The Lynch/Frost collaboration (Potential Spoilers)

[LostInTheMovies]

The decision-making of Twin Peaks' storytelling - the who, the when, and the why - is one of the aspects of Twin Peaks that fascinates me the most. There seem to be different versions in circulation, depending not just on who you ask but when you ask them. At times Frost has said he and Lynch worked really closely on the first seven episodes, at others that he was essentially left alone (the latter makes more sense given that Lynch was shooting Wild at Heart simultaneously with most of season one). Lynch says he left season two to make Wild at Heart which is obviously impossible. Frost says he was absent for the mid-season for Storyville but came back for the late season, which is confusing since you'd think once he left to begin pre-production the process would only escalate.

Ultimately what interests me most is who made the big plot decisions, and how those decisions were made. We're mostly left to speculate, based on sorting out the different stories, looking at the evidence onscreen, and comparing different parts of Twin Peaks to other work by Lynch and Frost.

After the first season, hell, probably after the first three episodes and MAYBE even after the pilot, it seems like Lynch essentially left the major plotting to Frost. He changed scenes while directing when he didn't like them, suggested individual events or motifs (like there's a giant in Cooper's room or Josie being in the drawer pull or Windom wearing a suit when he's not in costume), and surely he had a hand in the decision that Leland would re-enact the murder of Laura with Maddy, even if he didn't like the idea of the reveal overall. But at no point in the series can I find evidence of him saying "No" to Frost (except maybe, according to Martha Nochimson, an intended UFO plotline but she admits that's speculation). He certainly didn't when it came to the big decision, to reveal Laura's killer.

In fact, that may be one of the ultimate stumbling blocks in the initial Lynch/Frost collaboration: Lynch's mode of storytelling was to work within a fixed framework (the feature film) which allowed him to improvise and experiment and tie it all together at the end of the process. Frost, on the other hand, was used to serialized storytelling and was focused on the practical concern of sustaining audience interest in the long run and the aesthetic concern of being prepared (setting things up, paying them off, etc). And he also had been head of the story department on Hill Street Blues, a major network show, for several years. He knew how the process worked and I sometimes get the sense that while Lynch was sort of taking his time and following his muse, Frost just naturally assumed the role of showrunner, both as a practical necessity and perhaps out of frustration with Lynch getting all of the credit in the media (despite Frost's much heavier involvement with the bulk of those early episodes).

Did this surprise Lynch somewhat, when he turned around to discover how much was being done without him? Or did he regularly attend story meetings with Engels and Peyton while season two was being set up? How did those meetings work? The more I learn about Lynch's creative process, the less the structured approach to TV storytelling seems to suit him, and the more I wonder if this is not the most practical explanation for why the show went in directions he supposedly did not want and why he fell out of sync with it.

To put it in the simplest, most straightforward terms possible: Frost is a proactive creator, Lynch is a reactive one.

For all the talk of how 2016 will follow up on Twin Peaks and restore the feeling of the first season because of Lynch/Frost working together, I actually think it's going to be something completely new. The only precedent would be the "eyeball-to-eyeball" Twin Peaks pilot (which was not a closed entity the way these 9 episodes - presumably - will be). A true collaboration between the two instead of a relay race/borderline competition. Then again, who knows. Perhaps Frost has once again ended up writing the bulk of the series and then Lynch will revise/execute as he sees fit while shooting. Even if so, that process will still be substantially different than what we ended up with in 1990-91.

Discuss...

[Jasper]

I pretty much agree with everything you wrote. The question I find interesting is the one about how similar or different this season (or incarnation) will be to the first two seasons (or original run), and also how it will compare with the film. I agree that there will be differences, and some fresh elements to the approach. I've even considered that we might be outside of the town of Twin Peaks for some of the time. Nevertheless, I think that the town itself must retain a strong sense of place, or calling it Twin Peaks and getting the original actors to populate the place is largely pointless. Nobody wants to see that Twin Peaks has been taken over by Walmart and the woods have all been developed and the demographics have changed radically. I know that's not really what you were getting at, but you get the point. Better to leave the town itself be than to destroy it in some misguided effort not to repeat oneself. So I feel that there will be a powerful Twin Peaks vibe in the town, because the town itself is kind of the main character in a lot of ways, and that has to exert an effect on the style of the nine episodes. Consider the following:

• It's unlikely the network would fund an extreme bait-and-switch version of Twin Peaks, and they did hear the pitch and said that it promised "closure". I don't know that I need "closure" as much as I simply need more brilliance, but whatever.
• Lynch called Twin Peaks a "real place" within the last couple of years.
• Not long before the 2016 announcement, Lynch said of Twin Peaks, "I’ve always said I love a continuing story, to love a world and be able to go deeper and deeper into that world."
• Ray Wise reported Lynch telling him that "The Town's still there", and we now know that Ray Wise is actually a pretty reliable source.
• Lynch said he loves the world of Twin Peaks on the Gold Box.
• In 2014 Lynch told The Daily Beast that "...it’s a great world, the world of Twin Peaks, and it holds many possibilities."
• Also in 2014, Lynch stated that "It’s beautiful. I like the world [of Twin Peaks] too. Somehow back then, ideas came and a world was made. It’s great that people like that world and want to go back into it."
• And of course Lynch also said "So it’s not like we’re saying now: 'Oh boy, we’re gonna really do some raunchy things.' We’re gonna do the same things, but in better quality. And film remains the best quality."
• Between Two Worlds lets us know that Sarah is still in Twin Peaks, and still in the Palmer house, and that the SPIRITS of Laura and Leland still exist, somewhere, and are still flawed and even . . . sort of human. So apparently their spirits aren't yet perfected, which must mean their journeys are not complete. It's clear that Laura will have something to do with things, and I think it would suck if she didn't. Leland will probably have something to do with things, or at least Ray Wise will, whatever it may be. Sarah will still be there. We know Sarah is a medium, at least to a minor degree. Anything could happen with that, not to mention the possibility of alternative realities that we've discussed previously.

I've focused on Lynch, but Mark Frost made a lot of interesting comments back when the news first broke, but I'd like to go back and look at those comments rather than screw them up by going from memory.

I'd tend to think that with Frost and Lynch working as a team, they're more likely to respect the world of Twin Peaks, because it's less likely they'd both agree to go in the identical radical direction (though it's not impossible). We already know that the Twin Peaks world was what they agreed upon back in the day, so it's creative common ground. At the same time, one of the most relevant comments by Frost that I can think of is from a few years ago, when he said that if he and Lynch ever did return to Twin Peaks, they wouldn't want to do "Return to Mayberry". I admit I never saw Return to Mayberry, but I took it to mean that they wouldn't want to do a lightweight retread where we say hi to all of our whacky old friends purely for nostalgia (though I'm not knocking nostalgia). They'd want to make a powerful piece of art. I do recall that one of Frost's comments around the time of the big announcement was that their goal is to make it BETTER than the original run. That's tricky in some instances, but I can think of some episodes that they'll have no trouble topping.

[Brad D]

It's really the million dollar question you ask Joel, just how involved was Lynch with the story threads after the pilot? Nobody can really say for sure, and its especially hard when answers have changed over time. Frost knows the ins and outs of writing episodic TV and novels. I really feel like he's responsible for the framework, and then Lynch comes in and does his thing and adds his flavor. The really exciting thing is that they've been talking and hashing this out for nearly four years, so story-wise, I imagine they have something killer they want to do, or else I doubt either of them would want to mess with what's already there. Even for the forthcoming novel, I have to imagine that Lynch added in some things he wanted to include on top of what Mark is putting together. I still have to pinch myself when I think that this is all really happening.

[OK,Bob]

I've even considered that we might be outside of the town of Twin Peaks for some of the time.

Mark Frost suggested that we'll see events outside the town: "It’s safe to say that things will happen in Twin Peaks that you’ll see. Not necessarily all will be there but yeah, we are going to call it Twin Peaks, so I think that speaks for itself."

Source: http://deadline.com/2014/10/twin-peaks- ... ew-846363/

I recall someone (Frost?) having suggested that there were portals to "the other side", akin to the Grove in TP, all over the world. I also recall there being a geological element. Then, Judy had a place in Seattle. Jeffries was in Argentina. And there was "a whole lotta shakin' goin' on in Bend, [Oregon]."

I find it encouraging that so many of the finest moments of the original run were penned by Mark Frost (with DL or others) and directed by David Lynch: The pilot, ep 2, ep 8, ep 14, ep 29... If we consider those episodes - and perhaps fold in some of the tone of FWWM and The Missing Pieces - I'm very optimistic for this 9-hour Lynch/Frost output!

[p-air]

To put it in the simplest, most straightforward terms possible: Frost is a proactive creator, Lynch is a reactive one.

That type of reactive/proactive “Lennon-McCartney” dichotomy seems to show up in all the most successful creative partnerships. It’s really rare for a single artist to be able to grapple with extremely difficult or abstract ideas while also maintaining a consistent output and catering to commercial restrictions.

[LostInTheMovies]

Many great points.

I've focused on Lynch, but Mark Frost made a lot of interesting comments back when the news first broke, but I'd like to go back and look at those comments rather than screw them up by going from memory.

