Analysis Of The Movie 'Lost Highway'

The mourning process of the psyche is one of detaching libido from the lost love-object, where libido is the psychic energy, neither positive nor negative, that drives and is attached to objects. The process of detaching libido from the lost love-object is motivated by the ego’s narcissism and occurs via working through each of the individual memories and expectations associated with the lost object. In pathological mourning, there is also the process of identification with the object, the most primitive manifestation of love that comes in the pre-Oedipus stage. In the Oedipus stage comes the sexual and cultural aspect aiming to fulfill the desire and then immediately disappears. Though the vast majority of Lost Highway occurs within Fred’s dreams, it seems likely that Fred has identified with Renee as the essential object, by being resurrected within Fred’s dreams for his own narcissistic fulfillment. Transference is the core practice, but it takes restaging, which is what is being done

For instance, the Mystery Man is clarified as being a part of Fred, his superego, which attempts to censor Fred’s dream wishes and to punish Fred for having committed crimes that violate the moral and social prohibitions it upholds. Without it, he would not be cultured because if the desire is not repressed, then the subject acts on his instincts like an animal; with it, it makes him sexuality intelligible. Although this censorship is on only in his dream because he has already acted on this darkest instincts when he murdered her. The superego’s role, relative to the dreamer and dream construction, is to observe, censor and punish the dreamer and the dream. The Mystery Man enjoyed the conversations he had with Fred in both dreams, it is clear now that this was because the superego derives pleasure from having its own wish