When the cult film Lost Highway was released in 1997, it elicited varied responses from contemporary film noir enthusiasts who were most likely drawn to the mind-game nature of the screenplay. Famed critics Siskel and Ebert gave the film “two thumbs down.” 

Despite the negative review, the movie quickly garnered a notable following, perhaps due to its innovative cinematography, which subverted the rules of conventional filmmaking. In addition, its topsy-turvy plot, studded with unpredictable pockets of action, played a dangerous game with the audience’s imagination.

Director and co-writer of the film David Lynch has been quoted as describing the plot as “a Mobiüs strip.”

According to the American Heritage Dictionary, a Mobiüs strip is “a continuous one-sided surface that can be formed from a rectangular strip by rotating one end 180 degrees and attaching it to the other end.”

The comparison Lynch made becomes clear after merely viewing a bit of the film: the plot ends virtually where it began after many full-circle repetitions within its larger structure. Lost Highway makes an abrupt twist at a climactic point, which effectively flips the story inside out, told from the multiple personalities of a murderer.

Ideas for the film began when Lynch approached well-known writer Barry Gifford after reading his book, Night People, a captivating account of lives in the American South in a grouping of inter-related novellas taking place in similar settings with equally similar characters and themes.

Despite Lynch’s initial interest in the book, Gifford said, “It was a very hard story…and you know, in some ways, commercially difficult.”

Thus, the two decided to pave their own path:

“Why don’t we just write something original? We’re a couple of halfway original thinkers; we should be able to come up with something new,” Gifford said.

“We had in mind a kind of story…like ‘The Metamorphosis’ by Kafka, but this person is a person – not a cockroach,” Gifford said.

Among the film’s followers after its release was Austrian composer Olga Neuwirth, whom Gifford said “was very taken by the film…she was sort of obsessed with the story…and she really wanted to interpret it in music.”

“I think fairly early enough, we received a fax from her agency, Boosey and Hawkes [briefly mentioning] something about opera,” said Gifford. 

But over a period of two years, co-writers Gifford and Lynch were not informed of Neuwirth’s progress. All of sudden, a lot of media hype arose around the premiere of a new opera in Graz, Austria.

“We said, ‘Oh, really! Thanks for telling me!’” laughed Gifford. 

Despite their surprise, both Gifford and Lynch were pleased that Neuwirth had translated their film into yet another innovative piece of art. This time around, the medium was music theatre.

The Oberlin production sat well with Gifford who said, “I think that it was a vast improvement over the production that I saw in Graz...They simplified things, and I’ve talked to them about that, of course.”

“Of course, I really like Olga’s music, and to me, in any opera or musical…it’s the music that counts,” he said when asked about his opinion of Oberlin’s onstage talent.

“On the stage, you need big personalities. You know, you really need to identify yourself immediately. You need to make an impression so the audience really knows who you are…I think Jonathon [Field] and Lou [Nielson] had [understood] this absolutely,” he said.

For students, this Winter Term project not only provided the opportunity to participate in a multi-disciplinary production and to premiere the music of a famed composer in the States, but it also gave them the chance to work with the original masterminds of both the screenplay and the opera.

Collaborations went smoothly with input from both Gifford and Neuwirth, who arrived a few days prior to last Thursday’s opening night in Finney Chapel.

“In fact, when I came the other night, well, I said to the producer, ‘Just give me a seat near the exit on the end of an aisle, because I didn’t really know if I wanted to sit through it,” Gifford said.  “And I did sit through it.”

While Gifford praised the Oberlin production, he mentioned one problem that had arisen in translating from film to stage:

“I thought they were trying to do too much, which they also did in Graz…You can’t do on the stage what you can do on film; you don’t have a camera that can go everywhere…So better to slim it down a little and not be so ambitious…and clutter things up a bit,” he said.

“It’s a very ambitious undertaking by Oberlin, but they should be very proud of themselves,” Gifford said.