The one thing I recall is something to the effect of "Well, we are calling it Twin Peaks after all, so we will be visiting the town. Maybe not the whole time..." (I should find the exact quote, but that's the best I can paraphrase for now). Which is actually kind of ambiguous when you parse it. Part of me thinks that the series will be partly about "getting back" to Twin Peaks, kind of a meta-version of what Lynch/Frost themselves experienced over all these years.

I'll be honest, when the continuation was first announced and my mind was racing to catch up with the news my first assumption was that 2016 would bring us something COMPLETELY and shockingly different, that would by comparison make Fire Walk With Me look like Return to Mayberry haha. Something that told a story within that universe with cameos by the old characters, even Cooper just poking his head in. And that it wouldn't take place in Twin Peaks at all but would maybe drop by the town to see what's going on in one episode.

I'm not sure what the best analogy would be - there's probably a better one than this - but sort of like the books Lois Lowry wrote a decade after The Giver which were tangentially linked to that story and unfolded within the same broad universe.

I also assumed it was going to be presented in the fragmented, abrasive form of Inland Empire.

Now of course I think that's kind of a crazy notion for all the reasons you mention. I think Lynch for better and worse is now entering into a new phase of his work, beyond the raw digital experimentation of the early 21st century (the decision to shoot TP on 35mm certainly indicates this, plus it's been ten years since IE now). I don't think it would be a complete return to his early 90s style (Lynch is always moving in new directions) but it will be an interesting fusion, sort of like The Missing Pieces which were filmed in '91 but edited/mixed very much in a later Lynch style. We'll see.



I'd tend to think that with Frost and Lynch working as a team, they're more likely to respect the world of Twin Peaks, because it's less likely they'd both agree to go in the identical radical direction (though it's not impossible). We already know that the Twin Peaks world was what they agreed upon back in the day, so it's creative common ground. At the same time, one of the most relevant comments by Frost that I can think of is from a few years ago, when he said that if he and Lynch ever did return to Twin Peaks, they wouldn't want to do "Return to Mayberry". I admit I never saw Return to Mayberry, but I took it to mean that they wouldn't want to do a lightweight retread where we say hi to all of our whacky old friends purely for nostalgia (though I'm not knocking nostalgia). They'd want to make a powerful piece of art. I do recall that one of Frost's comments around the time of the big announcement was that their goal is to make it BETTER than the original run. That's tricky in some instances, but I can think of some episodes that they'll have no trouble topping. [/quote]

[OK,Bob]

The one thing I recall is something to the effect of "Well, we are calling it Twin Peaks after all, so we will be visiting the town. Maybe not the whole time..." (I should find the exact quote, but that's the best I can paraphrase for now).

"It’s safe to say that things will happen in Twin Peaks that you’ll see. Not necessarily all will be there but yeah, we are going to call it Twin Peaks, so I think that speaks for itself."

Source: http://deadline.com/2014/10/twin-peaks- ... ew-846363/

[LostInTheMovies]

It's really the million dollar question you ask Joel, just how involved was Lynch with the story threads after the pilot? Nobody can really say for sure, and its especially hard when answers have changed over time.

After typing the above, I watched the first USC retrospective Q&A for the first time (the one with Mark Frost). I think - I'm already forgetting! - that he says there again that he and Lynch worked closely on hammering out the arc of the first 7 episodes.

I think if I could boil my questions down, two essentials would remain (with other questions folded into them of course):

- How involved was Lynch with outlining the events of season 1 (i.e. Laura's funeral proves a mess, the one-armed man leads them to Lydecker's vets, there's a party at the Great Northern, Coop & co. visit the Log Lady and Jacques' cabin, there's a raid on One Eyed Jack's, Audrey goes undercover there etc), or was it basically all Frost's doing after Lynch contributed to the first two episodes?

- And the big one, how did Lynch's and Frost's discussion about the killer's reveal unfold - who decided to have Coop catch the wrong man, who decided to kill Maddy, who decided to have Bob and Mike explicated as "inhabiting spirits," did Lynch contribute to Leland's death episode at all or was it 100% Mark Frost (it was certainly mostly him), etc?

My gut says Frost essentially handled both but the second one is tricky because Lynch directed more hours of the "unveiling Laura's killer" arc than he contributed to any other part of the show - precisely half of the eight-hour stretch opening season two (namely the lengthy establishment of this new direction and then the execution of its climax). Clearly, whatever his objections to ending this storyline, he was very invested in the process of concluding it.

