Xixax Film Forum

The Director's Chair => David Lynch => Topic started by: ono on July 23, 2003, 08:48:09 PM

Title: Lost Highway
Post by: ono on July 23, 2003, 08:48:09 PM
Possible spoilers.

I caught this Sunday night, so it's rather late to be trying to come up with stuff to say so long after the fact, but to my surprise, there's no thread about this, and it definitely merits some sort of discussion.

I had an appreciative smirk on my face the whole way through this movie, because I had seen Mulholland Drive, so I knew what I was in for, and like with Mulholland Drive, I was liking what I saw until about three-fifths through the movie when I knew nothing was gonna be explained.  It was just one of those hunches I ended up being right about.  Some people have said Mulholland Drive is a retelling of Lost Highway.  I can definitely see that.  And, I see Bunuel's influence on Lynch, especially from That Obscure Object of Desire.  The film itself is inspired and insipid all at once, because of the sheer gaul Lynch has.  If you surrender yourself to him, you'll find yourself having a much better time, than if you try to logically explain what happens in his films.

Quick summary for those of you who don't know: a man and his wife live in a lackluster marriage.  The man plays sax in a nightclub.  His wife reads.  One night, they get a videotape of footage of their house.  The tapes continue until they are shown footage of themselves sleeping.  It freaks them out so they call the cops.  Then, things start to spiral out of control when the man drifts into a dreamlike state and sees images of his dead wife.  He's arrested for her murder, then sentenced to death.  He's locked away, lots of thunder and lightning crashes, and the next morning, a different man is in his place.  For the next hour, the film follows his story, which parallells the first man's.  And the lover of this new, younger man (also the gangster's girl) is played by the same woman (Patricia Arquette) who plays the older man's (Bill Pullman) wife.  The younger man has lots of sex, gets involved with a gangster, and fears for his life because of his affair with the gangster's girl.  The man occasionally encounters a pale-faced, mysterious man played by Robert Blake, who you can never tell if he's a friend or foe.  The final act is inspired as well, but it's just not enough for me, and description won't help it make anymore sense either.

This summary is necessary in discussing the film, because the film still doesn't make any sense.  Lynch is so talented, yet he constantly squanders his talent making these nonsensical stories which you are either forced to accept on the terms he has given you or reject outright.  A real gag reflex ensues.  The thriller aspects are excellent, as is the music used to set the tone.  Some plot points -- if you can even call them that -- are inspired as well, and the dreamlike aura pervading the movie is perfect.  I don't want to quote Ebert here, but it fits yet again: the film seems to be full of ideas and director's notes for a better movie.  There are a whole bunch of great scenes here, but they seem incomplete, and don't quite add up.  Another swing and a miss for Lynch.  ** (5/10)

So there's my thoughts.  But since this kind of film is so subjective, some interpretations and comments would be welcome and helpful.
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: Sleuth on July 23, 2003, 08:50:34 PM
So why DON'T you just surrender yourself to the movie.  You don't want to like it or what?  You obviously realize what you have to do, yet you don't do it.  Not all movies can be watched the same way, you should know that
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: ono on July 23, 2003, 08:54:39 PM
Because that would be allowing myself to accept gibberish as a valid film language.  Or rather, "Lynchian," or whatever you call the language in which he speaks.  I'm not alone in this, and I realize you have to be in a certain frame of mind to really like his movies.  "Liking" Lynch's movies aren't like "liking" any other movie, that's for sure.
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: chainsmoking insomniac on July 23, 2003, 08:55:29 PM
I'm glad someone started a thread on this movie.  I think (like Mulholland Dr.) Lost Highway could have been a superb film, if only Lynch decided to give the audience a real story instead of self-indulgent, atmosphere/mood driven scenes with no real narrative.  
However, the visuals and camerawork are (as usual) terrific.  And Badalamenti, Badalamenti, BADALAMENTI!!!!  Not since Brion/PTA has there been such a powerful duo! :)

I agree with Ono.  Now don't misunderstand me, Lynch films are really cool to watch, but I get frustrated when he completely abandons a really cool story in order to ensure his trademark weirdness is branded on the film.
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: Cecil on July 23, 2003, 09:03:08 PM
lost highway is a masterpiece. if you think it doesnt have a "narrative," well... i dont know what to tell you...
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: chainsmoking insomniac on July 23, 2003, 09:07:55 PM
Okay Cecil.  Or anyone else who cares to jump in on this:

Now I'm going to ask you a question, and in no way am I trying to be confrontational.  I ask out of pure curiosity: What makes this film a masterpiece?  And since you think it's a masterpiece, would you put it on the same shelf as say, a Hitchcock classic or some other film?  I really feel that I could appreciate Lynch's films more, but the breakdown of story just bothers the hell out of me.  So, feel free to rant and scream and kick at me.   :wink:
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on July 23, 2003, 09:22:32 PM
Quote from: OnomatopoeiaBecause that would be allowing myself to accept gibberish as a valid film language . . .  I'm not alone in this

That's the point. You're letting yourself get stuck in the conventional.

Why do so many people fear Lynch's language, which is more pure of a language than most films can speak? Lost Highway is one of my favorite movies. Surrender yourself to absurdity, and then you'll understand.

Quote from: Ghoulardi Goonwould you put it on the same shelf as say, a Hitchcock classic or some other film?

I'd take Lynch over Hitchcock any day.
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: Cecil on July 23, 2003, 09:33:54 PM
Quote from: Ghoulardi GoonWhat makes this film a masterpiece?  And since you think it's a masterpiece, would you put it on the same shelf as say, a Hitchcock classic or some other film?  I really feel that I could appreciate Lynch's films more, but the breakdown of story just bothers the hell out of me.

maybe its the breakdown of story that i appreciate. the story is original, so is the way it was told. it kept me on the edge of my seat, it swallowed me whole. i kept wondering "what will happen next" and just when you think you can guess what might happen next, it switches gears.

i would definitely place it among the most important films ever made. in the end, hitchcock and lynch arent so different. they both want(ed) to make the viewer experience something new and fresh, staying away from cliches as far as possible.

its not about "watching" the movie, but about experiencing it. stop trying to "understand" it. only then will everything become clear
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: Alethia on July 23, 2003, 11:29:28 PM
Quote from: Jeremy Bla©kmanI'd take Lynch over Hitchcock any day.

oh no no no no.  i'd take lost highway over family plot or juno and the paycock -- but............actually, it kinda depends.........hitchcock at his best is, well, do I even have to delve into it?  at his worst he was over indulgent and pretentious (not very often tho)......lynch is kinda the same way.....hard choice, but ultimately i think I'd take hitchcock, u know why?




CUZ HE MADE VERTIGO.
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: Alethia on July 23, 2003, 11:30:40 PM
Quote from: Cecil B. Demented
Quote from: Ghoulardi GoonWhat makes this film a masterpiece?  And since you think it's a masterpiece, would you put it on the same shelf as say, a Hitchcock classic or some other film?  I really feel that I could appreciate Lynch's films more, but the breakdown of story just bothers the hell out of me.

maybe its the breakdown of story that i appreciate. the story is original, so is the way it was told. it kept me on the edge of my seat, it swallowed me whole. i kept wondering "what will happen next" and just when you think you can guess what might happen next, it switches gears.

i would definitely place it among the most important films ever made. in the end, hitchcock and lynch arent so different. they both want(ed) to make the viewer experience something new and fresh, staying away from cliches as far as possible.

its not about "watching" the movie, but about experiencing it. stop trying to "understand" it. only then will everything become clear

beautiful.
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: Pubrick on July 23, 2003, 11:55:11 PM
dark as hell, i showed it to a close friend after i first saw it and he now refers to it as the weirdest yet creepily effective thing he's ever seen. i think a lot of uninformed non-squares feel that way. u could see it as the other side of mullholland drive, the nightmare side. unfortunately for sum, this requires it to be oppressively murky.. this is where ur left alone to decide to spit or swallow. unlike MD which asks only for a sophisticated taste. ur gag reflex is understandable. but if darkness came in pill form of 'reccomended yearly intake', this is one i'd gladly swallow.

GG's hitchcock comparison is as arbritrary and stupid as oranges and whatever.

Lost Highway is the perfect addition to the list of "Films to watch before u murder sumone".
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: brockly on August 22, 2003, 08:44:55 PM
Just saw it.

