Lost Highway – Criterion

Director: David Lynch
Screenplay: David Lynch, Barry Gifford
Starring: Bill Pullman, Patricia Arquette, Balthazar Getty, Robert Loggia, Robert Blake, Jack Nance, Gary Busey, Richard Pryor
Country: USA, France
Running Time: 135 min
Year: 1997

The story goes that Barry Gifford and David Lynch met with the intention to write a screenplay together for the latter to direct. Lynch had previously adapted Gifford’s novel Wild at Heart and they were keen to collaborate more closely on something from the start. Initially, they hated each other’s ideas but eventually developed a story they were both interested in. On top of liking the setup of a couple receiving mystery VHS tapes of themselves at home, Lynch claims he was inspired by the OJ Simpson case, wondering what happened to the mind of someone who’d committed a terrible murder. How did they continue to live with that memory afterwards? What could their coping strategy possibly be?

The resulting film was Lost Highway. Like most of Lynch’s films, it got divisive reviews and didn’t perform well at the box office but, over time, has developed a strong following.

Always keen to celebrate the work of David Lynch, The Criterion Collection have set their sights on Lost Highway for their latest Blu-ray release (and UHD in the US). It’s a film I hadn’t seen before, so got hold of a copy and my thoughts follow.

Lost Highway opens with the setup I described earlier. An unhappily married couple, Fred (Bill Pullman) and Renee Maddison (Patricia Arquette), find mystery VHS tapes left on their doorstep on a couple of occasions, containing video footage recorded inside their house.

They find this troubling but they and the police have no clues as to who’s responsible. So the couple goes on with their lives. Possibly linking the tapes with his suspicions about Renee’s infidelities though, avant-garde jazz saxophonist Fred’s jealousy and mistrust builds until his wife is brutally murdered. It seems to most that he did it (though the film leaves it slightly unclear) so he’s arrested and sentenced to death.

Whilst on death row, however, he undergoes a shocking transformation and the story goes in a whole other direction, featuring Balthazar Getty as a troubled young man named Pete Dayton. He falls for Alice Wakefield, the beautiful girlfriend of a local gangster, Arnie (Robert Loggia). Only Alice looks suspiciously similar to Renee (and is, of course, also played by Patricia Arquette).

Lost Highway sees Lynch put his own inimitable spin on film noir, twisting it so far as to make it almost unrecognisable, whilst the film’s protagonist similarly takes on a whole new identity.

This is Lost Highway’s core theme, that of fractured identities and personalities, following a traumatic event. Though it’s all warped through Lynch and Gifford’s twisted imaginations, this central concept remains fairly clear and makes for fascinating viewing.

From a craft standpoint, the film is magnificent too. It’s often as literally dark as it is thematically, with deep shadows that envelop practically everything and have characters blending into the thick black of the night. Frames are often carefully composed and highly stylised too, making for many striking images.

Lynch’s use of sound is also as powerful as ever. Intensity is the name of the game, meaning that, when matched with the shadow-drenched visuals, the film is one of the most unsettling and frightening that Lynch has made, and that’s saying something. It feels as much a horror film as a noir, in places.

Whilst discussing the use of audio, the film boasts an excellent soundtrack too. Joining Lynch favourite Angelo Badalamenti’s score is a host of rock, pop, jazz and industrial metal tracks. There’s variety in the music but it all works together to form the nightmare world of Lost Highway.

The film also boasts a wonderful cast. Pullman continues to show he’s an underrated actor who’s unfortunately best remembered by most for starring in Independence Day. Arquette makes an effective femme fatale too, but it’s the minor roles that steal the show. There are a handful of familiar faces that pop up like Gary Busey, an MS-riddled Richard Pryor in his last film role and Lynch favourite Jack Nance. Robert Loggia is commanding as the unhinged but charismatic mobster, Arnie, but it’s probably Robert Blake (best known, to me, as the young star of In Cold Blood) who gives the most memorable performance as the incredibly creepy Mystery Man.

However, as much as there is to praise about the film, I didn’t fall in love with it in quite the same way I did Eraserhead, Blue Velvet or Mullholland Drive. Perhaps I wasn’t in the right mood at the time, but I found the film a little patience-testing towards the end. It’s quite long, which didn’t help, but I didn’t find the Pete portion as engaging as the Fred one that opened the film, though Loggia brings it alive when he’s on screen. I think the film could have also lost a sex scene or two, perhaps, as their prevalence makes the film seem exploitative after a while and they tend to halt the momentum of the story when they crop up.

Overall it’s still largely very successful though, offering a dark, unsettling and puzzling film, even by Lynch’s standards. Its often languid pace, purposely stilted dialogue and lengthy running time caused me to drift off here and there, but its thick, intoxicating atmosphere would always pull me back, on top of a regular ability to surprise.

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