Lost Highway (1997) w/ Andrew Edwards: Ep. 550

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1:01Labor Day deals are on now at lows, in-store and online. Vellate through 916, while supplies last. Selection various Vellocations. C-Lows.com for more details. All right, so right off the rip, I'm just gonna level with y'all. I have caught some form of child disease. My wife works at a school which means that invariably in the first couple of weeks, I will catch something. I think this is what I don't know,

2:02killed Victorians orphans or something. It's like an Oliver Twist disease. So I'm kinda sniffling and gross through this. I tried to edit it out as much as I could. So if you're wondering why it is jabored and sound horrible or sound a little more retarded than normal, that's why. Sorry about it. But anyway, today I've brought on Andrew Edwards. Talk about David Lynch's film Lost Highway. And man, this is a fun episode. This is a banger, if I do say so myself. So if you haven't historically listened to the media review episodes, give us a second on this one. It'd be a little confusing if you haven't seen the film, per se. I tried to summarize it as best I can. But look, go watch this movie. You'll get a lot out of it. Of course, if you want the episodes early and add free, you have to throw me a few bucks, Patreon, Sub-Sac, or Gumroad. I realize the ads are irritating, but you know what? It's sort of a necessary evil. And it's not that bad. It's six bucks for 30-ish hours of audio a month. I feel like that's a pretty fair deal.

3:03Or if you want to head over to our sponsors, Axios Remote Fitness and Coaching, or Fox and Suns Coffee, well, you can do so. Tell them I sent you. You'll get a good deal. All right, here's Andrew Edwards. All right, Andrew Edwards. Welcome back to the J-Burn Show. How you doing, man? Good. Good to be with you, my friend. Yeah, I'm glad to have you back. We're doing another one of these media episodes, which I'll be honest is one of my favorite parts of this job as much as it is a job. Because one, it lets me do one of my favorite things, talk about movies with my friends, but also because it exposes me to films that I haven't got to yet. And today, we're talking about Lynch's 1997 film Lost Highway, which, like I said, I had never watched before you recommended it to me, Andy. And yeah, it was a very arresting film did an episode not too long ago about Maholin Drive, which I saw earlier this year. And you and I were talking before you went live.

4:05And I came to Lynch Perry late. I had an early exposure to Rabbits, which is sort of a bizarre film. And that kind of put me off on the man and on his work. But I've really been enjoying going back through it and this film was great. So that out of the way, Andy, I'm curious to get your kind of generalized thoughts on this film. Okay, my generalized thoughts. Well, first of all, the audience might want to know that this Lost Highway is generally categorized in this loosely in this idea of the Hollywood or the LA trilogy from David Lynch. So that's Maholin Drive in London Pyre, I think, and Lost Highway. Is that right? I think that's right. It doesn't really, I think LA shows up and there are these kind of psychological fugue state themes

5:07that do tie those three movies together. General thoughts. I mean, I love this movie as for a number of reasons, like at the topical level, like the first time you see it, it messes with you and it draws you in at the same time. It's not as off-putting as Rabbits. It's bizarre in the way that it's both inaccessible and totally accessible. Like Lynch has this wonderful ability. It's back to the thing about his love for just basic Americana, you know, diners, cigarettes, coffee, pie, but also he has this, predilection toward darkness, mystery, anything alien. And so yeah, I think that in many ways, in many ways it can be taken as just a really kind

6:09of interesting movie, but it's also just critical, I think, to the understanding David Lynch and then sort of, if you can, like, you know, beginning to understand his body of work, maybe, if not getting a read on him. And it has, again, I say this from limited exposure, but it has a lot of similar motifs you see in other of Lynch's films. You obviously have this sort of underside of Hollywood. You know, this movie has to do sort of bleakly with the porn industry, the flesh trade. It's, you know, not a documentary, they're not going into the specifics, but again, the kind of dark, seedy side of Hollywood, traditional motion pictures. So it has that both kind of love for Hollywood in Americana and yet a recognition of its sort of inherent darkness.

7:09Similarly in a kind of, not quite the same way to Mahol and Drive, this film is also sort of a meditation on femininity in a way. This is something you see throughout Lynch's work. And the joke that Lynch is the straightest director in Hollywood is perhaps accurate, you know? And we even see that in the motifs, right? Much like Mahol and Drive, this movie features sort of two parallel connected mirror image stories. It's constructed differently than Mahol and Drive, but you see actors playing different characters, obviously connected. And at the center of that is a woman. And much like Mahol and Drive, depending on which storyline, so to speak, we're in that woman transforms from a brumette to a blonde, sort of mirror imaging. And it's again, what makes him so fascinating

8:12is that on one level, sure it's a little abstract, sure it's a little bit of an art house film, not nearly as much as I was led to expect. You know, I think this movie is comprehensible, even if not totally. But you see a lot of ideas that are traditionally very difficult for Hollywood to discuss in a straight up and down direct way, expressed obliquely in his films, which makes them interesting, because they don't have the same kind of heavy handed preaching as a didactic nature of a lot of Hollywood. It rewards your interest, and it rewards you for paying attention and digging into it, which is why there's so much content going over, David Lynch, right? It's sort of like an archaeological process almost. So this film, sort of A-plot, starts with Fred Madison, jazz saxophonist, living with his right wife, Renee.

9:16The film opens, highway at night, double yellow line, titles. Goes to Fred Madison's house, where we hear on the intercom, Dick Laurent is dead. Fred looks out the window, sees someone peel out, here's sirens. So his relationship with Renee, at least initially, is, how would you say it, Andy, it's straight, right? The relationship is on the rocks. Yeah, it's really hard to discern. The ambiguous, it would seem a little bit unloving, or a little cold maybe. But in, it's also just played a little weird, the way that they, like you can't sort of discern whether she has a secret,

10:18or he has a secret, but they're not relating in anything that I would consider, like normal, man and wife, the way they speak to each other. And for, from my point of view, it's very, the ambiguity of it comes from, like I'm asking myself, well, I mean, if you were an LA saxophonist, you know, living in this weird, concrete house, maybe you would talk to your wife like that. It's just, right down the line where, and it's things like that, I think, where people cannot dismiss David Lynch. You can't just dismiss the guy because he's weird or he's using tricks or whatever. His control and precision with exactly these types of bits, just immediately open up,

11:19like you as the viewer, and the whole narrative itself, it's kind of one of those instances where, if he gave you anything more, it would be much easier to discern the rest of the film, but the way they play it is so, right down the line, they could love each other. You know what I mean? It would be different than I love my wife for maybe how I saw my dad love my mom, that sort of thing, but it's also not like really obvious. Oh yeah, there's some, and I'd back to what you said, you know, he doesn't, David Lynch must have like a very, well, must have had, I suppose, like a very developed relationship with the cliches of Hollywood. Like he's both sort of respects and loves them, but he always manages to either use them to his benefit, totally ignore them, subvert them in some way.

12:21Well, and that playing with cliches is something we see throughout this, and it's actually funny, we'll get to this later. There are shots and motifs you have seen in Hollywood elsewhere. For instance, much, much later in the film, there's sort of this car chase through the Hollywood Hills. And it's funny, you know, it's played in sort of a sinister way, but you've seen it before. You know, functionally, this is something that has been repeated over and over and over again in film. That's almost wrote. And so you could look at that and say, oh, well, this is simply a cliche, but no, no, there's more to it, right? We're sort of playing in that world of using the kind of established language of Hollywood to say something else with it, right? To sort of make this kind of meditation on, to be honest, evil in a way. And that's what I think is fun about pointing that out. And let's be honest, even within this film,

13:21that motif of the videotape, right? The kind of recollection of what happens, appears again and again. A little bit later in the film, we'll get to it chronologically. A group of detectives show up and ask, you know, our main character, do you have a video camera? It comes relevant, we'll explain why. But he says, no, I don't like video cameras. I like to remember things, however imperfectly. And the idea that once something is recorded, it distorts, it becomes something else. It's not the same as your memory. And that is repeated enough, you see it enough in this film that it's clearly done intelligently. It's truly done for a purpose. So, their odd relationship situation is sort of exposed when, you know, the two of them are in bed together. And after that results, she's basically, okay, where are you? Like you're not here, you're not present with me.