I was like Homer in the episode where he is watching Twin Peaks:"Brilliant! I have no idea what's going on." Mulholland Dr all over again. Great fun.
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: NEON MERCURY on August 24, 2003, 12:08:47 AM
..this is my second fav. Lynch film behind Mulholland Dr....This is what ceil says  a masterpiece .that's it..I understand that Lynch films are lynch films and should be viewed as such....i like the whats real whats tru whats happening theme in some of his films .THAT is why i like lynch so much.....Lost highway......::drops remaining change in pocket  into wishing well in hopes for  a  proper lynch approved region 1 dvd release::...maybe is underrated really IMO....There so many good scens , so much bad ass music. (except for manson's "spell on you "  garbage..and his subsequent appearence w/twiggy in this film :roll: )..and the dialuoge is razor!......"the smooth as ____ from a ducks ass" still cracks me up...along w/ "gets more ____ than a toilet seat."...I could go on and on about this ..This is biased opinion b/c i am a huge lynch fan.(i t would be a dream for him and aronofsky to collaborate on something).....so hence my favortism....I find .no fault in this film IMO>....
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: Ghostboy on August 24, 2003, 03:06:34 AM
I think Mulholland Drive is better. But this was my first experience with Lynch, and I treasure it. Listen to the soundtrack regularly. Haven't seen it in years. Twice in theaters, once on letterboxed video, and then I became determined to wait until a good DVD was released.

Those of you who have the shitty DVD...does it ruin the movie? Should I keep waiting? I'd hate to have my memories spoiled by pan and scan and crushed darkness.
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: Cecil on August 24, 2003, 10:44:58 AM
i bought the dvd not knowing it was p&s. youre better off with the vhs version
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: NEON MERCURY on August 24, 2003, 10:02:23 PM
...yeah I lucked up and found this new (widescreen/vhs).at an independant music store...
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: Weak2ndAct on August 30, 2003, 05:36:55 PM
I really, truly love this movie.  I saw it at a time in my life when I was growing tired of everything that was coming out and hadn't been wow-ed in a really long time (plus, it gets the distinction of being my father's most hated moviegoing experience ever-- i've never seen him get so upset, and despite the gratuitious nudity!).  When MD came out, it felt like Lost Highway-Lite, that could be my only criticism for it.  

But the question I pose to y'all is: what do you think of the ending?  The most interesting theory I've been presented with is that the ending is Fred being fried in the electric chair (in a deleted scene, a fellow inmate gets electrocuted-- a fragment still remains, the light flickering and shutting off in Fred's cell).  Or it could be as simple as the 'dream state' being unraveled (all the loose ends and nagging questions from the 1st half were answered/resolved... sort of).
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: NEON MERCURY on August 30, 2003, 10:20:45 PM
..it's wierd..With this film i don't think about what it means or anything .I take it at face -value it's more fun that way IMO  .....but  on Mulholland drive I wanted an explanation and combing other sources and my own ideas i got one that i am happy with ....
Title: the melding of Lynch and Badalamenti
Post by: freakerdude on September 01, 2003, 04:25:15 AM
Quote from: chainsmoking insomniacI'm glad someone started a thread on this movie.  I think (like Mulholland Dr.) Lost Highway could have been a superb film, if only Lynch decided to give the audience a real story instead of self-indulgent, atmosphere/mood driven scenes with no real narrative.  
However, the visuals and camerawork are (as usual) terrific.  And Badalamenti, Badalamenti, BADALAMENTI!!!!  Not since Brion/PTA has there been such a powerful duo! :)

These guys are are a prefect match. I just bought WAH and BV CDs but have had Lost Hwy for quite some time.

I saw LH on my b'day night and not in a good mood to begin with. I was really unhappy as I walked out of the theater. But the 2nd and 3rd repeat viewing changed my mind. I don't think Mulholland is a continuation of LH, IMO.
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: bonanzataz on September 08, 2003, 12:11:20 AM
just watched this over the weekend. fucking rawsome. i loved it. however, i bought the german release because it had 5.1 sound but the sound is slightly out of sync with the movie! anybody with region free, buy the british version, i don't think 5.1 sound is worth it.
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: Gold Trumpet on September 10, 2003, 07:59:51 PM
I didn't like the film. Reasons why seem to explain why I loved Muholland Drive so much. The narrative is great in both films, the ideas of how the viewing itself is so intense and emotional and the ambiguilties are endless in what could mean what as nearly two storylines are merged together to think what it all could mean. The problem though is that I don't think the film has any weight to the narrative to really give interest to want to think more about it. Nothing, besides the technical and style, really pushes the film to further think about it and what it could really mean.

As Ebert said, its more the execution of a style and an idea closely related to the one made famous in Bunuel's "That Obscure Object of Desire". That film was also dissapointing in that the technical switch of actresses had little to think about besides what both actresses could represent to the viewer as an image of the normal/exotic and how Bunuel played with our desires by showing the exotic in less revealing and sexual scenes. The story just had little weight of intrigue to further think about.

With Muholland Drive, a convention is shown in clear narrative being present for a while with the relationship of the two girls, but its a set up for making all the breaking of the conventions later on intriguing in that are thoughts and wonders extend with the film and beyond. Muholland Drive is like a puzzle, but ambiguous and really a great film in my opinion. Gets better the more I think of it. It just shows that when dealing with ambiguilties, content has to be there so ambiguilty can take place.

~rougerum
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: MacGuffin on November 04, 2003, 08:22:17 PM
How to Make an Opera a Riddle: Adapt David Lynch
Source: New York Times

(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fgraphics7.nytimes.com%2Fimages%2F2003%2F11%2F02%2Farts%2Fhalf.184.jpg&hash=20e7ae5e62387f8261b9ece7490d9993b24c0159)

Ever since she was 13, when she first saw "The Elephant Man," Olga Neuwirth, a 35-year-old Austrian composer, has felt an affinity with the filmmaker David Lynch. "In his films, you are put into a vortex without actually knowing what is going on," Ms. Neuwirth said recently from Venice, where she lives. "So this has always been a part of my thinking."

The appeal of the vortex — not to mention the labyrinth, which partly explains her move from Vienna to the mazelike Venice 10 years ago — has been an essential part of Ms. Neuwirth's compositional process.

"How can you draw people in, making it impossible for them to escape from listening?" she asked. "It's so hard in our times to listen. But I never want to make music very clear. It must always be a riddle. There is never a theme you can easily latch onto. A different kind of psychology is happening, one of not knowing what is going on. That's why I'm so close to Lynch."

And that is why Ms. Neuwirth (pronounced NOY-veert) has dared to turn Mr. Lynch's most enigmatic film, "Lost Highway," into an opera. Ms. Neuwirth's "Lost Highway," which just had its premiere in Graz, her hometown (and much to her horror, Arnold Schwarzenegger's), runs through Nov. 8 at the Helmut List Hall.

When the movie came out in 1997, it baffled both audiences and critics. At first glance, it seemed two different movies, surrealistically spliced together via head-on collision.

The first half concerns a jazz saxophonist, Fred Madison (played by Bill Pullman), who is tormented by suspicions that his wife, Renee (Patricia Arquette), is unfaithful. Videotapes left anonymously on their doorstep start off as creepy surveillance of their home's exterior, then, alarmingly, show the troubled couple asleep in their bedroom. The last tape received shows Fred butchering his wife, and he is arrested and imprisoned.

The second half of the film concerns a young mechanic, Peter Dayton (Balthazar Getty), who is released from Fred's cell — Fred, meanwhile, having vanished into thin air. Pete falls head over heels for a blonde, Alice Wakefield, who is the moll of an underworld pornographer, "Mr. Eddy." When their affair shifts into high gear, Alice persuades Pete to commit a robbery with her, then coldly dumps him. Pete transforms into Fred and kills Mr. Eddy. The film hauntingly loops back to the beginning.

The only hint the tight-lipped Mr. Lynch dropped about the meaning of "Lost Highway" was "psychogenic fugue." The term, with its musical overtones, refers to the dissociative disorder in which a person forgets who he or she is, takes on another identity and creates a new life somewhere else. During the "fugue" — or flight from the former self — amnesia erases the past life.

In other words, Fred Madison commits a horrific crime, and his mind opts for the ultimate form of denial: becoming a different person with no memory, Peter Dayton. The twist is that he hasn't really escaped at all. Although his exterior appearance has changed, he falls again for the same woman (Renee and Alice are both played by Ms. Arquette), who ultimately rejects him.

