# Talk:Lost Highway (film)

This article has an absurd amount of original research; anyone care to clean it up a bit?

Placed some tags here and there, i dont think it'll work though.
I've cleaned up this article considerably and added citations as well.--J.D. (talk) 17:04, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
Good work! Lugnuts (talk) 18:54, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
And found some sources for the outstanding fact tag about the 2 thumbs down.   Lugnuts (talk) 12:18, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
3/13/09-- Removed the following (under the section "Interpretation"):

The key line to trying to interpret the film is "I like to remember things my own way. Not necessarily the way they happened." Fred says this when asked by a detective investigating the infamous videotapes why he hates video cameras. He fears mystery man because the Mystery Man portrays things as they happen by filming them and sending the VHS. When he is interrogated about murdering his wife he says "Please tell me I didn't kill her". He  doesn't remember killing his wife. In the prison cell he has headaches whenever he remembers the awful truth and to escape the Lost Highway he escapes into the character of Peter Dayton. Pete's girlfriend, Sheila, is what Fred wishes Rene had been and Alice Wakefield, the disloyal fiancee of Dick Laurent, is what Rene was. Hence them both being played by Patricia Arquette.

...however correct this may or may not be, it seems to be original research.  Citation needed or no-go.
69.129.196.12 (talk) 02:36, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

The article is a mess of both original research and a little bit of fancruft, its in no way a "B" article, it needs wikipedians who care enough about the article to make it competent. I also took the liberty of grading the article as "Mid importance", seeing how is from a famous director and how it wasnt really much of cultural significance beyond cult following, then the logical would be "Mid" instead of "high".--Kessingler 05:37, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

It was requested that this article be renamed but there was no consensus for it to be moved. --Stemonitis 09:48, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I removed this section and placed it here because it seems to fall under the category of speculation. I think the key is the opening sentence that states, "The storyline is likely based on..." The presence of "likely" does not suggest fact at all. Not to mention, I have not come across any article or interview with Lynch or Gifford where they state that this was in fact the inspiration behind the film. Also, the sources listed in this paragraph cite a discussion forum and a film review -- hardly authoritative sources. Lynch has made it pretty clear, and this is stated in the article as it exists with citations, what inspired the film. --J.D. (talk) 19:48, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
It is widely believed that the movie is actually based on the story, and that in itself is a fact worth mentioning. And since when are external film reviews not worthy sources in articles on movies? I'm not surprised that Lynch keeps quiet about this - it makes the movie very easy to interpret, which more or less spoils the surprise/mystery. Would like to hear other people's thoughts on this section! I strongly feel it is NOT speculation, and deserves to be there. Tomixdf (talk) 21:11, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

As I said, one source is from a discussion forum, which, if I'm not mistaken, is frowned upon by Wiki guidelines as a reputable source. The other is a review and therefore it belongs in a different section, like Reception, or maybe a new one, like, say Theories, but not under Production because there is no source (that I can find) where Lynch or Gifford, the two primary authors of this film, have stated it as an influence or inspiration for what they made. Therefore, it can only be seen as speculation. --J.D. (talk) 21:21, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
Fine. I'll look up some more solid references and re-add the section.Tomixdf (talk) 22:14, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
Kewl. Works for me. --J.D. (talk) 14:24, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
Great. Final version indeed looks much better - glad we reached consensus. Tomixdf (talk) 21:49, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

The debut of the DVD in the US was not in March of '08 since I had rented it from Netflix in '07.  IMDB also lists two previous releases on DVD dating back to '01 and '06.  Not sure if that's a reliable enough source for this, so I'll leave that up to someone better suited for the job.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.104.244.6 (talk) 21:20, 28 August 2008 (UTC) 

