Lost Highway and neo-noir.

'A 21st Century Noir Horror Film.  A graphic investigation into parallel 
identity crises.  A world where time is dangerously out of control.  A 
terrifying ride down the lost highway'.  In this way David Lynch summed up 
his first release for a number of years, the stylistically darkly paranoid 
and captivatingly scary noir, Lost Highway.
Lost Highway is a generically hybrid film which incorporates strong noir
characteristics, thus effecting it's tone and atmosphere.  It's noiristic 
influences range from the classic noir period of the 1940s and 50s to 
Hitchcock's neo-noir of the late 50s, and is set in the perverted underbelly
of Los Angelean society as it comes to the close of the 20th century.  
This noir element is combined with a science fiction/horror component as 
Lynch leaves the realms of earthly reality behind him, departing on a 
fantastical journey into the unknown and unexplained.  He takes the viewer 
deep inside the subconscious of both American society and the individual 
characters, most especially Fred/Pete (Bill Pullman/ Balthazar Getty), who 
experience something close to a psychogenic fugue, with Fred metamorphosising
into Pete.  The viewer, to some extent shares the delusions and paranoia 
presented by Lynch, and is both absorbed in to the frighteningly dark 
intensity of the film, being unable to distinguish between reality and 
non-reality.

The way in which noir changes the atmosphere, tone and structure of Lost 
Highway can be seen through various filmic elements, such as narrative 
technique, mise en scene, particularly the use of lighting, and cinematography.  
A number of the central characters in Lost Highway can be seen to be both 
from a typically noir world and judged in a noir fashion.  Some examples of 
noir characyeristics are, the femme fatale, the gangster element, the police and authority, and also the 
central protagonist(s) as characteristically noir heroes.  Lynch also 
incorporates a reflexive element, with scenes echoing other noir and 
neo-noir films.

Lynch uses a classical narrative technique to relate the story. It is 
primarily third person and makes only limited use of it's omniscient ability, 
such as the wife killer joke made by the prison guards, instead preferring 
to take the point of view of the central protagonist(s), showing only scenes
in which they are present.  Although it involves flashback sequences, ie. 
when Alice (Patricia Arquette)  retells her first meeting with Mr Eddy 
(Robert Loggia), it does not use voice over narrative. The plot is circular 
and non-linear, with no clear beginning or end, with the body of the film 
apparently illogical in its use of time frame.  There is a certain sense of 
closure, in that Mr Eddy/Dick Laurant is killed, thus linking to the 
beginning of the film with the ominous words that appeared to come from no 
where, 'Dick Laurant is dead'. 
However, the film ends leaving a number of issues unresolved, who exactly 
where the characters, and what happened to them, such as Alice/Renee, 
Pete/Fred and the Mystery Man (Robert Blake).  This lack of closure is not 
typical to noir films, where the final fate of the central protagonist is 
usually known, either implicitly or explicity.
 
The mise en scene is very powerful throughout the film, changing its tone 
and atmosphere.  Even though the film is in colour, which is unlike
a large number of classical noir films, it uses extremely low key 
lighting , with darkness obscuring details and creating mystery and danger. 
The opening credits of the film show car headlights on an old dark highway, 
and the opening scene is lit only by the glow of Fred's cigarette.  The smoke 
also acts to obscure his face when the mechanical blinds are opened, letting 
in a stream of light.  Fred wanders around a largely darkened house, often 
appearing out of, or disappearing into the intense darkness.  The use of 
shadowing is also characteristically noir.  When Alice speaks in lowered 
tones to Pete on the phone, a dark shadow obscures all but her mouth.  
Again, at Ernie's, shadows fall over Alice and Pete as she lures him using 
her sexuality.  This shadowing acts as a forewarning of things to come, 
symbolising that Alice can not be trusted and she will inevitably deceive 
Pete for her own ends.  
The use of colour is also dramatically artificial, this is obvious in the 
Madison's 1950's style house.  The colours are earthy, and against the 
darkness are very vivid and saturated.  This is common throughout 
the film, often with only a character's illuminated face being distinguishable 
in the darkened surroundings, such as when Pete talks on the phone to Alice.  
The use of blue and red lighting also adds to the tone of the picture, on 
'that night', when Pete mysteriously appeared in Fred's place, flashing blue 
light is used. During the sex scene between Alice and Pete in the
hotel, they are flooded in red.  Later, in the final scene between them, in 
the desert, the headlights are enhanced, the whiteness of the bright lights 
being as obscuring as the darkness throughout the rest of the film.  This 
conscious use of artificial colour is a reflexive technigue, typical to 
classical film noir.
Similarly, the creative use of camera angles is also self reflexive and 
stylistically noir, it acts to remind the audience that they are only 
spectators, and that the filmic world can not be presented as a true reality.  
High angle camera shots are common, such as when the detectives, Ed and Al, 
leave the Madison residence with Renee and Fred.  The viewer is made very 
aware that they are simply outsiders watching from the obviously artificially 
contrived high angle.  Again the use of cinematography is employed to 
create a feeling of eeriness as the camcorder in the grainy footage of the 
interior of the Madison's house appears to float along the ceiling.
***comment of effect of self reflexive technique on the viwer.. blurring 
lines between fact and fantasy, prevention of identifying with characters 
which distances us, stabelising our perception? etc***

Identifying the characters in Lost Highway as typically noir presents 
problems, in that it is never made explicit exactly who many of them are.  
Taking the view that essentially Fred and Pete are one in the same, and 
looking at them together as being the central protagonist, they exhibit 
features of classic noir victim hero; becoming seduced by the femme fatale, 
and suffering paranoia, leading to their probable downfall.
The issue of paranoia is one of the central themes in the film.  In this 
somewhat ironic excerpt from a 1995 draft copy of the script by Lynch, the 
issue is brought to the forefront.