14:21And so he's, you know, clearly kind of annoyed with her or just absent. And she decides to skip his gig at, you know, as a saxophonist, right? She's not gonna be there. She's gonna stay home and read a book. So, okay. Come on and get happy with happyglp.com. At just $99 a month, happyglp gives you one set prices every month. No tears, no tricks. Getting started with happyglp.com is fast, convenient, and happens virtually with a license provider. Check it out for yourself at happyglp.com. That's happyglp.com, a happy price for a happier you. Com count and medications are not FDA approved. Elitability required to determine why a license provider individual results may vary, see website for details.

15:23Plus 24 packs of Canada dry or 7-Up 12-ounce cans are $4.99 limit one with digital coupon. Enjoy fresh and delicious savings for every meal. Hurry in, these deals won't last. Visit vonsoralbertsons.com for more deals and ways to save. You know, he obviously comes home angry. But what he finds is a VHS tape on their porch, which shows this sort of grainy footage of their home from the outside. And his wife, Renee, she says, oh, it's probably just a real term, whatever. Then it's Fred that night has a dream where he's looking through the house for her. He's walking around this house and he sees what looks to be Renee on the bed. But it's not Renee. He says that, it's someone who is not her. And her face, when he looks at her,

16:24is overlaid with this sort of pale grinning man. It's kind of horrific visage. And this is a character, of course, we will see throughout the film. So sorry to just run through a little bit, but I wanted to set that up, Andy. What would you make of that? The Renee that was not Renee. Well, I'll jump ahead, because I mean, audience or people who listen to this are just gonna have to accept that, Jan, you're not able to approach this film in a linear way. We can give you the plot and it won't, it won't make much difference. It's not lethal weapon. It's not meant to be lethal weapon. The lethal weapon's great. And so with that said, I mean, I jump back to a couple of areas in the Lynch catalog that you alluded to a moment ago, Jay, where you have this doubling.

17:26It's called sometimes in literature. Robert Penn Warren used to talk about this, this doubleness. And it's very overt here. He's literally making a twin of a character. And he's done this in Twin Peaks famously with Laura Palmer, you know, one of the main characters in that show. Bizarre sort of instance where the same actress, I forget her name, but shows up playing Laura Palmer's cousin. So it's, you're looking at her and it looks exact. It is literally the same actress who plays her. And a similar thing happens here in, in this film where Patricia Arquette is kind of playing this, she's playing another character in the Lynch universe.

18:32Isabella Rosalini in Blue Velvet embodies this kind of, it's a weird mix because it's super sexual, but it's also tasteful in a way. It has darkness to it. You can see how in the 90s, a lot of, like, oh, I mean, can we say, her verse lefty sort of inclination glommed on to David Lynch. In large part due to these elements, where a taboo, a transgression is kind of going on. Did I, do you want to interject, everybody? No, but also, I mean, I think there is a, I don't love this term, it's sort of an element of proto-feminism to some of Lynch's work, but in the sense that it is concerning the feminine and concerning the female, Lynch is not a sort of glorious Steinem-esque character,

19:35and I think that reading of him is a poor one, but that's another contributory factor, right? It is easy to project your progressive gender politics on certain elements of this, carry on any. Yeah, that's an important point really, because it's, that's what I was trying to say, is a lot of lefties did that, but that's not, in my estimation, at all what, what David Lynch, the man, has I understand him, is doing. He's doing something much deeper, much, much older, he's doing things with, like the God Janus, or I mean, he's going deep, deep into metaphysical sorts of considerations, and at the same time, due to the nature of reality, these things are still important, and they manifest in our time. And so, yeah, porn, winds up playing porn and video.

20:38Again, I think that a lot of leftists would just sort of say, you know, David Lynch, the tour is, is toying with these, playing with these elements. I don't believe at all that's what David Lynch is doing. He's not toying with these elements to sort of, like, expand his audience, or reach some, you know, feminist at UCLA. That's not at all what Lynch is doing. He's, he's effectively building out a sort of symbolic metaphysical structure, where he as the director can bifurcate reality, and take us as viewers into a couple of different places simultaneously, which is gonna itself, come on and get happy with happyGLP.com. At just $99 a month, happy GLP gives you one set prices every month. No tears, no tricks. Getting started with happyGLP.com is fast, convenient, and happens virtually with a licensed provider. Check it out for yourself at happyGLP.com.

21:41That's happyGLP.com, a happy price for a happier you. Com count and medications are not FDA approved. Elitability required to determine why a licensed provider, individual results may vary, see website for details. Disrupt our expectations and how things are done normally in a film. He has this famous quote, right? I guess it's kind of famous where he asks the question. He says, people understand, it's something like this,

22:44but it's, he says, people understand that, like reality doesn't make sense. So why do you expect your art to make sense? Which could be taken as a cop out if it was anybody, but David Lynch. And that's to say, I throw this in here at this point to offer up like this consideration. You can sort of make sense of this movie. You can sort of make sense of Mulholland Drive, but I don't think that's the point. I mean, I've seen it many times. I've watched it now since it was, I think it was 97, it came out. And I think I saw it in the theater. I can like in a dream, it's like dream logic. You can put certain elements together and say, well, I think these are happening here and they definitely are, which is the awesome part, but they're also, that doesn't tie it up and just package it in a way where, okay, that's what that movie's about.

23:45And so this lost highway is part of, like his greatest works, I think. And it's a work that's, it's not located just in that film. Like we were saying a second ago, he's doing this in Twin Peaks, he's doing this in Blue Velvet. And he's, as they say, you know, fracturing reality in his own particular way and then offering it up just in the same way that he would with his piece, his little furniture pieces and such. Like I really believe that this is an honest thing about David Lynch's, because even myself, I would probably, if I made a piece of furniture, I would not say, oh, this is on par with some novel I've made, but I do believe that for David Lynch, that is kind of the case. I know that's not very helpful segue for you, but yeah, I'll throw it back to you nonetheless.

24:49Yeah, well, it is, and that sort of on one hand surrealism, where there is a logic and there is a narrative here, but that is not all that's going on. And so I think a lot of the conversation around this film and others, well, the other I have seen, revolves around interpreting the story. And yeah, okay, sure, I get it. If you're presented with a ball of string, I'll nod it together. That is the human inclination to try and straighten it out. And sure, we'll do that, but that's not all that's happening here. And simply getting to the sort of straight reading of it, pulling it apart, finding out the literal chronology of events, it's like, well, that's not all that's happening here. There's more to discuss, more to address. So, and actually fun, you know what, I'll bring that up later when we're talking about the back half of this. But so there's now the second film,

25:53right, the second tape that they discovered. This one, the camera goes through the house, all throughout their house, and focuses on them, asleep in bed. So obviously, they call the police, right, they call in two detectives. Detectives we will see later. Of course, they at least one of them comes back. And this is where, you know, they go through the kind of normal, you know, have you checked your locks? Do you own a video camera? It's when we hear, you know, our main character's opinion on, you know, video. But ultimately, they're not able to come up with anything. There's no real conclusion there. And the next scene is really where things start to pick up, right, this is where the plot starts to move forward much more quickly. Which is at a party. Yeah. So there's this crowded sort of Hollywood party run by Andy, who we've seen before in a flashback from the club. Andy is sort of in the club, you know,