"This is the horrible thing," Ms. Neuwirth said. "You remain a prisoner of your body and mind. You can't escape from yourself, your fears, your inner life."

"Lost Highway," like Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo" (which also involves a man who loses the same woman twice), can be seen as a film-noir variation on the Orpheus myth. In this case, Orpheus unconsciously murders his Eurydice out of sexual jealousy, then creates a new identity to have a second chance with her.

"For me, Fred converts into Pete to try again, to have a better life, to be younger and more attractive to this unattainable woman," Ms. Neuwirth said. "So he enters this world of phantasma. But Alice is just another Renee. Again he has to kill." In the opera's first half, the characters speak their lines; in the second — the "phantasma" — they sing.

Ms. Neuwirth and her librettist, Elfriede Jelinek, have stuck very closely to Mr. Lynch and Barry Gifford's screenplay, and the opera is performed in English. Ms. Jelinek, also Austrian, wrote the novel that served as the basis for Michael Haneke's disturbing film "The Piano Teacher," and last year she won Germany's top literary award, the Heine Prize.

"I consider `Lost Highway' one of the key works in the history of cinema," Ms. Jelinek said. "When I saw the film for the first time, it was like a blow to my brain stem, a real physical sensation. It's pretty much impossible to translate an artwork like this into another genre. But musical theater is possible, because, like film, it is another way of playing with time flow."

Ms. Neuwirth, who once considered becoming a filmmaker, is particularly interested in the manipulation of time in music. "There are all these repetitions in the film," she said, "an interesting thing for a composer to think about musically. So structures which occur in the first part return in the second part, but in another context."

As in her first full-length, darkly comic opera, "Bählamms Fest," there is a lively soundtrack of effects as well as a complex interplay between recorded and live music, intermingled to such an extent that you cannot separate one from the other. Live electronics play a central role, and Ms. Neuwirth also incorporates old radio broadcasts of pop songs and snippets of Baroque music.

The resulting score is enigmatic and labyrinthine, constantly morphing from one thing to the next. Ms. Neuwirth, educated at Ircam, Pierre Boulez's electronic-music center in Paris, knows how to bend and twist sound like no other.

"I like to change musical structures very rapidly, or else I get bored," she said. "I want to open petrified brains. I play with very different types of music. It's like a kaleidoscope." Above all, she manages to evoke the reality-confounding dream world of Mr. Lynch's film.

Constance Hauman, the voluptuous American soprano who plays Renee and Alice, said: "I'm in awe of Olga. She really sheds light on David Lynch's most mysterious movie. She's created a new medium. It's not really opera, and it's not really musical theater. It's a unique category of its own. It's a fusion of all kinds of different styles, which many composers today aren't brave enough to use."

One of the few significant departures from the screenplay is that Fred is a trumpet player, not a saxophonist. "Fred is a trumpet player because I am a trumpet player," Ms. Neuwirth said. "His story became mine, true for me, my lost highway."

She won't say any more on the subject.  
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: Ghostboy on November 04, 2003, 08:50:15 PM
I was so convinced that you'd be reporting news of a new DVD release...damn that opera for getting my hopes up. I refuse to watch this movie again until it's on widescreen DVD. Unless someone invites me over to watch it on laserdisc, but I don't know anyone with a laserdisc player, so that's not likely.

Who owns it now, anyway? Since Polygram folded...
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: MacGuffin on November 04, 2003, 08:54:50 PM
Quote from: GhostboyUnless someone invites me over to watch it on laserdisc, but I don't know anyone with a laserdisc player, so that's not likely.

I'm looking at my laserdisc copy as I type this.

Quote from: GhostboyWho owns it now, anyway? Since Polygram folded...

USA (region 1): In a recent Video Business article USA Films stated a Special Edition DVD of Lost Highway is in the works. The disc will feature a new 5.1 soundtrack. Most of the work on the disc has been completed, but with USA Home Video's catalog being absorbed into Universal, the disc has disapeared into limbo. No word on if or when Universal will release it.
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: Pastor Parsley on November 06, 2003, 04:53:41 PM
Quote from: chainsmoking insomniacLost Highway could have been a superb film, if only Lynch decided to give the audience a real story instead of self-indulgent, atmosphere/mood driven scenes with no real narrative.

There is a real narative, but it isn't spoon fed to you like most films.  You're just used to the traditional narrative.

I agree with with Weak2ndAct, MD is LH lite.  Mulholland Drive is in the same form as Lost Highway, but all the pieces of the puzzle are there.  With LH, there is one piece missing, in fact it was cut from the film, and I think it's better for it.  MD was more appealing to the masses because it included that linking piece.  (Although, I do think that on some other levels that MD is a little tighter than LH.)

By leaving that scene out, ones imagination takes over.  Imagination is better than anything you could do with film, plus it's personalized for each viewer making it even better.
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: NEON MERCURY on November 06, 2003, 09:56:07 PM
Quote from: Pastor Parsley
Quote from: chainsmoking insomniacLost Highway could have been a superb film, if only Lynch decided to give the audience a real story instead of self-indulgent, atmosphere/mood driven scenes with no real narrative.

There is a real narative, but it isn't spoon fed to you like most films.  You're just used to the traditional narrative.

I agree with with Weak2ndAct, MD is LH lite.  Mulholland Drive is in the same form as Lost Highway, but all the pieces of the puzzle are there.  With LH, there is one piece missing, in fact it was cut from the film, and I think it's better for it.  MD was more appealing to the masses because it included that linking piece.  (Although, I do think that on some other levels that MD is a little tighter than LH.)

By leaving that scene out, ones imagination takes over.  Imagination is better than anything you could do with film, plus it's personalized for each viewer making it even better.



why does Chainsmoking Insomniac ..call it "self indulgent"?????????
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: ElPandaRoyal on November 07, 2003, 05:01:42 AM
Quote from: NEON MERCURY..it's wierd..With this film i don't think about what it means or anything .I take it at face -value it's more fun that way IMO  .....but  on Mulholland drive I wanted an explanation and combing other sources and my own ideas i got one that i am happy with ....

Strange, that's kind of what I feel about both movies. Although sometimes, when I watch Lost Highway again, I try and look for anything that can tell me something more about what's going on. With no luck, though. But it's an amazing film and the lack of an easily comprehensible story doesn't bother me at all, because only Lynch can make me feel whatever it is that I feel whenever I watch one of his movies, and I love it.
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: Pastor Parsley on November 07, 2003, 10:16:37 AM
Quote from: NEON MERCURY
why does Chainsmoking Insomniac ..call it "self indulgent"?????????

I think because the narrative isn't straight forward, some feel that the director is making it difficult to understand and isn't thinking about the audience.  I can definitely understand why some would come to this conclusion.  In some films, a poorly crafted narrative makes the film difficult to understand.  In this case it's not a lack of skill, it's intentional.
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: MacGuffin on December 12, 2003, 03:51:01 AM
Lost Highway US DVD Release 1st half of 2004
Dugpa got confirmation from a contact at Universal that they are in the process of working out all the details, he assures them that they are looking at a release in the first half of 2004.
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on December 12, 2003, 10:18:49 AM
Quote from: MacGuffinLost Highway US DVD Release 1st half of 2004
Dugpa got confirmation from a contact at Universal that they are in the process of working out all the details, he assures them that they are looking at a release in the first half of 2004.

Merry Christmas to you too, MacGuffin!

:multi:
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: Ghostboy on December 12, 2003, 10:25:33 AM
Seriously. What a great way to start the day!
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: NEON MERCURY on December 13, 2003, 05:30:08 PM
Yabba--Dabba-Do!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: Redlum on January 09, 2004, 01:04:15 PM
I watched this last night. I thought it was one of the scariest films I'd ever seen. I'm very good at surrendering myself to a film I've found. Mainly because I'm more conscious of my hatred towards people who constantly try to outsmart a film than of the fact that I'm only watching a film.
It was good. I felt like I understood it as far as I needed to but afterwards I couldn't help thinking - did it have to be so (for want of a better description) 'chronologicaly fucked' to be successful? Having said that I understood Mulholland Drive a whole lot less and enjoyed it more. Whatever that means. We shall see. I'm fairly new to Lynch having only seen Mulholand, Straight Story and Blue velvet before this one.

