Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me - Classic or Dud [spoilers]

Major props to using Ligeti's Requia at the end sequence, which is still scary as hell.

People laughing at serious bits in films, especially films you really like, is very aggrevating to me. With Lynch, he was very inspired by 50s American melodramas, and a line like "Why are there people like Frank?" obviously is naive and bland, but it's also direct and sincere, and certainly the situation she's referring to is as upsetting as can be imagined. People are just laughing because they're uncomfortable... but I'd rather they be uncomfortable in silence.

Neither have I, though I did pick up the DVD cheap a few weeks back, so one day I'll actually watch the darn thing...

If you read the original shooting script you will see that much that seems "inexplicable" in the final cut is indeed explicated, in a quite turgid manner. For example David Bowie's appearance. I'm torn between wishing the entire script made it into the film (it would've been more than three hours long) and being glad it didn't. I get the feeling that the cut as it exists is not completely due to the studio imposing a two-hour running time on Lynch's company. I suspect that Lynch was tired of the overexplicit nature of the original screenplay and did something of a cut-and-paste to achieve the requisite level of incoherence.

Anyways. Jacques Rivette on this film:

I don't own a television, which is why I couldn't share Serge Daney's passion for TV series. And I took a long time to appreciate Lynch. In fact, I didn't really start until Blue Velvet (1986). With Isabella Rossellini's apartment, Lynch succeeded in creating the creepiest set in the history of cinema. And Twin Peaks, the Film is the craziest film in the history of cinema. I have no idea what happened, I have no idea what I saw, all I know is that I left the theater floating six feet above the ground. Only the first part of Lost Highway (1996) is as great. After which you get the idea, and by the last section I was one step ahead of the film, although it remained a powerful experience right up to the end.

And Jonathan Rosenbaum (who much admires Rivette) on this film:

The 1992 prequel to David Lynch and Mark Frost's famous but short-lived TV series, this deals with the events leading up to the murder of Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) in a Pacific northwest town that suggests a somewhat funnier and kinkier version of Peyton Place. It has its moments, but not many, and generally speaking it runs neck and neck with Dune as the least successful and least interesting Lynch feature. The material, not much different from Jennifer Lynch's spin-off book The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer, involves a lot of heavy breathing about the evil that lurks in supposedly innocent small towns, with various intimations about sexual abuse. The surrealist conceits work better here than the orgies, and both suggest that Lynch was badly in need of both a rest and a change of pace. With Kyle MacLachlan as caffeine-addicted FBI agent Dale Cooper, Harry Dean Stanton, David Bowie, Chris Isaak, Moira Kelly, Ray Wise, and other weird types--though not, alas, Sherilyn Fenn, Russ Tamblyn, Richard Beymer, Joan Chen, Piper Laurie, Jack Nance, and others from the TV series. Robert Engels wrote the script with Lynch. 135 min.

I'm more with Rivette. I enjoy the film, tremendously at times. I couldn't disagree more with Rosenbaum about it and Dune being uninteresting. Unsuccessful, perhaps, but the failings of these films shed about as much light on Lynch's peculiarities of style as the more "successful" films like Mulholland Drive or Blue Velvet (the former being my least favorite Lynch feature, the latter being my favorite).

So, um, maybe classic, maybe dud.

This reminds me of an afternoon when I dozed off while listening to It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back. In my half-sleeping delerium I remember thinking to myself, "What a lovely, sweet record...."

Anyway, yeah, the boys told me that the end of Fire Walk with Me was fairly, um, dramatic. But I was snoring off in my own world (much like I did through Akira and some other movie last weekend. And, likely, much as I will do this weekend, while watching the original "Bedazzled" and um, whatever that new anime is that everyone is raving about).

Just watched it, did little for me except creep me out in an uninteresting way. I'm also fresh from watching the TV series for the first time, and through it all I always felt that the brunt of its appeal was in Coop, and that in the end it was his story, not Laura's. So what scenes that had him in it are classic, everything else I didn't care for.

Joan Chen
....
Jocelyn "Josie" Packard (scenes deleted)

Jan D'Arcy
....
Sylvia Horne (scenes deleted)

Don S. Davis
....
Maj. Garland Briggs (scenes deleted)

Mary Jo Deschanel
....
Eileen Hayward (scenes deleted)

Warren Frost
....
Doc Hayward (scenes deleted)

Harry Goaz
....
Deputy Andy Brennan (scenes deleted)

Michael Horse
....
Deputy Hawk (scenes deleted)

David Patrick Kelly
....
Jerry Horne (scenes deleted)

Everett McGill
....
Big Ed Hurley (scenes deleted)

Jack Nance
....
Pete Martell (scenes deleted)

Michael Ontkean
....
Sheriff Harry S. Truman (scenes deleted)

Kimmy Robertson
....
Lucy Moran (scenes deleted)

Wendy Robie
....
Nadine Hurley (scenes deleted)

Charlotte Stewart
....
Betty Briggs (scenes deleted)

Russ Tamblyn
....
Dr. Lawrence Jacoby (scenes deleted)

Don't make us wait!

