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magicsofa

Lost Highway

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Roommate just showed me this excellent David Lynch film, Lost Highway. Anyone seen it? It's pretty disturbing, and as usual a total mind-fuck involving non-linear story telling.

Anyway, even if you haven't seen it, check out this clip of one of my favorite scenes. It doesn't reveal much, just that this creepy guy is super fucking creepy:

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Damn goths with their ability to add echo to their voice at will and exist in multiple locations simultaneously. Always trying to crash a niggas party n shit with their pasty faced phone games.

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David Lynch is awesome. If you liked Lost Highway, his subsequent movies Mulholland Drive, and Inland Empire are both superb.

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Hey, isn't that the pope?
Seriously though, good movie, indeed. Probably my favorite Lynch film. Will have to rewatch them all some time, especially Eraserhead.

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Yeah I saw Mulholland Dr a while ago...can't remember the details really, but it was great

The sound design in Lost Highway was amazing - crossing borders with ambient noise, generic music and/or music incorporated into the scene, as well as well known songs.

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Lost Highway is an amazing film, one of my personal favourites. Don't forget to check out Blue Velvet as well.

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I love David Lynch's work and I second the Blue Velvet suggestion! One of my favorite Dennis Hopper flicks.

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magicsofa said:

The sound design in Lost Highway was amazing - crossing borders with ambient noise, generic music and/or music incorporated into the scene, as well as well known songs.


That was my favorite part about the movie. :)

None other than Trent Reznor worked on the soundtrack (Maybe the sound design in the movie too?) and it's probably one of my favorite movie soundtracks of all time. With a mix of industrial metal (Rammstein, NIN, Marilyn Manson, David Bowie, etc.) and sort of Ambient/Jazz tracks in between. All the music on the soundtrack is in the movie somewhere (None of that "Music insprired by" crap) and all the songs are segued together like in the movie. I'd definitely recommend picking it up it you loved the movie.

This scene always makes me laugh.

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Nomad said:
David Lynch is awesome. If you liked Lost Highway, his subsequent movies Mulholland Drive, and Inland Empire are both superb.

True, I agree.

Mattfrie1 said:
(Maybe the sound design in the movie too?)

I haven't seen him credited for that, but David Lynch himself does sound work in his movies. It's clear he gives particular importance to sound development and design.

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I really need to see this one again as I've only seen it once. (but it was good) Mulholland Drive is probably my favorite movie of all time though.

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Yeah, Lost Highway is great. It took me about 2-3 viewings to get what was going on, though.

I do believe Trent Reznor put together at least some of the sound design. I know he at least put the soundtrack together and did a lot of ambient noise and the like for the movie. The soundtrack was my favorite when I was a teenager.

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One of those classic movies that makes you go "WTF?". The Creepy Guy always came across to me as a Mephistophelean figure. Like the protagonist(s) made a pact with him and now he shifts in and out of different people's lives only to experience their torments.

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Some of these posts are making me want to see this film more. Sadly I'm currently living in an area where movie selections suck.

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Seen it multiple times, fan of Lynch here.

Still can't bring myself to watch Eraserhead in one sitting though.

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I just saw this movie. I sorta liked it. The girl was hot which made it more bearable. I'm surprised no one has talked about what the movie is about or what Lynch was trying to communicate or express with this film. My friend who is a big David Lynch fan says that the film has a concrete consensus meaning, but won't tell me and wants me to figure it out on my own.

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I saw Eraserhead and now I'm really cautious about anything David Lynch is involved in. The film had great atmosphere, but that's about the end of my compliments.

Although the bits and pieces of Blue Velvet I HAVE seen have been pretty fantastic... Got a feeling Dennis Hopper has a lot to do with that.

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Hellbent said:
I'm surprised no one has talked about what the movie is about or what Lynch was trying to communicate or express with this film.

