Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group

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eyeboogers
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by eyeboogers »

boske wrote:When in presence of real art, one is in awe and not thinking of anything else but the art and the joy it brings. One would normally tend to eventually share this joy with the world and not look down nose at it.
You also wrote something about how "art cannot be ugly". I don't know who or what has made you come to these conclusions. The object of art is to reflect society and the experience of life back at you - in order to make you think, reflect, change. That can take beautiful forms but also harsh and ugly ones. What you are suggesting is simply "pop" in its lowest form. You writing this is of course a good basis for understanding why some have had a unique and deep experience with TPTR while others wanted something nice and pretty to bring them joy.
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by Gabriel »

BGate wrote:If there's one thing I always think when experiencing a piece of art it's "I wish some schmuck had meddled with this in order to make it more palatable to middlebrow tastes."
Artists and composers historically worked for money and were given jobs based on requirements by their employers or sponsors.

That would count as editorial oversight, given a duke who wants a waltz for a society party would not be expected to be happy with Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima.

Editorial oversight often improves and focuses an artist’s work. DH Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers was drastically reworked and he dedicated the final product to his editor. Some of the greatest works of cinema came from the studio system, which had massive studio interference. I blame Truffaut; auteur theory promoted a myth that all directors are authors. They aren’t and TPTR shows to me that Lynch and Frost now need guidance.

Evidently you consider yourself ‘highbrow,’ given your arrogant dismissal of those with a different opinion. Keep up that delusion when you look in the mirror each morning. One day the truth might hit you and you might not like what you see.
Last edited by Gabriel on Wed Dec 20, 2017 2:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by Gabriel »

eyeboogers wrote:
You also wrote something about how "art cannot be ugly". I don't know who or what has made you come to these conclusions. The object of art is to reflect society and the experience of life back at you - in order to make you think, reflect, change. That can take beautiful forms but also harsh and ugly ones. What you are suggesting is simply "pop" in its lowest form. You writing this is of course a good basis for understanding why some have had a unique and deep experience with TPTR while others wanted something nice and pretty to bring them joy.
Art should elevate and elate the consciousness. Post-modernist crap is little more than a return to pre-Renaissance religious art, designed to provoke despair and fear in the beholder. If it’s art, it’s a poor excuse for art. For me, it’s arse, pure and simple. Give me Da Vinci, Caravaggio or Caspar David Friedrich anytime!
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by boske »

eyeboogers wrote:
boske wrote:When in presence of real art, one is in awe and not thinking of anything else but the art and the joy it brings. One would normally tend to eventually share this joy with the world and not look down nose at it.
You also wrote something about how "art cannot be ugly". I don't know who or what has made you come to these conclusions.
At a certain point in life one just may feel an essence of a certain thing without having to be told by anyone to what think of it.
eyeboogers wrote: The object of art is to reflect society and the experience of life back at you - in order to make you think, reflect, change. That can take beautiful forms but also harsh and ugly ones.
Not necessarily, newspapers can do that (well they should, the fact that they do not is another matter). Art should be something that transcends the time, not merely reflect it. As Gabriel just said it earlier, it should elevate, not leave one in despair. Is The Gulag Archipelago pretty? Or Kafka's Trial? Are they fun? Or perhaps ugly? Are you desperate having read them though?
eyeboogers wrote: What you are suggesting is simply "pop" in its lowest form. You writing this is of course a good basis for understanding why some have had a unique and deep experience with TPTR while others wanted something nice and pretty to bring them joy.
You could not be further from the truth here. This is not about expecting a cheesy comedy for a quick laugh, a B-flick about four college freshmen, a jock, a nerd, a fat guy, and a token "visible minority" guy. We got that "pop" actually, Dougie had his share of coffee and cherry pie, and Gordon got his wine and women. If that is what we were after, should we not have been delighted and joyful? A chocolate can bring joy, and so can a cold beer, but there is also a joy of being a parent or a grandparent. You can get light from an electric bulb or you can get it from the Sun, let us not compare the two. There is a cheap imitation and there is Art. For example, episode 29 is Art. It is still fresh and current after these 25+ years. That is what is so profoundly disappointing here, and I am afraid you are missing the point.

