the TWIN PEAKS: THE RETURN non-plot-specific summing-up thread

There's a fair chance that will happen anyway, might as well get those good headphones on and luxuriate in the ominous rumbling imo

Won't comment until I get a few episodes in, but I finally started this last night (first two parts).

Did the first series 'rescue' DL from postmodernism?

Twin Peaks proved, at least for a while, to be not only a phenomenal critical/commercial success, but one that worked entirely on its auteur’s own idiosyncratic terms, melding an ironic view of melodramatic conventions with a surrealist vision. Indeed, Lynch has often been credited with irrevocably transforming television, paving the way for that Golden Age represented by The Sopranos (with its frequent recourse to dream sequences), The Wire, Breaking Bad and Mad Men.

Yet it could just as easily be argued that television transformed Lynch, previously a key postmodern figure. Whereas modernism viewed narrative as a problem, postmodernism viewed it as a joke, a hoax that had been exposed and deserved only our derision. Blue Velvet (1986) and Wild at Heart (1990) belong securely within this tradition, as does the feature-length Twin Peaks pilot.

As the latter series developed, however, Lynch clearly found himself caring, in an unironic way, about characters who had initially existed in inverted commas, introducing a depth of feeling that would be retained in his later, more mature output. Turning from Twin Peaks’s 1989 pilot to its prequel, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992), one is struck by the sharp difference in tone; the scene in the pilot in which we are asked to laugh at Deputy Andy Brennan (Harry Goaz)’s grief upon confronting Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee)’s corpse feels callous in a manner that has no equivalent in the later film, or any of Lynch’s subsequent theatrical efforts.

http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/comment/bradlands/twin-peaks-david-lynch-stretches-television-unknown

Twin Peaks: Classic or Dud?

the scene in the pilot in which we are asked to laugh at Deputy Andy Brennan (Harry Goaz)’s grief upon confronting Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee)’s corpse feels callous in a manner that has no equivalent in the later film

when truman says "is this gonna happen every damn time?" you have all of andy's character (except his physical heroism) summed in one moment, and you're not (just) supposed to laugh imo. andy is undesensitizable, which in a whole show about trauma is hardly just a joke. plus, accidental resonance: things that happen again, things that are returned to, the same as last year at mr. blodgett's barn.

at the same time yes it is played for laughs. figure it out yknow?

Whereas modernism viewed narrative as a problem, postmodernism viewed it as a joke, a hoax that had been exposed and deserved only our derision.

also i've never taken an english course so who knows but this sounds wrong.

yeah i was gonna make roughly the same post. considering how much crying and sobbing there is in the episode, it serves a much more nuanced purpose than getting a laugh

"narrative deserves only our derision" reads like a characterization of postmodernism by... someone who thinks you can be rescued from it by television

Narrative is funny though.

Jeeze I'd say one would only have to watch 10 minutes of THE ELEPHANT MAN to realise where Lynch's heart is.

no matter how hard I try i will never understand what is or isn't postmodern

congratulations, you're postmodern

feel like anything before WWI is modern but past that it gets fuzzy. once you've passed Andy Warhol and the birth of the internet there's no looking back

i chose WWI cos Dada/surrealism being the first cracks in the facade of pop postmodernism

icymi

https://www.villagevoice.com/2018/02/15/film-poll-twin-peaks-nathan-for-you-and-the-great-tv-vs-film-debate-of-2017/

Netflix finally sends the DVDs on Tuesday. See you in the Other Place!

i'll probably start it this weekend, as i'm watching the original's finale tonight i think.

we'll see you both at the curtain call

O Lucky Men!

Re: the revive, why do so many hot takes of Lynch's work seem to so fundamentally misunderstand Lynch and his aims? I mean, I geddit, he can be a slippery customer, but still.

I think there's a fundamental mismatch between how fans watched the Twin Peaks revival—obsessively, in online forums, sleuthing and pouring over every crevice for deeper significance—and how Lynch has suggested we enjoy it: as an experience, a dream that works best on the immediate level. He's all but said "just watch it, enjoy it and be moved by it."

