Lost Highway
Interesting odds and ends

Welcome to my Lost Highway Tidbits! I stuffed things into this page that I didn't really know where to put. The first part of the page is some miscellaneous quotes that I found in various places that pertain to Lost Highway. The second half offers some interesting things to think about with regard to the film... some of the more subtle oddities, if you will.

Enjoy!

At the beginning of the script(book version)there is an interview with Lynch. In which he was asked:

"From the little I know of Barry Gifford it seems you have at least one thing in common: neither of you likes to talk too much about the meaning of you work, and you both avoid offering personal interpretation. Is that right?"

To which Lynch answered:

"Yeah. On Lost Highway we never talked about meaning or anything. We seemed to be in sync on where we were going, so a lot was left unsaid. We talked, but that can be dangerous. If things get too specific, the dream stops. There are things that happen sometimes that open up a door and let you soar out and feel a bigger thing."

Barry Gifford, co-writer of the film made the following statement regarding Lost Highway.
It was published in Cinefantisque magazine:

"Fred creates the Pete persona to deny the fact that he killed his wife, but that this persona ultimately fails and he re-enacts his obsession with Alice Wakefield, who he says is another Renee."

David Lynch does not entirely agree with all of Barry's interpretations. He refuses, however, to reveal his own.

"This film has some crucial links to Hitchcock's Vertigo, which is the paradigm of circularity in film."

Stuff to Think About...
...and Reasons to Watch Lost Highway Again!

Some people were thinking that Peter was really a younger version of Fred.  Here are a couple of reasons that led me to believe that Alice/Peter were not simply a younger Renee/Fred:

• Fred met Andy at the party they went to near the beginning (well, relatively speaking from the start of the movie... although see the "really cool" section below...) of the show. No problem there, except that Peter had already killed Andy. Hmm... he's lookin' pretty good for a corpse!
• Near the beginning of the movie, Fred asked Renee how she met Andy. She told him about how she met him at "Mucks". She then told him that he offered her a job. Fred asked her what kind of job and she told him she couldn't remember... No problem there, except that Peter and Alice had the same dialogue concerning Andy and the job he got her. Why would Fred ask her about this again if they already discussed it (on the assumption that Peter was really a younger Fred)?

So you haven't had enough yet? Do you need some motivation to see the film again? Read this section!

Hey... Did You See That?

David Lynch loves to put interesting bits into his movies (and sometimes very profound and important ones!). However, many of these are so subtle that if you notice them at all, it will probably take you more than one viewing. In fact, some require you to really exercise your VCR's pause button! In this way, it's almost a requirement that you watch his movies more than once! Here are a few of these easy-to-miss things...

Wrinkles in Lost Highway's Space/Time Continuum

End and beginning are one.

Listen really carefully at the beginning of the movie when the intercom rings at Fred's house. Right after the "Dick Laurant is dead" message, you can hear sirens, and a car speed off... in fact, its the same sirens (and car speeding off) that occur at the end of the movie...

Also, at the end, when Fred says, "Dick Laurent is dead," there is the sound of someone clicking on an intercom on the other end (Remember how Fred clicked the intercom on at the beginning...).

At one point, Lynch referred to Lost Highway as a kind of Mobious Strip.   A mobeous strip is a strip (For example, made of paper) that is shaped into a loop. The loop has one half twist, but no definite start or end.) Despite this, if you draw a pencil line starting on the outside of the loop and going around, your pencil line will end up covering the entire loop... including both sides of it!) . Think of Fred's reality as one side of the "strip" and his false identity as the other... moving between them is indistinguishable from Fred's point of view.

More Circular Time

When the Mystery Man meets Fred at the party and tells Fred to call him (at Fred's house), the phone rings two times after Fred dials the number and before the MM picks the phone up at Fred's place...

...Later that night when Fred and Renee leave the party and return home, Fred goes inside the house first because he wanted to make sure that "no one was inside". Well, when Fred went into the house, the phone rang twice. If you listen really closely, you can hear someone pick up the phone from inside Fred's house, after the second ring!!!

At the party, Fred tells Andy that Dick Laurant is dead. He "remembers" this from the message over the intercom at the beginning. The problem is, Dick hasn't been killed yet in the movie...

Watch Fred's denial as he says to the detectives that are questioning him, "I didn't do it! Please tell me I didn't do it!"  It appears as though he really doesn't believe he did it!

When the police find Peter in prison instead of Fred, they say that he was arrested five years ago for auto theft.

Later in the movie (which doesn't mean later for real...), we see Peter steal Andy's car with Alice.

The interesting relationship here is this: Both times, it is Peter who is giving Fred what he wants. The first time, it is Alice, the second time it is getting Fred out of prison.

Near the end of the film Fred and the Mystery Man end Dick Laurant's life (in a very morbid way, I'd like to add!) After the fatal gunshot, the Mystery Man whispers something into Fred's ear, hands him the gun, and then vanishes.

Was there a connection between the Mystery Man's whisper in Fred's ear after Dick is killed and Fred speaking into the intercom? Is it possible that The Mystery Man could have said something to the effect of "Go to your house. Say 'Dick Laurent is dead' into the intercom, then leave." After all, it did seem like Fred was on a mission when he went back to his house.

Was he telling himself that he has defeated his fears? This scene is definitely the tape on the mobious strip!

Remember at the beginning of the movie, the very beginning, where the scene opens with Fred smoking a cigarette? Well, you probably watched Fred as he seemed to be contemplating something while consuming the tobacco. Next time you watch the movie, look behind him. You'll see a hallway with a room at the end... very possibly his bedroom (although it appears that he might be in a bedroom himself, later in the movie he told detectives that he had two bedrooms). If you look really closely at the room (and maybe even pause the VCR here) do you see anything strange... like maybe blood?  This would be consistant with my analysis, but I thought it was cool, too!

Fred moves further from reality each time he creates a new identity.

In his first new identity (during the interrogation at the beginning) he remembers Renee talk about Andy and how they met at "Mokes" and he got her a job, but that was it. In his second identity, further from reality, he creates a whole story about how Andy got her a job as a porno star, and how she danced in front of DL, etc...

Watch how the lights in the house flash and we see shadows (one appearing to stab the other) when Fred drives Renee back after the party.

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