 FRED
(shrugs)
I forgot. Anyway, I hate the idea of acting paranoid.

 RENEE
Acting paranoid?!!! Someone is in our house while we're sleeping, 
filming us, and you don't want to act paranoid?!!! 
I thought you set the alarm!

Indeed, it seems to be Fred's paranoia that both destroys him, and acts as 
the driving force to the films somewhat nonsensical and illogical plot.  He 
thinks that his wife, Renee, is being unfaithful, and this fear sparks a 
paranoia so deep as to cause him to unknowingly murder her. However, it is 
not clear as to whether Fred actually murdered Renee at all.  This is 
further complicated as the viewers only witness of the murder is through 
a tape mysteriously left on the Madison's front steps.  Filmic 
're-presentations' are often 'lies', either omitting crucial evidence or 
substituting fantasy for the truth. 
The Mystery Man may indeed be a physical manifestation of Fred's alter-ego, 
since in the Mr Eddy murder scene, it is the Mystery Man that pulls the 
trigger.  Perhaps this too was the case with the vicious murder and bloody 
hacking of Renee. Paranoia is a major theme in classic film noir, with the 
central, usually male protagonist falling victim to it in one form or 
another, usually at the hand of a femme fatale.

In Lost Highway, although Renee cannot be classified strictly as a 
femme fatale figure, Alice can.  It appears that Alice is indeed the 
same person as Renee, with Alice simply being a different interpretation of 
Renee.  In other words, there are two sides to Arquette's character, Renee 
is the person Fred sees, with Alice being the side of her that Fred can only
suspect exists, and who Pete has an affair with.  In this way, Renee/Alice 
can be viewed as the femme fatale figure.  While Renee deceives Fred, Alice 
uses her sexuality to seduce Pete for her own means.  Pete is aware of this 
situation, 'Why Alice, why choose me?', but he remains powerless to her.  
She triumphantly tells him once she has finished with him that 'You'll never
have me'.
Gangsters are a common element in film noir, in Lost Highway Mr Eddy is seen
as the gangster figure.  He is involved in pornography, again illustrating 
a noiristic trait, 'their willingness to probe the darker areas of sexuality'
(Walker p8). He has power, money and influence and the ability to manipulate
other characters, such as when he implicitly threatens Pete, both at Arnie's, 
and on the phone though the Mystery Man.  Mr Eddy has to pay for his 
involvement with Renee/Alice, being murdered by the victim hero (or his 
alter-ego, the Mystery Man).
Lost Highway is also typically noir in its attitude to authority and the 
police force.  The scene in which Ed and Al examine the Madison's house is 
purposely painful, painting a rather humorous and sarcastic parody of the 
merits of authority in general. 
Every instance within the film where police or detectives are present they 
are shown as being inept and at a complete loss as to what is going on 
around them.

Lynch has also incorporated several reflexive elements into the film, bringing 
attention to the filmic world as a medium rather than a reality.  This 
aspect can be seen most clearly with the echoes of Hitchcock's Vertigo
.  Not only do we see the close up of Alice's eyes, as in the opening 
credits to Vertigo, but Pete is also faced with her disembodied head,
in much the same way as Scottie (Stewart) saw Madeleine/Judy's (Novak's) 
head suspended before him.  This selfconscious revisiting of past noir films 
acts to separate the viewer from the paranoid world of the characters.  It 
relates it back to the 'real' world, and in the process emphasises the 
filmic medium as an artificial constraint, not a simple mimetic version 
of reality.  These ghostly revisitings also act to give a feeling of 
da javu, complementing the dark, eerie atmosphere of the film. 

Lost Highway does not qualify as a strictly film noir, however its
intensely paranoid dark atmospheric quality is strongly influenced by noir.
In addition, Lost Highway also features a number of typically noir 
characters, who interact with the world in a classically noiristic manner. 
Lynch has incorporated these aspects with a very compelling element of 
horror to create a frightening dream-like paranoid journey down an ever 
darkening lost highway.


References.

Lost Highway.
Written by David Lynch and Barry Gifford.
Directed by David Lynch.
A CIBY 2000/Assymetrical production.
1997 Essential Films.

Film Noir.  Introduction.
Written by Michael Walker
Sourced from; The Movie Book of Film Noir.
Edited by Ian Cameron.

Draft copy of Lost Highway script.
Written by David Lynch.
21st June, 1995.
Sourced from 
http://www.hi.is/~bmh/handrit.html