Mark Frost's Contributions to TP:TR (Speculation)

[DoppelBocker]

Manwith wrote:
Nonsense. If Frost liked what Lynch wrote he would have no reason to ask for changes.

All right, I guess that sentence I wrote isn't rubbing off right. I don't mean to imply I think he's at odds with Lynch secretly fuming about his input not being equal or that he's not ok with role he's had just saying I think that if people have qualms with certain aspects of the story in Season 3, it seems to make a harder case for it to be due to Frost's involvement as seems to be suggested by many in this thread.

[Tailsun]

If there's one thing I think we can all agree on is that The Return is something that neither Lynch nor Frost could have done on their own. I think that's one pretty strong indication of a successful collaboration (regardless of how we might feel about the work itself). I don't mean to stifle conversation but I struggle to see where splitting the hairs of individual contribution leads us.

[N. Needleman]

N. Needleman wrote:
She literally says the exact opposite of this in black and white.

What she said didn't give me the impression Frost's contributions were moreso from a story standpoint than David Lynch's or that their input was about the same. This thread is about Frost's level of contribution. There seems to be some qualms with the story direction at certain points and speculation his hand was behind much of it. I think it's obvious he was working with Lynch but there's no hard sources to indicate he had near the level of influence on certain things as some on this thread suggest.

There are zero sources to indicate he was marginalized or did not have a large role in this season's story.

As for the books - Lynch didn't even read his daughter's book. Yet the Secret Diary of Laura Palmer is very redolent of FWWM, and vice versa.

If it makes people happy to believe Mark Frost got shafted or disenfranchised and that he would never have put The Return onscreen that's their business. Unfortunately as of now it has absolutely zero basis in reality, and far more hard evidence to the contrary.

[AgentEcho]

This discussion seems to illustrate the problems with the "auteur theory". Lynch is obviously the head creative with this project... he had final cut and had more roles than Frost. He directed the thing and oversaw production and post-production. Those were his jobs and not Frost's. There's nothing unusual about this. But because he's the lead and people gotta latch onto this nonsensical "there can be only one" garbage the "auteur theory" has propagated, Frost gets mitigated.

[Mr. Reindeer]

Just to be clear, the mission statement of this thread is not to say that Frost had MORE input than DKL, or even equal input necessarily. Nor is it to distribute praise or blame to either partner. AFAIC, fans' personal feelings about the merits of the show are irrelevant to what I meant to do in this thread. Notice how my initial post doesn't say anything about whether or not I like certain elements of the show that I reference.

Of course, I'm not trying to regulate the thread -- let the discussion go where it may. But just so my intentions are 100% clear, I was NOT trying to say "If you hate this show, blame Mark as much as David" (far from it, I noted that the green glove battle is a low point of TR for me, and I disagree with posters who attribute it at face value to Frost). I was interested in an academic analysis of the text, because -- even though I'm a DKL fan first -- I really like Mark (both as an artist and as a person, having chatted with him at a book signing), and sincerely think he gets written off too easily in the general TP equation. I believe -- based on my chat with Mark at the book signing and his enthusiasm about the then-upcoming show, based on the fact that these two men worked together for THREE YEARS on a script (one year as a two-person conspiracy where they didn't tell another soul), and based on Nevins's comment that very little of substance changed from the first full script he read to the finished show -- that TR, love it or hate it, was a true collaborative effort. And I believe my initial post in this thread made some valid points about certain elements of the series that I think are attributable in large part to Mark, based on textual analysis and comparison to other works and public comments by both men.

I guess what I'm saying is, I'm personally less interested in the gossipy speculation, and more interested in textual analysis, finding links to TSHoTP and Mark's other works/public comments. I guess I started the thread as sort of a companion piece to my "References in TR to Lynch's Other Works" thread. I'm unfortunately not well-versed enough in Frost's works to take this thread too much further at the moment (I'm sort of feeling motivated to finally read his other books though, just so that I can do so), but I was hoping that other users would pick up the slack, instead of moving toward yet another debate of TR's quality.

[douglasb]

I think the important thing to remember is that, for example, the actual script element of episode 8 could have been very brief. "Atomic explosion." Perhaps the script has the Woodsman delivering the poem once but Lynch decided to try for an extended, trance-like effect. That's an obvious example but there are potentially many others where Frost signed off on the scene but Lynch spun it out or fiddled with it to a greater or lesser extent.

[MysteryMan14]

I dont know if It is relevant but Sabrina Sutherland wrote on Reddit that when Frost started to write his book, Lynch did keep writing on the show and all 'big scenes' wrote by Lynch separately were sent to Mark so he could see them on paper. I wonder what those big scenes are which were written only by Lynch.

[Mr. Reindeer]

Alright...since the conversation has gone where it's gone, I'll point out this comment from Southerland's AMA which I find really interesting: "The Final Dossier is completely Mark's book. David and I do not know what it will contain at this time."

Also, in one answer she says that while things were changed and added from script to shooting, "Most things stayed the same."

[Tailsun]

I dont know if It is relevant but Sabrina Sutherland wrote on Reddit that when Frost started to write his book, Lynch did keep writing on the show and all 'big scenes' wrote by Lynch separately were sent to Mark so he could see them on paper. I wonder what those big scenes are which were written only by Lynch.