26:56talking to Renee, his wife, we're starting to see apparently the seeds of some jealousy there, right, he's sort of insecure, not the best term, but is sort of, you know, being eaten up by this. And it's pretty clear that he is not a good fit at this party. You know, he's sort of awkward, he's sort of standing to the side. And then the so-called mystery man walks up to him. This is the same face we saw, sort of superimposed over Renee's. It's this very stark white makeup. It's very clear he's wearing makeup, black suit, smiling almost the whole time. And he says, well, we've met before, haven't we? Fred says, no, he says, yeah, was it your house? And he says, I'm in your house right now. Hands him his phone, he says, all right, call home. When he does, the mystery man voice

27:56is talking to him on the phone. While the man is two feet in front of it. Clearly, he's upset. The guy sort of disappears into the crowd. And when he asks, you know, the host, like, hey, like, who is that guy? They say, oh, that's, is it, I always get the dickler on Fred? Yeah, yeah, dickler on Fred. So the mystery is starting to thicken. Now, he reconnects with Renee. And I think this is another interesting element because Renee is pretty clearly sloshed. Like she's very drunk. Yeah. Or main character, he is not. So we're starting to see some dissonance. And they end up going home. So I thought this is a particularly interesting scene, the party scene, Andy. I'm curious to get your thoughts on it. I agree. I mean, I remember first seeing it.

28:57And I still watching it last week was struck by how simple the setup is. It's just kind of a trick. There's a guy standing in front of you with a cell phone and our character, you know, Bill Pullman, who does a pretty damn good job as this guy. Like, you must, I wonder like, what was, what was the relationship between the director and Bill Pullman here, you know, David Lynch? What would you tell him? I don't know, but he's sort of zoned out, but he's also curious. He's a, he's a strange actor anyway, Bill Pullman. But the way that it plays out as, as we watch it is kind of terrifying to me. I, I don't know how you felt about it, but I was disturbed, you know, first time I'm still disturbed when I watch it. Like, could you imagine you're staring at this very creepy Robert Blake, who by the way, for the youngsters, Robert Blake winds up, I guess shortly after this film

30:01was made, going to the can for murdering his wife. So there's like, once again, you know, Lynch has this incredible capacity to blur the lines between reality and sort of detect things that most people don't want to even know were there and then makes art of them. But Robert Blake is creepy as hell as this guy. I mean, he's every bit as scary as the, the, the, the hobo demon in Mulholland Drive or, you know, anything that shows up in Twin Peaks. It's super disturbing. And when that moment plays out like, you're right, that's to me like the pivotal piece where you, you can't, you can no longer just say, oh, this is kind of a, a noir, maybe a little odd. No, there's a supernatural or a psychological or something different is going on here because it doesn't play as a trick like,

31:05like our character wants to understand it. Like, how did you do? Yes. How did you do that? And of course, he did it because we're like, it's pretty clear like we're in circumstances now that are, they're out there super normal. We've left the reservation at that point. And when they return home, this is, like I said, this is where it takes off. This is where it is very clearly we are entering sort of an altered state of reality because he sees her speaking to Andy at the party again, kind of in doubling down his feeling of sort of being cuckolded. You know, he's, has this idea never confirmed or not, you know, his wife is cheating on him. Of course it is. And I don't like talking about this on the podcast. It is important to mention that their first sexual encounter does not go well, right?

32:06It's never explicitly stated that he's either impotent or at least, you know, it's not working for some reason. But when he goes home that night, he tells her to wait outside so that he can check the house, obviously disturbed by the idea that someone's in their home. Yeah. Shop vans and Albertsons for fresh savings every time you shop. This week at vans and Albertsons get fresh, boneless, skinless chicken breast for 199 per pound, limit 10 pounds. And locally grown, grapey, cotton candy grapes are 299 per pound with digital coupon. Plus 24 packs of Canada dry or 7 up 12 ounce cans are 499 limit one with digital coupon. Enjoy fresh and delicious savings for every meal. Hurry in, these deals won't last. Visit vans or Albertsons.com for more deals and ways to save. Are you tired of confusing bait and switch pricing on GLP ones? Then visit happyglp.com where it's always $99 a month. At happyglp, whether you're brand new or renewing, it's $99 every time.

33:08No teaser price, no switch up. Getting started this fast, convenient, and happens virtually with a licensed provider. Check it out for yourself at happyglp.com. Compound and medications are not FDA approved. Eligibility required and determined by a licensed provider. Individual results may vary. See website for details. Cut to the next morning. He's alone in his house. And he sees the next cassette. In this version, right, this third cassette tape, the cameras in the bedroom again. And Renee is in the bed. Just cut to pieces. Completely pulled apart, covered in blood. We see him on his knees, just howling. Right, completely absent his senses. And very, very quickly, it's smash cuts to him sitting across from the police. He says he didn't kill her. The film doesn't actually show the murder.

34:14But nonetheless, he's found guilty of murder and sentenced to the electric chair. So that third repetition of the tape, right, very important. We see that tape come back, but opinion that idea, you'll see it again. What do you make of that section, Andy? Yeah, it's, I think it's, I like it from, like a filmmaker's standpoint, because he compresses time. All you really get is, I think they do a little bit of voiceover where you hear like the judge render the sentence and you hear the slamming of the jail door. And we're introduced to these two guards. As you pointed out, I think before we started recording, Henry Rollins is, that's his name, right? And then the other guy actually, it plays a role

35:15in the movie Fight Club. I don't know his name, but he's very recognizable. And also, I don't, you know, for the, for the nerd, the guy in Big Lebowski who plays the, the landlord where, where the Big Lebowski lives, he's this funny character who asked him to come and watch his, he asked the Jeff Bridges character, Mr. Lebowski. You know, I've got, he's got like this dance routine that he's doing and he, he would love it if he would come and give him notes. It's just this, such such a hilarious moment in Big Lebowski, that actor shows up as one of the guards and in this moment. Anyway, just a few little of sides there for the super film nerd. But this is, I think it's rendered really well because we don't get dragged into this,

36:18what would be a pretty confusing, you know, set of scenes regarding, how does this guy wind up in jail? Well, he murdered his wife, I guess. And so now he's in jail. I think it's beautiful. And it correct me if I'm wrong, you have the chronology better than I, but we, we from there, oh yeah, okay, now I remember what's gonna happen. I'll throw it back to you because we're gonna effectively pivot into this parallel track of what is like an alternate reality. It's where things have merged together. It's, it's where the film really gets good, in my opinion. Definitely. And I think it's, one of the things you'll see Lenshdu often is sort of, you'll hop genres for a scene or two. And, you know, so far this has been a fairly, you know, dour, super natural relational thriller, one might say.

37:19But the scenes in the prison are kind of comedic, in a certain way. Yeah. The guards are joking. And there's some parts where there's some serious dissonance where they're, you know, they're joking. Like, oh, you know, the wife killer is not doing too well today. And they laugh, they're like, oh, which wife killer? You know, yeah. Of course, it's deliberately dissonant in a way, but it is kind of shot and, you know, scripted as a comedy, even if only briefly. So he's on death row. And we start to see him suffering from some sort of psychological issue. He goes to the doctor, the doctor is very, very rough with him, even while he's, you know, checking him out. And he asks him, like, you know, are you sleeping? Because clearly there's something going wrong with him. Of course, he's not. You know, he's on death row for killing his wife. I assume that's not, you know, a great recipe for, you know, eight hours to solid sleep at night. But nonetheless, he comes back to his cell. He's starting to hallucinate.

38:23He sees a desert cabin out on stilts. On fire, in reverse, the flames are sort of being sucked back into this cabin. And in the door, he sees the mystery man. One that we've seen a couple times. And then this same lost highway. The guards come in. They see him, you know, writhing around. There's this sort of pulsating blue light. It's almost electric. Another motif we will see many times in Lynch's work, right? Electricity and smoke. And when the smoke clears, someone else is there. Yes, a new person has taken his place. So the guards, of course, realize that some spooky shit direct quote is going on. They go through his fingerprints and find out, no, no, this is someone different.