Said this elsewhere, but it's like to him this was the end of a movie (hence his stepping back afterwards) - a movie ending with the dark shock of the reveal, not with the neat resolution of the mystery. In another USC talk, Tim Hunter says David Lynch was completely absent when his episode was being prepared & shot. Hunter assumes that Lynch was working on the "next" episode - of course there was no "next" episode for Lynch to be working on! He was obviously just done with this universe for the time being, until he found a way back in with the finale/FWWM.

So with that in mind, what was his input into shaping this narrative? The only thing he's ever directed without writing at all was The Straight Story so it surprises me if he just let Frost do all of the prep for ep. 8 - 14 (other than "story" for 8, whatever that means - maybe just the infamous "Mark, there's a giant in Cooper's room!"). And then just added a few ideas himself while shooting, like the creamed corn, Bob crawling over the couch, certainly the details of how the reveal unfolds, etc. But the circumstantial evidence suggests this may indeed have been the case.

What's stranger to me is that Frost, who obviously did care much more about keeping Twin Peaks going as a TV show, also seems to treat this as an ending. I know he wanted to make Storyville but why choose THIS moment to go make a movie? It's like he steered the car toward a cliff, hit the ignition and then dove out at the last minute waving to Harley Peyton in the passenger seat and saying, "You've got it from here, right?" lol... I guess it was just about striking while the iron was hot. He was now a successful TV producer and could make his directorial debut only at this moment. And maybe that's true - I imagine if he'd seen season 2 out (which, let's be honest, probably would have been Twin Peaks' last season no matter what) he very well would not have gotten Storyville made. He barely seems to have gotten it released as it was.

EDIT: Also...if he's off doing Storyville (and Peyton confirms he was) how was he able to halt that project and return to Twin Peaks for the late second season (not to mention promoting it when it nearly went off the air)? He co-writes ep. 26 & 29, his first scripts since ep. 14, and ep. 24-27 also bear his strong imprint: tight plotting, weaving together various threads, the supernatural lore coming to the forefront, Cooper getting a more specific character arc etc etc. And he himself says that he was around more often for those four or five episodes, right? So we have mostly MIA for ep. 18 - ....22? 23? And then heavier involvement (though not quite up to season one or ep. 8-16 standards) for ep. 23/24-27. The timetable confuses the hell out of me. What was happening on Storyville during those couple months that Frost was re-absorbed in the world of Twin Peaks (which I guess would be roughly mid-December '90 to mid-February '91, followed by a few more weeks of media campaigns during the hiatus?)

[LostInTheMovies]

The one thing I recall is something to the effect of "Well, we are calling it Twin Peaks after all, so we will be visiting the town. Maybe not the whole time..." (I should find the exact quote, but that's the best I can paraphrase for now).

"It’s safe to say that things will happen in Twin Peaks that you’ll see. Not necessarily all will be there but yeah, we are going to call it Twin Peaks, so I think that speaks for itself."

Source: http://deadline.com/2014/10/twin-peaks- ... ew-846363/

Oops, I should have read the whole thread before replying to Jasper haha...

[LostInTheMovies]

To put it in the simplest, most straightforward terms possible: Frost is a proactive creator, Lynch is a reactive one.

That type of reactive/proactive “Lennon-McCartney” dichotomy seems to show up in all the most successful creative partnerships. It’s really rare for a single artist to be able to grapple with extremely difficult or abstract ideas while also maintaining a consistent output and catering to commercial restrictions.

Yes, that analogy occurred to me too! With Peyton & Engels as Harrison & Starr, not quite so involved in the conception (although maybe more than people realize) but equally involved in the execution.

Increasingly I've been thinking if/when I do a Pt. 5 of Journey Through Twin Peaks, even though it would mostly deal with 2016 I would like to open it with a chapter looking back on other contributions to the first show, particularly Peyton's and Engel's. I had to emphasize the Lynch/Frost dynamic for clarity's sake but it bugs me how I could never find a way to shoehorn those two in (I tried, and ending up cutting the references every time). They were really important to both the details (often for the best) and the overall shape (not always for the best) of Twin Peaks. For example, Harley Peyton was responsible for Audrey's cherry stem, the character of Harold Smith (who - other than Gordon Cole - might be my favorite season 2 character/new storyline), and even - according to Reflections - Cooper seeing Bob in the mirror!

That last point clearly grows out of Frost's conception for Coop's character arc in season 2 - and was something Frost was definitely enthusiastic about pursuing - but nonetheless, I felt a little disingenuous not mentioning Peyton in that video. Maybe next time...

