LOST HIGHWAY

The film: Lost Highway

The guest: Edward Cantu

I have to admit, I wasn’t paying the closest attention to the story details so long ago when I first watched Lost Highway. I was more interested in the imagery and camerawork that director David Lynch employed. I was too busy looking at this oddball film to really follow the nutso story. Ah, but such is David Lynch.

I was first introduced to the works of David Lynch with his oft-lamented sci-fi epic DUNE (which is still a favorite of mine, in spite of its shortcomings). Twin Peaks first aired in 1990, furthering my curiosity about Lynch’s work. Ever since then, any new work that came along – be it music or film – I would at least investigate, and mostly enjoy.

When Lost Highway was released, I read somewhere that it was in the same “universe” as Twin Peaks. That hooked me immediately. But when I finally watched it, I really didn’t grasp all that was happening. Every so often I revisited the film, only to realize that I had forgotten a lot of the weirdness – the Mystery Man, the switcheroo, the “mystery of the tape” – each viewing was like watching it for the first time. Almost.

I met Edward (this episode’s guest, and local dreamboat) at a bachelor party, and we immediately started talking about Twin Peaks, the conversation prompted by a poster print by fellow designer Matthew Skiff. At the time, Edward hadn’t even heard of the series. Fast forward a couple of months, and Edward is now familiar with a little bit of David Lynch weirdness having watched some of Twin Peaks, but I thought it would be interesting to see what he might think of Lost Highway.  In this episode, we try to shed a little light on the film. Hopefully we succeed.