Btw, there are some nice examples of ugly architecture at http://kunstler.com/featured-eyesore-of-the-month/, it is worth taking a look.
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by BGate »

Gabriel wrote:That would count as editorial oversight, given a duke who wants a waltz for a society party would not be expected to be happy with Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima
Except in this case the duke wanted the latter, got it, and you're sitting in the audience complaining that it wasn't a waltz.
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by mtsi »

I have recently discovered a common thread among my friends who like the show..... Every one of them was a fan as of late, meaning that they didn't watch the original run.

I wonder if the majority of us who were disappointed were people that had allowed the show to percolate in our brains for 25 years? It seems to me that newer fans have a far different perception of what the show meant and, ultimately, meant to them.

I don't believe either is right or wrong but this has been my observation.

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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by IcedOver »

Agent327 wrote:As he keeps repeating, these are simply *ideas* that happened to occur to Lynch, and he thought they were cool, they felt good, he liked the images.

In the end he hopes that it all ties together somewhat, but that is not a requirement for him.

What went wrong in my view is that Lynch has simply lost his touch. After MANY years on the planet and in the business, with long periods of time between projects to boot. He has had a fantastic run.

The ability to tell a truly compelling idea from something that should immediately be labeled 'not good enough', as opposed to, as he puts it "any idea is a gift". That's where this director, now in his 70s, pales in comparison to his younger self. He can still get ideas, and he can be focused enough to tell his actors exactly what he wants. It's his judgement that is severely failing.
You also have to consider that, with time and age, the kinds of stories he wants to tell have changed also. This feels very much like the work of a 70-year-old man. Perhaps today he would rather film something as leisurely and absurd as a woman who sucks at grilling burgers talking about her armpit rash. It doesn't necessarily need to be compelling. Perhaps he has fallen out of love with plot artifices, character motivations, things like that. That's both good and bad, of course. While the show had tons of absurdities (those being the moments I liked most), it still had some conventional characters and a plot that needed to be at least somewhat driven. It tried to have both worlds. Months removed from the show, what is still a sore spot for me is that the more conventional narrative wasn't tied together better. Some better "connective tissue" (as one review called it) along the way would have gone a long way towards making this a more satisfying work all the way through. I don't buy into the assertion that plots were dropped on purpose just to make a thematic point. One can't use that idea to cover the whole show. Some stuff was just flubbed.
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by Mr. Reindeer »

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: in terms of pacing, style and narrative structure, this season felt closer to Eraserhead than anything DKL has done in between the two works. My impression is that this represents DKL returning to his true, unfiltered vision after many years of compromise — or, as Mark described Jacoby in TFD, he is a man with no fucks left to give.

That doesn’t mean you have to accept that this is a good thing — plenty of artists ARE better working within prescribed parameters determined by others (DKL even expressed, circa 1997, that he believed enforced runtimes improved his films). But I do think this show is less a matter of deteriorating judgment and more an instance of an artist returning to his true uncensored vision because he was finally given the opportunity to do so.
Last edited by Mr. Reindeer on Thu Dec 21, 2017 5:54 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by Gabriel »

Mr. Reindeer wrote:I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: in terms of pacing, style and narrative structure, this season felt closer to Eraserhead than anything DKL has done in between the two works. My impression is that this represents DKL returning to his true, unfiltered vision after many years of compromise — or, as Mark described Jacoby in TFD, he is a man with no fucks left to give.

Thay doesn’t mean you have to accept that this is a good thing — plenty of artists ARE better working within prescribed parameters determined by others (DKL even expressed, circa 1997, that he believed enforced runtimes improved his films). But I do think this show is less a matter of deteriorating judgment and more an instance of an artist returning to his true uncensored vision because he was finally given the opportunity to do so.
Alternatively, he’s been out of the business for so long because none of his films made any money that his abilities have regressed and his work is no longer worth looking at. Seriously, I believe good art is worth the money, but TPTR is one of those rare cases where I find myself loooking at cancer patients and feeling bad that the money hadn’t been spent on them instead.
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by Gabriel »

BGate wrote:
Gabriel wrote:That would count as editorial oversight, given a duke who wants a waltz for a society party would not be expected to be happy with Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima
Except in this case the duke wanted the latter, got it, and you're sitting in the audience complaining that it wasn't a waltz.
I’d be dancing. You’d be busy cleaning out the vomitorium.
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by eyeboogers »

mtsi wrote:I have recently discovered a common thread among my friends who like the show..... Every one of them was a fan as of late, meaning that they didn't watch the original run.