39:24This is Peter Dayton, a guy who's got, you know, a rap sheet for auto theft, but, you know, it doesn't deserve to be on death row. So well, they have to cut him free. But they decide we'll put a tail on it. We'll watch it. Something's obviously going on. So we'll carry on with the plot later, but this is a really fascinating scene. Andy, I'm curious to get your thoughts on it. Okay, so this is where you reminded me of, now listeners of this show, if you have not heard at least the hang Williams version of the song Lost Highway, I would hit pause and go listen to that. And then as Jay pointed out to me, Towns Vansant has a, as a great version. There are many great versions. And the song is, is like, I don't know, an American classic, maybe, maybe one of the, you know, it's a, let's just leave it

40:26at that. If you look at these lyrics, I think I have them pulled up here just really briefly, nothing too in depth. But you see, so I'm a Roland Stone all alone and lost for a life of sin I've paid the cost. When I pass by, all the people say just another guy on that Lost Highway. And the song is four verses, stanzas. There's, the third one says, I'm just a lad, nearly 22, neither good nor bad, just a kid like you. Now I'm lost too late to pray, Lord, I paid the cost on the Lost Highway. And I bring this up now because I think it's somehow significant that this character Pete who replaces the Bill Pullman character who gets, he winds up in jail is young. He's like 25, whereas the jazz musician Bill Pullman guy was

41:28maybe early 40s or something like that. If there's a difference here. And I suspect this will be my maybe only contribution to the like, let's speculate on what this movie really means, even though the director says, don't do that, it's not fun. I think part of what's happening here is that the Bill Pullman character is, he's playing along this old idea of the musician selling his soul. He's done something to sort of get himself out of this position. And this kid has wound up somehow. It's never quite clear what happened to the kid to wind him up in this position. Other than like Hank Williams says here, he just kind of made a series of dumb choices, which is Pete's kind of a, Pete's kind of dumb, isn't he? I mean, he's, he sort of gets pulled along in, and at the end of the film, I think my theories holds up a little bit.

42:31But when Pete enters into the scene, oh, I'll throw it back your way because I think what happens is they have to let him out because the comedy continues with the guards and they're like, what exactly is they're, they're shitting their pants. They're, you know, this is a major problem. And then Pete winds up back with his parents, right? And his parents are also these comedic like, totally, I wanted to make sure we talked about his parents who is Gary Bucy, who's wearing a leather jacket. And this was the time period. It was a few years before this for your youngsters. Again, Gary Bucy was in some sort of a, in real life, was in like a, a motorcycle accident of some sort and had a head injury. And then instead of being the kind of leading man that maybe he was on, on a course to be, he became a bit of a buffoon.

43:32Um, you know, and he, they were made, he was, they were, they were, there were skits on Saturday night live, famously where they were making fun of Gary Bucy. But he shows up here and he's kind of a motorhead. He's like a Southern California motorhead. His wife is also wearing like a, a same leather jacket. And this again, as a, I guess like a character motif or something that definitely shows up also super bizarrely without much explanation in twin peaks. There's this character named James, kind of like James Dean, who wears a leather jacket, who actually winds up, who rides a motorcycle and ends up having an accident on this motorcycle. And the best I can do with it is to say like, it's back to your, your statement about Lynch is taking on classic Hollywood imagery, James Dean and, and whatnot. And that on the one hand, he's honoring it.

44:34And then at the same time, he's fracturing it and using it for his some deeper darker and ultimately more interesting purpose. Well, I mean, to that point, it is sort of his relationship with his parents is very weird. You know, we see him interacting with his, his other friends and the conversation between him and his parents is very stilted. The fact that, you know, they're on one hand kind of alternative, his parents, they're wearing leather jackets and jeans. They sort of, you know, have that kind of outward impression, but also they just, they're like a normal suburban family. And so you have this sort of vision of like an aging outsider in a way, you know, the like the version of James Dean that never died. And now he's like, you know, in his mid fifties, you know, he's got a son and him and his wife are still, you know, wearing the same things they were 20, 30 years ago is kind of interesting.

45:36You know, you see, it's a very minor character. I will mention about Gary Bucy. If you are a student of low rent, conservative and evangelical media, you may know Gary Bucy has been in a number of different low buck religious films. And one I cannot remember the name of it where he plays a rich, selfish lawyer turned into a palmarinean because of blasphemes God, which I have seen. Let me find this. This is now the second time I've paused the flow of this show to look something up. But I know this exists. Oh, quickly, that's what it is. Yep, from 03 actually. Okay, sorry. I knew that I wasn't a lunatic. It's not a good movie, by the way. If you really have a point, yeah, it's a hidden gem.

46:37I think there's a lot to be said there about a nation's divine evidence when Gary Bucy plays a palmarinean. But point is, you know, kind of an interesting actor. But we see, and I think that the guy who played this sort of, this character was actually a DJ, weird, lean off. But Pete, he works with engines. Right. He's a mechanical man. He works with his hands. Again, in contrast to our musician, right. They're sort of mirrored in that way. And actually one of the things that happens earlier when detectives first come to investigate these mysterious tapes, as they ask him what he does. And when he says he's a musician, he's like, oh, what's your axe? You know, I'm implying, of course, that he's some sort of rock star or something. And then when he says, you know, I'm a, you know, a jazz player, you can sort of see them change. They don't respect him. Right. That's like all that's a, that's a gay job.

47:39And so I think it's interesting, right. That Pete is mirror image. You know, he's a man who works with his hands. Interestingly enough, the same musical track from the club scene will eventually play at the, you know, at this mechanic shop later in the film. I guess this is good. It's time is any to talk about the soundtrack. I think Trent Rezner did the music for this. It's a very interesting soundtrack. Of course, you have these sort of like, I guess you would say kind of experimental jazz that we hear in the club. I don't know anything about jazz. So we'll go with that. But it has songs by David Bowie, Lou Reed. There's a Ramstein number in here, which that one, Florida, I was not anticipating that. But, uh, yeah, it's, it's a very good, very good, uh, soundtrack music plays a lot in this. Just wanted to mention that as an aside shop, Vons and Albertsons for fresh savings every time you shop.

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49:44working in this, working in this shop. Right. And he's specifically working on this is kind of a cool, weird detail in it. But this like crazy machine, it's an old, you know, 60s Mercedes with this giant engine put in it. You know, we see him working on these like huge turbos. So it's this and we find out later, it's a 1,400 horsepower Mercedes that this sort of mob boss character has him create for him. Which again, if we're talking about, you know, what is Hollywood? What is Americana? Well, it's the hot rod. Right. It's the hot rod or it's the mob boss. All of these motifs, we see that are very much that sort of Western version of America. But Mr. Eddie, this sort of mob boss character walks it. He's glad that Pete is back. Pete is obviously appeared in prison. And when he goes back to work, all the guys there saying like,

50:46Oh, everyone's been calling for you. Everyone wants you and Mr. Eddie needs you because you're the only guy who can work on his car. You know, this insane machine. And so he says, all right, you know, we got to go and arrive to get this thing tuned up. So it's, you know, Pete in the front seat, Mr. Eddie driving his two goons in the back. And you know, they're pulling off, you know, changing, you know, different dials, getting it all working. But when they're driving again through the, the canyons around Hollywood, which, you know, again, something you have seen in many movies. I mean, this is stupid, but I even think about the, like there's, there's a scene like this in one of the Halloween movies. I cannot tell you which one it is because they all kind of blurred together. But there is basically this exact scene you've seen it of, you know, cars going through these, these canyons. And just this normal commuter car starts tailgating, right? Riding his bumper. So what does Mr. Eddie do? Well, let's him get around.

