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LOST HIGHWAY
Writer-director David Lynch has been lying low since his
television series TWIN PEAKS bombed, along with its accompanying feature FIRE
WALK WITH ME. To many viewers, both embody recent criticism leveled at Lynch:
that he's become too campy
that
he's sold out. Well, you can rest assured that with 1997's LOST
HIGHWAY Lynch definitely corrected his mistakes. Weird, creepy and
uncompromisingly elliptic, it's one of the most outright Lynchian
films this genius filmmaker has ever crafted.
The Package
As with WILD AT HEART and FIRE WALK WITH ME, the cast
of LOST HIGHWAY is packed with familiar faces. INDEPENDENCE DAY'S Bill Pullman
and TRUE ROMANCE'S Patricia Arquette fill the lead rolls, while Balthazar Getty,
Gary Busey, Richard Pryor, Henry Rollins, Robert Loggia, Natasha Gregson Wagner
and Robert Blake round out the supporting cast.
Once again, crew-savvy David Lynch proves he knows how
to pick 'emthe
technical credits are all top notch. Special mention must go to production
designer Patricia Norris (much of the film was shot in Lynch's own Hollywood
Hills home), cinematographer Peter Deming, as well as Angelo Badalamente,
Lynch's regular composer. Badalamente is assisted by Nine Inch Nails' lead
singer Trent Reznor, who supervised the soundtrack (on which David Bowie, Lou
Reed, Marilyn Manson and Reznor himself are heard, to name but a few).
The Story
A suburban couple (Bill Pullman and Patricia Arquette)
receive several packages on their doorstep. Each contains a videotape showing
the inside of their house. As Pullman becomes increasingly suspicious of his
wife's nocturnal activities, things begin to grow darker (literally), until he
can barely find his way through his own house. He receives another videotape,
this time showing him murdering his wife. From there, he disappears, and
literally turns into a young man (Balthazar Getty). In this new guise, he meets
a double of his murdered wife (shades of Hitchcock's Vertigo). He begins an
affair with her, much to the dismay of her current companion, a mob boss (Robert
Loggia).
So here we've hit all the bases of Lynch-dom: an
obsession with the dark side of humanity
doomed romance, sex, violence, madness, despair and, of course, undiluted
weirdness from start to finish. It all portends a world somehow
off-kilter...or just a very bad dream.
The Direction
Not since his first feature, ERASERHEAD, has Lynch
concocted such an uncommercial feature (although he would best both films with
2006's 3-hour nonlinear freak-out INLAND EMPIRE). The pace is agonizingly slow,
the main characters are distant and often unsympathetic, the atmosphere is
crushingly grim and NO explanation is offered for the bizarre goings-on. It's
also a brilliant piece of filmmaking, beating out (with the exception of
Cronenberg's CRASH) just about everything else around at the time. In short,
LOST HIGHWAY is pure, unfiltered David Lynch, proving that he remains of the
most exciting filmmakers around.
Vital Statistics
LOST HIGHWAY
October Films
Director: David Lynch
Producers: Deepak Nayar, Tom Sternberg, Mary Sweeney
Screenplay: David Lynch, Barry Gifford
Cinematographer: Peter Deming
Editor: Mary Sweeney
Cast: Bill Pullman, Patricia Arquette, Balthazar Getty, Robert Blake, Natasha
Gregson Wagner, Gary Busey, Robert Loggia, Richard Pryor, Henry Rollins