For those yearning for the Region 1 release, I watched the Region 2 which was anamorpic, and a good looking transfer apart from the reel change burns. The music sounded excellent  in the mix, too.
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: Sleuth on January 09, 2004, 01:18:41 PM
Quote from: ®edlumI watched this last night. I thought it was one of the scariest films I'd ever seen. I'm very good at surrendering myself to a film I've found. Mainly because I'm more conscious of my hatred towards people who constantly try to outsmart a film than of the fact that I'm only watching a film.

Good review
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: bonanzataz on February 19, 2004, 08:10:49 PM
Quote from: chainsmoking insomniacWhat makes this film a masterpiece?  And since you think it's a masterpiece, would you put it on the same shelf as say, a Hitchcock classic or some other film?  


hehe. i just read this now. all my lynch movies are on the same shelf as my hitchcocks. so... it hit my funnybone.
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: NEON MERCURY on February 20, 2004, 06:18:16 PM
Quote from: taz.
Quote from: chainsmoking insomniacWhat makes this film a masterpiece?  And since you think it's a masterpiece, would you put it on the same shelf as say, a Hitchcock classic or some other film?  


....well i can honesltly say this......mulholland dr. and elephant man....and lost highway.......are three stronger films out of the lynch catalogie ......vs. ANY three from alfred......
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: MacGuffin on February 20, 2004, 06:20:46 PM
Quote from: NEON MERCURY....well i can honesltly say this......mulholland dr. and elephant man....and lost highway.......are three stronger films out of the lynch catalogie ......vs. ANY three from alfred......

Them's fighting words.
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: modage on February 20, 2004, 06:46:29 PM
Quote from: MacGuffin
Quote from: NEON MERCURY....well i can honesltly say this......mulholland dr. and elephant man....and lost highway.......are three stronger films out of the lynch catalogie ......vs. ANY three from alfred......

Them's fighting words.
oh FUCK YEAH THEY ARE, we're gonna have to throw down. :evil:
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: MacGuffin on February 20, 2004, 06:49:01 PM
Quote from: themodernage02oh FUCK YEAH THEY ARE, we're gonna have to throw down. :evil:

We'll take turns holding and punching. By the time we're through, this NEON with be out of gas...Get it?  :twisted:
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: Sanjuro on February 21, 2004, 03:04:47 AM
Mulholland Dr.
Lost Highway
Eraserhead

VS.

Notorious
Shadow of a Doubt
Vertigo

=

yikes... Mulholland Dr., Notorious, and i seriously cant decide the last, either lost highway or shadow of a doubt.
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: bonanzataz on February 21, 2004, 01:09:06 PM
well, i think that they're totally different filmmakers and i like them each for very different reasons.
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: modage on March 26, 2004, 06:43:07 PM
i saw this film last night for (sort of) the first time.  (when it came out on video and i was probably 15 i rented it since i had the soundtrack as i as a huge smashing pumpkins nut at the time, and probably only got about halfway through it before abandoning it).  so, with my newfound lynchlove i decided i wanted to give it another shot as i remember it having some really creepy elements.  i liked it, but it still feels like a miss for lynch.  although the elements are there it just doesnt quite all fit together for a completely satisfying experience.  i think a big part of it was the casting of pullman and arquette, who just arent compelling enough for you to feel entertained through the whole film.  another thing is it just seemed to be a little lacking, like the idea was not fully baked when they made it, (sort of have to agree about this almost being a 'run through for mulholland drive'.)  its just a little too detached.  i think maybe is that the first hour of the film is so slow and you have no one to identify with, whereas in blue velvet or mullholland drive you get a character who appears normal and is dragged slowly into this world.  (which i guess is the case in the second half of the film, but by then half the movies running time is gone).   so, overall there are some great elements/ideas (especially creepy videotape man, GODDAMN HE IS CREEPY), but overall still a misfire.  (i will still probably buy this when it comes out, and give it a few more viewings.)
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: NEON MERCURY on March 27, 2004, 07:51:53 PM
Quote from: themodernage02i saw this film last night for (sort of) the first time.  (when it came out on video and i was probably 15 i rented it since i had the soundtrack as i as a huge smashing pumpkins nut at the time, and probably only got about halfway through it before abandoning it).  so, with my newfound lynchlove i decided i wanted to give it another shot as i remember it having some really creepy elements.  i liked it, but it still feels like a miss for lynch.  although the elements are there it just doesnt quite all fit together for a completely satisfying experience.  i think a big part of it was the casting of pullman and arquette, who just arent compelling enough for you to feel entertained through the whole film.  another thing is it just seemed to be a little lacking, like the idea was not fully baked when they made it, (sort of have to agree about this almost being a 'run through for mulholland drive'.)  its just a little too detached.  i think maybe is that the first hour of the film is so slow and you have no one to identify with, whereas in blue velvet or mullholland drive you get a character who appears normal and is dragged slowly into this world.  (which i guess is the case in the second half of the film, but by then half the movies running time is gone).   so, overall there are some great elements/ideas (especially creepy videotape man, GODDAMN HE IS CREEPY), but overall still a misfire.  (i will still probably buy this when it comes out, and give it a few more viewings.)

.....this is my second fav lynch next to mulholland...i can see your missgivings abou tthis film..but man, i love this one ..the beginning is slow...butt i love how its deliberately done like that and the audio is turned way down...and the camera moves in and out through the house and trough the walls around the curtians and shIt...its  sOOOOOO damn surreal..then the smoke and the slo-mo sex scne and sh*t..its a great way IMO to set up MOOD...and i kind of miss it that after the fisrt 30 mins or so the film takes off at full steam...but still everytime i watch this sh*t on tape it pisses me off that its not out one a solid region one.........

lynch hurry !!!!
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: MacGuffin on February 12, 2005, 01:44:08 AM
Lost Highway DVD in March!!!?????
Source: Dugpa

It's either a system glitch or a new release date for the long forgotten Lost Highway US DVD. I'm a member of Netflix. A few weeks ago I found out that you can reserve movies in your queue that are not yet available for rental, or that even have a release date. So just for the hell of it, I typed in Lost Highway and it came up with a release date as "unknown". Big surprise. Anyway, the movies that have no release dates are then put in a section outside of regular queue. Today when I checked my queue, I was very surprised to see that Lost Highway had made it's way from the queue of unknown to the normal queue with a release date of  March 8th, 2005. Now it might be a glitch in the Netflix system, as I have not seen it anywhere for sale or pre-order, but in case it isn't, you can tell people that you read it here first. Check it out for yourself if you are a netflix member. It is sporting the specs of the Fullscreen Canadian release on the top of the screen, but look below and you will find details of a 5.1 English and German track, the correct widescreen ratio, along with Cast & Crew Interviews.

(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fdugpa.com%2Fpics%2Flosthighwaynetflix.jpg&hash=a32c29b540e7ff543cedec60054432b797feee19)
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: cowboykurtis on February 12, 2005, 03:36:35 AM
about fucking time -- been waiting for 3 bloody years for this - could be my favorite lynch, just behind the elephant man
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on February 12, 2005, 11:01:09 AM
It's there alright, but fullscreen?

(https://xixax.com/files/jb/losthighwaydvd.jpg)

I'm skeptical. They probably accidentally stocked up on the VHS.

Quote from: MacGuffinbut look below and you will find details of a 5.1 English and German track, the correct widescreen ratio, along with Cast & Crew Interviews.
I'm not seeing that.
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: mogwai on February 12, 2005, 11:12:32 AM
watching lost highway in fullscreen is pure murder.
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on February 12, 2005, 11:17:12 AM
Quote from: mogwaiwatching lost highway in fullscreen is pure murder.
That's the only way I've seen it.  :yabbse-sad:
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: MacGuffin on February 12, 2005, 02:31:19 PM
Quote from: Jeremy Blackman
Quote from: MacGuffinbut look below and you will find details of a 5.1 English and German track, the correct widescreen ratio, along with Cast & Crew Interviews.
I'm not seeing that.

Look under Language and Sound and you'll see the 5.1 tracks. I don't see the widescreen correction, but Other Features lists the interactive menus and cast and crew interviews.
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: NEON MERCURY on February 12, 2005, 09:23:48 PM
this is incredible news if its:

1. true
2. in widescreen


if not, my widescreen vhs is still working fine/clear.
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: RegularKarate on February 13, 2005, 03:07:55 PM
My guess is that Netflix is just getting a new supply of the fulllscreen version.  We would have heard of this by now otherwise.

a shame, but I put i on my queue anyway because I haven't seen it since the theater.
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on February 13, 2005, 04:56:40 PM
I found some clips here (http://www.lynchnet.com/lh/movies.html) to see what it looks like in widescreen. It's really different. I remember Robert Blake's head filling the whole screen.
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: Pubrick on February 13, 2005, 08:05:34 PM
if it's that important to u get the region 4..

