Drink full: The TWIN PEAKS 2017 spoiler thread, part 2

honestly I don't think the world could have handled 18 hours of restriction-free lynch

For any French readers December's Cahiers Du Cinema has a fantastic and LONG intvw with Lynch.

Watching these bts clips and I have to say I love when he loses his shit hahaha

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GU4cshUbZs

Al Strobel’s story about losing his arm is nuts.

Lynch’s complaints in the last documentary section seem pretty accurate about what was deficient in this. Not enough time to experiment, not enough time to “get dreamy.” Wishing he (we) could spend a lot more time in the Fireman’s place. Complaining he had 15 people standing around in Truman’s office in 17 and no idea what to do with them... rewatching that scene was painful, and a lot of staging decisions throughout seemed perfunctory and not up to his usual standard. A few too many useless side plots and characters throughout as well, like every scene with Roth & Leigh, that took time away from the good stuff. And it’s really missing the tension you get during some of the more muted exchanges in the original, like Donna & Audrey’s conversation at the RR counter, just before Audrey gets up to dance.

Rewatching I loved every minute of Dougie, every minute of Audrey & Charlie, Hawk & Margaret, all the stuff in the woods... the first scene in the red room, in 2, had an entirely different emphasis after knowing how it ends. Originally Laura’s scene seemed a retread and the evolution of the arm was new and vivid and much-discussed. But Laura’s part obv much more significant.

1 & 2 work great together as a longer piece; those, 8 & 18 still very much the best parts.

eh rewatching this i just kinda luxuriated in each individual scene and couldn’t find much to criticize about any of it. i was breathless all over again rewatching 17 and 18

haven’t gotten through all the supplemental material yet so who knows how much i’ll agree with lynch

17 is a mess, though I love how it starts and ends

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve rewatched the final NM sequence in 8, with the radio station and the locust-frog, probably my favorite Lynch thing at this point

Rewatching it really felt like a lot of the best stuff (the box, all of 8, the Mulholland Dr. as a road movie-vibe of 18) were ideas for other films he’d had over the years that he then shoehorned into Twin Peaks.

It's a TV show, so having to make compromises and work on a tight schedule is pretty intrinsic to the medium. But man those behind the scenes clips are inspiring. It's amazing watching how hands on he is. The fact that he paints the blood and does the makeup himself still astounds me. It's cliche, but he really treats every frame as a canvas.

i’d prob say only the bob fight is a mess in 17 (even then it’s charmingly slapdash). as soon as coop’s face is superimposed over the action it’s all terrifying lonely vibes for the rest of the series

Watching all the extras, I just got exhausted at the meticulous acting-out of every single person's part that he did for them. I'd be ready for at least a year of never hearing my own voice after that shoot. It made me think of the filmic equivalent of an Alan Moore script.

Complaining he had 15 people standing around in Truman’s office in 17 and no idea what to do with them... rewatching that scene was painful, and a lot of staging decisions throughout seemed perfunctory and not up to his usual standard

he talks about this in the doc? did he say anything beyond just that he had no idea what to do with everyone? more and more, that particular scene seems like one of the very worst one in the show to me. maybe there are a few others that could have been cut, but the sheriff's dept scene in ep 17 kind of serves as an "ending" of sort for several of the plotlines and characters, so its relative lack of emotional impact is amplified by its importance. after watching 17 and 18 together in the same night, i first thought that maybe the stiff staging of it was purposeful, to show viewers that the twin peaks timeline was no more real than the alternate/parallel timeline in ep 18. but it's not really a surprise to hear that they just weren't sure what to do. you have to wonder, did they elaborately plan for a mystery visitor from england with a gardening glove and pretty much no other backstory to be the one who defeats BOB by punching him repeatedly? or is it possible that it was a last minute way to end a frustrating scene to film?

