lost highway

so i stayed up way too late last night watching movies on IFC (independent film channel; no commercials, uncut/edited), and as i'm ready to head to bed, 'lost highway' is in queue. i haven't seen this movie in *years* (i don't rent movies; haven't in almost five years, but really, i should just own this one.); and the last couple of attempts at watching were weak, at best.

the first time i watched this movie was in the company of someone i was totally preoccupied with, and it was but a couple glasses of wine and half an hour or so until the movie was of no interest, despite the surreal nature (thanks to david lynch), and the strange tension throughout. the next day, when i had no distractions, i watched it again, but it made no sense. david lynch is either ridiculously brilliant, or out of his fucking gourd. in any event, i didn't fully understand the gist, and dismissed it as pseudointellectual snobbery.

a few years later, i tried to watch it again, but the company i was with this time wasn't right for the viewing. poor viewing company can really affect your interpretation of a movie, and once again, i was floating about with no solid concept of the movie, other than this dichotomy/duality and a bizarre transformation. (that, and a pleasant soundtrack, with cameos by well-recognized faces)

so last night was the crux of my viewing, and i still came away with a question mark over my head, but a bit smaller. i got the plot, i think patricia arquette is smokin' hot in the movie, the mystery man is creepy as all getup, and the soundtrack i have owned for many years. (it was my introduction to stan getz/ joao gilbert, and rammstein. go figure)

what i didn't understand was the transformation. why it happened. so i decided to do a little research, and came upon this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Highway

the rundown on the plot is written as if the person is watching and writing, so you get the general idea of the plot, but what stood out to me was the section called 'psychogenic fugue'. firstly, i love the words paired together, and have run into the word 'fugue' in recent weeks. there's a theme, i suppose. the description of 'psychogenic fugue' was this:

During the filming of Lost Highway, Deborah Wuliger, the unit publicist, came upon the idea of a psychogenic fugue which Lynch and Gifford subsequently incorporated into the film. They defined it thus: "The person suffering from it creates in their mind a completely new identity, new friends, new home, new everything—they forget their past identity." In addition to being a mental condition, Lynch also discovered^{[citation needed]} that a fugue was also a musical term. "A fugue starts off one way, takes up on another direction, and then comes back to the original, so it [relates] to the form of the film."

Gifford took the idea of a psychogenic fugue and ran with it. "This was something I researched with a clinical psychologist at Stanford, so we had some basis in fact here. After we found that freedom, more or less it was just a matter of creating this surreal, fantastic world that Fred Madison lives in when he becomes Peter Dayton." Gifford has elaborated further on this theory in interviews, stating, "The basic thing I can tell you is that Fred Madison creates this counter world and goes into it, because the crime he has committed is so terrible that he can't face it. This fugue state allows him to create a fantasy world, but within this fantasy world, the same problems occur. In other words, he's no better at maintaining this relationship, dealing with or controlling this woman, than he was in his real life. The woman isn't who he thinks she is, really, so all the so-called facts of his known life with Renee pop up again in Alice Wakefield." (cut from wikipedia)

at that particular moment, the movie finally became coherent to me. and i also realized that i'm more interested in finding out what causes a person to create something; what their motivation/inspiration/frame of reference is, in order to understand the actual body of work. i thought about this in relation to books i've not yet read but hold interest in (anything hemingway, for example). i don't normally watch the 'behind the scenes' footage at the end of a movie, but the 'big bang theory' of creation from an artist intrigues me.

knowing the basic premise for 'lost highway' and having seen it several times, i have to wonder: is david lynch a nutjob? is he wise beyond his years? am i overanalyzing?

i also wonder if artists/writers/directors intend for you to ask those questions, or if it's merely the way one interprets what they see.

too much thinking. not enough coffee.