The article says, "The film made its official U.S. DVD debut..."  That R1 (region 1) disc you rented was Canadian and unofficial; furthermore, the other DVD releases were not R1, much less American. Funkeboy (talk) 12:55, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
As it stands right now, the article is pretty mean towards the new R1 DVD release.  Sure, the colors are a little redder and darker, and this article links to ONE website where the author prefers the PAL DVD transfers.  There are other pages out there where people (who even saw the movie in the theater) comment that they think the new Universal release is more faithful to the original exhibitions of the film.
Also, if you're going to bring up all the (supposedly) negative aspects of this DVD release, I think it stands fair to reason that you should bring up the positive aspects as well, namely the official optional subtitles and the fact that it is the only anamorphic release (and, besides the original seemingly VHS-sourced full-frame Canadian DVD, the only release at all) that runs at the proper 134 minute runtime; all the PAL releases suffer from a 4% speedup, which changes the pitch of all of the sounds in the film and leaves the running time at approximately 129 minutes.  Funkeboy (talk) 13:15, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Why even have a DVD section?  Why not have an entire section for the VHS release too?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.185.85.58 (talk) 05:50, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

The quotation of Zizek from The Art of the Ridiculous Sublime; On David Lynch's Lost Highway occurs on pp13 not 142 as listed in references-the edition cited only has 47 pages. I tried to alter this but i was unable to because its protected for some reason

I have removed the "horror," "surrealist," and "avant-garde" film categories.  Some sort of notable and reliable referenced has to be provided that indicates these categories are justified, otherwise, it is only the opinion of editors. ---RepublicanJacobiteThe'FortyFive' 14:17, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

{{Cv-unsure|url=http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lost_Highway_%28film%29&oldid=395986777|date=November 2010}}
otac0n (talk)
The plot section appears to be a lift off of here:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116922/synopsis
However, I can't exactly tell, because I don't have access to the dates/times on the IMDB page.
I don't think so, that plot is much, much more thorough than the plot published here. This plot needs revising Deliusfan (talk) 19:35, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Even if Manson band members appeared in the film as porn stars, so what?. We need a third party source that discusses the claim and provides an encyclopedic context to the information. Active Banana  (bananaphone 18:05, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Looking at the Lost Highway (soundtrack) article, it's apparent that Manson did contribute two songs, one cover and one presumably original, to the soundtrack. This corresponds to what was stated in the interview. However, Manson's contribution is not discussed in the soundtrack article, so I don't see why it should be highlighted here.
As for appearing in the film, all the interview says is he "played a small part, together with Twiggy," in the film. It doesn't specify what the part was. —C.Fred (talk) 18:19, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

"As it gets dark, Fred speeds down the lost highway pursued by the police as he enters a dark vortex and apparently begins to metamorphose again."
I think that this interpretation is wrong. The ending scene where Fred is kind of seizuring is the moment the Real Fred is dying in an alectric chair. He's not metamorphosing again. 109.196.145.5 (talk) 16:12, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Removed the last bit "apparently begins to metamorphose again" as conjecture/subjective interpretation. However, the "electric chair" reading is just as much of subjective interpretation. Neither has a place in the plot section, since that section is supposed to merely describe the immediate, "syntactic" surface of a work of fiction. --213.168.108.201 (talk) 07:54, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
Changed this to a straight description of the way the film plays. Look forward to having it reverted.207.221.248.253 (talk) 16:16, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
Also, there were errors in the chronological sequence that I corrected, but were reverted by TheOldJacobite for no reason other than "none of these were helpful." I've seen him do this a few times and I don't understand why he doesn't want articles to be factually accurate. If a synopsis states that something happened before or after it did - or, as was the case with one of the plot notes, it never actually took place in the film at all - why is it considered a bad thing to correct it? Presumably he didn't see the film in which case it was not his place to state that it wasn't helpful and just remove everything.2.28.174.172 (talk) 10:12, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lost_Highway_%28film%29&oldid=549223261
There was no reason for this section to have been completely reverted, especially when it was both better sourced and far less controversial than the version that stated as fact that it was comparable to the Owl Creek Bridge story even though that's never been confirmed as fact. At the very least someone could have edited it a bit to make it more concise, but instead the whole thing was removed for...well, no stated reason at all. The user just said "none of this was helpful" and didn't elaborate at all, which is in itself not in any way constructive. 
If you want to have an interpretation section that's fine, but you cannot make a statement of fact about Lynch's intentions just because it's probably correct, if he himself hasn't confirmed it. You can only use sources to show how it's been interpreted and who's interpreted it that way, which is what the aforementioned revision did fine before it was reverted apparently just for the sake of it. Either that or perhaps the entire section should be removed since Inland Empire doesn't have one and that's far more subjective and surreal than Lost Highway is.2.28.174.172 (talk) 09:59, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

