Part 2 of Journey Through Twin Peaks: The Center Cannot Hold

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LostInTheMovies
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Part 2 of Journey Through Twin Peaks: The Center Cannot Hold

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My second entry in the 4-part video series on Twin Peaks has gone live this weekend. It covers season two through the resolution of Laura Palmer's mystery but begins a bit earlier, with the creation and development of Laura Palmer through Lynch-Frost's aborted Goddess project, the picnic video, the parallels with Laura (1944) and Vertigo (1958), and publication of the The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer. This part concludes with a look at the missteps immediately after Leland's death, in which the Palmers and their story virtually disappears from the show.

EDIT: There are spoilers for both Laura and Vertigo in chapters 6 (only after the picnic video montage ends) and 8 (after the Marilyn Monroe/Kennedys discussion). It may be advisable to skip those sections if you haven't seen those movies because they have some neat twists.

Here is the post on my blog: http://thedancingimage.blogspot.com/201 ... art-2.html

And the Vimeo upload: https://vimeo.com/110615479

As well as the first YouTube (on YT, the part is divided into 6 chapters, and there are links so you can jump from the end of one to the next): http://youtu.be/1Ai_jEi7GjM

Fair warning: this entry a bit more opinionated than the last so fans of episode 16 should be warned that I'm pretty critical of it (though I praise aspects as well). Additionally, the focus is very much on Laura Palmer throughout - expounding the view that her story should have provided a launching pad for further mysteries instead of being cut out of the series altogether. I don't think these should be wildly controversial but we Twin Peaks fans can be a passionate and touchy bounch so...heads up. :)

Part 3 is planned for later this month. This one took much longer than expected so I won't try to provide a specific date for the next but I will be doing everything I can to get it up by November 30. It will cover the rest of the TV series (Part 4 will deal with Fire Walk With Me), including many rough episodes but I don't intend it to be a litany of complaints. I quite like much of the final third of season 2, and I will also be making time for 3 or 4 asides (sort of like the intros to Parts 1 & 2, but scattered throughout): on the atmosphere of the town, on the colorful cast of characters, on Cooper's character arc, and on the mythology of the show and particularly the role Mark Frost played in developing it.

Very excited to continue this journey and hope that those of you who watch this enjoy it or take away something useful, even if you disagree with my conclusions. I have to say I'm really very pleased with how this came out. Though I was happy with the previous entry, I think this might be the strongest video essay I've posted online.

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Audrey Horne
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Re: Part 2 of Journey Through Twin Peaks: The Center Cannot

Post by Audrey Horne »

Holy moly... Another outstanding installment(s)! The amount of time it must take you is unfathomable.

It takes me on the ride while watching all the wonderfully edited clips seamlessly put together. And it makes me so excited to relive the series all over again. I share your view on episode sixteen completely.

In regards to Frost agreeing with Lynch in hindsight, it is such a version of Monday armchair quarterbacking. I just don't think there is anything that could have saved the show in terms of the network keeping it on the air. Artistically, perhaps they could have continued and never revealed the identity but then we would have gotten more episodes of the very ones you call the weakest still varying off on side plots. It's such a hard call.

I still think Laura worked best through other's reflections of her. I'm in the minority but she lost all power for me in the film because it was too defined. I like her much more being an extension of Donna and Audrey, maybe others. I like Donna reliving the same situation as Maddy in the living room, Battis telling Audrey she is like Laura. And can we talk about how awesome and subtle it is (if only it had thematically continued) that Audrey's framed photo is the other one that is continually featured.

Great work!
God, I love this music. Isn't it too dreamy?
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Re: Part 2 of Journey Through Twin Peaks: The Center Cannot

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Great stuff. I'm very excited for your piece on the remaining episodes, which -- although full of flaws -- are (precisely for that reason) just as interesting/entertaining to critique and discuss as the show at its best.