51:48Floor is it runs into the back of this guy's car, pushes him off the road, gets his two goons out of the car. And basically they dragged this guy out, pistol with him with a chrome desert eagle and make him promise to never tailgate again. It's kind of a funny scene, but he starts yelling at him about, you know, the, the statistics of how dangerous driving is makes him promise to, you know, to read the driver manual and then get in the car and leaks. Again, it's, it's comedic, but what we're establishing is basically this guy's a psychopath. And when he returns, he basically offers him, he offers him a portal. It's like, are you interested in this? Pete says, you know, no, thanks, which to be fair, that's a, that's a, that's a hell of a day at work, right? But one of the things that actually forgot to mention is that we've seen,

52:49Pete has this sort of head wound. And earlier, right, when we're on death's row, Fred is also shown to be where having this sort of head wound, right? And it sort of starts to split open before the transformation happens. Pete has the same wound linking the two characters, obviously. But when Mr. Eddie sees this, he basically says, like, oh, is someone giving you trouble? Like, we can take care of that. And Pete's like, no, no, it's okay, man. And he's like, no, we can take care of that. We can take like, he's insistent about the fact that he one likes Pete wants to help about. And two is very enthusiastic about killing whoever needs to be killed. So you sort of get this air that, you know, this, this Eddie, Mr. Eddie guys, he's kind of a psycho, right? He's this is a stereotypical big man mob boss, you know, big guy, big cars, all that. So anyway, going back to the plot, right?

53:51He promises to, well, do some more work. There's a Cadillac, a different car. And he's like, yeah, I can get this done. And later, after he's, you've got this car all fixed up, Eddie's girlfriend walks in. Same actresses, Renee, basically identical, but she's blood. Eddie introduces her as Alice. And the two of them start to well, have an affair together, right? They have some sort of twist. And what's interesting is that to your point, Alice is choosing hip. She's the one motivating this. If he's clearly, you're very, at least initially reticent, you know, he knows that this guy Eddie is a, it's a psycho. He's made it very clear like you don't cross that guy. But she's basically picked him out.

54:52For instance, when she shows up, she basically tells him, hey, we're going out to dinner. Again, he is not the sort of active party in this. She is pursuing him. And remember, of course, what is this? It's sort of the mirror image version from a certain perspective of our first story, our first character, where this version of Renee, Alice, she's pursuing Pete. The roles are slightly reversed in that way, but it's yeah, ultimately the same woman. Anyway, Eddie, I've been talking for a long time. I'll give you like. Well, I mean, you're doing a great job. I don't know what more I can add at this point, other than the earlier comment we made about Lynch using this double this or this twin thing. Sorry about the dog. He does the exact same technique where with Laura Palmer and Laura Palmer's quote,

55:53cousin, he just swaps the hair color. It goes from blonde to dark brown. And that's exactly what he does here with Renee and Alice. And I want to mention too, you know, just like setting something out on the table where Jay is for, you know, for our audience kind of, and I think you're right, you know, we're kind of hinting around this divine feminine, a deep theme related to this somehow. And, you know, my, I've read all this stuff. I've read the golden bow or whatever and a number of other similar sorts of books where if somebody wanted to try and understand the divine feminine, I mean, you can, but you're not really getting, it's not a mechanical thing where you can take away and like put these elements into your movie or into your life or something and say, okay, I've got the divine

56:53feminine down. Now we can move on with the rest of life. The nature of the thing is just completely slippery and bizarre and you can't really get your hands on it. But your point about how in the inverse, the, the like polarity of who is in sexual terms, pursuing who I think is a really great point, Jay. I'm glad you brought it up because that's the level where you can't deny it lint, she's mastery of the thing. And like the way how tightly it's actually woven, just a subtle little point like that where in the, in the version where our divine feminine sort of figure has the brown hair, she's, you know, operating as like a different pole. She's not maybe the, the one who pursues, whereas now that we've switched over into whatever is going on here in this alternate version, she now is playing that role.

57:57And that's just a, it's just a very subtle, but I think very important point. And then hopefully, you know, we can put, we can chart this toward where I'm thinking of is, you know, when we get to the end, and, and Alice's character is revealed, like she's much bigger than she seems. And your, your points that you've kind of been seeding along the way, divine feminine, whatever that is, you know, is it Mary? Is it this horror savior figure in David Lynch movie? I don't know, but it is playing a role for sure. And your, your other point about porn and the, the, it various images, and you probably can, you know, you're, you're probably imagining or visualizing that end moment where all of this becomes one. So I'll just reiterate it again. And then we, maybe visit the timeline if you want, but, well, and it's, it's important to mention,

59:01Alice is not the only woman we see Pete interact with. He has a girlfriend, Sheila. Yeah. We see them together in an intimate capacity. But after the affair, she smells it on it. She's like, oh, I know what you're doing. Yeah. breaks up with it. And then just walks off into the night. And yeah, we've seen a couple times throughout this Pete's police tale. They have obviously figured out that, you know, he's, spending the night with all these women. Again, there's some kind of comedy in that, you know, these two detectives kind of fat slugs. You know, watching this guy get to get on with, you know, scores of beautiful women. But nonetheless, right, we see that he is shop bonds and Albertsons for fresh savings every time you shop. This week at Vons and Albertsons get fresh, boneless, skinless chicken breasts for one 99 per pound, limit 10 pounds. And locally grown, grape, or cotton candy grapes are two 99 per pound with digital coupon.

1:00:03Plus 24 packs of Canada dry or 7 up 12 ounce cans are 499 limit one with digital coupon. Enjoy fresh and delicious savings for every meal. Hurry in. These deals won't last. Visit vonsoralbertsons.com for more deals and ways to save. Come on and get happy with happy GLP dot com. At just $99 a month, happy GLP gives you one set price every month. No tears, no tricks. Getting started with happy GLP is fast, convenient, and happens virtually with a licensed provider. Check it out for yourself at happyGLP.com. That's happy GLP.com. A happy price for a happier you. Compounding medications are not FDA-approved eligibility required and determined by a licensed provider. Individual results may vary. See website for details. Arguably, almost inexplicably attractive to women. They're just falling over at all moments. But we see another scene where after this breakup, his parents try and talk about that night,

1:01:12assuming what happened in prison. It's never explicitly stated. How did you teleport onto death row taking the place that convicted white killer? Of course, it's scary if you see so it's oddly acted to put it mildly. But we see one, Pete's head start to hurt. His nose bleeding. And we see the exact same flashes, these sort of premonitions one might say, the Fred had, a hallway, the cabin, and the highway. Again, repeat it. Later, we hear from Alice, again, after another kind of stop in their whirlwind affair, that Eddie has put her in port. Andy, the same Andy from before, is sort of this pimp character he's in between the two of it. And she says, like, look, I want to get out of this. You know, I don't want to do this anymore. So what we'll do is we will go to Andy's house,

1:02:16rob all his money, and then get out. Her idea, again, she's driving it. And well, Pete says yes. Now, Mr. Eddie, you started to figure this out. You know, there's sort of the threatening scene where again, he pulls out this comically massive chrome desert eagle and says like, oh, you know, if I ever found out something was happening to Alice, you know, I jammed this so far up your ass and come out your mouth. And I'd blow your brains out. Again, indicating that he knows what's going on. This is, again, if we're talking about doubling, another man who is involved with this actress, whether, or, you know, whether it is Renee or Alice, and suspecting that she is up to no good. She's running around on it, right? Kind of mirror image did another way. There is obviously the parallels between Fred and Pete, but also from a certain perspective, between, well, Fred and Mr. Eddie, they're both in a similar relationship to this woman.

