BH - Lost Highway Deconstruction

BH - Lost Highway Deconstruction

Lost Highway (1997)

Dir: David Lynch
Budget: $15,000,000 
Gross: $3,796,699
BBFC rating: 18
IMDB Rating: 7.6/10

Lost Highway by David Lynch is a strong influence upon our film, it features a wide range of talents and techniques to create a prolonged sense of dread, that lasts throughout the film. 




The introduction opens with some titles in yellow font, over a scrolling road which lasts for 2 mins 13 seconds, and then opens into the films first scene, which is a close up of Bill Pullmans character smoking a cigarette in the dark at 2 mins 17 seconds, with only the cigarette lighting up the scene and only Bill Pullmans mouth and hand smoking visible. The screen fades out and then a mid-range/close up of Bill Pullman is shown while he smokes again, the smoke clinging to the air. 


At 2 mins 40 seconds the screen lights up again to show Bill Pullman clearly. 


However at 3 mins 5 seconds the door buzzer goes to indicate someone is at the door, the character gets up to listen to the message. 


At 3 mins 21, a close up of the door buzzer and the characters finger pressing 'LISTEN' is shown. Then at 3 mins 37, we hear an ominous voice saying "Dick Laurent is dead."


At 3 mins 33 seconds the the camera pulls out to a mid-shot, with the character silhouetted against the light, he then walks closer towards the camera and as he does so the camera pans to follow him, as he goes to a window to investigate who has left the message, in the background we can hear police sirens.


At 3 mins 56 seconds, the camera shifts to a point of view shot, to show the character surveying the scene- checking if anyone is outside- however he can't see anyone so he goes to see if he can get a better view.


As the camera pans we have the character looking around, confused and unsure about what has happened, and finally we have a final exterior shot of the outside of the house.  





Lost Highway Intro from Benji Hudson on Vimeo.

This introduction links in strongly to the ending, which has several call backs to the intro as Bill Pullmans character is coming outside the front of the house and he comes to the door and says 'Dick Laurant is Dead" Giving a certain sense of ambiguity to the entire events of the plot, we don't know what has happened to the time frame of the plot for this to happen, and as the film draws to a close we have the final shots of Bill Pullmans character driving away along a dark highway.


Lost Highway Ending Scene from Benji Hudson on Vimeo.

This means that the entire plot is rather ambiguous in its nature, a rather traditional aspect of the psychological thriller. This is because often the endings of thrillers are left up to the audience to decide what happened.