I inferred, watching it, that one of the biggest problems with that scene was a) only a few chunks of the cast actually shot their parts at the same time, and b) as none of them knew what had happened in any of the rest of the script/series, there was no way for them to react or for him to direct them

(also that the scene / BOB-punching was pretty dumb, but)

was a) not the case? everyone did shoot at the same time, it's just bad blocking?

if anything, the amazing jason s docs can put to rest whether that rr scene was an editing mistake or not. the way he pours over every detail of every scene, it was definitely intentional.

i watched the last jason s doc and he’s really just complaining about the shooting schedule as he’s shooting it. his anxieties about what to do with 15 people during the bob orb scene precede him actually filming it

i do agree with him that had he spent more time in the fireman’s house it’d just be more riches and wonders but what we got was already majorly spectacular?

btw i love basically every moment in the docs where people are clapping and hugging

RE: the diner; Accidentally replacing every single extra in a scene as well as misplacing the actors would be a virtually impossible crew-wide fuck up.

Truman's office in e17 has an extra wide entrance with no door and a lot of empty space, which would look really weird on a day when you're NOT having cosmic battles and a large group of people milling around.

It took watching 17 a third time tonight for me to realize Lucy shooting Mr. C mirrors Andy shooting Jacques in the original. Then there’s the hat gag, “One for the grandkids,” all those sandwiches. It is just the Bob-orb fight that’s awkward and kinda lame in its conception. Brad I think you’re otm.

Unsurprisingly I'm with Brad 100%, I'm v early in my rewatch so I haven't got to episode 17 yet but I love it all. iirc the "room to dream" complaint was occasioned by lynch being told how little time he had in the great northern & when I think back to those scenes I do think you can see artefacts of a rushed shoot, in the staging & first-take quality of some of the performances - but I absolutely love everything we got in that location, I'm just more than ready to believe that in the most perfect alternate reality there would be even more great stuff there.

It's maybe worth noting that lynch complained just as much in lynch one, working on a project (inland empire) that had nothing but "room to dream", but that came with its own set of limitations (no money) and challenges (no script). He may not always like it but he works well when constrained & I think being backed into a corner often results in his best decisions - it was definitely a good thing that ABC forced him to reveal the killer, it was definitely a good thing that fenn told him to fuck off and write her a better part, &c (I won't say it's good that mja had a meltdown but the evolution of the arm is a wonderful product of that mess). That said, showtime could have given them a slightly less compressed shooting schedule because jeez lol

Well TBF Lynch had just negotiated a massively better deal than they had initially been prepared to risk, so there was some leeway given!

he didn't really, he just stretched the budget they gave him for 9 episodes to cover 18

conversely there’s a scene in the docs where they blocked out a whole week to shoot hutch and chantal getting shot up in vegas and lynch is convinced they can shoot the whole scene in one day. he’s right, and he does it, but it’s an interesting example of the opposite problem

i think another thing is they cast so many people with extremely variable availabilities (the reason the great northern shoot was so short is bc they only had ashley judd for two days)

Yeah exactly, there are always practical things that get in the way. That's life innit: sometimes you get fix-all and sometimes you get plaster of paris BULLSHIT

Sabrina Sutherland has said that there were scenes scripted that they just couldn't afford to film, which is tantalising

I mentioned this on the 'cast but spare a thought for poor Chrysta Bell, imagine that being your first acting job - stressful enough as it is - but then having to do it in an extremely short window thanks to Ferrer's schedule

plaster of paris BULLSHIT

literally my fav moment in the docs. those pools of luminous goo look great still even if lynch was dissatisfied

oh i should also say for anyone who hasn't seen them yet that the beymer red room films are also awesome

it was definitely a good thing that ABC forced him to reveal the killer

borderline challop from wins, but you know, it's right!