1:03:20Right? Were there being sort of your stepped out of it? Yeah. So they go to Andy's house. Andy's house, I might add, the same house from the party. Obviously, shot differently. Alice is able to get in and they see money, a gun, and a porn film play. Now, what's interesting is it's black and white, so we don't know the color of her hair. It's not clear. This is also, I think, when the Ramstein song starts playing, which is kind of a tonal with lash, but nonetheless notable. And Andy comes home. They obviously start fighting, you know, they're robbing his house. And this is one of the several moments of really shockingly savage violence in it, where Andy sort of gets shoved down. His head hits the side of the table, and the table goes kind of a halfway through his head. He's being propped up by this glass bar

1:04:22just through his skull. But they decide to get out. Right? The, again, if we're talking about the parallels, now both Pete and Fred are murderers. They've done the same thing. But they get into, and again, not looking to take this into kind of a car autism rabbit hole. But a red 65 Mustang. Perhaps the most iconic Americana car. You know, it's like the one from every movie, right? Yeah. And of course, they take a gun with them. So we covered a lot of ground there. This again, a very surreal sort of odd scene. But we're starting to see one, this sort of doubling and redoubling between both our two stories, and even within those two stories, different and same versions. Right? Andy is Andy in both. Obviously, you know, Renee and Alice are two aspects one might say of the same person.

1:05:24And in this house, they see something really interesting. They see a photo. That photo has Mr. Eddie, Andy, but both Renee and Alice. And when they're scrambling to get out of here, the murder has happened. He asks her, wait, this woman looks just like you, which one are you? And of course, she points to the blonde one. But it's very clearly the same woman, just with different colored hair. So Andy, what do you make of that photo, which will appear later in the plot? We'll come back to it. But it's sort of the most explicit moment of kind of doubling, like the chasm is almost where that is made apparent in the whole film. Well, maybe that's what, you know, is being pointed to here. I got to give it away. I hope it's okay. Is when the detectives come back to this murder scene later, the same detectives, and they look

1:06:24through. They see Andy still stuck to the table in this ridiculous, gory position. One of them sees that picture. And the picture has changed, right? It's just, I think the brown-haired version of this woman. And so they put two and two together, they've solved some part of the, hey, remember this girl? That's the one that got murdered by that jazz fake. Well, but what you're pointing to is something, I think, really special, where there's, let's call it like a slipstream or something. Between maybe male or other patterned realities, where both of these women do exist in some sense, in that picture. It seems to be that's maybe the message because it's very clear like when the detectives see the same picture later,

1:07:26they're in this other sort of world there. And it's not as if it's something mechanical, like, oh, the picture was was photoshopped. And now this, the blonde version is gone. That's not what Lynch is implying, I don't think. So one other tidbit to add here is, in while that porn, while this is all going on, Alice and Pete are enacting their, like, pretty classic too, isn't it? Kind of like, we're gonna, we're gonna get over on this guy, this bad guy, and you and me are gonna escape and have this great life. That's another sort of Hollywood trope that you see a lot. You see it in Red Rock West, actually. If this is like the two-faced or multi-pronged or there's this classic line that's attributed to the author of the last temptation of Christ, I think, where he says, there's actually only one woman

1:08:32with a thousand different faces. It's quite an interesting thing to ponder in this context, at least, and related to women, in general, I think. But if we presume that maybe we're in that, that place where, and it's not like women, I don't know, it's more like you're in the divine feminine. I mean, it's not as if it's their world, it's not as if they designed it, it's not as if the rules don't apply, but it is something. It's very curious, and it's not, at all outside of what has to be sort of the main thrust in message, if you will, not really message is the wrong word, but the main thrust of the film. This is a big, big deal that she exists in both places in the certain bandwidth, and then the rest of it happens on the two sides of it. Well, and again, the phrase alternate reality, it sort of primes the mind with simulation,

1:09:40theory, bullshit, like Rick and Morty style. That's not the point, and that's, unfortunately, kind of the terms we're using, but I think that you're entirely correct to draw the attention to the fact that when the detectives come back, it really is a different world. All the things are still there, but it's sort of straight up and down. You're watching a crime scene investigation, not this sort of surreal madcap doubling and redoubling reality we've seen. And again, going back to the previous comments about how Lynch deliberately uses the conventions of different genre's or different types of media at different points in the film to sort of change how it feels for a scene, I think that's deliberate as well. Like that is, okay, not literally, but that could be from a crime procedure. It's in a different world than the rest of the film at other different points of the film.

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1:11:54bathroom, right? Yeah. Reality shifts. His house has become the same motel corridor. We've seen multiple times in these sort of flashes, these hallucinations. The lost highway hotel, a room door 26, and inside we see a woman, presumably Alice Renee, combined, lit in dramatic red light, having sex with a man. We do not see his face, her hair color is obscured by the lighting. And she looks as if, well, Pete and or Fred, sort of unclear there, as if he's supposed to be there. Now, again, going back to the whole inclusion of porn in this, or having a sort of abstracted version of this woman you're obsessed with, in his sexual act with this sort of as a third party observer with a faceless man,

1:12:59what is that? That's the same motif expressed differently. And well, he finally stumbles back down to Alice, shake it up by this vision he saw. Again, we see these same sort of thematic elements of the abstract feminine, the kind of woman with a thousand faces, both in your wife or horror, you know, both sort of obsessed with and also repulsed by that sort of tension, if you see what I'm saying. But they've got to get out of town. They talk about how they're going to fence all the stuff they stole. She knows a guy way out in the desert who can get them new passports, who give them money for the stolen goods, so they can skip town. They can get out of dodge. Again, a classic motif, the couple on the run from the law, something funny enough you see in Red Rock West, a fairly different film on a number of levels, but within the same kind of mythos of Hollywood.

1:14:04So they drive out. They see the cabin. This cabin we've seen multiple times on stills and this kind of dry lake bed. You see a rusted sign, the lost highway, the yellow lines, you know, as they're going through the darkness, something again we've seen multiple times. And they're there, it's empty. The fence never shows up. Got the headlights just kind of projecting into the desert. The two of them, you know, sex in the middle of the desert. And he asks her, saying like, I want you. And after it's done, she sort of whispers into his ear, you'll never have me. We see that same desire, even in this sort of world where he is desired by all women, he'll never actually have

1:15:08the idea of covered a lot of ground. I'll give it to you. Okay, I'll do my best, but because that's the, again, it's a brilliant movie, no matter what anybody tells you, even just from a conventional kind of frame, because that's the moment where, you know, all of this stuff converges, this was exactly when this guy who's been desired. And it is not rejected in the sense. It's a profound statement, I think, about whatever is really going on here below the surface of reality, vis-a-vis femininity, and all that it is. And I wouldn't put it, I wouldn't slide it at all. In terms of trying to maybe close this out for our listeners who have probably suffered throughout at this point, if they haven't seen the movie, I mean, just go see the movie for sure. But I'll try and kind of

1:16:11put something of a bow on it where you have a sort of confrontation right after that moment, where Pete and Alice are kind of having this reckoning. You have this next confrontation with the Bill Pullman character who sort of inserts into reality in a way. And you realize, well, these two were twined, you know, in some sense, this entire time. And that's where my theory about maybe the old Faustian idea of the musician selling his soul is at play somehow in this film. And for considerations of time, maybe I won't detail every last step of it. But it's very, let's just go through it. Okay, close it to the end. If you don't have a hard out, I think we should just go ahead because this is fun and I want to get to it. Cool. Okay, that makes it a lot easier.