I too have some problems with Episode 16 although I think it's fairly competent and much better than most of the episodes that follow it. You perfectly nail some of my complaints with it, and just in general, regarding the grating literalization of Cooper's red room dream. It's also the one thing I dislike about the cabin-in-the-woods scene in Season 1, where everything is so blatantly and artlessly laid out for us -- a record player sits, and Cooper whispers with an air of realization "...and there's always music in the air," etc. (I think that's what happens, anyway -- might be getting episodes confused). The comparison of the dancing MFAP with Leland in Ep 16 -- and generally, the blunt, cop-show way that scene is directed -- is even worse. Ep 16 should have felt at least partly mystical, mysterious, dreamlike, Lynchian, yet for some reason Tim Hunter shoots much of it like he's Peckinpah. Huh? Anyway , that kind of awkward conversion of Lynch's subconscious magic into the language of rationalist Western culture just strikes me as dumb. Lynch and Frost generally synergized well, but sometimes there'd be missteps like those. Another example of Frost's literal approach failing in comparison with Lynch's intuitive, unexplained approach is in the clunkiness of the Windom Earle/chess/Lodges/Owl Cave stuff in the latter half of Season 2 vs. the masterful red room sequences in Lynch's final hour. I do actually enjoy Earle's buffoonery, but it's pretty absurd and feels massively so, in retrospect, when Lynch returns to swiftly throw it in the trash.

And yeah, the tonal shift and the show's complete disposal of ALL of the Palmer family, from ep 17-28, is a horrible mistake. It makes it all the more awkward when someone does briefly mention Laura again in one of the later episodes.
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Re: Part 2 of Journey Through Twin Peaks: The Center Cannot

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David Locke wrote:Another example of Frost's literal approach failing in comparison with Lynch's intuitive, unexplained approach is in the clunkiness of the Windom Earle/chess/Lodges/Owl Cave stuff in the latter half of Season 2 vs. the masterful red room sequences in Lynch's final hour. I do actually enjoy Earle's buffoonery, but it's pretty absurd and feels massively so, in retrospect, when Lynch returns to swiftly throw it in the trash.
.
Nailed. Nochimson explicates this clash of approaches well in her writings on Lynch.
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Re: Part 2 of Journey Through Twin Peaks: The Center Cannot

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Audrey Horne wrote:Holy moly... Another outstanding installment(s)! The amount of time it must take you is unfathomable.
Usually I get into a fairly fast clip when video editing but this one turned out to be an absolute beast. Partly because certain sequences (namely the intro and the killer's reveal) required more finesse than usual but also because season 2 was more difficult to tackle than season one. I find the trends and arcs of the early episodes fairly easy to summarize; though complex, they have very clear throughlines. But these episodes are where things start to go all over the place. I originally spent longer discussing the various subplots and had a section on the intros to the Windom Earle and Jose-in-peril storylines which would carry the rest of the season. But the episodes 9-12 section was something like 15 minutes long and a lot ended up having to go. I didn't really know what I was getting into when I decided to do this video series, but the best projects are usually like that!
I just don't think there is anything that could have saved the show in terms of the network keeping it on the air. Artistically, perhaps they could have continued and never revealed the identity but then we would have gotten more episodes of the very ones you call the weakest still varying off on side plots.
Yeah, I agree especially with the first part. Revealing the killer, not revealing the killer, it didn't matter. Twin Peaks was doomed to a short life on network TV - I think it was pretty much inevitable. Artistically, to sustain a show like that over a 22-episode season...I don't know. Like you say, they probably would have had to get even more emphatic on the subplots. Twin Peaks really feels to me like a miniseries at heart. Now if they'd done the British thing and had like 2 series, each 7 episodes what a powerful ending #14 would have been. And really, sad is it would be, the perfect conclusion to Twin Peaks and fully in the spirit of modern television. That said...the mess we have instead may be more fascinating (not to mention how much I love the finale and FWWM). Oddly enough, I don't know if I'd be as inspired to do a long video series on a show that was more perfect; it's the warts-and-all of Twin Peaks which keeps me coming back.

I will say as far as revealing the killer goes, I think it was a real dramatic necessity. Catching him maybe not but to leave us with a tease especially one that suggests MAYBE Laura's father abused her would have been not only narratively frustrating but in poor taste. I can't think of any other Lynch work I feel that way about - but something about Laura Palmer's story demands full knowledge. I like to think that it was the logic of the narrative itself (the "fury of its own momentum" if you will) that led to episode 14, as much as ABC's pressure.

Also, I find that aspect a bit vague to be honest, even after reading Reflections and other accounts. We know Lynch and Frost had creative control of the show and we know that neither one could really be "forced" by the other into somthing they didn't want to do. So on some level Lynch must have agreed to reveal the killer. How exactly did that conversation go? I would love to know that. Frost, from interviews at the time, clearly is a bit bewildered and concerned about all the attention Laura Palmer was getting. I think much as he enjoyed the ride of it being a media phenomenon, he knew how that would end up and wanted to make sure the series had legs.

