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

'dave' was grebt. c'mon! that was the most worthless appearance by a rock star ina movie evah! there is something to that.

I haven't seen Dune, though, from what I've heard it's even worse.

Nah, it has its moments. Certainly more than Fire Walk With Me. And the set design is pure eye candy.

As Tuomas said it was unnecessary and incoherent. I didn't find LP trying to escape her doom affecting. The film detracted from the show to no good end - maybe all the stuff that ended up on the cutting floor would have given it more structure and elements of why I loved the show (the black humor for one) Reminded me too mcuh of the downward slide in Season 2.

http://www.naturallycurly.com/celebs/madchenamick.jpg

I like it hugely, and I was a big fan of the series. It works on the level that Laura Palmers' death polarised the town. After it Twin Peaks became focused and aware of itself, prior to that it was a mess of contradicitons and backs turned. I take the message of the series and film together to be something along the lines of "it takes a horrible and extreme event to expose latent evil". Or something. The soapyness of the series and the "waaaaaaa! mummy!"ness of the film get this across really well.

Apparently there is as much footage on the editing suite floor as ended up in the final cut. Most of the series' actors filmed scenes for it, you can get the shooting draft of the script here:-

http://inflow.org/scripts/fwwm.html

I was so glad the film was made, Laura Palmer was the most interesting character in the whole series, despite being absent. I don't think many pieces of art have broached the subject of how the victims of sexual violence deal with it, it's a bold story which suits its surreal structure and tone. The whole thing feels desperate and insane and mirrors Laura's psyche perfectly.

So the best scenes for me are the ones that show people desperately trying to keep up appearances in the midst of this utter insanity, the madman tailing Leland and Laura and screaming at them or Cooper's play with the CCTV.

The more I watched the film, the more I wanted Lynch to take on a Clive Barker book at some point. The little man / giant stuff fits into Barker so well, these things are neither Gods, aliens or whatever, they're just something other, so much like the beings in "Weaveworld" or "The Great and Secret Show". Lynch does "Weaveworld". Now there'd be a film. And a budget.

Um, yeah. Classic, classic, classic.

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...."

Ju-Ju-dy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1B5mmh5q14

So from that clip of Sheryl Lee it seems Lynch brings techniques from meditation to the way he directs actors.

I only had to time to watch "The Missing Pieces" before the CC went back to the library; I had forgotten how goddamn beautiful Chris Isaak was.

wait you didn’t rewatch the actual movie

later

the Bowie scenes in TMP didn't really convince me i know WTF is going on there.

also i had food poisoning last night and that's kinda the last film i wanna watch in that state.

Bobby discovering his coke was laxative, lol

the Bowie scenes in TMP didn't really convince me i know WTF is going on there.

Bowie and the convenience store scenes are key to season 3.

better go ahead and tell me

the scenes are referenced (and iirc actually replayed) - you'll get it, don't worry

they replay all the relevant parts

whoops, sorry Οὖτις, my skimming is not so good today

for lack of anything better to do last night my wife and I started in on the original series again (w the intention of watching everything up through the Return) and I had two thoughts about the pilot:
1) Dana Ashbrook (w Grace Zabriskie a close second) totally nails the generally disconcerting/unpredictable vibe of the show right out the gate. he is great in every scene, always throwing in some weird nuance/mannerism/delivery that elevates the material
2) I lol'd when Cooper closes a scene at the PD with "Diane I am holding in my hand a box of chocolate bunnies"

The callback to the bunnies in The Return was so brilliant. Like, the way the show pauses to make you consider, does this mean something? Then quickly dismisses the idea.

Cooper is also strangely supercilious in some of his first scenes. He positively revels in grilling Bobby and Donna, he openly mocks them for no real reason, it comes off as almost cruel. These qualities seem to evaporate from his character as the show goes on. Or, at least, when they do pop up he more skillfully deploys them against people that deserve it.

It's a bit out of character, but maybe he sensed there was something there beyond Laura's death. After all, Bobby had just recently murdered his drug connect.

Shakey Mo, please try to keep it to the OG thread (c/d iirc) for posterity plz.

ah sorry

Yeah, Coop's mocking "You didn't love her anyway" really surprised me the last time I watched it

The callback to the bunnies in The Return was so brilliant. Like, the way the show pauses to make you consider, does this mean something? Then quickly dismisses the idea.

then unexpectedly comes back to them in the end, in an oblique and quite creepy way

i forgot bobby killed a guy. that's a lot of stuff between that and s03 bobby.

Bobby killed a guy is one of the bits that comes back in s3!

