World of Blue - Archived Forum 2007-2022

I'm a huge Lynch fan and Lost Highway is perhaps his most powerful film. I thought I'd share a few ideas and see where they land.

For me the film seems to be in part about man realising his condition ie. the fall of man/Adam. It seems to be the filmmakers interpretation of this age old mystery. But if this is so then it's based on an alternative one that is opposed to the dominant theological one. The basic idea is that Adam/Eve's true 'sin' was not their eating of the fruit but their enactment of free will. Like Lucifer, born with the gift of freewill, they too could only truly be free through a willful act of independence. The knowledge of good and evil or knowledge of everything is seen as the ability to make value judgements, itself only possible if one is awakened to the self or the 'I'. In perfect union with god their would be no 'I', no self. In this way Lucifer is viewed as a liberator and one who illuminates the self. But this comes at the price of being seperated from god and consequently are unable to remain in that perfect union.
Man's fall ends where Lucifer's does, in hell, being completely seperated from god.

Every Lynch film from Eraserhead onwards seems to carry the idea of hell being the reality of man's existence. If we apply this interpretaion to Lost Highway it opens a lot of doors previously unseen.

I'll just briefly list a few of these:

God: Dick Laurent/Mr. Eddy
Lucifer: Mystery Man, gun (Desert Eagle), also viewed as Lord of the Underworld
Adam: Fred -then reborn as -Pete then reborn as Fed... (repeat)
Fred also exibits characteristics of Lucifer- lord of music, pride etc.
Eve: Renee/Alice (who is also revealed to be Mystery Man/Lucifer)
Jesus Christ: Andy
Cabin in desert: Lucifer's abode, burning bush comes to mind, also 'smoke by day fire by night' from Exodus.

The car bestows upon its driver the powers of it's original owner. So Andy's (Jesus) red Mustang can take you to the desert (underworld) and back.
Dick Laurent's (God) Merc the power of godhood. Fred is able to reach godhood once he has the car. Dick Laurent is effectively ruler of that world in which Pete exists.

This opens up a hell of a lot of questions I know but they lead to some compelling insights that I'd be glad to discuss.

Perhaps said esoteric intrepretation is the only way I could ever understand this film. I just couldn't get a handle on it. Indeed, the same applies to other lynch films I have seen, with the exceptions of elephant man and eraser head, both of which I loved.
Lol, the only part of lost highway i liked was the Homoerotic scene where 'twiggy' and marilyn mansion get it on...

I will say that I adore twin peaks and it didn't take more than a couple viewing sessions for me to untangle it all...

I'm ready to toss the ideas in this post out the window. It doesn't feel like it makes much sense to me now. I think I'll have to think about it & post a better reading of it all.

I'm ready to toss the ideas in this post out the window. It doesn't feel like it makes much sense to me now. It feels incomplete & missing much of what I feel Lynch & Gifford are trying express. It's hard because I have these old ideas about god and the afterlife hanging around in my head, half sic and crippled, & not wanting to die. I think I'll have to think about it & post a > satisfactory reading of it all. Or maybe someone else could help too.

I think there's some truth to these kinds of interpretations but it would probably be more accurately unpacked if approached through the hindu paradigm which DL subscribes to.

This interpretation doesn't work for me because I don't really see the connection with how I understand this film; nevertheless it is of course very interesting and valuable.

The most realistic and reasonable of Lost Highway was that one in which Fred suffered of fogue state. I don't remember exactly where I saw/read it but this kind of "resoluction" worked for me anyway.

In quickly search for fogue state on Wikipedia I found this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugue_state#Film