Obviously artists don't get to control how viewers engage with their work, but it does make the 15,000 Reddit threads devoted to Judy seem very silly.

I'm not going to not talk about Judy.

frankly the obsessive poring-over is why I like to watch such series long after they debut.

(ie to abstain from it)

i don't think he minds a huge group of fans obsessing over every tiny detail in his work. he even nods to that kind of community/culture a few times in the return (i won't be specific even though it wouldn't really be a spoiler at all)

in terms of how an audience consumes his work, he seems much more concerned about the quality - he hates people watching on phones, and he recommended several times that people use headphones (which i do too; if you're into the eraserhead soundtrack you'll love this)

Yeah that's a noble priority. I remember this debuted in the summer, and every Sunday night even on the most sweltering days I'd have to turn off the air condition when watching the new episode so I didn't miss any of the sound details

Never watched anything else in our place at such a volume (although my gf did insist on a significant reduction wrt the Penderecki).

Do you have neighbors, pal?

Figure I'll go about 2 episodes a week, an 18-hr marathon doesn't seem optimal for my mental state.

i tried but can't do more than 2 episodes at a time. 3 is a stretch.

I just finished the fourth episode. So far I'm glad it exists but I'm not blown away either. Much of it is attenuated for no reason.

comedy/horror of duration, as we discussed in the Lynch thread

was genuinely surprised when J J Leigh showed up

Much of it is attenuated for no reason.

it gets worse.

Slow TV, doodz

Morbs, lecturing on teevee politics.

I've said elsewhere that this feels like the OG 9-episode Showtime order spread margarine thin to self-indulgent effect. I watched eps 1-9, one at a time, and had to stop for a while.

on another TP thread I wrote that it reminded me of Bela Tarr, but worse, and that it careens wildly from tone to tone, idea to idea (in a way that doesn’t seem entirely in control). I said that the true believers argue this is part of the appeal, but it just kinda seems gratuitous.

The intrinsic dullness of soap-operas shines through in the Dougy bits, but it isn't as biting or clever as "Invitation to Love" once was.

hmmm

Lynchiacs remind me of Deadheads sometime

lol

"it's about the notes they don't play, the lines they don't say, the plot lines they don't resolve"

My advice is do NOT binge watch TPTR. It thrives on pauses between utterances. No more than 2 episodes a day imo

agreed

Sherilyn Fenn should be cast in the Dianne Feinstein bio pic.

I finished it! It irritated the hell out of me for the tortuous middle stretch (Episode Nine + three or so). The last two episodes moved me more than expected, and I'm not a Lynch fan who gives much of a shit about the original show, nor did I re-watch to remember (I've never seen the second season, for example. I love Fire Walk With Me fwiw.

oh boy you've gotta see the second season finale. honestly you can watch it in isolation & get along fine if you don't want to (understandably) go thru all of that very uneven season. i think it's the best thing Lynch has ever done.

(Episode Nine + three or so)

might agree that 9-10's the dip but 11 is great ("keep your blood", turkey jerky, "...you're not gonna tell me what she said?!") and tho the cherry pie is the most defiantly dreamlogiced thing in the show i love 11 for "mr. jackpots, thank you again!" "thank you... again"

sorry, first one there should be 12

oh boy you've gotta see the second season finale. honestly you can watch it in isolation & get along fine if you don't want to (understandably) go thru all of that very uneven season. i think it's the best thing Lynch has ever done.

otm, if you were to watch just one thing lynch has ever done, the back half of the final s2 twin peaks episode would have to be it. unparalleled and properly haunting.

yes, that and the amazing episode 8 of the return, and I'd maybe even throw in the final episode of the return...among the best bits of Lynche's oeuvre

I admire Episode 8 and never want to watch it again.

I'm not a Lynch fan who gives much of a shit about the original show

fp bait