Perhaps a semi-transparent closeup of Gordon filling the frame would have been helpful addition to these scenes

[FlyingSquirrel]

Has it been established whether Frost spent much time on the set and if he was involved in the editing process at all? I'm just wondering how much he knew about how the episodes were being put together. I'm assuming that he at least saw the finished products before they aired.

As much as I like Lynch's work, it does seem like his talents and interests might be a more natural fit for relatively self-contained 2-3 hour pieces than for a television show or even an "18-hour film." Aside from his preference for more open-ended, ambiguous conclusions, I sometimes wonder if he thinks in terms of "character development" the way most writers and directors would, or if characters are also subordinate to imagery and effect in his mind.

I'm still having trouble reconciling the Cooper/Diane romance and Annie falling off the radar with everything we knew about pre-TPTR Cooper up until now. Even if you assume that this was sort of a "Mulder and Scully" thing with the two of them having mostly suppressed their feelings back when they were both in the FBI, would Cooper really talk about his feelings for Annie in the tapes he sends to Diane if that's the case? In other words, it seems "out of character" for Cooper. But does Lynch approach it from that angle, or is his interest mainly in exploring the doubles, with Cooper/Diane initially forming a contrast to the horrific history of DoppelCooper and tulpa-Diane, and then things starting to go wrong for them after they "cross over"?

[Cappy]

I'm still having trouble reconciling the Cooper/Diane romance and Annie falling off the radar with everything we knew about pre-TPTR Cooper up until now. Even if you assume that this was sort of a "Mulder and Scully" thing with the two of them having mostly suppressed their feelings back when they were both in the FBI, would Cooper really talk about his feelings for Annie in the tapes he sends to Diane if that's the case? In other words, it seems "out of character" for Cooper. But does Lynch approach it from that angle, or is his interest mainly in exploring the doubles, with Cooper/Diane initially forming a contrast to the horrific history of DoppelCooper and tulpa-Diane, and then things starting to go wrong for them after they "cross over"?

Diane as a character is very enigmatic. The Diane/Cooper "romance" stuff (if you could even call it that) has left me somewhat puzzled as well. It's very hard to pin her down as a character, as all we have of her are the idea of what we thought she might be in the original series, the actions & attitudes or the Diane tulpa, and Diane/Linda's confusing behavior post-Naido reveal.

It's weird, I always believed DIane to be a real person during the original series, but now that I've seen at least two version of the character acted out on screen, part of me feels like she might not be "real", at least not real in the sense that Lucy and Albert are. Perhaps she is, but the one consistent thing about Diane through are iterations is that she exists primarily to validate Cooper's character. In the original, DIane as a concept exists solely for Cooper to flesh out and expound upon his own thoughts. It's through Diane that he explains himself to himself. Maybe he didn't make her up, but she was certainly reduced down to this role by Cooper. She existed to listen, not to speak. Wouldn't it have been more economical for Cooper just to call her and tell her these things? I imagine mailing hard copies of his tapes must've run up a small bill with the Bureau over time.

Fast forward to The Return, where the Diane we spent most of season 3 getting to know is revealed to be just some unreal tulpa-thing literally made by Bad Cooper. Then when we meet the 'real' Diane, she has been forced to live as some eyeless creature than is largely unable to communicate. When she is revealed as Diane, it is to give the returning good Cooper a sense of dramatic catharsis and closure. Finally, when she becomes Linda, she does get to express her feelings of pain disgust during the sex scene, but then Cooper is non-responsive, and gives his consummate listener no real audience.

Diane's character is just about the most complex character in Twin Peaks.

[Manwith]

I saw a comment online that episode 17 was Mark Frost's ending to Twin Peaks and episode 18 was David Lynch's ending to Twin Peaks.

This seems to make sense. Episode 18 is very similar to Lost Highway, which is the "pure heroin" Lynch. Characters turning into other characters for no discernable reasons, etc. Episode 17 provides a traditional narrative reason for the defeat of Cooper's doppleganger.

[referendum]

It's weird, I always believed DIane to be a real person during the original series
[....]
Diane's character is just about the most complex character in Twin Peaks.

Interesting interview with Laura Dern here about how she sees Diane... http://www.indiewire.com/2017/09/laura- ... 201875064/

[AgentEcho]

Has it been established whether Frost spent much time on the set and if he was involved in the editing process at all? I'm just wondering how much he knew about how the episodes were being put together. I'm assuming that he at least saw the finished products before they aired.

Frost has said he didn't spend a lot of time on set, but he was around for some of the Washington shoots just to soak in the experience of being back in production there (and obviously to film his cameo as we now know). I haven't heard anything about how involved he was in post production. It's probably a good guess that it was roughly equivalent to his involvement in production, but yeah, I think it's a very safe assumption that he saw the final cuts of the episodes before they aired.

[Cappy]

It's weird, I always believed DIane to be a real person during the original series
[....]
Diane's character is just about the most complex character in Twin Peaks.

Interesting interview with Laura Dern here about how she sees Diane... http://www.indiewire.com/2017/09/laura- ... 201875064/

Thanks for the link. It's a good way to look at Diane (and TP as a whole): "there are many sides".