Lost Highway Script

I was excited to open a package via Amazon today to find the published script of Lost Highway by David Lynch and Barry Gifford. Amazon doesn't actually have the book in stock, but it's available through a third-party company.

As I mentioned in my review of the film, the idea for Lost Highway was inspired by those two words appearing in Gifford's novel, Night People. I have recently received that book from Amazon as well as Gifford's Wild at Heart, which Lynch made into another wild film with Nicholas Cage and Laura Dern.

I've never bought a film script before, and first became acquainted with the idea from reading Cinematic Storytelling by Jennifer van Sijll. Hers was my first cinema book, which I bought from a sales assistant's suggestion at ACMI earlier in the year (or was it last year? Time has passed strangely since my son Abhi died late last year).

I haven't written about Sijll's book yet, and won't go into detail here. As a cinema amateur with no formal academic background in the field, I found it a great introduction.

So here I am with three Lynch/Gifford books and wondering how the hell am I going to find time to read them. I'm nearly finished A Spanish Labyrinth: The Films of Pedro Almodovóvar by Mark Allinson, but I've ordered another three on the same director that should come any day soon. It's all part of personal research I am doing that's consuming me more than I'd intended. I've also ordered every DVD that's available (14 of his 16 films) so that I can re-view them. I'm not sure what I'm going to write about Almodovóvar - this guy really perplexes me. I've never been so consumed by a director whose work I find so many faults with.

Back to Lynch - here's someone who's work I find truly sublime. I'm just happy to have the script to what is my all-time favourite film. Aside from the above-mentioned ongoing research, there's a huge amount of films coming up in the near future: the Melbourne Latin American Festival started today, running to Sunday, there's some repertory screenings I want to catch at The Astor* in addition to Melbourne Cinémathèque's regular screenings at ACMI.

Next week, I have invites to five media screenings (and I'm planning to go to all of them, taking some time off work) as well as a two weeky festival La Mirada - Jewels of Spanish Cinema that I'm planning to blitz because - wait for it - Almodovóvar curated the five classic films screening. They're all films he considers important and I'm keen to see his taste and influences.

They are: El Espíritu de la Colmena (The Spirit of the Beehive, Víctor Erice, 1973), La Tia Tula (Aunt Tula, Miguel Picazo, 1964), El Extraño Viaje (Strange Voyage, Fernando Fernán Gómez, 1964), El Sur (The South, Victor Erice, 1983) and El Verdugo (The Executioner, Luis García Berlanga, 1963). I'm also wanting to catch as many of the new releases as possible as we get little Spanish cinema outside of festivals.

But wait, there's more...

Melbourne Queer Film Festival starts March 16, French Film Festival starts March 20 (I'm hoping to catch about eight films this year), Festival of German Films starts April 20, and I haven't even mentioned new releases.

Did I mention I'm feeling rundown? I'll get around to my new books. I'm just not committing myself just yet.

P.S. It's always great to have an excuse to post a Lost Highway image - that's Bill Pullman as Fred, lost as hell.

* Including All About Eve - which Almodovóvar's All About My Mother references - and which screens with Hitchcock's Lifeboat, which All About Eve references.