Lynch does sprawling dreamlike well, but forcing him to actually plot gives good results and he really would have just meandered with diminishing returns, imo

Which part of the doc is the diner extras stuff in?

xp I feel like it would have been more of a challop back in the day but the conventional wisdom has shifted a fair bit, a lot more people acknowledge that fwwm and its depiction of incestuous abuse is the central text of twin peaks, and it couldn't exist without the revelation of the killer, so it naturally follows that it wasn't a mistake to solve that mystery

besides the episode in which the killer is revealed is one of the best things lynch has ever done

The diner doesn't feature in any of the docs, the point was just that they show lynch consistently micromanaging every aspect of each scene to an extreme degree, making it unlikely that the diner thing would be a mistake

xp yes! It's maybe the best ep after the finale

So sad and beautiful. "It is happening again" - I don't know how anyone can watch that episode and think it was in any way a mistake tbh

i love that lynch gave a ton of character motivation to the wrong douglas jones + family and they appear in the show for approx one second

So sad and beautiful. "It is happening again" - I don't know how anyone can watch that episode and think it was in any way a mistake tbh

― Bitcoin Baja (wins), Friday, January 5, 2018 9:34 AM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

last time i watched this episode i cried and cried and cried

Oh man lynch coaxing the kid is hilarious xp

i actually hadn't investigated to the soundtracks to the return before today. "the fireman" is legit one of the most beautiful things badalamenti's ever written

Rewatching it all fairly quickly it was obv how much this series was about cycles of abuse, dependence, addiction. Nearly every character, even the minor ones, is trapped in some recurring pattern they can’t escape. Diane is the only one who does, or probably does, though whether she was ever “real” or not is pretty ambiguous all the way up to the end.

Actually I think only Margaret Lanterman made an unambiguous escape from her odd sort of bondage

i actually hadn't investigated to the soundtracks to the return before today. "the fireman" is legit one of the most beautiful things badalamenti's ever written

Rewatching it all fairly quickly it was obv how much this series was about cycles of abuse, dependence, addiction. Nearly every character, even the minor ones, is trapped in some recurring pattern they can’t escape. Diane is the only one who does, or probably does, though whether she was ever “real” or not is pretty ambiguous all the way up to the end.

also love how johnny jewel nails the mood of twin peaks from a slightly different angle than badalamenti on "windswept"

That short track "dark space low"

yes! There's a youtube edit of it looping for an hour? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CYrYLSPcd4 people are odd.

Rewatching it all fairly quickly it was obv how much this series was about cycles of abuse, dependence, addiction. Nearly every character, even the minor ones, is trapped in some recurring pattern they can’t escape. Diane is the only one who does, or probably does, though whether she was ever “real” or not is pretty ambiguous all the way up to the end.

― sciatica, Friday, January 5, 2018 12:38 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Actually I think only Margaret Lanterman made an unambiguous escape from her odd sort of bondage

Ed and Norma, too!

https://i.imgur.com/TuuqShY.png

https://i.imgur.com/roBrv2S.png

https://i.imgur.com/ECEc3BE.png

Me at 4:20pm

Assuming you mean the whole series going back to 1989 *nods vigorously*

There’s a disconnected, oblique relation to the stories (sometimes just vignettes) of trapped and damaged people in The Return that’s different from how they relate in TP & FWWM, which are closer to conventional generational melodrama. The new method together with the shifting and uncertain identities changes the emphasis I think, makes each dilemma feel more cosmic *single sage Hawklike nod*

Wouldn't necessarily argue, I was just struck by the fact that your original post was, practically verbatim, stuff I had been saying about twin peaks before the return dropped. It's definitely heightened by the (lol sorry for turn-of-millennium buzzword) atomised quality of much of the new series - though I would argue (again, have always argued) that "shifting and uncertain identities" is a major thing in the original series and of course fwwm

btw I got to episode 9 in my rewatch and so far basically everything is a highlight

Closest I can come to a challop is that Tim Roth is annoying, also Stephen's overacting is great and hilarious fuiud - his reaction to seeing $72 and his "w-w-w-why?" are exactly like an anime character