I’m not sure David Lynch entirely knows what he’s doing. Lost Highway is a great film, magnetic, compulsive and beautiful. Does it make much sense? Does making sense matter when you have the talent to hold an audience the way Lynch can?
This and Mulholland Drive are both sumptuously shot films, with beautiful imagery and fantastic control of atmosphere. There are great femme fatales in here, wonderfully atmospheric scores and some great acting. They’re both films as opposed to movies.
There’s also in both films some awkward comedy that doesn’t seem to fit.
These are dream films (rather like Pulp Fiction) – the director is dreaming this stuff up and trying desperately to hold it together.
Lynch has tried to talk about his writing process, but it seems even he doesn’t really understand it. His scripts come straight from his unconscious with some admitted skill in trying to consciously tie it all together later.
Both Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive are very watchable, and I look at them over and over again. Was even Blue Velvet too literal for Lynch in the end? Too explained, too plotted?
Watch both films with an open mind…
Below is the ‘Cowboy’ scene from Mulholland Drive. Pay attention…
So, 47 films to go…
Matthew Cooper has written for Emmerdale, Eastenders, Hollyoaks and Family Affairs. He was winner of the first ever Lloyds Bank Channel Four Film Challenge and the Oscar Moore Screenplay Prize. His first short film starred a then unknown Ewan McGregor and was picked up by Channel Four when Matthew was 19 years old. He’s been a script writer for hire and filmmaker for hire for over 20 years.