I have no proof of this but I suspect David Lynch was disappointed by “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me” failing to connect with audiences and critics. This might explain the four year break he took from feature films. Two unlikely sources of inspiration would get him working on a new project for cinemas. The first of which was an incident in which someone came to Lynch's door, said his neighbor was dead, and then ran off before Lynch could answer. The second source of inspiration was the infamous O.J. Simpson murder trial, especially the football pros initial defense of a “psychological fugue.” From this combination would arise “Lost Highway,” the story further honed by Barry Gifford. The result would be another film that didn't do much business in theaters and divided critics but, in time, received a cult following and glowing re-evaluation
Jazz musician Fred Madison is awoken one morning by someone at his door saying “Dick Laurant is dead,” the stranger leaving before Fred can see them. Following this, Fred and his wife Renee receive disturbing video tapes, of the inside of their home or them sleeping in their bed. He has unnerving dreams and encounters a ghoulish man at a party. The tapes continue until Renee is murdered, a tape of Fred killing her arriving afterwards. Fred has no memory of killing his wife but is arrested for the crime anyway. In his prison cell, Fred seemingly transforms into an entirely different person. He is now young mechanic Pete Dayton. Released from prison, Pete begins an affair with mobster moll Alice – who looks just like Renee – and is drawn into a criminal plot.
In “Lost Highway,” David Lynch's fascination with the film noir aesthetic almost reaches the point of self-parody. Its initial protagonist suspects his wife is cheating on him and may or may not kill her because of it. The second half of the story sees a femme fatale – soon revealing herself as especially vicious – manipulating a naive young man. The film's story is set among the underworld of crime and pornography. Everyone here has secret motivations and black hearts. As the title indicates, “Lost Highway's” opening credits play over Lynch's trademark shot of headlights streaking down a dark freeway. In other words, this is not like “Blue Velvet,” in which we follow a youthful protagonist into a dark world. “Lost Highway” leads us into the darkness in its first second and never leaves it. This is noir as pitch as night.
As much as “Lost Highway” touches upon ideas the director has explored before, it's also very different from his previous films. Instead of being set in a small town with a dark side, like Twin Peaks or Lumberton, it takes place in the big city of Los Angeles. Befitting the film's dark-as-night heart, “Lost Highway” does not focus on the glitz and glamour of L.A. Instead, we only see the city's sleazy side. The nightclubs are only smoky. The authority figures are only gangsters or buffoonish cops. The mansions are only home to porno depravity. The sense of urban isolation in “Eraserhead” here grows into a full-blown nightmare of violent crime, dirty sex, and zero loyalties. “Lost Highway” turns L.A. into a hellish netherworld.
The first half of “Lost Highway,” focused on Fred's uncertain descent into murder and madness, is superior to its second. This is largely due to the unnerving central premise of those early scenes. Fred and Renee find their most private chambers violated. First their home is invaded by an unseen voyeur, before their bedroom – that most intimate of locations – is similarly intruded upon. This alone is a disturbing enough premise, the kind of easily imagined but deeply unsettling infringement of privacy that we can all understand. Yet this is all very symbolic too. The video tapes, the personal intrusions, begin the same time Fred starts to suspect his wife is cheating on him. The safety of his marriage is upset by unpleasant thoughts. Once again, Lynch depicts the systems put in place to support us – family, love – falling apart into surreal horror.
It's also far from the only surreal, unsettling sequence in “Lost Highway.” The Mystery Man first appears as a vision, his face projected over Renee's while she lays in bed. A coffee table is weaponized in an especially grisly fashion. Two other moments come to mind, as Lynch balancing the absurd and unsettling. Robert Loggia's Mr. Eddy, this noir's resident mobster, is driven into a rage by a tailgater. It's a moment that's darkly funny, such a barrage of violence and profanity triggered by such commonplace behavior. It's scary for precisely the same reason, as you can easily imagine yourself becoming the target of such random scorn. Yet the scene that maybe makes me the most uncomfortable has Alice/Renee being stripped at gun point as an audition to Mr. Eddy. It's an examination of the male gaze so prominent in L.A., a body commodifed in as ruthless a fashion as possible. All the glitz of Hollywood is torn away and we have the bare, ugly truth: A terrified woman presented like a piece of meat.
As always, part of what makes “Lost Highway” so unnerving is Lynch's pitch perfect instincts as both a visual and aural artist. This is, of course, a very well made film. As Fred explores the dark corridors of his home, he might as well be exploring the shadowy corners of his own mind. Exploding buildings roll backwards, re-assembling before our eyes. The freak-out sequences feature enough smoke, flashing lights, and splitting heads to leave anyone baffled. Genuinely erotic, soft-focus sex scenes occur on the desert sand and illuminated by headlights. Yet it's Lynch's sound design that makes “Lost Highway” most disturbing. Quiet, rumbling noise runs right into screaming, blaring song choices, leaving the audience's ears assaulted at every turn.
With its story so cleanly broken in two, “Lost Highway” essentially has two lead performances. Bill Pullman plays Fred in an incredibly terse matter. It's a performance composed largely of intense glares and whispered accusations. Yet, it must be said, he summons up a fittingly unhinged energy in the part. I never would've guessed that Pullman – a square leading man in so much other stuff – could scream, sweat, and roar like this. On the other side of the transformation, we have Balthazar Getty as Pete. Getty is well cast in the part, in the sense that he's very pretty and seems rather vapid. That fits the role, of a boy being slowly discovering he's way over his head.
The next most important role in the film is Patricia Arquette in the dual role of Renee and Alice. The part requires Arquette to look utterly gorgeous while spitting venom from behind those crystal eyes, two things she's more than capable off. Robert Loggia is incredibly sleazy as Mr. Eddy, a tightly wound ball of unpredictable and dangerous energy. You'd expect David Lynch to cast Gary Busey in a part attuned to the actor's nutty persona. Instead, amusingly, Lynch casts Busey totally against type as Getty's dad, a quiet and concerned parent. That's one of several glorified cameos Lynch includes, such as Richard Pryor as a kindly mechanic and Jack Nance in his last role. (Not-so-glorified cameos include Marilyn Manson and Twiggy Ramirez as porn actors.)
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