PRESS RELEASE

TWIN PEAKS, FIRE WALK WITH ME
ON DVD DECEMBER 8TH MK2 EDITIONS

Since May 2002, fans from all over the world have been asking us to edit the original cut scenes from “Twin Peaks – Fire Walk With Me.”

As early as 2002, New Line, the American editor of the DVD, had tried to include these cut excerpts into its edition, but had been forced to give up for financial reasons.

We have tried several times to contact David Lynch and his associates to find a technical and financial solution to the problem.

We had thus stopped exporting the film worldwide in 2002 and 2003, and had delayed the French editing of the DVD.

Despite a few sporadic contacts, mail without answers and missing appointment on David Lynch’s side has made us take the decision not to deprive the French audience anymore from this major film that is also an important work in David Lynch’s filmography.

The DVD, to be released on December 8th 2004 in France, will thus be edited with as much care as any of the other MK2 products, but these cut scenes will unfortunately be missing.

We still hope – as all David Lynch fans worldwide do – to have these cut scenes included in a future version of the DVD, but this responsibility and willingness has to be shared by David Lynch himself.

MK2 Editions

I first saw FWWM on VHS in the early 00s and I hated, hated, hated it. Loathed it. The theatrical cut spends the bulk of its time just playing-out "the way that Laura died" and like, I already pieced together what happened there, thanks. I don't need to see the incest, I'm fine, thanks for asking.

I hated it so much that I used to spitefully mock the film's script, saying "I am the muffin" at apropos times.

So yeah, like, watching the Blue Rose cut, feeling like I had it all wrong. Gorgeous world-building scenes at the Palmer house-- "cigarette! cigarette!" "BRING ME MY AXE"; the origin of the muffin analogy at the Hayward house, including one of my favourite exchanges in the entire Twin Peaks universe*. When I read aloud to my boyfriend the chronology of which scenes made the Theatrical Cut and which scenes were Missing Pieces, we both were shocked-- "all the best scenes in the film were cut??"

*

"Why is it you can't smoke in your home, I'm a doctor and don't allow smoking in my home, and I let you smoke in my home?"

"Because you love me so much?"

"Heh-heh. I do love you, you little smoking whippersnapper."

"I want you to know that I put seven whole huckleberries in each muffin."

Have never seen this and recently watched the first two seasons. Should I start with the Blue Rose cut? (If I start with the theatrical cut might be years before I get back to a fan edit.)

No. Watch the theatrical release and then The Missing Pieces.

How easy is it to get hold of The Missing Pieces? (I'm in a similar position to Lukas - currently working my way through the second season and I've got the DVD of FWWM sitting waiting for me afterwards).

I believe they are on yt, which is where i watched them some time ago. I haven't fully checked this but if another ilxor can clarify

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLswgFs_bu87Pc-O_TGYhtAu7yEdPQRkk4

I had no idea about the Controversies part of The Man From Another Place's wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_J._Anderson

Big naysayer, here, regarding the Theatrical Cut. Watch Blue Rose first imo

How easy is it to get hold of The Missing Pieces?

Also it’s on several of the TP box sets, e.g. From Z to A and The Entire Mystery box of S1/S2/FWWM.

If you have Mubi and a VPN, it's on French Mubi

Anyone want to break the theatrical cut vs Blue Rose tie?

Go with theatrical.

blue rose

theatrical

Blue rose

Which box set or combo of boxes? A-Z or Entire Mystery?

If you just want everything in one purchase, A-Z.

The "Entire" Mystery actually lived up to its name but obviously that changed several years later, but if get that, you just need to get The Return separately and you're good.

The Entire Mystery has audio lag issues and glitches that seem to affect some sets and not others. It could be that they are not friendly with some players? It is especially bad on the Missing Pieces. When I rewatched the first two seasons recently, several of my discs would seize up and not move forward, as though they were scratched badly but the discs are spotless. We had to rent 5 or 6 episodes from Amazon to complete our watch.

The Z To A set uses the same files, if one lags on your player the other likely will. Criterion’s FWWM is good.

watching again and in terms of the credits it's pretty funny the actor playing the woodsman is in the main cast credits but not frank silva, walter olkewicz, etc.

When I replayed my Entire Mystery recently it was so bad I assumed my player was on the way out so bought a new one. Which, of course, didn't improve things.

(This was ok though, because it was my excuse to move up to 4K and finally start watching the UHDs I have.)

So there's no way to know which blu-ray set is a bad batch before buying it?

No. There are two different issues, the audio lag and skipping (or getting stuck). I don't know if they're related. The first time I watched my set it had lag but no getting stuck. Or maybe it got stuck once. I assume the discs are degrading in some way. So maybe the later set (Z to A) is a little safer?

Or you can just wait for an inevitable 4k release.

Z to A already has two 4K discs - seems unlikely they would reauthor the whole lot for a very marginal gain