1:17:11Let's do that. All right, so first statement is and please jump in if you want to do the step-by-step thing. All I really want to point out about the ending though is that for Twin Peaks people who, once again, I think Twin Peaks is one of the all-time, like top two or three, maybe the top, you know, most important television or episodic sort of show that has ever gone down. An amazing thing about it is its connection here to this film right at the end and it's this hotel where, because again, please correct me if I'm wrong, Jay, but don't they do a sort of, doesn't they do a kind of a back and forth between more action at the hotel and this place, this fence where a guy who's obviously a demon of some sort is operating. I think he's cutting back and forth, but in this hotel, you can't, it's just utterly obvious that this is the same hotel

1:18:20that shows up at the very end of, after 25 years of work on Twin Peaks in season three, Dale Cooper and his partner, what the hell's her name, Diane. I won't give that away, but they have this very similar exchange where identities are being sort of morphed and one person's walking in the hotel room and a whole other person is walking out and it has to do specifically once again with the female and the male and this is so clear in the Twin Peaks version, they're in a hotel that's very similar. I mean, it's a desert like classic neon sign. So at that level, when you consider the man's body of work, he's telling us like his vision is not constrained at all into one particular film. It's not going to be constrained even in his body of

1:19:25work. So that was the main thing that I wanted to offer here for listeners at the end. I think the huge part of the takeaway and value here is seeing Lynch deploy these ideas over the course of many, many, many years, 25 years and in different films altogether. I'll throw it back to you. And that's really the thing that makes it fun is that you can see one, but you sort of get more out of it by going through the rest of his backlog because you see the same ideas layered and express differently. The brunette and the blonde being the same or being sort of versions of the same woman, something, you know, from Mahol and drive, the sort of relationship between male and female expressed in desire, the kind of symbols of classic American Hollywood all feature in this sort of

1:20:31surreal spiritual world where evil is real. There are demons and evil is this sort of electric force. It's not necessarily always personified, but very much there. It's completely unique. You don't get it anywhere. And of course, this, this cabin is one of these sort of, I hate the term liminal, but one of these sort of pivotal liminal spaces or sort of evil is real. Because what happens, of course, is that after this interaction, right, where she said, you can never have me. What does she do? She walks into the cabin and disappears. She's gone. Yeah. Evil, the gate to hell, whatever you want to call it has sort of swallowed her up. And after, right, we see this, this flash of light, whether it's headlights or whatever, and will Pete is gone, Fred is in his place, he's sort of re-transformed depending on how you look at it. And who's in the back seat of the

1:21:34Mustang? Well, it's the mystery man, right, the devil has come back for his do so to speak. And this is a really cool interaction. Well, he says, right, he first is in the back seat. Then he sort of teleports appears in the door of the cabin. And he says, here I am, right, the devil is here. So Fred pulled on his pants, goes in, Alice isn't there. It's the mystery man. And when he says, talking to this guy with his pale face, like, where is Alice? He's like, there is no Alice. Her name is Ronan. If she said Alice, she lied. And of course, he's like, who the fuck are you? And the mystery man lifts up the video camera. He starts chasing him with the camera. We see a little bit of what's on screen. It's very similar to the other tapes we've seen,

1:22:35you know, again and again throughout this film. And as he walks towards him filming, Fred bolts, gets in the Mustang and just starts tearing out of there. And what happens next? He's in the motel again. He sees Renee, brown hair, his wife, leave it after an affair with Dick Laurent or Mr. Eddie, the same person. The two names are referring to the same guy. And now, well, his fears are confirmed. So he gets the drop on him, forces him into the car. They drive out into the desert. They start fighting, right? They're wrestling back and forth. And as Laurent gets the drop on him, he's sort of got to pin down and you know, full mount or whatever. The mystery man appears. And as his hand goes back, he puts a knife

1:23:40in it. And he comes up and slashes his throat. Next, the mystery man shows up and shoots him, puts a gun. And Laurent pulls out a tiny TV. This is a weird moment, you know, he's, you know, expiring, which shows clips of Laurent and Renee together. Now, it's debatable whether this is porn, right? Whether this is, you know, the thing we saw in the sort of B plot, right? Of Laurent, Mr. Eddie, you know, using Andy as a venue to get Alice slash Renee involved in this kind of, you know, CD underworld activity. But nonetheless, Laurent knows he dies knowing that, well, Fred

1:24:44saw it. The mystery man, seemingly satisfied. And now Fred's driving back to his own house, the place where the movie started. It's his own intercom and says, Dick Laurent is dead. The first line, right, this sort of loop has gone very back, has gone back to the beginning. Yeah. And as he, you know, goes as the film sort of wraps up, we hear police sirens just like we did at the beginning, right? It was distant there. And Fred runs. He hits the open road. And the cruisers are behind him. We see his face in the windshield start to start of split in the same way it did when he was in the cell. As if he's sort of trying to transform, but can't, you know, it's obviously causing him

1:25:44pain. We start to see this sort of white flashing, you screaming. And the road, the same road, right, as the, as the movie sort of cuts to black. So that's it, right? That's the end of the movie. How did this sort of loops back into itself? We see, of course, you know, this sort of resolution of his fears about you being cuckolded by his wife, this sort of link, you know, between Alice and Renee is two aspects or two expressions of the same woman, ultimately. So yeah, Andy, there's a lot there. I just wanted to run through the plot so we could all get it out there. But, uh, yeah, I think you make of this because I covered a lot of ground there. Yeah. Yeah. We're against, you gotta see the movie. It's not, it's like nothing else. I mean, but you did a fantastic job actually staying on track. I go back now at this point to the hang William song, which I have to put, I, you know, it's the same title. Uh, we're dealing with

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1:27:52We kind of touched on the, um, you did on the car thing, which in retrospect, you're right. I mean, all of the main characters have these very distinct, like, uh, distinctive, just really bad-ass cars. I don't know what else to say, whether it's the, the Mercedes or whatever. But if I go back to this set of lyrics and what Hank Williams is saying in some sense over and each stands a, at the end, just another guy on the lost highway. The next one is I started rolling down that lost highway. Lord, I paid the cost on the lost highway. My advice, so the last stands is now boys, don't start to ramble and round. On this road of sin, you were sorrow bound. Take my advice or you'll curse the day you started rolling down that lost highway.

1:28:52This loop that you're talking about, which I forgot about until you, until you reminded me, the whole movie is this brilliant loop. Once again, totally masterful. And Bill Pullman, I keep forgetting his name, but our jazz saxophone guy who's also Pete, this main character, winds up kind of stuck on this lost highway. He's on, as you say, this, bizarrely lit, dark highway with the yellow center line rocketing past at 180 miles an hour. You get the impression, I hate the word too, but I don't know what else to, there are other words, but it's a liminal space of some sort. It's like a back area, a slipstream beneath or below or between reality. And I get the impression that that's where our guy is eternally now. It's not

1:29:55maybe quite hell, but he's in, he is now going to curse the day as, as Hank Williams said, that he made whatever, because there was another line right earlier somewhere where Bill Pullman says to his wife Renee, oh, it's when they're at the party, when he first confronts the mysterious devil demon sort of character. And he says, you know, we got to get out of here. We never should have come here. And it's like, that line stands out to me like, yeah, buddy, like you never, there's certain like lines, that choices you make in life that obviously, you know, you shouldn't have made and maybe you can't come back from. And that line in particular, just, it's really just a throwaway line, but I think it says a lot like, yeah, but he never

1:30:56should have gone out there, because it's way deeper out there than it seems. And he finds out. Well, and you also see that with the Renee Alice character, right, whether, you know, both versions of her were involved in porn or not, but there is that sort of, you know, once you've gone, that we can go back. At a great point, yeah, literally in a sense that she cannot escape this, but also the question is like, and it's not explicitly said, but it is part of his, during jealousy that, you know, his wife Renee had a career in porn. Now she's, you know, suburban housewife, you know, they're married, but she still did that. It's not explicit, but, you know, with that doubling, with that sort of, you know, version of it, that is entirely a reading. And whether you look at it as just the sort of getting involved in a shady industry, or the fact that like, their ability to connect as a couple, you know, whether physically or not has been kind of destroyed by that, but that's another reading of this, you know, that she can't go

1:32:00back from what she did. Obviously, he can't either, but you see, you know, it's not explicit, you know, it's not said, like, oh, that's what's happening here, but you can look at what, you can look at the set set out, you know, depending on how closely you view, you know, Renee and Alice is being linked and say, well, like, that's another aspect, you know, it's expressed differently for the male and the female, but it's that similar thing where like, once you have started down that lost highway, you know, it's, it's got you, you know, yeah. Yeah, brilliant point. Honestly, that's, that's like, yeah, yeah, I mean, it's totally tragic, it's, it's timeless, and he's just, he, Lynch, I mean, has just managed to do fracture it once again in his own particular way, and then present this thing that like, nobody else could have ever made. I mean, I couldn't make that movie. Nobody could.

