Lost Highway's Plot

[Tod Nelson]

I interviewed Barry Gifford, who co-wrote Lost Highway with Lynch, last
week.  He was shocked when I suggested that it was more mysterious than
revelatory.  "It's simple:  it's  Kafka's The Metamorphosis.  It's what
happens when one man metamorphs into another, and the repercussions of
that metamorphosis," he said.  "You didn't get that?"

Thomas Melle wrote:
> 
> OK, I just took a quick look at the pync-l archives since I was wondering
> about his new book and its releasing date - so I'm not hip to the lingo of
> you all ("er - pardon me?"), since I quit pynchon list when I left Germany
> a year ago.
> But as far as I saw, Richard ROMEO claimed that LOST HIGHWAY did not have
> any underlying reality, and no one gave any rejection to this. I saw LH
> three times, and I am more than sure that there is, in fact, an underlying
> plot (and that, by the way, the whole film is Lynch's masterpiece). I want
> to outline this plot really quick, as I have destilled it from the apparent
> nightmare (only the second half of the movie is a dream):
> 
> 1) The key sentence of the film is the following one, spoken by Fred to one
> of the police officers: "I like to remember things my way." That's what
> Fred will do, after he is put to sleep by the drugs that the jail doctor
> forces into his throat ("Now you will sleep"). From this point on, he
> re-dreams the story of the murders he committed - in his way. You can call
> it psychogenic fugue, if you will, but I think, good old Schizophrenia will
> do as well.
> 2) He is married with Renee. Her past is bothering him, more, it is driving
> him mad - she used to be a porn-actor. Deep inside, he is scared to not
> really possess her (She will tell Pete (Fred's alter ego) that he will
> never have her - after they have sex in the bright spotlight of a car). Her
> past is the reason why he doesn't like cameras. In regularly reocurring
> states of madness, however, he is filming himself and Renee in their bed.
> Renees porno-producer was Dick Laurent.  She still maintains a secret
> relationship to Dick Laurent, mediated by party-gringo Bill dayton. While
> Fred plays the sax in a club, she sleeps with Dick Laurent.
> 3) The chronology of the narrated evening is - perhaps - the following:
> Fred asks if renee wants to join him to the club where he'll be playing.
> She says she'll stay at home and read. ("Read? Read what?") In the club,
> Fred watches Renee meeting Bill, then he worried sees them leave. He tries
> to call at home, but no one responds.
> Then he drives to the "Lost Highway" Hotel and knocks Dick Laurent down,
> after his wife has slept with him and left. He will recall this scene two
> times later in jail, under the influence of drugs, one time as himself, one
> time as Pete. How he knows, where they are, why they are in the "Lost
> Highway" hotel? I don't know. He takes Dick Laurent in his trunk out for a
> ride. When Fred opens the trunk in the midst of nowhere, Dick has regained
> consciousness - they fight. Fred wins and urges Dick to watch the old
> pornos he produced, starring his wife, with his watchcam. Then he shoots
> him. (A little deviation about the Mystery Man: He kills the man in Fred's
> later remembrance of the scene - in general, this man is some kind of a
> personification of Fred's "fugue" personality, and he partly blames him for
> his deeds, a "demon" that whispers cruel commands into his ears...)
> After that, Fred and Renee are on Bill's party. Renee is drunk and acts
> obscenely. Fred gulps down two drinks and imagines the (brilliant)
> conversation with the Mystery Man. After that, he asks Bill who that man
> is. "A friend of Dick Laurent." - "Dick Laurent? But Dick Laurent is dead,
> isn't he?" - He leaves the party with Renee. She explains how she made the
> acquaintance of Bill - in unprecise terms ("just a job"). Later, this
> conversation will be elaborated between Pete and blonde Renee. In this
> night, Fred kills his wife with his videocam recording. He is put to jail
> the other morning. He gets drugs in jail, since he acts weird and his head
> causes great "pain". Then the transformation into Pete takes place in his
> mind. Furtheron, the film mixes patches of the things that really happened
> with Fred's new dreamed existence as Pete. --
> 4) Dick Laurent = Mr. Eddy, of course, but the connection is more profound:
> He offers pornos to Pete, he threatens Pete that he will kill him, when
> he'll touch blonde Renee. Pete (Fred) is not the "first man" in his beloved
> girl...
> 5) Notice the similarity of Fred and Pete having sex. Note the cramped
> sadness of it.
> 6) The license plates have supposedly a meaning, but I didn't get it yet,
> or Lynch is just mocking around...
> 
> I know that there are still mysteries and things that fall out of the plot
> I outlined, but that belongs to the conception of the film. Wouldn't it be
> boring to explain it all away? LH is wide open to more interpretations.
> Perhaps you want to watch the movie once again now, and detect more
> connections and details, that point to a "real" plot behind the surface
> structure of the film. The lamps (the lamp in Pete's room reflects the jail
> neon light), the color of Rennes hair, the different faces cut into Fred's
> face in the very last scene - there are a lot of things to discover. The
> film is clearer and more structured than any of Lynch's films before. There
> is more to this movie than dreams and modern fairies and monsters - to
> label it away with "just another of those weird nightmare Lynchees" does no
> justice to this unique masterpiece.
> 
> Take care now - and when the %%%% will M&D now be released??
> 
> Thomas