The movie, which is in some respects similar to a dream (how many movie authors manage that?) is a sensually-oriented thing about many things, including its writers, the nature of communication, and movies. People with a weak right-hand brain hemisphere tend to just see random flashy things put together when they see David Lynch's films, and end up annoyed that they can't simply string A, B and C together. Trying to "explain" to them what the movies "mean" may require drugs or neurosurgery.

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Hellbent said:

I just saw this movie. I sorta liked it. The girl was hot which made it more bearable. I'm surprised no one has talked about what the movie is about or what Lynch was trying to communicate or express with this film. My friend who is a big David Lynch fan says that the film has a concrete consensus meaning, but won't tell me and wants me to figure it out on my own.


I don't remember and it usually takes a couple of viewings to make sense of it, but if it's anything like Mulholland Drive, it's a "THE CAVE" from Empire Strikes Back kind of deal.

"That place…is strong with the dark side of the Force. A domain of evil it is. In you must go."
"What's in there?"
"Only what you take with you."


Each time I've seen Mulholland Drive, it's been at different points in my life where I've had different problems and challenges - and every time the movie managed to be relevant and reflect my life. That's what Lynch can do with his movies.

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Hellbent said:

The girl was hot which made it more bearable.


It's Patricia Arquette. I'd recommend you give it a second viewing if this is the only thing you took away from the story :p

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gggmork said:

Damn goths with their ability to add echo to their voice at will and exist in multiple locations simultaneously. Always trying to crash a niggas party n shit with their pasty faced phone games.

Heheheh, I remember using some clips of that dude on my answering machine waaaay back.

Soundtrack is fantastic also. Yeah Trent Reznor handled that, and I remember reading an interview with him about it. David Lynch gave him a piece of paper with like 3 lines drawn on it and told him he wanted something that sounded like that.

Snakes said:

I saw Eraserhead and now I'm really cautious about anything David Lynch is involved in.

Try not to hold that one against him.

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Hellbent said:

I just saw this movie. I sorta liked it. The girl was hot which made it more bearable. I'm surprised no one has talked about what the movie is about or what Lynch was trying to communicate or express with this film. My friend who is a big David Lynch fan says that the film has a concrete consensus meaning, but won't tell me and wants me to figure it out on my own.

IIRC the premise is basically the fantasies and regrets of a man on death row for killing his wife, all shown in a completely nonlinear fashion. Someone told this to me and it made the movie make a lot more sense to me. The fact that Robert Blake is in it makes it horribly ironic these days.

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Cybershark said:

David Lynch gave him a piece of paper with like 3 lines drawn on it and told him he wanted something that sounded like that.


LOL that makes TOO much sense!

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Shaviro said:

I don't remember and it usually takes a couple of viewings to make sense of it, but if it's anything like Mulholland Drive, it's a "THE CAVE" from Empire Strikes Back kind of deal.

"That place…is strong with the dark side of the Force. A domain of evil it is. In you must go."
"What's in there?"
"Only what you take with you."


Each time I've seen Mulholland Drive, it's been at different points in my life where I've had different problems and challenges - and every time the movie managed to be relevant and reflect my life. That's what Lynch can do with his movies.


SPOILER ALERT for those who haven't seen the film.

I saw Mullholland Drive in the theater and didn't like it. Too disturbing. I came into Lost Highway prepared so it didn't unnerve me. I took from it what you did, in that I could relate it to my life, which was kinda cool. My friend said that the dream like part of the film (the part where the protagonist becomes the younger guy) is his experience during the short moments he is being electrocuted. This, for my friend, is the consensus, uncontroversial part of the film everyone agrees on. He cites the flashes of light and lightning and stuff in the film as evidence (I would submit the way his head shakes violently into a blur at the very end of the film). I thought that was a decent analysis, but not necessarily meant to be seen in a concrete way.

