has murdered his wife and repressed the memory of doing so. While he is in jail, we reach the crucial plot point which has confounded so many viewers of the film: Fred's transformation into Pete. This is not a particularly daunting question, either: Fred is so internally off kilter that he changes realities. He cannot deal with being Fred Madison, so he simply becomes Pete Dayton. Lynch has chosen, wisely I think, to shroud the details of the transformation in mystery, and so I will say no more about it except that in Lynch's view, it is possible for a person to be so completely unhappy in his present reality that he can fuse his identities with another person and become them.
When Pete is released from prison, he finds himself in an alternate reality. But, he soon finds out, this alternate existense is no more safe than his previous one. He is still trapped in a world of fear and paranoia, and this time he is the one who is having the affair (with Alice, Mr.Eddy's girlfriend and Renee's exact double.) Now, the Mystery Man is allied with Mr.Eddy/Dick Laurent, because it is Pete who is having the affair, and because Pete is trying to escape reality, which is one thing that the Mystery Man cannot stand. This part of the film could aptly be described as a Mobious Strip, because plot elements seem to twist and turn back on each other. Alice mentions Moke's, as does Renee. The character of Dick Laurent/Mr.Eddy is present in both worlds, and Andy is an aquaintance of both Alice and Renee. Andy's character deserves a moment of thought: he represents the stereotypical sleazeball who Pete and Fred fear is sleeping with their wife/girlfriend.
In the last part of the film, Pete/Fred begins to come to terms with the awful truth. After Pete and Alice kill Andy and drive into the desert, the true evil of Alice begins to become apparent. She is not sweet and innocent, but cruel and heartless. After they make love in the desert and she dissapears into the cabin, Pete suddenly changes back into Fred and the Mystery Man appears, pointing his video camera (the truth) at Fred. He yells at Fred, trying to force him to confront his identity: "Her name is Renee. If she told you her name is Alice, she's lying. AND YOUR NAME, WHAT THE FUCK IS YOUR NAME?" Fred then finds Mr.Eddy/Dick Laurent in bed with Renee(?), and drives him out to the desert, where Fred and the Mystery Man kill him. This part of the film makes the least bit of sense, but the themes are still present: jealous rage and paranoia can explode to the surface, causing a fractured identity and eventually madness. As the film ends, it loops back on itself and we can only assume that there will never be any escape for Fred/Pete, that he will always be travelling down the Lost Highway.
Whether or not the second part of Lost Highway is real or just a highly organized hallucination of Fred's is inconsequential. What does matter is this: Lost Highway is, in the end, a film about relationships. It is about how people refuse to confront the problems in their relationships, and how that can lead to tragic occurences. My analysis is in no way definitive, and I doubt if many people would be inclined to agree with it. However, this is a movie that gives the audience credit for having the intelligence to interpret the film as they see fit. It does not attempt to force meanings down your throat. It is a great work of art, and it deserves to be seen.
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Last Updated May 4, 1997