(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ezydvd.com.au%2Fg%2Fi%2Fp%2F3167.jpg&hash=587c28d786973499bec14202e3d8cfb0a3252d28)

u know, like the rest of the world does every time region 1 gets the best version of a dvd.
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: mogwai on February 13, 2005, 11:19:16 PM
dvd beaver review (http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDReview/losthighwayr4.htm)
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: Two Lane Blacktop on February 14, 2005, 10:05:02 AM
I bought the Canadian (I think)  DVD of Lost Highway off Ebay some time ago, and when I got it and saw it was in fullscreen, never even watched it.  I still have my widescreen VHS, but I'm not giving up hope Lynch will work on a proper DVD for this, now that he's got Wild At Heart out of the way.

2LB
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: MacGuffin on February 15, 2005, 02:00:16 PM
No Lost Highway DVD in March
Source: Dugpa

I got word back from Universal that there are currently no plans to release Lost Highway on DVD at this time. The Netflix date looks to be the day they will be carrying the Canadian DVD for rental. Word has it that Universal is waiting for the whole Robert Blake scandal to blow over before they release the DVD fearing bad press. Go figure. Just another good reason to go out and get a region free DVD player. More news as it comes.
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: Two Lane Blacktop on February 15, 2005, 02:12:13 PM
Quote from: MacGuffinWord has it that Universal is waiting for the whole Robert Blake scandal to blow over before they release the DVD fearing bad press.

Oh, god damn it.  I hadn't even thought of that.   :brickwall:

How incredibly annoying.  It's not like the film has a HUGE audience, anyway...  they could just release it with little to no buzz, and we fans will take our copies and quietly go home with them without ever mentioning Mr Blake.  

2LB
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on February 15, 2005, 03:38:56 PM
Wouldn't the Robert Blake scandal connection be good press?
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: Fernando on February 15, 2005, 04:59:21 PM
Quote from: Pubrickif it's that important to u get the region 4..

u know, like the rest of the world does every time region 1 gets the best version of a dvd.

But that version still is in fullscreen, isn't?

I've seen it and it says it's Pan and Scan, unless there's another version I'm not aware of.
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: Two Lane Blacktop on February 15, 2005, 05:01:18 PM
Quote from: Jeremy BlackmanWouldn't the Robert Blake scandal connection be good press?

As much as we tend to think of Hollywood as "Scandaltown USA," I think the studio bosses are actually deathly afraid of scandal.  Remember how they held back the release of Phone Booth because of the sniper(s) running around in the DC area at the time?  I mean, who would have ever made THAT connection?  Not me.

Mind you, studio bosses are afraid of their own shadows and fascinated by shiny objects, so this should be no big surprise.  

2LB
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: Pubrick on February 15, 2005, 09:38:24 PM
Quote from: FernandoBut that version still is in fullscreen, isn't?

I've seen it and it says it's Pan and Scan, unless there's another version I'm not aware of.
nah check it out: http://www.ezydvd.com.au/item.zml/3167 and they post international, so the foreign ppl got no excuse.

also check the link mogwai posted.

it's cheaper at JB Hi-Fi.
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on February 15, 2005, 10:35:49 PM
But it's PAL.
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: Pubrick on February 15, 2005, 10:40:03 PM
play it on ur computer.

get a multi-region player.

join the new millennium.

PAL is higher quality anyway.
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: mogwai on February 15, 2005, 11:05:18 PM
Quote from: PubrickPAL is higher quality anyway.
in what way? sharpness is not one of the things pal has if you compare it with ntsc. i prefer region 1's in front 2's.
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: Pubrick on February 15, 2005, 11:08:10 PM
Quote from: mogwai
Quote from: PubrickPAL is higher quality anyway.
in what way? sharpness is not one of the things pal has if you compare it with ntsc. i prefer region 1's in front 2's.

well i'm talking about r4, not that it matters.

but to answer ur question: in basically every possible way, read http://www.michaeldvd.com.au/Articles/PALvsNTSC/PALvsNTSC.asp

basically this is a good version cos it's 16x9 enhanced. and since there is no better version of the movie, there is no choice.
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: Two Lane Blacktop on February 15, 2005, 11:12:43 PM
Quote from: mogwai
Quote from: PubrickPAL is higher quality anyway.
in what way? sharpness is not one of the things pal has if you compare it with ntsc. i prefer region 1's in front 2's.

PAL has a higher number of scan lines than NTSC...  I forget the numbers, but you can Google it if you like.

Of course, if you watch a PAL DVD in the US, on your NTSC TV set, the multi-region DVD player is going to convert the signal into the smaller, NTSC number of scan lines, so the quality will be the same as what we're always used to.   People will tell you they think the picture looks better, but it's psychological...  if you're watching it on an NTSC set, you're seeing a regular NTSC regardless of the disc format.  Mogwai, if you see a difference in region 1 and 2 DVDs on your setup, it may be the way your player compresses those extra lines that's causing a little phase or blurriness or something.  I've never seen a PAL-to-NTSC transition look bad, though.

BTW, JB and others, I have a cheap little Apex DVD player (the 1500 model) that's like $65 at Wal-Mart or online, and you can get a patch off the internet (or from me if you want) that makes it region-free.  It plays both PAL and NTSC.  It's great...  I have a nicer Toshiba that I keep hooked up most of the time, but when I want to watch one of my Region 2 or 4 DVDs, or something that's in PAL, I hook up the Apex and away we go.  

2LB
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on February 15, 2005, 11:40:32 PM
Quote from: Pubrickplay it on ur computer.
Macs only let you change the PAL/NSTC setting a few times, and I've already done it twice to watch Idioterne.

Quote from: Two Lane BlacktopBTW, JB and others, I have a cheap little Apex DVD player (the 1500 model) that's like $65 at Wal-Mart or online, and you can get a patch off the internet (or from me if you want) that makes it region-free.  It plays both PAL and NTSC.  It's great...  I have a nicer Toshiba that I keep hooked up most of the time, but when I want to watch one of my Region 2 or 4 DVDs, or so
Mmmm...  :yabbse-thumbup:
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: Weak2ndAct on March 17, 2005, 04:30:02 AM
I get people, and then I don't get them.

Tonight at work (video store), I had 5 people call or come in asking for copies of 'Lost Highway,' and it's all too blantantly obvious that they're asking for it b/c of the fact that the Robert Blake verdict came down today.  

Will these legal shenanigans result in a R1 dvd?  Let's see if it gets exploited.
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: SiliasRuby on March 17, 2005, 04:46:54 AM
Quote from: Weak2ndAct
Will these legal shenanigans result in a R1 dvd?  Let's see if it gets exploited.
I'm crossing MY fingers to hope it will happen.
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: Weak2ndAct on March 17, 2005, 04:56:13 AM
Quote from: SiliasRuby
Quote from: Weak2ndAct
Will these legal shenanigans result in a R1 dvd?  Let's see if it gets exploited.
I'm crossing MY fingers to hope it will happen.
As much as I hate to admit it... ditto.
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: Two Lane Blacktop on March 17, 2005, 08:25:11 AM
This seems as good a place as any to link this:

The Blake verdict, with his reaction and the opinions of some of the jurors (http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/03/16/blake.case/index.html)

2LB
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: No Hay Banda on March 17, 2005, 08:42:44 PM
Quote from: SiliasRuby
Quote from: Weak2ndAct
Will these legal shenanigans result in a R1 dvd?  Let's see if it gets exploited.
I'm crossing MY fingers to hope it will happen.
Same with me. I've been wishing and hoping for a Lost Highway DVD for years. I picked it up on VHS a while back, and it was quite honestly one of the worst quality transfers I'd ever seen, if not THE. I can't really say I was expecting much from a pan and scanned VHS though.
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on March 17, 2005, 09:43:04 PM
Quote from: Two Lane BlacktopThis seems as good a place as any to link this:

