Bob Engels Interview Pt. 2: Story Behind Phillip Jeffries

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Ross
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Re: Bob Engels Interview Pt. 2: Story Behind Phillip Jeffrie

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FormicaTable wrote:
jlyon1515 wrote:Ahh, here is a snippet of the beginning of his review:
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-4111817.html
"Shockingly bad"! Sometimes Ebert got it really wrong (as he did with Blue Velvet). I'll never understand how his opinion of Lynch flipped so suddenly when Mulholland Dr. came out.
It probably flipped because the masses (and other critics) liked Lynch again. Then again, he hated Blue Velvet, so who knows...

His review of FWWM is really baffling. I could never take his criticisms seriously after that. The disdain and hatred that the film met with at the time was pretty disheartening.
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Re: Bob Engels Interview Pt. 2: Story Behind Phillip Jeffrie

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Thanks for these interviews. Very interesting stuff.
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Re: Bob Engels Interview Pt. 2: Story Behind Phillip Jeffrie

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jlyon1515 wrote:Ahh, here is a snippet of the beginning of his review:
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-4111817.html
That's the one. I subscribed to their service for a month just to read the Twin Peaks & FWWM articles (free trial, so I never had to pay anything as I cancelled before the deadline)! I included many excerpts here later, including parts of the Ebert review, specifically the booing comment: http://thedancingimage.blogspot.com/201 ... ry-on.html. He wrote: "The movie, much more violent and lurid that its televised namesake, was greeted with boos and catcalls after the morning press screening, but found its share of defenders, too."

Not sure if that counts as properly sourced but scout's honor I transcribed it from the article!

EDIT: Whoops, didn't realize the excerpt is actually part of the opening paragraph...
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Re: Bob Engels Interview Pt. 2: Story Behind Phillip Jeffrie

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Ross wrote:
FormicaTable wrote:
jlyon1515 wrote:Ahh, here is a snippet of the beginning of his review:
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-4111817.html
"Shockingly bad"! Sometimes Ebert got it really wrong (as he did with Blue Velvet). I'll never understand how his opinion of Lynch flipped so suddenly when Mulholland Dr. came out.
It probably flipped because the masses (and other critics) liked Lynch again. Then again, he hated Blue Velvet, so who knows...

His review of FWWM is really baffling. I could never take his criticisms seriously after that. The disdain and hatred that the film met with at the time was pretty disheartening.
Yeah he disliked EVERYTHING before Straight Story (except, ostensibly, Eraserhead though I haven't read his review of that - I think he cited it later in a backhanded compliment kind of way, like "he's never lived up to the promise of Eraserhead.") Even The Elephant Man! (His review of that is very strange, by the way, somewhat semantically denying that Merrick should be considered a "hero," which not only seems a bit churlish but irrelevant since I don't think the film ever claims him as one.)

Later, he even liked the more controversial Inland Empire. So go figure. And yeah, boy did he HATE Blue Velvet. The Siskel-Ebert clip on that is worth watching:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uehfL60EA4

Incidentally, he never ended up writing a full review of Fire Walk With Me, did he? I think that Cannes dispatch, very dismissive and curt, was the only review he ever offered. Sadly he was not alone in dismissing that film. When I found out it had a 28/100 rating on Metacritic my mind was blown.
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Re: Bob Engels Interview Pt. 2: Story Behind Phillip Jeffrie

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The thing that was so strange about the reaction to FWWM was that it was filled with such hate and vitriol. Its one thing for a movie to get bad reviews, or for people to be dismissive, but this was different.

Honestly I think part of it was the old "crowd mentality". People had turned on Lynch and the series already. They were just waiting to shoot him down. How much of it was really about the movie itself, and how much was riding the negative bandwagon? I'm not sure.
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Re: Bob Engels Interview Pt. 2: Story Behind Phillip Jeffrie

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Ross wrote:The thing that was so strange about the reaction to FWWM was that it was filled with such hate and vitriol. Its one thing for a movie to get bad reviews, or for people to be dismissive, but this was different.

Honestly I think part of it was the old "crowd mentality". People had turned on Lynch and the series already. They were just waiting to shoot him down. How much of it was really about the movie itself, and how much was riding the negative bandwagon? I'm not sure.
Yes, the fad was over. In 1990 he was celebrated as this icon of loony weirdness who could still be part of the mainstream. But it's as if there was a tacit understanding that he still had to toe the line in some way and when he didn't (Twin Peaks only got weirder, and Lynch declined to hold the viewer's/critic's hands and explain everything in simple terms) the tide turned.

I think the movie didn't help this feeling - obviously it was very dark and Lynch's most disorienting film yet (though far more disorienting works were to come, and get much better reviews) - but one of the weirdest elements, to me, is that critics often bashed Lynch for ALLEGEDLY doing precisely the opposite of what he was ACTUALLY doing. For example, he made FWWM pretty alienating for fans of the series' wackier moments, yet critics accused him of overzealous fanservice. He obviously poured heart and soul into the picture (it's possibly the most emotional of all his movies) and they accused him of being bored with the material and detached from it. He made a movie exploring sexual abuse through the eyes of a victim and was accused of misogyny and reveling in violence.

It's seriously like the critics were watching Bizarro World Fire Walk With Me.

Worst treatment of him I've seen is in Geoff Andrew's interview for Time Out London, conducted at Cannes. It's just dripping with condescension and misunderstanding.
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Re: Bob Engels Interview Pt. 2: Story Behind Phillip Jeffrie

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Thanks for these interviews. It was great to read Engels engage about the footage we've only just seen, even though he sadly can't remember a lot of what they intended (totally understandably, of course).

That Jeffries was looking for Windom Earle was a shock though - did we have any inkling of that? That instantly ties the Jeffries thread into the existing Twin Peaks narrative rather than, as it seems in the film and the Missing Pieces, a new divergence involving the Black Lodge. The Buenos Aires aspect just made it seem even more tangential. If they'd been able to sneak in a line about Earle, the scene would have played on a whole other level for viewers of the show, and its incongruity would hardly have been noticed amidst the strangeness of the scene.

Then again, Lynch never seemed terribly interested in Earle and perhaps rejected that connection, or at least having it be made explicit. Plus, the point of that sequence is hardly to give us hard exposition on the Twin Peaks mythology, and expecting neatness from Lynch is to miss the point.

I find it hard to believe that they weren't thinking about future films with the post-finale scenes though. They're so slight that they serve no purpose on their own. Given the Earle connection, I wonder if they were setting up Jeffries as an instrument for rescuing Cooper in the sequel.
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Re: Bob Engels Interview Pt. 2: Story Behind Phillip Jeffrie

Post by Jasper »

Thanks for the interviews, Brett.

As for potential followups to FWWM, Lynch himself is on record talking about them, so we know for a fact that they were on his mind. I believe he talked about a trilogy, and another time I think he spoke more generally about additional films (without an exact number). He wanted to make more, but after the lackluster reception of FWWM it couldn't be done. It's painful to think about. In some alternative universe there were a whole series of Twin Peaks films. We must figure out how to get there.
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Re: Bob Engels Interview Pt. 2: Story Behind Phillip Jeffrie

Post by LostInTheMovies »

Jasper wrote:Thanks for the interviews, Brett.

As for potential followups to FWWM, Lynch himself is on record talking about them, so we know for a fact that they were on his mind. I believe he talked about a trilogy, and another time I think he spoke more generally about additional films (without an exact number). He wanted to make more, but after the lackluster reception of FWWM it couldn't be done. It's painful to think about. In some alternative universe there were a whole series of Twin Peaks films. We must figure out how to get there.
I hear scorched engine oil does the trick.
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