For those who read French there's an excellent piece in this weekend's "Libération" newspaper with additional thoughts from Bertrand Bonello and others.
― Acid Hose (Capitaine Jay Vee), Saturday, 9 September 2017 17:44 (six years ago) link
Karl et al: I take the point & will try not to pour cold water over any crackpot speculations :-)
― streeps of range (wins), Saturday, 9 September 2017 18:51 (six years ago) link
Here you go jed_
sorry mr. lynch pic.twitter.com/ZICATyxBwP— Chris Person (@Papapishu) July 12, 2017
― josh az (2011nostalgia), Saturday, 9 September 2017 18:55 (six years ago) link
Frederik, my Danish is a bit rusty, but is this online somewhere? Would like to read it.
― Le Bateau Ivre, 9. september 2017 16:19 (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
http://pov.international/kinok-amerikanske-dromme/
It's really only half a piece. The other half is about Logan Lucky, and the conceit being about how American indie cinema has changed since the late 80's.
― Frederik B, Saturday, 9 September 2017 19:05 (six years ago) link
I've been thinking a lot about the scene in Part 1 where we first see Lucy and the Sheriff's Department. A big, sweaty, blotchy nervous looking band walks in and asks for Sheriff Truman and Lucy replies "Which one?" He's totally thrown off and doesn't know what to say. Lucy keeps repeating "It could make a difference." Finally the guy gives up, gives Lucy a card, and says "Tell him it's about insurance."
― flappy bird, Saturday, 9 September 2017 20:11 (six years ago) link
love reading this thread, but have avoiding commenting because feel there is a heirarchy of who's right/wrong here, sad to say. has been addressed upthread tho
― Week of Wonders (Ross), Saturday, 9 September 2017 20:25 (six years ago) link
yes i'm right and everyone else is wrong
― na (NA), Saturday, 9 September 2017 20:44 (six years ago) link
i think the guy in episode one was just there to help establish that harry truman is sick.
― akm, Saturday, 9 September 2017 21:08 (six years ago) link
"it's for insurance"
― flappy bird, Saturday, 9 September 2017 21:18 (six years ago) link
the people Ross feels are right are, in fact, wrong
the other people otm
― mh, Saturday, 9 September 2017 21:28 (six years ago) link
Few things. Haven't seen them covered but I stopped reading posts itt tbh.
Dunno if we can say definitively if/when coop truly fucked up, but can't help feeling that Bob escaping dead bad cooper before ring was put on him is significant, and not for a second do I think that Cooper's Twin Peaks level is completed when gray Bob cloud shrapnel floats up through the ceiling after a few hulk glove smacks.
TP level coop moves on-as do we from 'Twin Peaks'-as soon as naido removes her mask to reveal Diane, whence coops face is a background to the end of level cutscene where it's a big goodbye to our friends from this story throughout.
Think that it's as likely as anything else that Richard is actually the base person, and any other character portrayed by KML is a splinter in a mindspace or whatever.
And lastly, I wasn't really feeling the 'different realities' as something concrete at any stage, but bad coop being zod-imprisoned in the theatre and thence commuted to TP seemed to me as clear a clue as any I'd seen that the TP we had experienced to that point was a containment-zone or gameboard type environment. Whether that means only characters we've seen moving between lodges etc are real and the others are regens or whatever, I'm not particularly tied to.
Fwiw, felt 18 was a copout and 17 was a fanservice. Hasn't spoiled any of 1-16 for me but I don't feel a particular need to make the finale fit where it doesn't, either logically or emotionally/symbolically. All credit to lynch for the ride, but he couldn't finish it and I'm not convinced there's even Mulholland drive levels of coherency at play here.
― passé aggresif (darraghmac), Sunday, 10 September 2017 01:45 (six years ago) link
on the whole, this entire series was the least fan servicey it could have been and still been called Twin Peaks.
― cosmic brain dildo (Sparkle Motion), Sunday, 10 September 2017 02:20 (six years ago) link
Disagree, there was plenty
Not where you'd necessarily expect it, and not certainly ito main plot focus, but both threads have called out numerous and significant examples.