The Blake verdict, with his reaction and the opinions of some of the jurors (http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/03/16/blake.case/index.html)
I saw the video of Blake's reaction, and it almost made my cry. He looked totally sincere and grateful. Remember O.J. Simipson's acquittal reaction? He looked like he just won a football game.
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: SiliasRuby on March 17, 2005, 10:24:19 PM
Quote from: Jeremy Blackman
I saw the video of Blake's reaction, and it almost made my cry. He looked totally sincere and grateful. Remember O.J. Simipson's acquittal reaction? He looked like he just won a football game.
I saw it live and you're right he was sincere. I found the expression, whether it was genuine or not, to be slightly haunting.
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: MacGuffin on March 17, 2005, 11:47:06 PM
From Dugpa.com:

Actor Robert Blake Found Not Guilty = Good News for Lost Highway DVD

Yesterday, actor Robert Blake was found not guilty of the murder of Bonny Lee Bakley. Rumor in Hollywood was that Universal was holding back the Lost Highway DVD release until the murder trial blew over fearing bad press for releasing a gilm which depicts Blake in a unsavory role. My guess is that we will see the release this year right around the time of the Dune DVD, which will likely appear Q4 of this year.
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: mogwai on August 19, 2005, 11:46:13 AM
MK2 will be releasing a newly re-mastered Special Edition DVD of Lost Highway in France scheduled for release later this year. Extras to include a brand new interview with David Lynch.
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: MacGuffin on September 28, 2005, 01:37:38 PM
Industrial Symphony #1 May Get a DVD Release With Lost Highway

MK2 in France will be releasing a brand new remastered R2 two DVD set of Lost Highway on November 23. The details have not been confirmed yet, but sources say one of the included extras may indeed be Industrial Symphony #1! This would mark the first official DVD release of this concert anywhere in the world. Other tenative extras are a 15 minute making of, interviews with Barry Gifford, David Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti, and the theatrical trailer. Lost Highway itself will be presented in a transfer taken from a new high definition master with both Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1 audio. Again, these details are only tenative, nothing official has been announced yet. So don't get your hopes up yet. But even without IS1, the specs of the new disc are pretty impressive.
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: Brazoliange on September 28, 2005, 09:58:24 PM
this is the best news I've heard in ages
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: MacGuffin on October 06, 2005, 01:29:34 PM
Lost Highway Region 2 Final Specs from MK2 and No Industrial Symphony

It appears that MK2 has released the final Specs for the Lost Highway DVD. Although Industrial Symphony was dropped from the release specs, this DVD will be the best that Lost Highway has ever looked or sounded. Apparently there were some problems securing the rights to Industrial Symphony. Along with a new HD Transfer of the film and the original 5.1 mix transfered in DTS, below are the details on the 2nd bonus materials disc from dvdrama.com:
 
New interview with David Lynch from 2005 (16 mn)
Making-of (10 mn)
Interview with David Lynch when the movie came out (5 mn)
Interview with Bill Pullman (4 mn)
Interview with Patricia Arquette (4 mn)
Interview with Robert Loggia (3 mn)
EPK (Electronic Press Kit) (7 mn)
Trailer (3 mn)
Booklet
 
The release will also come with a limited edition hologram cover. Cover art below:
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fdugpa.com%2Fpics%2Flosthighwayz2collhd.jpg&hash=114779325f22edfb632f20f2ce27219fca8d32ce)
Title: Lost Highway
Post by: modage on October 06, 2005, 02:04:47 PM
OVER 52 MINUTES OF EXTRA FEATURES!
Title: Re: Lost Highway
Post by: SiliasRuby on May 20, 2006, 02:38:02 AM
Saw the MK2 version Thursday Night at film society night at my film school.
This was the 6th time I've seen this movie and it really gets better each time. It's the most viseral experience I've ever had with a Lynch film so far. I LOVE the experience of this whole film, and for those who want to purchase this version don't click on the extra that says "O.J. Simpson" unless you want the whole film completely spoiled for you. So, ya, just a warning. I have tried to forget I even watched that extra featurette. But the transfer is spectacular and it really can't get any better. Hopefully, they will bring more extras to the region 1, if it ever comes out.
Title: Re: Lost Highway
Post by: Pubrick on May 20, 2006, 03:24:24 AM
Quote from: SiliasRuby on May 20, 2006, 02:38:02 AM
and for those who want to purchase this version don't click on the extra that says "O.J. Simpson" unless you want the whole film completely spoiled for you.
more advice to ppl: you shouldn't be watching extras until you've seen the film anyway.
Title: Re: Lost Highway
Post by: modage on January 22, 2007, 04:22:02 PM
45 minute audio interview with David Lynch at the Museum Of The Moving Image around the release of Lost Highway...

David Lynch - February 16, 1997
"Jimmy Stewart on Mars" was how Mel Brooks, who produced The Elephant Man, described David Lynch. The collision between the quotidian and the dreamlike has been Lynch's key theme, from the suburban nightmares of Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks to the noir netherworlds of Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive. In this discussion, just before the 1997 release of Lost Highway, Lynch demonstrates his aversion to interpretation, preferring to let viewers take what they will from the mood and texture of his films. He reveals his method of working by instinct and embracing the role of chance in his creative process.

http://www.movingimage.us/pinewood/mp3.php?media_id=204
Title: Re: Lost Highway
Post by: MacGuffin on January 25, 2007, 12:11:49 PM
Lost Highway US DVD Comments at INLAND EMPIRE Austin Premiere

At the Austin Q&A session, Lynch said that the DVD was "ready to go" but Universal was sitting on it and not making it a priority. He asked people to write Universal and ask them to release the DVD. You can do so by clicking here (http://www.universalstudios.com/homepage/html/contact_us/contact_form.cgi?email_id=10).
Title: Re: Lost Highway
Post by: matt35mm on January 25, 2007, 01:04:05 PM
Oh, he said that about a year ago at the UC-Irvine talk on Transcendental Meditation.

If nothing's changed in the past year...
Title: Re: Lost Highway
Post by: RegularKarate on January 25, 2007, 04:39:12 PM
Quote from: MacGuffin on January 25, 2007, 12:11:49 PM
Lost Highway US DVD Comments at INLAND EMPIRE Austin Premiere

At the Austin Q&A session, Lynch said that the DVD was "ready to go" but Universal was sitting on it and not making it a priority. He asked people to write Universal and ask them to release the DVD. You can do so by clicking here (http://www.universalstudios.com/homepage/html/contact_us/contact_form.cgi?email_id=10).


First he just answered "August", then waited for everyone to get the joke.
Title: Re: Lost Highway
Post by: MacGuffin on February 10, 2007, 02:29:49 PM
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.calendarlive.com%2Fmedia%2Fphoto%2F2007-02%2F27836014.jpg&hash=d31f4626459eb9682116c0b928a76d701c864dcd)

'Lost Highway': New places to explore
The U.S. takes its first trip on a road rerouted through the twists of an eerie, hallucinatory David Lynch film.
Source: Los Angeles Times

OBERLIN, OHIO — Thirty miles west of Cleveland, Oberlin is not Twin Peaks. But the joe's serviceable, the doughnuts are superb and this sleepy, currently snow-covered college town has just enough alternate-universe feel, with its old-time sweet shops and 1960s prices, that David Lynch might approve of it. It also has the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, which has long spilled major performers and composers onto the American scene.

Thursday night, the conservatory and alternate universe came together as the Lynch-pin for the U.S. premiere of a recent opera based on the filmmaker's 1997 feature, "Lost Highway." Olga Neuwirth, a 38-year-old Austrian, is the composer. She fashioned a libretto with the Austrian novelist and winner of the 2004 Nobel Prize, Elfriede Jelinek. A deep, disturbing film has met its operatic match.

In "Lost Highway," Lynch, who wrote the film with novelist Barry Gifford, observes a musician's collapse. A hot jazz saxophonist married to an inaccessible, beautiful brunet suffers icy sex and enters a world of dread. Lynch looks on as that world turns strange yet remains real.

We are in and out of Fred Madison's mind. He doesn't know whether he kills Renee or not, and we don't know either. He is sentenced to death but outwits the executioner by becoming someone else. Fred's fantasy is Pete, a young mechanic. Renee is now Alice, blond temptress and porn-king Mr. Eddy's girl (both are played by Patricia Arquette in the film). Sex heats up; so does violence; so does the mystery. A weirdo, played by Robert Blake and straight out of Twin Peaks, stops "Lost Highway" from making sense. Pete murders Mr. Eddy, and his mind dissolves in his escape as he flees at high speed, lost on the highway.

Lynch's genius is to create startlingly beautiful two-dimensional surfaces full of clues to the ineffable strangeness underneath them. You know something's there; you just don't know what it is. Angelo Badalamenti's score undulates like waves along this secretive surface.

