MovieChat Forums > Lost Highway (1997) Discussion > How can we be sure of anything?

How can we be sure of anything?

posted 10 years ago by Erniesam
4 replies | jump to latest

Fred likes to remember things his own way, not necessarily how they actualy happened.

Practically the whole movie plays within Fred's own mind. The ONLY thing we realy can be sure of is that Fred is convicted and tried for the murder of his wife, because that segment plays out in reality.

We realy don't know WHY Fred killed his wife. Sure, we see him being jealous and thinking she has an affair. But did she realy? And was Fred indeed unable to sexualy satisfy her? The point is: these may be just excuses for Fred to justify his murder. By this I mean that he tries to diminish his guilt. We simply don't know what realy happened, but we DO know that we cannot trust Fred's own memory, because he himself says so.

I don't believe Fred killed Mr. Eddy / Dick Laurent for several reasons. In fact we cannot be sure Mr. Eddy / Dick Laurent even existed! He can simply be an excuse for Fred to justify his deed. The guards in the jailhouse refer to him as a wife killer, not as a serial killer. The cops confront Fred with the murder of his wife, not another murder.

So is there anything tangible for the viewer to go on?

[–] franzkabuki 10 years ago

"Sure, we see him being jealous and thinking she has an affair. But did she really?"

But does it really matter? It's enough that Fred clearly thought so - and it's only fitting that Fred would be impotent with her seemingly emotionally distant wife. I guess some things we just oughta take for granted - and the themes are laid out sharply enough, the main one amongst them being our male "heroes" inability to truly "have her".

"The guards in the jailhouse refer to him as a wife killer, not as a serial killer".

Well he wouldn't fall under the definition of a serial killer even if he did murder Laurent. And although it is indeed hard to tell whether or not Fred "actually" kill him, the act makes plenty of sense as a symbolic fantasy - bringing things to conclusion by slitting the throat of the threatening, dominating evil patriarch and vanishing down the lost highway.

"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan

[–] Erniesam 10 years ago

Agreed. It realy doesn't matter if it REALY happened, but the main point is that Fred himself BELIEVES it did. That's true. As you state it's about Fred unable to "have" Renee (like she says at the end). Maybe the depiction of impotency is a symbolic reflection of that. Fred not being able to sexually satisfy her as a foreboding image of him in reality not "having" his wife.

I agree with you also that the murder on Laurent does have symbolic meaning. The most important ones being the knife he is handed by Mystery Man and the fact that the latter murders him, not Fred himself. This suggests to me that Fred at that moment is still in denial (also symbolized by Marilyn Manson, suggesting it was not a man but a woman Fred has killed). Still, technically speaking it COULD be that Laurent realy existed and that Fred killed him. We just cannot be sure. I believe Laurent could have existed, but I find it hard to believe that Fred killed Laurent. It simply doesn't fit the narrative in my opinion.

As you state: it's hard to determine what realy happened and what not. This I find the beauty of this movie and of Lynch works in general.

[–] franzkabuki 10 years ago

I figure the downside of all the ambiguity large parts of the movie are shrouded in, that "it's hard to determine what really happened and what not", is that it also opens the door to a reading according to which Lynch is doing some major league moralizing here, making a point about extramarital affairs and pornography being "bad" or some such (of course, in Inland Empire, it's also an act of adultery that allows evil enter this world). I don't see why such a simplistic interpretation would be applied, but, alas, it's not off the table.

"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan

[–] Don_Cheech 9 years ago

I think it all really boils down to jealousy and paranoia. Others have brought up schizophrenia and the pills that were given to him by the doctor... Which we can assume are partially responsible for recreating himself as the young mechanic (delusion).

But going back to Lynch's motive of the film, I think it was to shed light on how crazy a woman can drive a man. He's clearly in love with his wife, but it's the jealousy and paranoia that puts him over the edge.