But I've never really been able to figure out what Lynch's take on all this was. He didn't like it, ok, but then he goes on to direct half of the first eight hours before disappearing. Did he THINK he was more on board with it than he ended up being? Also, the notion that the mystery should endure forever isn't really consonant with making a prequel film obsessed with every grisly detail of what went on. It's like Lynch himself was divided on the issue though to this day he continues the "the mystery should never have ended" line.

I was a bit surprised to find myself writing - and saying - that revealing the killer wasn't a mistake in the narration. I've long felt that may have been a necessary evil but now that I think about it, the ONLY way the show MIGHT have survived - or at least sustained its integrity to the end of season 2 is to enlarge the scope of Laura's mystery so that "who killed her?" becomes a gateway to larger questions. I suspect that this, in part, is what they will be doing in the 2016 Showtime series though who really knows. It's basically what they started to move towards at the end of season 2.

Every time I re-watch the pilot it reinforces to me that Laura was more than just a MacGuffin to get us into the town. She is just too centrally important to the whole set-up to be forgotten. Maybe it was Lynch's background in film than ensured this more than Frost's background in TV: a premise is being established which, once negated, simply ends the narrative.
I still think Laura worked best through other's reflections of her. I'm in the minority but she lost all power for me in the film because it was too defined.
The minority on dugpa maybe, but I think that's a fairly common view. And I get it, in theory at least. I remember when I first watched the movie I had a feeling that's where it was going. That it wouldn't really capture the "magic" of Laura as this vague, diffuse symbol of the town's lost happiness. Then it took me in an unexpected direction, one I'm still reeling from in a way 6 years later. But we'll save that for chapter 4. ;)
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Re: Part 2 of Journey Through Twin Peaks: The Center Cannot

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David Locke wrote:It's also the one thing I dislike about the cabin-in-the-woods scene in Season 1, where everything is so blatantly and artlessly laid out for us -- a record player sits, and Cooper whispers with an air of realization "...and there's always music in the air," etc.
Interesting, because that was an episode solo-written by Mark Frost. That scene really works for me because it's so suggestive - the clues are there but the place is eerily empty (with some excellent sound design emphasizing that feeling). Whereas in the sheriff's station the mystery isn't slowly being unravelled it's being dumped in our laps and I agree, it just doesn't work at all for me.

Another thought about Frost writing ep. 5, though: that's the one where Cooper has to be scolded by the Log Lady and it's clear, for all his mysticism, that he isn't really as in tune as he could be. The more I read on the subject, the more I gather that it was Frost - not Lynch - who wanted Coop to be more complex and troubled. And actually this is an area where I may be more with Frost than Lynch (if I'm correct in my perception). Not so much the specific Pittsburgh/Caroline backstory they came up with, which is a bit hamhanded. But the general idea that Cooper falters somehow and that there's still room for his character to grow or, concurrently, to fail. This is part of the power of episode 14 (which Frost, according to the credit, wrote alone): there is a real sense that Cooper missed an opportunity somehow. I also find it really interesting how Cooper never really seems comfortable when Leland is around, long before he's revealed to us as the killer. But now I'm getting off-subject!

Anyway, I am hoping to devote at least one chapter of Part 3 to Cooper as a character (this part will also touch on My Life, My Tapes the way this one touched on the Secret Diary though I won't be able to shoot it the same way: I don't own a text version!). Seeing how Lynch and Frost reconciling their somewhat different takes on his character in the new series will be fascinating. But hey...maybe that's one way the good/bad Cooper split will work to their advantage (though I agree with the poster on another thread who said both versions of Cooper cannot co-exist outside the Lodge).
And yeah, the tonal shift and the show's complete disposal of ALL of the Palmer family, from ep 17-28, is a horrible mistake. It makes it all the more awkward when someone does briefly mention Laura again in one of the later episodes.
Believe it or not, those 6 or so Laura mentions constitute the entirety of her appearance post-ep. 17! I was surprised even by that because it feels like she's mentioned even fewer times. The last time I marathoned through the show it occurred to me to actually keep track of her and Leland's "reappearances" (he gets the newspaper headline and Ben's "psychopath" comment, and that's it). As well as Bob's - I don't think he's mentioned in between Maj. Briggs' disappearance and Josie's death (technically, he isn't "mentioned" then either: it takes till 26 or 27 I think for Cooper to bring him up to Truman). I maybe wrong about Bob though - someone correct me, if so!
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Re: Part 2 of Journey Through Twin Peaks: The Center Cannot