Neuwirth, however, takes the plunge. One of the leading young-generation composers in Europe and one of the most fearless, she finds what is really going on with these people. She adds texture and emotional activity. She is just as weird as Lynch but in a different way.

The opera, which had its premiere in Graz, Austria, in 2003, follows the film closely. Jelinek, who is best known for the novel "The Piano Teacher," has a talent for getting the greatest amount of debasement from the shortest sentences. She retains Lynch and Gifford's dialogue but reduces an already laconic text to its essence. Neuwirth then fills the aural space with commotion.

Her musical style has many facets. She has a way with electronics, and the score for "Lost Highway" is full of extraordinary acoustical effects. The orchestra is a percussion-rich chamber ensemble enhanced by solo accordion, keyboard, trombone, clarinet, saxophone and electric guitar.

Live instruments are used straight but also have their sounds manipulated in real time. Prerecorded music can be added to the mix. Sometimes you can tell what is what, and sometimes you can't. The ear connects but remains unsure.

The score is built of layers and loops. Often, different things happen at once. The musical materials can come from anywhere. Miles and Monteverdi are part of the mix. But the larger musical gestures are more intellectually complex, with the wealth of European new-music techniques at Neuwirth's disposal. The result is a rich mix and an invitation to many listenings.

In the first part of the opera, the singers mostly speak their lines with little inflection. They are, like the characters in the film, distant and abstract. The orchestra, though, expresses confusion, and the confusion ultimately takes over.

Music eventually infects the characters, as speech becomes inflected and turns into elaborate song. Electronics make crazy-mad Mr. Eddy scarier than ever. By the end, electronics dissolve everything. Fred emerges from a drone and returns to it; sanity and madness have the same source.

As in the film, Renee/Alice is a single role. For Lynch, she is the unknowable, seriously intimidating feminine ideal, too beautiful to approach, let alone own. She is all body, all physical substance. Fred, the musician, is all mind (and sound), but without substance, he cannot withstand physical reality.

Neuwirth turns Fred into a trumpet player (her instrument) and writes fabulously for brass. But her main invention is to, so to speak, flesh out Renee/Alice, to give her all the qualities of a true operatic femme fatale. She becomes not just an object of lust but a personification of lust. In the film, her beauty makes her desirable and elusive. In the opera, she has a soul, and that becomes the more arresting source of her sexual power.

Perhaps a woman should stage "Lost Highway." That was not the case at Oberlin, but the performance in Finney Chapel was a remarkable achievement for undergraduates. Jonathon Field's production, presented in front of a scrim and using video projections, never strayed far from the film or its ideas and sometimes seemed a slave to them. That reportedly was the case with the original production in Graz as well.

The performers — Alice Teyssier (Renee/Alice), Barry Bryan (Fred), Michael Weyandt (Pete), Raphael Sacks (Mr. Eddy), Chad Grossman (Mystery Man) — made the extra effort but were apparently asked to tone down their natural sex appeal. The conductor, Timothy Weiss, also toned down a bit of the electronics, but he conducted a musically solid performance.

"Lost Highway" needs more than a college can give it, but what could be scarier to American opera companies than exposing their audiences to Hollywood's darkest side, further darkened and deepened by a provocative young Austrian woman? Oberlin deserves credit not only for taking on this daunting task but also for making sure America notices. The production travels to Columbia University's Miller Theater in New York later this month.

A liberated "Lost Highway" yet awaits. Maybe that will be the case when the English National Opera gives its London premiere next season.
Title: Re: Lost Highway
Post by: MacGuffin on December 12, 2007, 12:50:34 AM
Universal Announces Lost Highway on DVD in 2008

According to DVDActive and DVD Times, Universal has announced the release of Lost Highway on DVD for a March 5th 2008 release. So far, extras include a 10-Part Multi-Angle Interview with David Lynch. This may be the same interview on the MK2 DVD. More details as they come.

http://www.dvdactive.com/news/releases/lost-highway.html

http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=66514
Title: Re: Lost Highway
Post by: picolas on December 12, 2007, 03:31:22 PM
YES
Title: Re: Lost Highway
Post by: edison on December 12, 2007, 04:23:39 PM
Where's Neon? probably passed out somewhere from this news

(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg57.imageshack.us%2Fimg57%2F3659%2Flosthighwayr1artpicbg0.jpg&hash=c197a6c76e8725b3ed4526ce4fd0bd891eb1a89e)
Title: Re: Lost Highway
Post by: NEON MERCURY on December 14, 2007, 11:37:37 PM
:yabbse-grin:  i just recovered!!

this is awesome!  it has been an incredible time for lynch fans with INLAND EMPIRE (which i promise to finish my review), twin peaks, and now lost highway...which is a complete masterpeice in every way.  finally, i can toss the old widescreen vhs copy.  wonder when i can get lynch media in high def?  to finally complete the puzzle we still need those fwwm deleted scenes.
Title: Re: Lost Highway
Post by: MacGuffin on March 19, 2008, 05:37:47 PM
DVD Beaver's review:

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/FILM/DVDReview/losthighwayr4.htm
Title: Re: Lost Highway
Post by: ono on April 28, 2010, 05:39:33 PM
One of the many DVDs I bought thanks to Hollywood Video going under was this one.  Thought I'd give it another go since last time I was underwhelmed.  What strikes me now is how nihilistic and straightforward most of Lynch's films are, you know, underneath all the obfuscation.

Spoilers and stuff.  I like his language now, 'cause he doesn't come right out and say it, something I demanded way too much of last time around.  And this... this is truly one of the creepiest, most unnerving films I've seen.  At times Mulholland Drive played like horror -- imagine if Lynch went all out in that respect.  For someone as amicable as he is in interviews, he's really, well, as I said, dark.  Blue Velvet, another film I revisited, ended on an up note.  Crazy, for what had just transpired.  And it was basically just a "guy-gets-in-over-his-head" mystery done more stylistically than anyone else ever had.

But I digress.  I think my objections at first were how we had no entry point.  The protagonists were both pretty cold, making it hard for viewers to form a bond and care.  Not always necessary, fine.  The gist of the flick is straightforward though.  This guy is in denial and rage about his wife cheating.  He hates videotape (says he likes to remember things his own way) -- manifested with the taunting, haunting tapes he receives and the interactions with the mystery man, and can never have the woman he loves -- chances back to himself the moment he hears her whisper it to him when they're cavorting in the desert.  So, just as in Mulholland Drive, half the movie is a predeath dream/fantasy, in this flick, the middle is the what-if of a maybe younger/alternate reality protagonist just as he's about to meet death.  Note the convulsions, of course, as he speeds down the highway in the film's final shot.  And is that music that plays over the final credits great or what?

I don't know what to make of the imploding cabin other than it's one of the most indelible images I've ever seen in film.  Lynch sure has a way of taking ideas that could go horribly awry and making them work.

I don't know that I'm a convert.  I like my movies with a side of hope.  The Twin Peaks Pilot, which bored me to tears the first time around, will be revisited in due time.
Title: Re: Lost Highway
Post by: MacGuffin on May 16, 2013, 06:37:50 PM
Traveling Back Down David Lynch's 'Lost Highway'
By Hillary Weston, Black Book

One morning, David Lynch awoke to hear his intercom buzzing. A man's voice on the other end spoke, referring to him as "Dave." Lynch answered, "Yeah?" and the man said, "Dick Laurent is dead." Lynch said, "What?" but there was no one at the door. And he'd never heard of a Dick Laurent. He looked out to the large window on the other side of his house by the door, but again, no one there.

A typical morning for the man who has provided us with some of the most powerfully psychological fright and pleasure? Maybe. An inspiration for one of his greatest films? Definitely. If a Lynchian universe all exists within the mind, somewhere between waking and consciousness, Lost Highway is that moment in a nightmare where your body begins to panic, knowing this is not quite reality but you're stuck, you cannot wake yourself up and in dreams you must visualize physically prying your eyes open and screaming aloud in order to escape.

Beginning with the inky black night, speeding down the highway with nothing around save the absolute black, we're immediately given a sense of severe anxiety, which only unravels into complete mental collapse as the film progresses. Very loosely, Lost Highway tells the story of a bizarre encounter at party sparks a jazz saxophonist being framed for the murder  of his wife and is sent to prison where he morphs into a young mechanic and begins a new life.

