ARTICLE Mary Sweeney on Lost Highway, Mulholland Dr. and The Straight Story

You Want People to Enter the Dream​

Mary Sweeney on Lost Highway, Mulholland Dr. and The Straight Story​

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You Want People to Enter the Dream: Mary Sweeney on Lost Highway, Mulholland Dr. and The Straight Story | Interviews | Roger Ebert

An interview with Mary Sweeney, editor of "Lost Highway," which is now screening in theaters in a new 4K restoration.

www.rogerebert.com

 

[Mr. Reindeer]

Great interview. So cool to see Mary reflect on her time working with Lynch after all this time. This article is exhibit A to refute anyone who claims that Mary was reigning David in and he only went nuts with long takes and slow silences after they parted ways.

 

[Jasper]

Of the Straight Story bar scene, she says:

“That scene is a perfect example of what occurs when you give an audience a silence. It ends in a wide shot from across the bar on the characters’ backs, and they didn’t let it run long enough. I could’ve easily stayed on that shot for another five or ten seconds. That is such a moving scene, and when you do something abstract or withhold certain information—in this case, keeping the camera on the actors’ backs and not showing their faces, thereby letting the audience sit like these two guys are sitting and contemplating—you will, as a spectator, fill in what the meaning of that is from your own emotional landscape.”

This is somewhat similar to how I perceive the sweeping scene in The Return. It doesn’t have the context of this emotional conversation, but it does, imo, sort of place you as a resident of Twin Peaks, rather than someone watching it as a show on a screen.