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harmolodic wrote:
David Locke wrote:Another example of Frost's literal approach failing in comparison with Lynch's intuitive, unexplained approach is in the clunkiness of the Windom Earle/chess/Lodges/Owl Cave stuff in the latter half of Season 2 vs. the masterful red room sequences in Lynch's final hour. I do actually enjoy Earle's buffoonery, but it's pretty absurd and feels massively so, in retrospect, when Lynch returns to swiftly throw it in the trash.
.
Nailed. Nochimson explicates this clash of approaches well in her writings on Lynch.
Yes, she has the best take I've read on the difference in Lynch's and Frost's working visions. Although she clearly favors Lynch's approach, she treats Frost in a respectful manner which I liked; there's none of the sense that he's just riding Lynch's coattails or is there strictly to provide structure and plot development which is something you get from a lot of other writers. She makes it clear he had his own distinct sensibility and philosophy which he brought to bear on the work.

Btw, I just put up an interview with Nochimson this morning which I will be momentarily posting on its own thread.
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Re: Part 2 of Journey Through Twin Peaks: The Center Cannot

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This is part of the power of episode 14 (which Frost, according to the credit, wrote alone)
The way Lynch directed/edited it (along with Mary Sweeney) takes the thing to a totally new level. For one thing there was no girl singer (how could that possibly be scripted?) and the way he balances the 'fast and slow areas' in his episodes is nothing like what we see in ep. 7 for exemple, even if the alleged purpose of that one was to pragmatically "create as much edge-of-your-seat tension in the network executive as possible." I like the quote from 'Reflections': "Twin Peaks was awful busy that night."

LOG LADY
(quiet, intense)
You must go to the Roadhouse. Everything points that
way.

COOPER
Why?

LOG LADY
(a gesture to her log)
It won't say. But it insists.

Cooper looks at Truman.

TRUMAN
We can't question Horne 'til his lawyer gets here; he's
flying back from Japan, won't be here 'til morning. I
could use a beer myself.

COOPER
(another look at the Log Lady)
All right.

To me Truman's line undermines the mystery of the scene and makes it sound like we need a 'rational' explanation (plot-wise) for them to follow the Log Lady's instructions. When you replace that with Margaret's closeup, the shot of the blood moon and what Cooper says to her, it becomes much more powerful. There are many examples of subtleties like that and it's one of the ways I believe Lynch makes the difference no other director could attain, although I really like the Stephen Gyllenhaal episode including the use of shadows and the sound mixing which is much more ominious than the other ones.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/jacelacob/twin- ... ies-return

What is one thing that fans can expect from the revival, if we can talk in very broad terms?

I hope that they walk away from the end of this next chapter feeling like it all comes together and it all makes sense.

There’s a line in Twin Peaks’ second episode that Donna Hayward (Lara Flynn Boyle) says: “It’s like I’m having the most beautiful dream and the most terrible nightmare all at once.” For me, that has been the prism through which I’ve viewed the series over the last almost 25 years. I hope that if there are answers, that there are just as many questions that are posed. Would you agree with that?

Yeah, from your lips to god’s ear. I think that’s a great way to put it. We’d like it to do all of the above.
Last edited by Fernanda on Mon Nov 03, 2014 8:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Part 2 of Journey Through Twin Peaks: The Center Cannot

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Fernanda wrote:To me Truman's line undermines the mystery of the scene and makes it sound like we need a 'rational' explanation (plot-wise) for them to follow the Log Lady's instructions. When you replace that with Margaret's closeup, the shot of the blood moon and what Cooper says to her, it becomes much more powerful.
Agreed. Also, the change in Truman & Cooper's line is quite telling because here, again (as in ep. 5) Cooper doesn't quite seem comfortable with the Log Lady's mystical intervention. Whereas in ep. 14 as executed he seems to know, instinctively, what's going on even if he can't put it into words. (Didn't Lynch also add the Log Lady to ep. 29? In that one he even predicts her arrival before she walks through the door.)