Don't think I've ever seen a show where the creator's awareness of the viewers expectation/speculation was so much to the fore, for good and ill
― passé aggresif (darraghmac), Sunday, 10 September 2017 02:28 (six years ago) link
Lucy being the one that shoots Mr. C was v fan servicey & I appreciated it v much
― flappy bird, Sunday, 10 September 2017 04:29 (six years ago) link
there were a lot of ways this series could have gone and I expected very little of what I saw. I think I'm going to bow out of the discussion of what constitutes fan service and what doesn't because I find it annoying. I very much appreciated this approach.
― cosmic brain dildo (Sparkle Motion), Sunday, 10 September 2017 06:03 (six years ago) link
my stupid podcast got linked on the criterion blog and now I request a tranquil, solitary, satisfying death
― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Sunday, 10 September 2017 06:19 (six years ago) link
:-)
― streeps of range (wins), Sunday, 10 September 2017 06:34 (six years ago) link
Well-deserved imo.
― Scott Staph (Old Lunch), Sunday, 10 September 2017 12:47 (six years ago) link
(The Criterion mention, not your death.)
― Scott Staph (Old Lunch), Sunday, 10 September 2017 12:48 (six years ago) link
*Simon H.'s head vaporizes into a black void; floating gold orb comes out*
― clouds, Sunday, 10 September 2017 13:07 (six years ago) link
Andy encountering Mr. C outside the sheriff's statement was a great moment of suspense.
That climax was fine but the smash the orb boss battle was deeply stupid.
My big complaints: We never got to see even two minutes of Cooper shooting the shit with Albert and Cole and old pals. And not once during those 90 minutes do we have a clear sense of what Cooper is doing or more importantly why he's doing it. Even just a brief convo with Cole that hinted at his motivations would have gone a long way toward making me vested in that oblique final quest.
Cooper's original descent into the Black Lodge in the S2 finale was so terrifying because we experienced it from the perspective of a relatable, sympathetic character with clear goals and fears and shortcomings. His behavior was so arbitrary in the Return finale he was just an avatar in a suit.
― Evan R, Sunday, 10 September 2017 13:34 (six years ago) link
for me that whole spell from mr c arriving at the sheriff's office up to uh i guess its deflation with the boss battle was one big peak of anxiety. then it picked up again with the overlaid cooper. (though i both found the boss battle tense and loved its absurdity, a great cosmic battle of good and evil coming down to, this.)
― lazy rascals, spending their substance, and more, in riotous living (Merdeyeux), Sunday, 10 September 2017 15:11 (six years ago) link
here's a non-narrative question that still burns at me: why did Lynch not get more Badalamenti score music in this? Was it timing, availability? Just taking a stroll through the 'twin peaks archive' which I found and downloaded and there were hours upon hours of recorded music cues from the first two seasons and FWWM. Budget? What Badalamenti we get now is mostly him solo; but most of the cues from the past were bass, cymbals, piano...a small ensemble. It seems to have been a specific artistic choice to only use about 4 new tracks from Badalamenti, but I think this, more than anything else about the Return, is what differentiated it from the originals as a viewing experience.
― akm, Sunday, 10 September 2017 16:26 (six years ago) link
Maybe he wanted to differentiate it from the originals as a viewing experience
― streeps of range (wins), Sunday, 10 September 2017 16:30 (six years ago) link
Has there been any discussion of the 17&18 simultaneous theory?
I've only done side by side and not overlay; there are a handful of real coincidences but they may well be just that:
I'm aware, obviously, that the nature of the experiment means you're deliberately looking for the connections so are more inclined to see them, but none of the above are a stretch.
I started lining up an overlay version and watched the bit that's getting the most online traction (Mike enters the shot through the body in Carrie's duplex, and speaks framed by the plate with the horse in front of it on her mantlepiece) but I'm not convinced any alignments in that format aren't easily explained away by the rule of 3.
― Thomas Gabriel Fischer does not endorse (aldo), Sunday, 10 September 2017 16:55 (six years ago) link
link?
