I couldn't understand what she was screaming, crying, or complaining about with the heavy New York accent in the beginning. Was she just tired of Zach being too laid back and not enough of a gentleman with her? Did he embarrass her on a radio show?
It looked to me like this was another Nancy Spungeon, a seriously mentally unstable woman, perhaps bipolar or just an overdose of estrogen
meh, the film really didn't reveal exactly what set her off. It seemed to me that she was probably bugging out because he had recently lost his job and it was his fault. I gather this by her saying perhaps she should call some of his old bosses up and ask for a second chance.
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I think the problem was that he was treating everybody the way he treated Jack and Bob. Which might work in prison and on the streets, but it clearly didn't work at the radio stations he used to DJ for. Nor did it work with Ellen Barkin. She must be frustrated because 1. he acted like a jerk and lost his job again, although 2. he was a good DJ so him losing yet another job was doubly frustrating, plus 3. he clearly acted like a disinterested jerk with her on top of all this and 4. she was definitely not in a balanced mood.
But I'm not sure the scene has much narrative input, I believe it is there mostly to show us his detached coolness, Barkin's histrionics while looking hot and distressed, and the universe crumbling around Waits while he's worried sick about his shoes.
there's a highway that is curling up like smoke above her shoulder
I thought that her anger and rage was appropriate. Ellen Barkin's role as the fed up girlfriend is so raw. She trying to make this guy understand that the way he treats her is wrong.(and it is!) After staying out all night, (the film makers make a point of illustrating it's like 730 the next morning when he is coming home to lay beside her, where was he all night?) At some point, he delivers the news that he lost ANOTHER job and she realizes that he will never be the man she needs in her life because he is unhappy and she can't make him happy. To say that she is "mentally unstable" is to ignore the cause of her agitation. The hopelessness of her situation is heartbreaking. He loses jobs not because he sucks at the gig but because he doesn't know how to treat people. I bet loving someone so hard is difficult. Tom Waits is so great in this scene because he KNOWS he is wrong. But it looks like hes been there before. She is right to be chunking his stuff out the window. But it doesn't seem like it's something that he cant overcome.
I freaking love this movie.