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March 28, 2024, 05:41:46 PM

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Lost Highway

Started by Dirty Boy, October 27, 2018, 05:37:13 PM

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Cottonon

QuoteI love the whole time loop/moebius strip thing and keep meaning to give Triangle a watch. Any recs for other decent films using this device would be most welcome ta.

Primer (2004) is a great 'dry' take on the genre.

Quote from: Dirty Boy on October 27, 2018, 05:37:13 PM

"We've met before, haven't we?"


Note unsettling eyebrowlessness reprised by Cowboy in Mullholland Drive.

Quote from: greenman on October 31, 2018, 11:43:28 AM
I would agree with you that the first 45 mins or so with Pullman's character are stronger than what follows(perhaps my favourite 45 mins of any Lynch film/show), at least until the last half hour or so builds back in the same kind of direction.

I suppose that 45 minutes really shows a different direction Lynch could have gone in, something more like tense, focused, suspense-filled TV horror-drama, and less like Inland Empire. It'd actually work as a standalone thing, if it ended at the point where Pullman's face starts shaking.


Quote from: Sean Ymphs on October 30, 2018, 02:11:28 AM

Here is a video that suggests that a lot of Lost Highway is itself a reaction to films by Tarantino and in particular Oliver Stone that Lynch felt had ripped him off:

(NSFW) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAi2ehBBw7M


Weird! Didn't sound that likely, but that video does make me wonder! Wild at Heart does feel proto-Tarantino in it's use of pop-culture, but not in a good way, especially. I think True Romance uses the idea of Elvis in a much funnier way.

Quote from: greenman on October 31, 2018, 11:43:28 AM
I would agree with you that the first 45 mins or so with Pullman's character are stronger than what follows(perhaps my favourite 45 mins of any Lynch film/show), at least until the last half hour or so builds back in the same kind of direction.

Agree with that, the first third of the film (up until the transformation) is my favourite part of any Lynch film. I watched it at the cinema when it was first released and nearly had to leave, as I got a flurry of stress-related extra systolic palpitations. The creepily un-naturalistic acting performances, brooding sound design, the slow unravelling of the videos - each one more intrusive- tracking shots down murky corridors, the telephone call with the mystery man - ticks all of my Lynch boxes. It really seems to lose shape in the second half though, despite some great moments ("You'll never have me!") and the his use of music in the second 2/3rds seems clunky.

greenman

I spose you could argue its really the nature of the film that the opening hits so hard where as what follows naturally drops back a bit in intensity at first. You do obviously I'd say see a shift in style as well more towards Lynch's dreamlike fantasy with its over the top take on reality and music to match.

Again for me it feels like this and Mulholland and really Lynch in command on that kind of style putting it towards a very definite end.

grassbath

Quote from: Astronaut Omens on October 31, 2018, 12:31:10 AM
Lost Highway and Wild at Heart are the only films of Lynch's where he's striving for effect a bit, and not really in control of the ideas

Gotta say that I agree with this. Have put LH on my to-rewatch list, though.

chveik


Really didn't like it the first time I saw it, because of an unforced error on my part: it simply wasn't what I was expecting. It wasn't because it was confusing, it just seemed very misanthropic in a very uninviting way. Now, of course, I think it's one of his greatest. He'd started really audience-baiting in earnest with Fire Walk With Me which has a sort of tone of "You want to know what happened to Laura? Well here it fucking is, and you're going to feel every minute." and Lost Highway kind of carries that on with not really allowing you to ever feel comfortable.

Bhazor

Well just finished the rewatch. Still don't like it. I think the claim its trying too hard is fitting. Especially the music, I had a full body cringe at the Marilyn Manson cover. Theres also some really awful generic scare chords in there. While his best films are timeless or even prescient Lost Highways feels like a film of its time.

Another problem for me was both leading actors are just kind of flat compared to Lynch's usual leads. Say what you like about Wild at Heart but you could never accuse Nic Cage of being self conscious.

I know I'm probably missing a ton of depth and meaning and whatever but unlike Mullholland Drive or Eraser Head I just didn't enjoy it enough as a film to sit down and dissect it. I was the same with Inland Empire.

greenman

Again I tend to think its the lynch film(well perhaps Straight Story) were he's most focused on atmosphere rather than more flamboyant performances, its really only Loggia and Blake who are playing it larger than life and I think the former is perhaps the films only significant misstep for me in that tailgating scene that feels undeeded.

You could argue its also the least one of the least surreal lynch films, bar the tailgating scene it stays rather more down to earth and the second half with Getty I think gives rather more subtle hints at its fantasy nature with things like the Manson song that does IMHO actually fit pretty well however unhip it might be viewed as.


Thursday

I think that's why I might have been a bit disappointed with it actually, something about the title, I think I'd seen the  Mystery Man scene beforehand suggested a more surrealist Lynch film than it delivered.

BlodwynPig

Go back to 1997 and watch it properly.