In an article that continues to be my favorite piece of journalistic film writing, David Foster Wallace visited the set of Lost Highway in 1996, and after giving his famous academic definition of just what "Lynchian" is,  he discusses what different members of the crew and production staff—"some of whom have been to film school"—have to say about the Lost Highway:

DAVID'S IDEA is to do this, like, dystopian vision of L.A. You could do a dystopic vision of New York, but who'd care? New York's been done before."

"If s about deformity. Remember Eraserhead? This guy's going to be the ultimate Penishead."

"I'm sure not going to go see it, I know that."

"This is a movie that explores psychosis subjectively."

"It's some reflection on society as he sees it."

"This is his territory. This is him taking us deeper into a space he's already carved out in previous work-subjectivity and psychosis."

"He's doing a Diane Arbus number on L.A., showing the, like, slimy undersection of a dream city. Chinatown did it, but it did it in a historical way, as a type of noir history. David's film's about madness; it's subjective, not historical." " It , s like, if you're a doctor or a nurse, are you going to go buy tickets to see an operation for fun in your spare time, when you're done working?"

"This film represents schizophrenia performatively, not just representationally. This is done in terms of loosening of identity, ontology, and continuity in time."

"Let me just say I have utmost respect-for David, for the industry, for what David means to this industry. Let me say I'm excited. That I'm thrilled and have the utmost respect."

"It's a specialty film. Like 7he Piano, say. It's not going to open in a thousand theaters."

"Utmost is one word. There is no hyphen in utmost."

"It's about L.A. as hell. This is not unrealistic, if you want my opinion."

"It's a product like any other in a business like any other."

"David is the Id of the Now. If you quote me, say I quipped it. Say ' "David is the Id of the Now," quipped______, who is the film's_____.

David, as an artist, makes his own choices about what he wants. He makes a film when he feels he has something to say. Some are perceived as better
than others. David does not look at this as his area of concern."

"He's a genius; you have to understand that. He's not like you and me."

"The head-changes are being done with makeup and lights. No CGIs." (21 'Computer-generated images,' as in Jumanii).

"Read City of Quartz. That's what this film's about right there in a nutshell."

"Some of them were talking about Hegel, whatever the hell that means."

"Let me just say I hope you're not planning to compromise him or us or the film in any way."

He then goes on to describe what Lynch seems to want from his audience:

David Lynch's movies are often described as occupying a kind of middle ground between art film and commercial film. But what they really occupy is a whole third kind of territory. Most of Lynch's best films don't really have much of a point, and in lots of ways they seem to resist the film-interpretative process by which movies' (certainly avant-garde movies') central points are understood. This is something the British critic Paul Taylor seems to get at when he says that Lynch's movies are "to be experienced rather than explained." Lynch's movies are indeed susceptible to a variety of sophisticated interpretations, but it would be a serious mistake to conclude from this that his movies point at the too-facile summation that "film interpretation is necessarily multivalent" or something-they're just not that kind of movie. Nor are they seductive, though, at least in the commercial sense of being comfortable or linear or High Concept or "feel-good." You almost never from a Lynch movie get the sense that the point is to "entertain" you, and never that the point is to get you to fork over money to see it. This is one of the unsettling things about a Lynch movie: You don't feel like you're entering into any of the standard unspoken and/or unconscious contracts you normally enter into with other kinds of movies. This is unsettling because in the absence of such an unconscious contract we lose some of the psychic protections we normally (and necessarily) bring to bear on a medium as powerful as film. That is, if we know on some level what a movie wants from us, we can erect certain internal defenses that let us choose how much of ourselves we give away to it. The absence of point or recognizable agenda in Lynch's films, though, strips these subliminal defenses and lets Lynch get inside your head in a way movies normally don't. This is why his best films' effects are often so emotional and nightmarish. (We're defenseless in our dreams too.)

This may in fact be Lynch's true and only agenda-just to get inside your head. He seems to care more about penetrating your head than about what he does once he's in there. Is this good art? It's hard to say. It seems-once again-either ingenuous or psychopathic. It sure is different, anyway.

And today, fantastic film blog Cinephilia and Beyond posted about Lost Highway, sighting Wallace's first encounter with Lynch—and naturally he was of course peeing on a tree:

This is on 8 January in L.A.'s Griffith Park, where some of Lost Highway's exteriors and driving scenes are being shot. He is standing in the bristly underbrush off the dirt road between the base camp's trailers and the set, peeing on a stunted pine. Mr. David Lynch, a prodigious coffee drinker, apparently pees hard and often, and neither he nor the production can afford the time it'd take to run down the base camp's long line of trailers to the trailer where the bathrooms are every time he needs to pee. So my first (and generally representative) sight of Lynch is from the back, and (understandably) from a distance. Lost Highway's cast and crew pretty much ignore Lynch's urinating in public, (though I never did see anybody else relieving themselves on the set again, Lynch really was exponentially busier than everybody else.) and they ignore it in a relaxed rather than a tense or uncomfortable way, sort of the way you'd ignore a child's alfresco peeing.

And for more on the one film that has managed to frighten me more than quite possibly anything else, check out Lynch's interview with Rolling Stone in 1997, thanks to C&B. Also, let's just listen to some of the killer soundtrack for the film, featuring everyone from Angelo Badalamenti to Trent Reznor and Marilyn Manson and Lou Reed.
Title: Re: Lost Highway
Post by: SamFZGames on January 17, 2014, 05:29:08 PM
(Here I am, digging up another old topic, I hope I spark some more discussion rather than end up just bumping it to the top with no replies...)

I love Lost Highway. Mulholland Drive is still my favourite, but I think Lost Highway is equally as lucid and explainable. The UK Blu-Ray has the biggest clue on the back. The synopsis reads:

"A psychogenic fugue."

That's it. And that sums up the entire movie. Fred creates a whole new reality and identity in his mind to run away from what he has done. Even a lot of the stuff before he is arrested is inside his own head too, the videos being his memories of the real world (Fred says he hates cameras because he likes to remember things "his own way", and in his fugue state, videos are how his true memories are presented).

Really, I think there's no arguing with that theory, it fits perfectly and the film works well with it. On top of that, and Barry Gifford has even confirmed the fact that it is about Fred's fugue state.

The ending is super cool in how ambiguous it is though. Is he trying another new reality/personality? Or is he being executed in the electric chair? I very much believe in the latter, particularly with some of the deleted scenes.

Man, cool movie :D
Title: Re: Lost Highway
Post by: Sleepless on January 20, 2014, 09:26:25 AM
This has possibly been covered earlier in the thread, but "a psychogenic fugue" is how Lynch has often described the film. The musical definition of fugue is relevant here: "a fugue is a contrapuntal compositional technique in two or more voices, built on a subject (theme) that is introduced at the beginning in imitation (repetition at different pitches) and recurs frequently in the course of the composition. [...] A fugue usually has three sections: an exposition, a development, and a recapitulation containing the return of the subject in the fugue's tonic key, though not all fugues have a recapitulation. [...] Most fugues open with a short main theme, the subject, which then sounds successively in each voice (after the first voice is finished stating the subject, a second voice repeats the subject at a different pitch, and other voices repeat in the same way); when each voice has entered, the exposition is complete. This is often followed by a connecting passage, or episode, developed from previously heard material; further "entries" of the subject then are heard in related keys. Episodes (if applicable) and entries are usually alternated until the "final entry" of the subject, by which point the music has returned to the opening key, or tonic, which is often followed by closing material, the coda. In this sense, a fugue is a style of composition, rather than a fixed structure."
Title: Re: Lost Highway
Post by: SamFZGames on January 22, 2014, 03:21:26 PM
Cool! :-) A psychogenic fugue (now mostly known as a fugue state) in psychology is very much what Lost Highway is too. A person "blacks out", forgets who they are and often creates a new identity, but it tends to be temporary.
Title: Re: Lost Highway
Post by: Sleepless on January 22, 2014, 03:31:20 PM
I think we've all seen Breaking Bad here ;)
Title: Re: Lost Highway
Post by: SamFZGames on January 29, 2014, 08:10:00 AM
Oh hey, that's right! That was his excuse for "where he was" early on, yes? Damn, I almost forgot about that!
Title: Re: Lost Highway
Post by: wilder on April 05, 2019, 06:16:45 PM
Coming to blu-ray from Kino on June 25, 2019
Title: Re: Lost Highway
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on March 03, 2022, 02:04:11 PM
https://twitter.com/dawnofthediscs/status/1499457012408762378