David Lynch is a unique filmmaker, even when you talk about him as a person. (This is the same guy who did weather reports for days on YouTube during COVID.) But even as a filmmaker, he’s an artist who creates works that aren’t easily always easily digestible and are often meant to challenge the viewer. So, when Janus Films decided to make a trailer for the 4K restoration of “Lost Highway,” you had to assume the studio would take the opportunity to do the most Lynch-ian trailer imaginable.
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Instead of showcasing scenes from the film with incredible visual clarity and sound, as you come to expect from a 4K restoration, the trailer for “Lost Highway” is just a shaky, handheld shot of a smartphone with the film’s poster and a still from the film. It’s strange. It’s abrasive. It’s very much David Lynch.
The film stars Bill Pullman, Patricia Arquette, and Balthazar Getty. As mentioned, the film is directed by David Lynch, who is also known for films such as “Elephant Man,” “Eraserhead,” and “Mulholland Drive,” as well as the TV series “Twin Peaks.” He co-wrote the feature alongside Barry Gifford.
The “Lost Highway” 4K Restoration debuts at Film at Lincoln Center on June 24, with a nationwide rollout coming in the weeks after. You can watch the trailer below.
Here’s the synopsis for the 4K Restoration from Film at Lincoln Center:
Most of Lynch’s later films straddle (at least) two realities, and their most ominous moments arise from a dawning awareness that one world is about to yield to another. In Lost Highway, returning to Film at Lincoln Center in a new 4K restoration, we are introduced to brooding jazz saxophonist Fred Madison (Bill Pullman) while he lives in a simmering state of jealousy with his listless and possibly unfaithful wife Renee (Patricia Arquette). About one hour in, a rupture fundamentally alters the narrative logic of the film and the world itself becomes a nightmare embodiment of a consciousness out of control. Lost Highway marked a return from the wilderness for Lynch, and the arrival of his more radical expressionism—alternating omnipresent darkness with overexposed whiteouts, dead air with the belligerent soundtrack assault of industrial metal bands, and the tactile sensation that everything is really happening with the infinite delusions of schizophrenic thought.