Another collaborator who doesn't get enough credit as far as Lynch is concerned is Mary Sweeney. Not so much on the show (I think she only edited ep. 14, right?) but just in the general direction and execution for his work from that episode onward; other than ep. 29 I think she cut everything he did between the killer's reveal and Mulholland Drive. His whole approach undergoes an almost immediate radical shift at this point and while there are obviously other factors I have to think his collaboration with her was a big one. He worked longer and more consistently with her than with anyone else except for Angelo Badalamenti, if I'm not mistaken. And of course initiated The Straight Story project, the only time Lynch has directed without writing the script (unless we sever off ep. 8-14 as their own entity, as per the discussion above).

[hopesfall]

I still have to pinch myself when I think that this is all really happening.

Amen to that Brad! I actually thought about it for the first time in a while last week, and genuinely asked myself if I dreamt it up, as I hadn't really heard anyone speak about it offline or on. Cut to today: I'm reading this thread and getting more excited about it now than ever.

[Brad D]

Joel, in regards to your Storyville questions, I really don't understand how they could have begun principal photography on it until AFTER the TP finale was filmed. Richard Hoover was the production designer, along with a few other TP crew members that I believe are credited in all the late season two stuff. I have to imagine writing/pre-production was kicked off for Storyville after Leland was killed off, then, when ratings dove and the stories crashed, Frost came back around to help out with stories and scripts... but my gut tells me once he put the final touches on the last script (Jan or Feb '91?) he was off to work on Storyville for good and likely not too hands-on on the set at all. This is all "speculative deduction" based on what I know.

It does seem to me that from EP 17 till 20 that Lynch and Frost must have been nearly, completely checked out from what was happening. Even as I typed that sentence, I can think of conflicting stories from writers and directors. Bah!

[LostInTheMovies]

Joel, in regards to your Storyville questions, I really don't understand how they could have begun principal photography on it until AFTER the TP finale was filmed.

Oh same here - I definitely didn't want to suggest production would have begun before then! I'm just surprised that he could apparently dive into pre-production for a few months than put everything on hold to return to Twin Peaks for a few months, then resume pre-production on Storyville. It seems like that would have been an expensive, inefficient way to work unless the Storyville stuff he was doing in November/December '91 was just really, really preliminary. I don't know - it's definitely one of those things I'd love clarity on some day!

I'd also like to know what exactly happened with that film in terms of distribution etc. It was well-reviewed but, as discussed in another thread, the available box office numbers make Fire Walk With Me look like a smash success by comparison (maybe those numbers are just incomplete - at any rate, they list Storyville's gross as being under a million!). You get the sense the film came out in like two theaters for a week. Yet it's an entertaining political thriller with a good cast, released the year of a general presidential election; I don't know why it would be given that treatment.

[LostInTheMovies]

As we await news, I'm curious to hear others' take on the Lynch/Frost collaboration specifically in regards to mythology.

As I think I've mentioned in this thread (if not, then elsewhere) it's interesting how the elements of the mythology we have don't really seem to have been created in partnership. Certainly all the Lodge esoteric lore of the second half of the series was Mark Frost. And all the iconic imagery that we associate with the Lodge was Lynch bringing back undefined characters from earlier in the show. Even when they were presumably working together, during the arc which established Mike & Bob as inhabiting spirits early in the second season, I'm beginning to suspect it was really Frost's hand at the till with Lynch making changes/additions only when he was at on set directing. To a certain extent, the finale & FWWM bring together the Lynch-Frost strands but with Lynch firmly in charge, and ignoring a lot of the Frost stuff (just as Frost earlier ignored a lot of the Lynch stuff).

It's almost like there are two separate mythologies which have been joined somewhat artificially in our mind when looking at the series as a whole. So how do you think the new series, with Lynch and Frost finally on the same page and developing ideas in tandem rather than relay-race, will develop? Roughly, I mean - obviously none of his can have the slightest inkling of the details (thankfully).

[Jasper]

It's almost like there are two separate mythologies which have been joined somewhat artificially in our mind when looking at the series as a whole.

Absolutely, and something about seeing it worded so simply gave me a laugh.

These mythologies have different flavors. It's really quite odd, and it's a wonder that we can get any of it to work at all in our own minds. It's like an engine built with mismatched parts. When these mythologies achieve peak synergy the effect is remarkable. Where they fall too far apart, many of us are likely to find elements which could be easily discarded without damaging the ongoing story. I don't foresee any such problems occurring within the body of the upcoming season, but it's hard to believe that everything from the original run will be accounted for. Attempting to wrestle it all into a cohesive whole and tell a compelling story at the same time could prove a fool's errand. I suppose Frost's novel is something of a wildcard. Will it tackle elements introduced in FWWM? Presumably it will be designed to work holistically with the co-written 2016 event.