If that was the case, why do we have dream like problems before that? For instance, Pullman sees a freaky dude in his wife's face. I think the whole film is his memories which he is haunted by being projected onto the screen. I don't think any of it takes place in the present. Also, the atmosphere of the film is as bad-dream like from the start of the film as it is once it starts getting really f'ed up. The general thing I got from the film was that Pullman was in his own hell, from his guilt for killing his wife. He keeps seeking this sort of ideal reality or fantasy of a perfect love. It didn't exist before he killed his wife (presumably he killed her because he was jealous of the mob dude--who is a fantasy of his, but was in real life the guy he suspected her of banging) and it doesn't end up existing in his later fantasy--it almost does in the lovemaking scene in the desert--but his suspicions of course come back and ruin it. In his fantasy, he makes her into a whore and the dude he suspects (do we have any evidence she was really banging him? I don't think so) into a bad ass pimp.

Another important clue to this film is that he says he hates video cameras (his wife says it) because he likes to remember things his way. That's pretty key to the film I think. The whole film is his memory of how he experienced the events portrayed in the film. I think my friend's analysis is applying too much of a concrete meaning or interpretation to the film, but that it is basically correct.

I think it's pretty clear the Mystery Guy is a part of Pullman's psyche--his shadow self--his dark side that fed his jealousy and gave him the idea and desire to kill his wife. He says to Pullman something to the effect "I don't enter into homes I am not invited." The creepy guy is part of Pullman's psyche, and thus he has invited him into his house (which can be seen as symbolic of his self or his psyche). The way in which Lynch handles this is what is intriguing--Pullman cannot come to grips with what he did and who he is--he can't face himself--and that's why we get the twisted fantasy or dream-like film that we get.

There is still a big mystery to this film that I can't seem to fully puzzle out. In the beginning a man comes to Pullman's door and tells him the 'mob dude' he suspects of banging his wife is dead. At the end of the film we learn that the man was himself. Here we have a parallel to the creepy guy in the clip posted early on in this thread. The way Pullman seems to be in two places at once, his alter-ego is also: he is talking to him face to face, and he is in his house. So these impossible events perhaps are just an evocative way of presenting an idea about Pullman's mental state: you are the demon that is haunting your life and making your waking consciousness a living hell. You keep being confronted by yourself--all the weird events in the film are the fantasy he has created out of his jealousy and his guilt. This is the interpretation I come to. It's a little bit like Fight Club the way Brad Pitt was the competent, confident part of Edward Norton--Two people in a film representing one person. So, yeah, that's what I get from it. It is a cool film, but not my kinda film. I don't have any inkling to watch it again.

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Cybershark said:

Try not to hold that one against him.


I try not to, I really do. But I also read

Cybershark said:

David Lynch gave him a piece of paper with like 3 lines drawn on it and told him he wanted something that sounded like that.


And I really really don't want to watch anything he makes. There's a limit to how much "interpretation" I can take when I watch a film, and that's what he seems to be all about. Guess it's just not my thing, really.

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Hellbent said:

There is still a big mystery to this film that I can't seem to fully puzzle out. In the beginning a man comes to Pullman's door and tells him the 'mob dude' he suspects of banging his wife is dead. At the end of the film we learn that the man was himself. Here we have a parallel to the creepy guy in the clip posted early on in this thread. The way Pullman seems to be in two places at once, his alter-ego is also: he is talking to him face to face, and he is in his house.

It's also possible he's stuck in an endless-loop purgatory/hell, where he keeps re-living the things he did, trying to escape it via fantasy, then being pulled back in. That's one possible interpretation.

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Snakes said:
There's a limit to how much "interpretation" I can take when I watch a film, and that's what he seems to be all about. Guess it's just not my thing, really.

I did very little interpreting when I watched his films. Due to their nature, they can be taken that way, but they work much better as a ride to let one's perceptions go with, rather than rationalizing over them. Things don't need to mean something when their raw nature can put them closer to a more vivid experience than interpretation can convey. Interpretation is like translation, and his movies are more like body language than words.

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That scene would be a lot better if, when handed the phone, he dialed, put it to his ear and said "yo, yo, yo, jiiiive turkey!"

And then after he said 'give me back my phone', he put the phone inside his underwear, then gave it back.

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