I wonder if the majority of us who were disappointed were people that had allowed the show to percolate in our brains for 25 years? It seems to me that newer fans have a far different perception of what the show meant and, ultimately, meant to them.

I don't believe either is right or wrong but this has been my observation.

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I am a way back fan. All of the way back fans I know personally (or online) love the new series, some more than the old run. I don't think there is a correlation here.
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by Mr. Reindeer »

Gabriel wrote:Alternatively, he’s been out of the business for so long because none of his films made any money that his abilities have regressed and his work is no longer worth looking at.
He’s been out of the business because he hasn’t had ideas he liked enough to turn into films. All of his films have been profitable — not hits, but to say they haven’t made any money is silly. Are major Hollywood studios breaking down his door? No, of course not. But I’m certain his frequent collaborator Studio Canal would be happy to distribute anything he came up with, as would a number of other arthouse distributors, if only for the prestige value of his name.
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by Aqwell »

The new Star Wars movie seems to be as polarizing as TPTR, fans love it, fans hate it, fans arguing with each other... I didn't see the film yet, I was about to but my movie theater was literally overcrowded with kids and their parents (free toys and stuff). Later I read reviews and it seems I dodged a bullet... Unfortunately for Rian Johnson, no fans will ever call him an artist, so if his film is bad, it's just bad, not a misunderstood piece of art. :mrgreen:
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by Mr. Reindeer »

Hopefully not wandering too far off topic...I liked The Last Jedi (I’ve liked all three of the new films for different reasons, although Rogue One was by far my favorite). It subverted some of the series tropes in very interesting ways before settling in and doing exactly what you expected it to do in the final act. Honestly, I think reactionaries on both sides are exaggerating how much of a departure the film was. It was the standard arc presented in countless popular novels and big-budget films: (very vague and obvious/well-publicized plot spoiler follows)
Spoiler:
disillusioned former hero has to be persuaded to rejoin the fight.
I enjoyed the way the film toyed with adding some moral ambiguity to Lucas’s light & dark-themed mythology, but that was pretty much thrown out the window. I do admire Johnson as a filmmaker (the “Ozymandias” episode of Breaking Bad is astounding), but Last Jedi isn’t remotely in the same playing field as TP:TR when it comes to revolutionary sequels. I still find the parallels between the two works neat, tho’.

(And let’s all take a moment to reflect on where the Star Wars franchise might be if a Dune-era DKL had taken Lucas up on the offer to direct Return of the Jedi. I don’t think we would have gotten Ewoks ;) .)
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Re: Twin Peaks Return: The Profoundly Disappointed Support Group (SPOILERS)

Post by referendum »

mtwentz wrote::lol:
referendum wrote:

Minus being a musician, Dougie acts exactly like Ronnie Rocket. They both only speak to mimic the last word or two someone else says. Ronnie even turns into a gold pebble at the end.
the thing about that is that Ronnie Rocket was just one movie - the joke only had to keep going for a couple of hours. Dougie joke was kept going for 12 hours - that's 6 movies! Alot of time for it to starting wearing thin...
Screen time for Dougie was nowhere near 12 hours. Some episodes like 8, he did not appear at all. In episodes 12, 14 and 15 he is only in there for a few seconds.
uh, yeah, what i meant was that the dougie character /plot strand is established and returned to over the course of 12 hours, whereas the Ronnie Rocket character/ story arc would have been established over the course of a couple of hours - had the movie been made. Obviously in both cases most of the screen-time is taken up by all the other stuff that is going on - there's a lot of other characters in Ronnie Rocket who take up much of the screentime - alot happens.

You could argue I guess that the Dougie storyline is one movie's worth of material interpolated relatively evenly over the 12 episodes, and I did wonder what it would look like if you just excised all the Dougie material and watched it as a separate movie: would it work on it's own terms, as a sort of simple parable, like the straight story, but about a guy stuck in Limbo? I think not, because it needs to be set against the event-driven Bad Coop storyline. Anyway, it is what it is. I am going to watch it all again next year sometime.

Have a good christmas you all. It's been a fun ride.
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