That said, it's worth noting that even if Lynch changes details and brings Cooper back in tune with what's going on - the overall sense of Cooper tripping up and getting the wrong man remains. And considering that Lynch was opposed to revealing the killer at this point, it's not surprising he left Frost to write the episode himself (no "story" credit even, unlike ep. 8). I think it's safe to say that in its broad contours the episode probably represents Frost's vision of Cooper more than Lynch's (indeed, even after all the changes made to ep. 29 the conclusion may also represent Frost's Cooper conception more than Lynch's). I would love to know if they were on the same page with Bob striking again and Cooper unable to stop him. Who conceived of Maddy's murder? It feels so Lynchian in some ways and yet...had he ever been so pessimistic before? It's a remarkable turning point in his career. There is no young man hiding in the closet, no good doctor to redeem the victim, no messianic figure or Good Fairy to set things aright. A couple episodes later comes the redemption - and yet Lynch isn't there for it. The first time he'd ever skipped out on a happy ending. Something was afoot.

Quite often in Twin Peaks Lynch's hand is rather forced: he has to execute material he isn't necessarily enthusiastic about. Usually he does not change the destination (Laura's killer being revealed, Cooper seeing Bob in the mirror) but altering details along the way he facilitates a subtle shift in meaning. The result, interestingly enough, is his best work for the series and work which feels VERY much like Lynch himself punishing the audience even if it wasn't his idea to do so in the first place. And then all of his later work is completely different from what came before, as if the collaboration with Frost, the demands of network television, and the sense of a story and world spiralling out of his control triggered a new approach to storytelling. The emergence of supernatural phenomena (harnessed by psychodrama), the dual narrative structure (a sense of a plot at war with itself), a shift from heroic male protagonists to more victimized females, all of these qualities become hallmarks of Lynch's second-stage works and they arguably have their genesis in the very elements of Twin Peaks that Lynch could not completely control but later had to recuperate. I find that fascinating. Lynch often speaks of challenges and obstacles providing inspiration. Twin Peaks seems to be ground zero for that and it changed his approach forever.
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Re: Part 2 of Journey Through Twin Peaks: The Center Cannot

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Fernanda wrote:The way Lynch directed/edited it (along with Mary Sweeney)
This is something else I'd love to see someone dig into (and I mentioned this on another thread) - how Lynch's collaboration with Sweeney changed him as a filmmaker. She became his creative (and, of course, romantic) partner for a good 10-year period and this is the very episode that marks her shift from swing editor to credited editor (according to The Complete David Lynch, by David Hughes). I also can't help but feel there's some significance to the shift in priorities from the FWWM script to the finished film; could that have something to do with collaborating with Engels, who seems to have been more interested in the supernatural and humorous elements in pre-production and then in post-production with Sweeney (whose humanist outlook is fairly clear from The Straight Story)? It's also only after working with Sweeney (and crafting Sheryl Lee's performance as Laura which seems to have left a deep impression on the cast & crew of that film, Lynch included) that Lynch shifts his emphasis to female protagonists. The primary exception is Lost Highway in which Fred/Pete is just about the most anti-heroic Lynch hero possible. I dunno, maybe it's all just coincidence but I'd sure like to read some interviews with Mary Sweeney (John Thorne said he spoke to her but she was as evasive as Lynch on the subject of how and why FWWM was cut). Just found one archived on City of Absurdity and looking for more.
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Re: Part 2 of Journey Through Twin Peaks: The Center Cannot

Post by Fernanda »

http://editorunderconstruction.blogspot ... oland.html

In the Mulholand Drive blu-ray she mentions not wanting to edit anyone else's picture after working with Lynch.

Something else about Truman's line though, it might not belong to that particular scene, but then again he's got his own M.O., like he talks to his chickens and that kind of thing.

http://www.lynchnet.com/tp/tp01.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WE130ptadA
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Re: Part 2 of Journey Through Twin Peaks: The Center Cannot

Post by Jasper »

This was a real pleasure to watch, and the editing is fantastic.
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Re: Part 2 of Journey Through Twin Peaks: The Center Cannot

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Jasper wrote:This was a real pleasure to watch, and the editing is fantastic.
Thanks, Jasper - this one was a struggle to streamline, so I'm glad the final form came out well! Looking forward to tackling Pts. 3 & 4 soon...
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Here's what is in store for Part 3

Post by LostInTheMovies »

I am hoping to finish Part 3: "The Whole Damned Town" (episodes 17-29) by the end of the month. In the mean time, I've posted a written preview on my blog, with short descriptions of each chapter:

http://thedancingimage.blogspot.com/201 ... peaks.html
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Re: Part 2 of Journey Through Twin Peaks: The Center Cannot

Post by bosguy1981 »

Looking forward to the next chapter in this series! And then I'm realllly looking forward to seeing you tackle FWWM & The Missing Pieces.
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