For almost a year, somebody using IP addresses from Oakville, Ontario, has been edit-warring about the genre of this film. As far as I can tell, it started in July 2015. Here's a chronology:

24 July 2015: [1] neo-noir avant-garde black comedy arthouse surrealist psychological crime thriller horror mystery film
24 July 2015: [2] neo-noir avant-garde black comedy arthouse surrealist psychological crime thriller horror mystery film
24 July 2015: [3] neo-noir avant-garde black comedy arthouse surrealist psychological crime thriller horror mystery film
25 July 2015: [4] thriller film
25 July 2015: [5] (horror film category, psychological horror film category)
24 December 2015: [6]  thriller film
10 May 2016: [7] neo-noir psychological horror film
10 May 2016: [8] neo-noir psychological horror film
8 June 2016: [9] neo-noir psychological horror film
10 June 2016: [10] neo-noir psychological horror film
10 June 2016: [11] neo-noir psychological horror film
So, let's determine what genres should serve as the most important labels for this film. Clearly, it's inappropriate to string together eight genres to make a ridiculous mess. 

Greg Olson in David Lynch: Beautiful Dark says that the film used some parts of noir iconography. Olson does not make an absolute statement about the film's genre.
Dennis Lim in David Lynch: The Man from Another Place reports that Variety negatively reviewed the film and dismissed it as "designer noir". Lim does not himself call the film any genre of horror or noir. He says that the film was made "with no concessions to popular taste or industry expectations," which is in essence a disavowal of any genre at all.
Antony Todd in Authorship and the Films of David Lynch says that the film "seemed to hang on a loose generic description of a contemporary LA noir". Todd notes that contemporary reviewers called it "baffling", said it "talks a private language", that it refused "rational explanations". These descriptions trend toward no genre at all, though Todd's own analysis is that it has something of a framework in noir.
Martha P. Nochimson in The Passion of David Lynch: Wild at Heart in Hollywood says that the film could be noir if it "were a high-concept, plot-driven film" like D.O.A. (1950 film). She says the wife-murder portion of the film is "psychic drama".
Mark Walling says in his essay "All Roads Lead to the Self" that the film "evokes a noir locale", utilizing doppelgangers – "another noir trademark". However, he notes that the film moves away from noir in the extreme degree to which it baffles the audience, leaving them wholly uncertain about what happened. Walling says nothing about horror/thriller/surrealist etc.
Anne Jerslev says in her essay "Beyond Boundaries: David Lynch's Lost Highway" that the film "possibly" refers several times to 1955's Kiss Me Deadly, a noir film. In passing, Jerslav mentions the film's "erotic noir scenes between Alice and Pete". Otherwise, she describes the film as having no coherence, no linear logic, no frame of reference, and no closure. Despite this, she does not say the film is surrealistic, like the earlier Eraserhead.
Todd McGowan in The Impossible David Lynch agrees with and quotes Anne Jerslav (above) in describing the film as "a radical departure from classical principles" of film-making. This is an argument against genre.
Based on these books, I would say that if we list a genre at all, film noir is the most appropriate, though we should tell the reader that the film departs significantly from the classic noir type. All of the other genres that have been edit-warred into and out of the first paragraph are not supported by these sources. In fact, most of these sources would point to no genre at all. Binksternet (talk) 23:19, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

