Art of The Ridiculous Sublime [Paperback]

Slavoj Zizek however, has no trouble distilling the tale to what he believes are its basic elements. He views the tale through the lens of Jacques Lacan, (A Freudian revisionist.) He exhaustively discusses the implications of Fred's impotence and (possible) fantasy of violence and escape, and the construction of a fantasy that includes a virile version of himself, and a disjointededly evil "Father" figure in Mr. Eddy. He boils the tale down to the implications of such contructions and their inherent and necessary failure, because the very fears that call them into play tear them apart. (As seen by the re-introduction of dark haired Renee and Fred's Physical form in the second half of the film.)

He also addresses other aspects of the work, first, as the title suggests, he discusses this work as a film that addresses both a "known" reality, (the convoluted plot) and an ineffable, yet unconsciously addressable sort of hyper reality (the "Real" meaning behind the work.) He does this by exploring many themes, reducing them often to cliche's drawn from popular culture. He looks at Renee/Alice's role as femme fatale in a "neo-noir" setting, the issues of male construction of phallic fantasy and sexual objectivism, the role of ultimate evil and impossible beauty in the Lynch catalogue, and he finally hails Lost Highway as an example of what movies can become in the future, a sort of hypertexed jungle of possibilities and superimposed realities, where the viewer can control (or believe they can control,) the outcome of the film.

He really helped me appreciate the forces at play (whether they are intentionally placed there by the author or no,) in a film that I already thoroughly enjoyed. He lets me explore the aspects of this film that "Spoke" to me on a level that I could not previously express, and yet somehow I understood.

Finally, a word on the craft aspect of this book. This is less a paperback book than it is a pamphlet or portfolio. Nonetheless, the 40 pages of essay are meaty enough for several readings, and the issues covered will have you watching Lost Highway about eight more times, and getting more and more out of it as you pick up on moments in the plot that help you expound on Zizek's ideas. It is well worth the price, and easily accessable to the reader that has no knowledge of Freud or Lacan. Zizek is an outstanding writer. He does not insult his reader in an attempt to dumb his subject down, nor does he fill his prose with lengthy words that leave one scrambling for the dictionary.