How wrong would it be to say that in some sense, these two movies are pretty much identical, at least thematically?
How silly am I for thinking I have a perfectly mundane and explicable explanation for all the weird goings on in both movies?
(Text within parentheses is a bit of a Spoiler: In Lost Highway, its kind of a waking dream brought about by the hypnotizing effect of the stripes on the highway combined with the guy’s immense psychological stress, and in Mulholland Drive, it’s the girl’s brain trying to make sense of what it is experiencing, in light of recent events, as a bullet rips it apart.)
I loved both movies. I actually liked LH better than MD, though apparently I am in the minority on that. But my point is, I don’t feel I’m “ruining” anything by having such a clear explanation in mind. But when I read, for example, Lynch’s own comments on the subject, he seems to eschew any such explanations.
I watch the movie and think these explanations are pretty clearly suggested. Then I read the director’s comments and he seems to be saying otherwise.
Lost Highway is difficult, if not impossible, to re-order the scenes in a chronological order.
That’s easier to do with Mullholland Drive; although it can be done in several ways, depending, for instance, on who is thought to be dreaming and interpretation of that blue box and the dualities on either side of it.I kinda think the blue box is a metaphor for Television
I’ve read an article comparing Lost Highway (which I unfortunately have been unable to see up to now) with Mulholland Drive, in a similar way as you do. I think I found it in the Mulholland Drive Yahoo group.
Thematically, I think they’re both about the desire to escape the consequences of one’s actions.
SPOILERS FOR BOTH FILMS
“LH” is about a man who may or may not have killed his wife, and his subsequent projection of his own humanity onto another person, the revival of his wife, the creation of malevolent figures (Mr. Eddie and the Robert Blake character) to compensate for the knowledge of what he’s done and to overlook his impending death. In “MD”, Diane remakes her life in the seconds before her death to escape her guilt.
I have an alternate explanation for “LH”, but it’s much more metaphysical and vague: basically, Bill Pullman is framed in a Kafkaesque way (he seems like a nice guy, what could he have done?) and in the last few minutes of the film, when he visits the house and says “Dick Laurant is dead”, he restarts the cycle. This leads to a nice mental image of a series of lost men speeding their way, in terror, along the highway to hell…
I like “MD” better, but it’s merely a personal preference: I think they’re equally intelligent and well-made, and they’ve both got absolutely beautiful moments (my favorites are the desert lovemaking scene in “LH” and the scene in “MD” where the women are taking the “shortcut” to the party, holding hands and smiling as HOLLYWOOD looms in the hills behind them. It’s a shame these movies aren’t better-known.
Am I the only person who wished MD had become the TV series it was intended to be and not the movie it became?
The whole idea of Hollywood being driven by a midget in a chair - the diner - the whole atmos was VERY Twin Peaks - but the ‘ending’ which was grafted onto it to make a film is a bit of a mish-mash IMHO
I think that the actual plots of David Lynch movies are less important than the odd abstractions of feeling that the films bring about in the viewer. That’s the real point.
But I also think that David Lynch always has a specific story that he tortures out into near incomprehensibility. That’s what makes them so fun to try and figure out.
And as well, even though there are plausible and mundane explanations for the films, Lynch usually employs otherworldly agents which may or may not actually exist. That’s a common them to LOST HIGHWAY and MULHOLLAND DRIVE and TWIN PEAKS as well.
Of those three, FIRE WALK WITH ME is my favorite. I kind of view MULHOLLAND DRIVE as a remix of all Lynch’s previous work. Themes and visual motifs repeat themselves (like the blue light on a red background).