A Key... Don't Read Unless You Want to Know
I can't believe how skimpy IMDb is on archiving posts. Most of the current discussions on the Lost Highway board have been hashed out years ago... but, I suppose that keeps things crankin' along.
So, the following is not new, it's just well-seasoned, and, as far as I'm concerned, does a pretty good job of presenting the actual "straight story" of Lost Highway. If you just watch the pictures and let yourself absorb what you see, I'm pretty sure this is what you'll find.
"There is a key in the film as to its meaning."
-David Lynch on Lost Highway
May 21, 2006, about 3:00 a.m.--
This is almost too easy. I could get real elaborate, but it's late and I just want to get this down because otherwise I'll never get to sleep. Besides, I don't want to give it all away.
Just watch the film with the following thoughts in mind:
Fred is a murderer. He had Dick Laurent killed because Laurent was having an affair with his wife, and Laurent was also the kingpin of a crime syndicate that included a pornographic film business, which used Fred's wife Renee in some of his films.
Why would anyone give Fred a message that "Dick Laurent is dead?" Because Fred needed to know this since he's the one who paid to have Laurent killed.
Andy killed Renee--or was at least an accomplice in bringing about her death. Why'd they kill Renee? Because they worked for Laurent and Fred had had Laurent killed.
The beginning of the film is pretty much straight depictions of actual events. Each tape delivered shows more of the house. What's the message being sent? "We're watching you." Why send this message? Laurent's loyal henchmen want Fred and Renee to call the cops to watch their house.
Why would the gang want surveillance on Fred's house? Because they're going to set him up to get caught "red-handed."
When Fred goes to play sax at night, Renee stays home. She's not just goofing off, though, she has a job. Andy has her starring in a new porn film, to be shot in Fred's "sound-proof studio." She has probably been doing these films for some time. Cute bit here--Fred plays sax, Renee plays sex.
They actually do make a film, but not the one Renee was expecting. They kill her and wait for Fred to come home. Then they film him discovering the body. Fred promptly goes bonkers (or goes into a "fugue state" if you prefer) after he sees the body. He doesn't know he's been filmed. He doesn't even remember seeing the body. He doesn't want to remember. This is his "madness" of denial.
They send Fred the tape of him with the body. All the earlier "surveillance" scenes are also on this tape. The scene with Fred standing in the carnage is the Big Finish. Fred is faced with the "evidence" of what he has seen, but he doesn't remember witnessing it. The video of the dismembered body does not show Fred killing Renee. It shows him finding the pieces of her corpse. He looks pretty upset about it.
I think the cops come to the house while Fred is watching the tape. Either that or he brings them the tape after he sees it. He says "tell me I didn't do it" because he really doesn't know. The line is also important because in a way he "did it," since by killing Laurent he brought on the murder of Renee as retaliation.
Fred gets convicted of the murder and is imprisoned, presumably on death row.
While on death row, he is tormented by his inability to figure out what exactly happened to Renee. He still thinks he might have killed her, but he doesn't know for sure. "Could it have been me?" he wonders. If it was someone else, he probably suspects why they killed her--but he suppresses this thought, because either way, he would be responsible. He’s so distraught he has terrible headaches and can’t sleep.
The prison doctor gives Fred a strong sleeping pill and tells him "You'll sleep now." And Fred does. He has a dream.
Mulholland Dr Spoiler Alert
Unlike Mulholland Dr, where the film begins with the dream, Lost Highway's dream sequence begins later in the film. Interesting that, in Mulholland Dr we're told exactly when the dream ends--the Cowboy tells Diane "it's time to wake up." In "Lost Highway" we're told exactly when the dream starts, the doctor tells Fred "You'll sleep now."
In Fred's dream, he wakes up in prison and is a different person. He gets out. He is now a capable young man who can go get revenge. He realizes in the dream how Renee was killed, and who did it. His dream self goes out with his "spirit guide" Alice, the re-incarnation of Renee, to kill Andy. She not only takes him to Andy, she also becomes his lover again and shows him where she, as Renee, had her liaisons with Laurent--at the Lost Highway hotel.
Alice has to leave, though. She tells Fred's dream-self that he'll never have her. Of course not, she's a phantom. The main wish-fulfillment of the dream goes sour and Fred turns back into his sorry old self, but his quest for answers continues. He finds Mystery Man in the same cabin where Alice disappeared. Mystery man is now his "sprit guide" in the dream. Mystery Man shows Fred how and where Laurent died. He even points out that Fred really killed Laurent, even though it was murder for hire.
How does the Mystery Man know this? Because he killed Laurent.
Fred hired Mystery Man for the hit on Laurent. Mystery Man is an accomplished assassin. "In the East, the Far East..." Fred doesn't know his name, of course. Hit men don't tell you their name.
In his dream, Fred goes back to his house and announces to himself that Dick Laurent is dead. His subconscious is telling him that he is a killer, and he must take responsibility. It's a double-edged sword. He got that bastard Laurent, but he also caused his own wife's death.
Back in the beginning of the film, it was Mystery Man who reported to Fred that Dick Laurent was dead. The job was done, and presumably he wanted to get paid whatever the agreed-upon completion fee was.
Fred winds up on the Lost Highway at the end of his dream, because his subconscious is telling him that his plan for revenge has come to nothing but endless pain. He screams and the light comes up. Fred is about to wake up back in his prison cell, screaming in agony.
“But keys are weird. There are surface keys, and there are deeper keys. Intellectual thinking leaves you high and dry sometimes. Intuitive thinking where you get a marriage of feelings and intellect lets you feel the answers where you may not be able to articulate them.”
-David Lynch on Lost Highway
So, the key is not the whole answer. The rest of the film's symbolism and meaning are "felt." But the key is important to beginning to understand.
(I wrote this over seven years ago now, and nothing I have seen since has changed my mind about the actual story line of Lost Highway. The symbols are still there for the current and future geniuses to figure out, in discussions that I'm afraid are endless, as Lynch intended.)
"I rarely agree 100% with anybody on anything. Not even myself." GS