MFAH showcases David Lynch’s ‘Lost Highway’ and ‘Inland Empire’
When it comes to the filmography of visionary filmmaker David Lynch, the essential films usually held in high regard are “Eraserhead,” “Blue Velvet” and “Mulholland Drive.” (And, of course, there are those who also count his short-lived soap opera “Twin Peaks,” his first foray into television, as a cinematic work of art.)
As with every filmmaker’s canon, there have been some misfires in Lynch’s strange world. After all, this is the same guy who was the first to bring an adaptation (albeit a very unsuccessful one) of “Dune” — a movie he would later disown — to the big screen in 1984.
While his aforementioned films are seen as classics, he has also made films that have even gone over the heads of even die-hard fans. Lynch got together with Janus Films in bringing two of those films, “Lost Highway” and “Inland Empire,” back to movie screens, in brand-new, 4K digital restorations. Both films will be shown at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
Released 25 years ago, “Highway” was practically a test run of the dream-noir storytelling he successfully achieved with “Drive” five years later. The film follows an avant-garde sax player (Bill Pullman) who goes to jail for possibly killing his ravenhaired wife (Patricia Arquette), whom he suspected was cheating on him. While locked up, he somehow transforms into a young grease monkey (Balthazar Getty) who starts a torrid affair with a gangster’s moll (also played by Arquette, rocking blond hair).
While this hot-and-heavy psycho-thriller — which has a soundtrack that includes David Bowie, Nine Inch Nails, the Smashing Pumpkins and Marilyn Manson — was another Lynch tale that merged the sexy, the sinister and, of course, the surreal, the baffling plot left audiences and critics dazed and confused. Lynch took all the negative reaction in stride, even including Siskel and Ebert’s “Two thumbs down!” pan in the movie’s ads.
But “Highway” is a walk in the park compared to “Empire,” the three-hour maze from 2006 that Lynch shot on a consumer-grade Sony camera. Laura Dern, who starred in “Velvet,” as well as his 1990 follow-up “Wild at Heart,” plays an actress who falls deeper and deeper into Lynchian-brand madness.
Shot over the course of three years, “Empire” was certainly a divisive one. Critics Mike D’Angelo and Nathan Lee once gave their opposing takes of the film in the pages of Esquire, with Lee praising it as “a YouTube nightmare” and D’Angelo saying “there’s simply no excuse … for an artist of Lynch’s stature to make a movie that looks as hideous as this.”
Out of all the brain-dizzying films he’s made, Lynch seems to have taken evident glee in making “Empire” as incomprehensible as possible. There wasn’t a finished script; Lynch would write scenes as he went along. Ultimately, it was all about giving Dern her moment to shine as an actress. Lynch thought she gave such an award-worthy performance, he memorably started an Oscar campaign by showing up on Hollywood Boulevard with a big, for-yourconsideration banner and a cow.
No matter how weird and incoherent things get, “Highway” and “Empire” remain two of the director’s most flawed but intriguing films. Like a lot of Lynch’s work, these films are mostly about identity and how easy it is to lose yourself in the darkness. He wants audiences to do the same thing— but only while watching (and ultimately surrendering to) one of his movies.