I'm the "genre warrer," and I'm all for just listing film noir. I originally got into this mess because there were far too many genres being listed and I wanted to limit it to just two, I'm not the originator of endless string of genres, I originally got into this simply with the intention of limiting it to one or two genres to appease users and still accurately describe the film's content. If you just want to leave it at film noir, that's fine, but if it's simpler, we can go ahead and eliminate all genres. I tried to avoid that though because I see it leading to more and more genres being added however, but if someone else wants to watch over the article and make sure that doesn't happen, by all means, eliminate genres entirely. 142.55.48.34 (talk) 23:52, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
I can see why someone might want to disown the three edits that put eight genres together in a string, but that IP address is in the same group, from the same exact place, having the same interests as yourself. Pretty conclusive evidence.
Sure, let's try to keep an absolute statement of genre from the article, while acknowledging that film noir is the closest. Binksternet (talk) 01:11, 11 June 2016 (UTC)
Nice work keeping an eye on this, Binksternet. Lugnuts Dick Laurent is dead 14:17, 16 June 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing this out, Binksternet.  I was not aware this discussion had taken place. ---The Old JacobiteThe '45 19:54, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

This may be a small point , but , what the heck … whereas it's true , Jack Nance and Richard Pryor ARE dead , and won't be making any more films … is it right to include Robert Blake with them? As of this writing , he's still alive. And just as his appearance in "Lost Highway" was probably a big surprise for folks whom probably thought he was dead … who's to say he might not crop up again in another film? ( Lots of crazy old man roles available. ). Just a thought. 75.104.174.122 (talk) 09:17, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

In this instance, reference to Zizek as cultural critic or literary critic is appropriate as his interpretation of the film is being referenced only. What exactly Zizek's opinion adds to this article, however, remains unclear. Referring to him here as "philosopher" however, gives his opinion a false credibility as if his interpretation were any more informed than anyone else's opinion of the film. Little insight is added to the movie or the article. Furthermore, philosophy is expressly NOT a hermeneutic exercise of interpreting a text (e.g. a film) and philosophy has heuristic value. Expressing an opinion or interpretation of artwork has no heuristic value. While Zizek may be referred to as "philosopher" the entire cannon of his work issues not one single knowledge claim. Philosophy has translated for 2500+ year from the Greek to "love of wisdom". Without knowledge claims, there is no wisdom to be demonstrated, much less the respect (read: love of) for obtaining knowledge (read: wisdom). Yes, "philosophy" is used often enough as misnomer for "a way of looking at things" (e.g. "my personal 'philosophy'...") and yes Zizeks interpretation is nothing more than his way of looking at the movie, however, again use of the term "philosopher" here is misnomer and more adequately described by "cultural critic"
Mixelpix (talk) 12:43, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

In this context, it doesn't matter whether he is referred to as a cultural critic or a philosopher.  This is a very minor point to edit war on.  As for his opinion of this film, it is notable as it was published by a reputable university and has been the subject of a great deal of discussion amongst other scholars. ---The Old JacobiteThe '45 13:16, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
Yes, actually it matters as Zizek's interpretation is only relevant in his capacity as someone who's interpretation is noteworthy, hence "cultural critic Zizek..." is a useful reference whereas "philosopher Zizek" is irrelevant even if Zizek were a philosopher - which he is not, nor is philosophy an interpretive endeavor. Mixelpix (talk)

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Lost Highway (film)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Reviewer: Adamstom.97 (talk · contribs) 20:36, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

I'm taking this for review, will hopefully be able to get back soon with some feedback. - adamstom97 (talk) 20:36, 20 October 2018 (UTC)
Here are some issues that I would like to see addressed before I promote the article to GA:

I don't think there needs to be three different releases in the infobox. The first premiere (France) and general US release should be fine.
Done
The fact that the film was financed by a French production company could be mentioned in the lead, maybe in the second paragraph.
Done
I would like to see the cast section be sourced. My usual advice is for the nominator to find a source that lists the entire cast, and just have a line at the top or bottom of the section saying that is where the listing has come from.
Because the film is the primary source of the article, I think a basic cast list is acceptable without a reference to an outside source, similar to the infobox details or the plot section. If it's really an issue, I can explicitly cite the film's end credits.
I'm happy for you to have used the film to put the cast together, and no explicit cite is necessary for that since the infobox provides all of those detail already. I just think it is good practice to back-up these things with a third party source that people can get to easily. For instance, Call Me by Your Name (film) is another film article that I reviewed for GA, and you can see in the cast section there that I just got them to add a short line with a reference so a user can click on that if they wanted to verify the list / read more about it. - adamstom97 (talk) 22:21, 21 October 2018 (UTC)
Fair enough. Added Fandango as a source.
"Within a month they had the script" -- is this missing the word "completed" or "finished"?
Replaced with "It took them one month to finish the script"
"Lost Highway was partially inspired by the O. J. Simpson murder case, which involved the arrest of a man who committed, and then denied, murder, even to himself" -- uhh, I don't know if that is a widely accepted fact to be honest.
Agreed, so I replaced the second part with "which involved the arrest of a man who denied murder"
Who is Hopper?
Nice find. I added a wikilink to Dennis Hopper.
Can you also clarify that it is his casting in Blue Velvet (I am assuming) that you are talking about there? - adamstom97 (talk) 22:21, 21 October 2018 (UTC)
Added the "for the film" bit. Hopefully it should be clearer now.
I don't mind the combining of the box office and release information here, but I do think that critical response should be separate from the release section (and can more than stand on its own).
In my opinion, having the reception section in the release section is perfectly fine and many film articles follow this structure, so I'm not sure what the issue is here. If the reception section were separate from the release section, then the home media section would appear before the reception and the article would not follow a chronological order; first, the film was released in theaters, then it was analized by critics, and then it was released on DVD. --Niwi3 (talk) 11:51, 21 October 2018 (UTC)
I know that other articles also do it like this, so I won't fight you on it, but I still would rather that the reception be separate from Release or at least come after the home media section. Theoretically, the reception section should be about the reception to the film itself, not any particular release of it, so putting the home media release after the reception as if it was a separate thing from the theatrically-released film seems a bit problematic to me. - adamstom97 (talk) 22:21, 21 October 2018 (UTC)
I can see your point and I appreciate your interest, but I still think the current style makes more sense because the box office section is also a type of reception section. Usually, in articles about films, books, albums or video games, there are three types of reception sections: commercial performance (in that case box office), critical response, and legacy/retrospective reviews. The first two happen at release, while the third one doesn't. Also, changing the order of the sections can potentially confuse readers a bit because the article is written in a chronological order. --Niwi3 (talk) 19:10, 22 October 2018 (UTC)
Fair enough, like I said I am not going to fight you on this. - adamstom97 (talk) 19:30, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
Have a go at those, and let me know if you have any issues or questions. - adamstom97 (talk) 23:40, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

@Adamstom.97: Thank you for your review, really appreciated. I think I have fixed most of the issues you brought up and left some comments above. Please let me know what you think. --Niwi3 (talk) 11:51, 21 October 2018 (UTC)
I've responded to a couple of your comments above. - adamstom97 (talk) 22:21, 21 October 2018 (UTC)
 I think all of my points above have been covered. Now, I'm just wondering if we can beef up the number of images in the article. I think an image of Lynch somewhere in the article is an obvious add, and I'm sure you could come up with one more to do with another section (like filming, themes, or release) just to fill it out a bit. - adamstom97 (talk) 19:30, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
@Adamstom.97: Done --Niwi3 (talk) 21:06, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
Good job, that is all looking good to me now, and I think all the criteria is covered. Pass  - adamstom97 (talk) 23:47, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

I wanted to know. It's a striking piece of music drama which reemerges on the radio, sharply dividing opinion. Turns out, per the soundtrack album credits, it was Bob Sheppard, a notable player. I've sort of added the info in as a 'See also' item [12], less than ideal I know. I'd have preferred to include a sentence under 'Soundtrack', but I don't have any focused secondary sourcing to call upon.  The closest I could find is: "...faster than you can say “Red Bats With Teeth” (cf. David Lynch’s Lost Highway), for Bob Sheppard’s solo in that classic fever dream is precisely what comes to mind." [13] 86.161.190.40 (talk) 14:01, 13 September 2020 (UTC) [No COI]