1:33:03Well, Andy, I'm curious to get your thoughts on this because I was noticing a parallel, and I don't know how deliberate it is, but the character of the mystery man reminded me quite a bit of Judge Holden, both physically, you know, these kind of pale white semi-demonic figures, but also that idea that, you know, the mystery man is there with the camera, you know, recording, showing you exactly what happened, not your perception of it, right? And that, you know, lines up with that famous rant from Judge Holden, where he's talking about like, you know, nothing exists, basically saying, you know, nothing exists without my knowledge because then it exists without that consent, you know, the idea that he needs to have this rational scientific. I thought that was an interesting parallel, regardless if it was purposeful or not, but the visuals are striking. I'm sure you've seen, you know, artists for editions of Judge Holden look almost exactly like the mystery man. That's a really good point, Jay. You're killing it at the set-up because you're,

1:34:06you have to be right. I don't know that my understanding of Lynch, and I keep saying this, but I mean, I've, I've spent a lot of time with David Lynch in a number of different ways, not personally. I didn't get that lucky, but my take was that he did read, but he didn't read like voraciously, but I put it totally in the realm of possibility that he, that he would have read Blood Meridian, maybe. But either way, I mean, it's entirely possible. It is. Yeah. I mean, he would have had 10 or 15 years or something, maybe to process it and come around to that. And one thing I do see Lynch doing a fair bit is something like, let's just say the judge strikes him. He will, he will shatter that into several pieces. And you do have this character in Mulholland Drive, I think, the cowboy who shows up, who's also super creepy in the way he speaks to the characters.

1:35:18So that you could, you could have like this little reverse amalgam of the judge, but more, more interesting to me would be your point here. I think where you're going is to say that there are, you know, sort of technological, there are consequences on the road that we're on. And that would be, you know, this intense adherence to a materialist or sort of a rationalist world view where if I don't understand everything and record everything and have everything in some sort of, you know, measure and and waited place, then then it's not good enough. And I think that, I'm with this, like I'm totally on board if that's the message in philosophical metaphysical terms that and and Gebser, this guy who I've been stuck on for about a year now, Jean Gebser,

1:36:24makes this makes this point that, you know, this idea of Holdens where like I have to measure it, I have to know it and contain it otherwise it's some sort of offense to me. Um, Gebser is a is a psychologist sort of mystic maybe along the lines of Jung, but I think much more robust. He posits that this is a phase in human consciousness of, you know, development. And so we're going to arrive back out into something closer to myth, magic. It's going to be an integrated thing, but wouldn't it be interesting because one, I just happen to think Gebser's probably right, I happen to love David Lynch, but here you point out and I miss this that there does seem to be some implication in this film that technology and electricity in particular may have some evil,

1:37:27maybe not inherently evil, but but they're playing a role in advancing like evil's cause in a way. Uh, yeah, that's a really great point that I had not really considered that there's a parallel between those two and that he's capturing everything and it has to be the case because of that line you mentioned earlier where our character says, I kind of like to remember things my way, which strike it when he says it to the cops under that context, they're investigating him kind of, like, that's always the case right where if there's an issue, the cops will look at shop vans and Albertsons for fresh savings every time you shop. This week at vans and Albertsons get fresh boneless skinless chicken breast for one ninety nine per pound limit ten pounds and locally grown grape re cotton candy grapes are two ninety nine per pound with digital coupon plus 24 packs of Canada dry or seven up 12 ounce cans are four ninety nine limit one with digital coupon. Enjoy

1:38:28fresh and delicious savings for every meal. Hurry in, these deals won't last. Visit vans or Albertsons.com for more deals and ways to save. McDonald's is putting value back on the menu. Whether you're craving a big Mac, McNuggets or sausage egg and cheese, McGrittle's, make it a meal and save. Your favorite is now your wallet's favorite too. Extra value meals are back. Sun rises prices fall get a sausage McMuffin with egg or sausage egg and cheese McGrittle's small hot coffee and hash frowns for just six dollars. Price and participation may vary promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing. The two people standing in front of them they'll they'll like well the husband's doing it or the wife's doing it that's their first instinct because that's usually how it works out. But the guy is not necessarily that line doesn't function therefore in the bigger context as just you know a maybe a creepy thing to say about you know

1:39:29before I murder my wife or whatever it's it's much more profound than that like maybe it's okay to remember maybe it's actually good to remember things the way we want to remember them because how else would we get over this fact that you know like you said before or not not every man is going to get a virgin you know every man is going to have to deal with the fact that even if your wife is a virgin now and perfect there's still this possibility that you know she doesn't white she can choose not to be that and that's this very messy very devilish like if you've ever had to deal with anything like that in your life or personally like it isn't too far from reality to think that you would have wind up and it happens every day crimes of passion right like people do these utterly insane terrible things just simply because you know somebody did something untoward or either in their past or or while

1:40:35while they were together and it's yeah I'm not really making a judgment value on it right now I'm just saying it's a thing it's like it's there it can happen like your life can just spin off into really bad places and uh you you get the point I mean this this is a this is a fuel that he's using that's I mean it's it's incredibly powerful in terms of the emotional part of the movie well and I think that that that line right that sentiment you know you can never have me you know the idea that like yeah man's desire for woman for women rather is possession in a certain way and it's like well you can never really fully possess a person you know that is a desire that cannot be made perfect and just doesn't work that way and you know of course that is not saying that you should you know go out and marry a you know

1:41:36aging former porn star involved in you know a murderous mob operation that's not my point at all but to say like that kind of unimpossible desire you know to have someone fully that obviously you know deranges multiple characters through this like that is very very human archetyply and so again it's sort of why I think so many of the feminist readings of Lynch well they really leave out a lot of what he's saying there because yeah sure you could read this and say like oh you know this is patriarchal male desire you know and look at the situation it results in it's like well I mean no you know obviously you know Alison Renee is a moral being in this who makes bad choices she is responsible for her actions within the kind of copus of the film so anyway this is a great movie Andy I'm so glad you recommended it genuinely a really fascinating film if you've somehow gotten through an hour and a half of us talking through this extremely you know abstract kind of art

1:42:39film and haven't watched it one I applaud your dedication and two you should fix that ton of fun Andy great recommendation one of these I can already tell it sort of sticking in my brain but in the meantime man well where can people find it um you can find me on x and you can find me on sub stack I did just get news this morning that at long last the crowbar audio book is live this this is a very tedious process and I apologize for people who have um you know well I should say thank you for nagging me because I probably wouldn't have gotten it done otherwise but it's done and it's out there so I will be tending to that in the near future yeah I highly recommend it it's funny I get and I'm sure you get this as well a sort of slow trickle of people who finally gotten through the book after I've been yelling at them for like a year to read it and the reviews have been

1:43:41universally positive one of the the TLE guys just sent me his review of it liked it a lot so now if you're a literate you can still uh listen to Andy review crowbar highly recommend it Andy it's great to have you everyone at home keep your head up I can't last forever good night you shop vans and albertons for fresh savings every time you shop this week at vans and albertons get fresh boneless skinless chicken breast for one ninety nine per pound limit ten pounds and locally grown grape re cotton candy grapes are two ninety nine per pound with digital coupon

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