― streeps of range (wins), Sunday, 10 September 2017 17:00 (six years ago) link
https://medium.com/@onantiad/episodes-17-18-of-twin-peaks-the-return-are-meant-to-be-watched-in-sync-81352ce38e8
I made a quick and dirty side by side in iMovie.
― Thomas Gabriel Fischer does not endorse (aldo), Sunday, 10 September 2017 17:10 (six years ago) link
Oooohhhhhh
Top marks even if it turns out nothing that's great rabbit hole stuff
― passé aggresif (darraghmac), Sunday, 10 September 2017 17:12 (six years ago) link
lol, I have heard of this theory (I got some shit for posting about this the other day and overreacted)
The last couple of minutes appear to be completely in sync, one screen goes dark, then the other, then back, the photo smashing aligns with Cooper and Laura's awareness of the 'reality' at the end, etc.
This is the part that I thought was really cool. Intentional or not (and it works so well together it's hard to believe it was accidental) the way it plays out is amazing and I'm glad that it exists and it's a thing that we'll be able to cue up to amaze our twin peaks loving friends and family
― Karl Malone, Sunday, 10 September 2017 17:15 (six years ago) link
Reading it I realise I misremembered which scene the sex ritual is synced with.
― Thomas Gabriel Fischer does not endorse (aldo), Sunday, 10 September 2017 17:17 (six years ago) link
If this turns out to be even a tickler then I'm doing same for 8 and all of them just to see
(Not really)
(Maybe)
― passé aggresif (darraghmac), Sunday, 10 September 2017 17:17 (six years ago) link
https://heavyeditorial-files-wordpress-com.cdn.ampproject.org/ii/w1200/s/heavyeditorial.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/briggs-note.jpg
2:53 is the time the clock stops at, and the right icon might well represent the possessed Diane.
― Thomas Gabriel Fischer does not endorse (aldo), Sunday, 10 September 2017 17:30 (six years ago) link
Haha yeah I was joking because it was discussed at length a few posts above
My position was basically that I find this kind of thing depressingly literal, trying to treat art like sudoku at the very point where it seems to leave those games behind for something more slippery, and (most crucially) it doesn't convincingly add anything meaningful that can't be gleaned by just watching the two eps normally. We agreed to disagree and I guess I'm glad ppl are having fun with it
― streeps of range (wins), Sunday, 10 September 2017 17:31 (six years ago) link
Didn't mean to black hat anybody, couldn't remember whether it had been discussed here or not and wasn't going to try opening the full thread to find out.
― Thomas Gabriel Fischer does not endorse (aldo), Sunday, 10 September 2017 17:54 (six years ago) link
My position was basically that I find this kind of thing depressingly literal, trying to treat art like sudoku at the very point where it seems to leave those games behind for something more slippery
there's always been something appropriately digressive about both the show and the growing complexity of (attempted) exegesis around it and lynch's parallel effort to always bring that whole thing back around to the central trauma which motivates it.
― ryan, Sunday, 10 September 2017 18:00 (six years ago) link
(like, my personal favorite take on the whole saga is that it's laura's fantasy which places her suffering in some cosmic narrative which grants it meaning)
― ryan, Sunday, 10 September 2017 18:02 (six years ago) link
i'm resistant to attempts to crack the code through this kind of alchemy too, but still think it's completely to the credit of episode 18's specific kind of ambiguity that it provokes this kind of thing.
that said, v happy to note that the numerological pointers of the final episodes decisively prove my candie = laura thesis.
― lazy rascals, spending their substance, and more, in riotous living (Merdeyeux), Sunday, 10 September 2017 18:06 (six years ago) link
yeah it's not really the point to figure it all out, but it's not not the point either, i think.
― ryan, Sunday, 10 September 2017 18:08 (six years ago) link
How do you work that out? xp
I have to say, in episode 17, I was most surprised that the 'bunny girls' from Vegas entered TP's sheriff's office. The Mitchum bro's I can kind of see, but seeing the girls there too felt so out of place it has to mean something right?
