'Director`s cut'

If films have a running time awith more than 2 hours and 20 minutes, it usually means for  theater owners, that they`ll have to reduce the number of screenings per evening. Consequently, the studios keep an eye on the length of a movie.

The running time of a Lost Highway - copy presented at test screenings is said to have been a three hour version, that was eventually cut down to 135 minutes, in order to get the 'rhythm' of the film right. 

Filmed, but not used was :

-   the court scene with Fred Madison being sentenced to death (according to Bill Pullman with a winding camera movement from above / just like the depiction of the Bob / Leland - transformation in Twin Peaks 

- a scene in front of the club where Pete and Alice spend the evening (to be found on the Pretty as a Picture - documentary)

- a scene where Pete`s parents talk to the police officers right after their son has appeared in the prison cell 

additionally, there should be scenes starring two "first time" actors, who have published books and / or articles on David Lynch: Martha P. Nochimson and Reni Celeste, you´ll find brief info on the respective pages of Nochimson here, and Celeste here

Roads to Nowhere and other exciting places

Still from Terminator 2 Judgment Day 

"The future always so clear to me had become like a black highway at night. 

We were in uncharted territory now, making up history as we went along". 

(Sarah Connor in Terminator 2 Judgment Day, James Cameron 1991) 

Lost Highway´s co-writer Barry Gifford published a book on film noir, and this influence is recognizable throughout the movie as it is filled with references to film´s golden (or black and white, if you prefer) age. Most notably are the similarities between Robert Aldrich´s Kiss Me Deadly and Lynch´s film, ranging from characters - the strange owner of the respective garage -, key images - the burning cabin / house -, visual style to themes , e.g. amnesia.

At the time of Lost Highway entering the cinemas, Alfred Hitchock`s Vertigo was rereleased, a movie that certainly has left its traces in Lost Highway, most obviously in the female blonde / dark double. (The same idea is already foreshadowed in Laura Palmer`s resurrection in Twin Peaks, taking place at the EASTER park, with Maddy Ferguson acting as her cousin.)

Additionally, Terry Gilliam`s `95 movie Twelve Monkeys about schizophrenia / shifting in time integrates Vertigo-scenes when the protagonists are watching the Hitchcock-movie at the cinema. Amazingly, it is the scene the Bruce Willis-character "can`t rember" - a scene about 'memory in the far east', which reminds of the Mystery Man`s obscure quote 'In the Far East when a person is sentenced to death'.  

- Madeleine in Hitchcock´s movie is 26 years old, the number will reappear in Lost Highway on Renees hotel-room door.

 - The blonde 'version' of the female figure in Vertigo appears at Ernies restaurant first, in Lost Highway, it`s Arnies Garage.

- 'Her name is Renee' / 'What the fuck is your name': In the desert when Fred Madison calls the fhe female figur Alice, she 'disappears' and Fred is asked to identify himself to the Mystery Man, in Vertigo it is quite similar: When Scotty enters the Hotel asking for Charlotta is asked to show is ID while Judy disappears.

If there`s anything to find complain about Hitchcock`s classic, it is the scene where the perspective changes and we see Judy trying to explain her situation to Scotty in a letter, presented with voice over, so the viewer knows more than the protagonist Scotty Ferguson knows. Unfortunately, Lynch, too, has decided to destroy the subjective perspective by inserting the detective scenes for example.

Jonathan Demme`s "Something Wild" (1986) is quite literally inbetween Vertigo and Lost Highway being basically a road-movie about obsession and sexual dominance with the female lead  changing her character with the colour of her hair, forcing the movie to take a completely different direction in the middle. 

Wizard of Oz

There is no place like home / There is no place like home  / There is no place like home / 

The film is often referred to as a Moebius trip, well, in a way it is, nevertheless, it has got the typical Lynchian happy-end setting: man and woman unified in an overwhelming light / aura caught in a wave of angelic music, BUT this is placed int his case in the middle of the movie: the desert-love scene with This Mortal Coil`s 'Song to the Siren'.

Speaking of the Pete/ Renee - scene in the desert: it is presented like a movie in a literal sense:

Into the darkness ....

... music fades in (the car-hifi)

... then the cinematic projection starts (car headlights being turned on)

... after the movie is over, the characters disappear

Similarly, the protagonists in Terry Gilliams Twelve monkeys dress up like and become figures in a movie towards the end.

LOST HIGHWAY (Leon Payne)

(© 1949 Fred Rose Music, Inc.)


I'm a rolling stone, all alone and lost,
For a life of sin, I have paid the cost. 
When I pass by, all the people say
"Just another guy on the lost highway."

Just a deck of cards and a jug of wine
And a woman's lies make a life like mine. 
Oh, the day we met, I went astray, 
I started rollin' down that lost highway.

I was just a lad, nearly twenty-two, 
Neither good nor bad, just a kid like you, 
And now I'm lost, too late to pray, 
Lord, I've paid the cost on the lost highway.

Now, boys, don't start your ramblin' round, 
On this road of sin or you're sorrow bound. 
Take my advice or you'll curse the day
You started rollin' down that lost highway.

(Lynch uses to quote Barry Gifford`s novel 'Night People' as the origin of 'Lost Highway', but it might not be a coincidence when the cops in the movie are named

Hank ('Williams') and Lou ('Reed'). There`s no such thing as a bad coincidence ...