Although we prob shouldn't post spoilers itt, sorry

Wasn't the guy Bobby killed pulling a gun on him? I'd call that more self-defense by Bobby than murder

i love that whole scene, where bobby is just so fucked up over having shot a guy, and laura can't stop laughing

really enriches bobby's scene with jacoby in the first season

do those of you who’ve seen the missing pieces watch it for pleasure or is it mostly valuable for context? Do you rewatch it? still dithering on getting the CC of FWWM, which I already have on dvd and rarely watch

i don't really ever watch it on its own, just after fwwm, but in that case yes i've watched it for pleasure several times

two by four!

I love it and have rewatched it but I've also watched fwwm more times than is perhaps healthy so I should maybe recuse myself

But cmon you need that fight scene in your life

I’m going to assume you’re talking about a fight with two by fours and that Pete’s “two by fours, four by eights. Two by fours, four by eights” in the pilot is him inventorying his arsenal

The stairs/fan scene should have been in the film.

Yeah, that and the scene at the Hayward place are the two that really feel like "missing pieces" insofar as they feel like they belong to the other film. Maybe the palmer dinner scene too as it provides a contrast to the later (wash your hands) scene

yeah i love the happy palmers. makes everything much sadder. would've probably felt excessive in the film itself though

i love that whole scene, where bobby is just so fucked up over having shot a guy, and laura can't stop laughing

― ToddBonzalez (BradNelson), Saturday, 2 December 2017 17:54 (two days ago) Permalink

really enriches bobby's scene with jacoby in the first season

― ToddBonzalez (BradNelson), Saturday, 2 December 2017 17:55 (two days ago) Permalink

idk why, but having to piece together an explanation from events witnessed out of chronological sequence seems to add to the emotional richness

any reports from the boxset people? i'm a jerk and a half but if the BTS stuff is good (and why wouldn't it be, since built to spill were once capable of transcendence on a good night, although i've also seen them on a night where i almost fell asleep - indie dad joke) i definitely want to track down the good bits on this here internet

They played a great set at the Road House

i feel like Twin Peaks would be a MAJOR market for Built to Spill

RIP Pamela Gidley (Teresa Banks). Small role, but she gave a really striking performance

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/pamela-gidley-dies-twin-peaks-141938829.html

glad to see a lot of places picking the news up, she was a very good actor and an equally decent person.

Watched this for I guess the 3rd time tonight, this time with my kids — we just finished the first two seasons (skipping most of the back half of season 2, except for the final episode). There were points in the movie where I wondered if it was too much for them, they're 16 and 12, but they're pretty invested in seeing the whole Twin Peaks universe. They were definitely scared and upset by stuff in the movie that is scary and upsetting, but they were also just kind of mesmerized by the whole thing. It is a trip. Really the darkest single thing he's ever done.

Also, I knew its reputation had improved over the years, but it's pretty striking to look at Metacritic — reviews range from 100 to 0, in an almost perfect reverse chronological order. https://www.metacritic.com/movie/twin-peaks-fire-walk-with-me/critic-reviews

I really want to watch TP with my kid, but she’s 11 and it is not yet time. Maddy’s death would be Too Much. Maybe another year or two. It will be a while before she can handle FWWM though. I saw it totally alone in a theater when I was 16 and it stunned me.

Every time I see it I like it more and i’m glad its reputation has turned around. Is it Lynch’s scariest movie? The evil in it feels real in a way that he usually doesn’t manage or try for.

It's pretty scary! And in really visceral and upsetting ways. My kids like horror movies and have seen Halloween, Friday the 13th, The Thing, Scream. But none of those feel like FWWM, the conventions of the genres and the stories give more distance. FWWM forces you to feel Laura's desperation and horror, it doesn't give you much distance.

A dad rapes and kills his daughter, the main character of the show/movie--it's definitely the darkest thing he's done. Cow OTM about the evil being "real" in a way that Inland Empire or even Mulholland Drive isn't.

R.I.P. Jacques Renault. I hope they put "I am as blank as a fart" on his headstone.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/tv/2021/04/07/walter-olkewicz-dies-twin-peaks-actor-starred-jacques-renault/7133539002/

Watching this for the first time since seeing The Return three times, which kinda reset my brain on how to understand time and suchlike. Harry Dean Stanton is surely a different character? They both run (different) trailer parks but are very different in personality. Dammit I had other more important thoughts I forget, something about seperating the young Lynch kid (Tremond? grandchild or something) from the Jumping Man, but what I've mainly learnt these years is to not concentrate on any sort of plot, it's all thematically and visually connected, I suppose that big spurious blog you were all praising might agree but fuck all nonsense except Lynch nonsense. If he draws 6 from his jar tomorrow I think the universe will have aligned

I'd never heard this song til the other day and didn't know that what I thought of as just an oddball Twin Peaks line — immortalized by Laura's "gobble gobble" — was a reference.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2yd3DRhAI0

Which in turn comes from this: http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5758/