― Le Bateau Ivre, Sunday, 10 September 2017 18:09 (six years ago) link
yeah it's not really the point to figure it all out, but it's not /not/ the point either, i think.
Yeah it's just a particular strain of facile 1:1 mapping that rubs me the wrong way (even before this Reddit style stuff I never liked the "character x literally = character y" stuff you would get) but that's my problem
― streeps of range (wins), Sunday, 10 September 2017 18:13 (six years ago) link
All of the return earned it imo
fwwmiw wins I think there's universes of space between "there are tricks, treats,rewards and intentional resonances in watching numbers, sound cues, simultaneous convergences in episodes etc etc" and "study these things my son and ye will find the fair maid Palmer" and I think it's perfectly likely lynch does the first and perfectly unlikely he does the second
― passé aggresif (darraghmac), Sunday, 10 September 2017 18:18 (six years ago) link
xp if the girls aren’t around, who serves them sandwiches?
― mh, Sunday, 10 September 2017 18:24 (six years ago) link
fwwmiw
Consistently have mistaken FWIW for FWWM. No idea what this mash-up of both means.
― Le Bateau Ivre, Sunday, 10 September 2017 18:26 (six years ago) link
xp very true.
Reddit will debate what I mean by fwwmiw for at least ten minutes
― passé aggresif (darraghmac), Sunday, 10 September 2017 18:28 (six years ago) link
Truth talk!
― Le Bateau Ivre, Sunday, 10 September 2017 18:29 (six years ago) link
I feel like the way lynch works is that he'll put in these echoes and resonances (and also yes just the notion that there are secrets to be grasped even tho they are deliberately out of reach), like in fwwm there are scenes which you can put side by side with scenes from the pilot and they look near-identical (you can see this in Bocko's video series) - but these echoes are obvious just by watching and their emotional impact is too.
What's the emotional impact of putting parts 17 and 18 side by side (and, I'm assuming, doing this comparison on the biggest screen possible, getting as close to the screen as you can, putting headphones on &c as lynch pleads rather than idk playing 2 avi files on yr laptop)?
― streeps of range (wins), Sunday, 10 September 2017 18:33 (six years ago) link
Mostly it cemented (for me) the defeat of JowDay (if indeed that's what was possessing Sarah) comes as Carrie remembers Laura. And that the 'rescue' of Laura by Cooper is repeated across the realities and times.
But then I believe all art is there to be interacted with and interpreted by the observer - and this is perhaps more true of surrealism than other forms - and not just joylessly codified as a specific image alone. Wrapped in plastic, as it were.
― Thomas Gabriel Fischer does not endorse (aldo), Sunday, 10 September 2017 18:44 (six years ago) link
this video will probably be taken down soon, but for those who don't feel like downloading videos, starting them up at the same time and then waiting for the last 10 minutes, skip to 52:36 in this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryVJPCs67WM
besides the juxtaposition of what is going on inside the palmer household (judy/sarah palmer losing her shit and stabbing the picture) just as coop and laura are putting 2 and 2 together on the outside, there is a really...emotional, goosebump raising fade to black in 17 just as laura screams in 18, then a perfect fading in of coop leading laura palmer by the hand in 17, then, after a really long pause in 18, it fades back in with laura whispering in coop's ear.
i don't know, just watch it. it's just absolutely beautiful. and then, by cosmic coincidence (because david lynch would never think to edit these two episodes at the same time and do it on purpose, that's ridiculous), the julee cruise song comes in juuuust as the credits finish in 18.
What's the emotional impact of putting parts 17 and 18 side by side
lol, xpost
― Karl Malone, Sunday, 10 September 2017 18:55 (six years ago) link
To my eye, the bunny girls in the sheriff's office completed what was basically a religious tableau. Cooper's passing back into the world(s) of the lodges was similar to a wedding, or a funeral, or just a church service (with the added gravity of the prophet himself being in attendance). The Mitchum brothers, for sure, had become something like Dougie/Cooper's disciples by the end, and the girls were like attendants, or handmaidens. The food on their trays was a kind of symbolic bounty.
― Dan I., Sunday, 10 September 2017 18:56 (six years ago) link