"Room to Dream" about 'Twin Peaks' (SPOILERS)

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claaa7
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"Room to Dream" about 'Twin Peaks' (SPOILERS)

Post by claaa7 »

I think we could use a thread for discussions about David Lynch's recently released memoir "Room to Dream" which he co-wrote with Kristine McKenna as it relates to Twin Peaks. there's a whole lot of stuff in here as it devotes chapters to the original series, The Return and Fire Walk With Me. in this thread we can discuss some of the new information about Peaks that is put forth in here.

Lynch is pretty dismissive about most of "Twin Peaks", the series - "...the only thing in the entire first two seasons that's really Twin Peaks is the pilot. The rest is stage stuff and was done like TV, but the pilot really got the mood". He says he entered it and directed it exactly as if it was a feature film (he's also adamant about "The Return" being a feature film and nothing else). a few sentences later it appears that he also Thinks highly of episode 29 - "...at least it ended in a good way, because that's when the Red Room came ... So it's the pilot and the Red Room and where they led - put that together and you've got the real Twin Peaks" ..

between the Pilot, episode 29 and "Fire Walk With Me" it makes sense that The Return wasn't more focused on side stories from the original series and important character arcs like Annies.


it seems that Frost and Lynch didn't only watch episode 29 when preparing to write together again, but also "On the Air" (!) - "David looked at some of it recently, and it still makes both of us laugh and has some really funny stuff in it." says Frost.


overall, i think it's a very, very compelling book so far... i didn't think Lynch autobiography would make for that great of a read but i sure was wrong.
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Re: "Room to Dream" about 'Twin Peaks' (SPOILERS)

Post by bosguy1981 »

I found it funny to read that the Green Glove was originally an idea Lynch had for Jack Nance!
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N. Needleman
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Re: "Room to Dream" about 'Twin Peaks' (SPOILERS)

Post by N. Needleman »

Lynch is always like that off the cuff about the show vs. the pilot or FWWM/Season 3. Like Fred in Lost Highway, he remembers things the way he wants to/his own way - not the way they actually happened.

In truth, we know in detail how much care he put into a lot of the original series despite getting his heart broken. That's what matters.
AnotherBlueRoseCase wrote:The Return is clearly guaranteed a future audience among stoners and other drug users.
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Re: "Room to Dream" about 'Twin Peaks' (SPOILERS)

Post by Mr. Reindeer »

N. Needleman wrote:Lynch is always like that off the cuff about the show vs. the pilot or FWWM/Season 3. Like Fred in Lost Highway, he remembers things the way he wants to/his own way - not the way they actually happened.

In truth, we know in detail how much care he put into a lot of the original series despite getting his heart broken. That's what matters.
I wouldn’t categorize a written autobiographical work as “off the cuff.” He had ample opportunity to choose and edit his words carefully, and he has repeatedly said that the entire point of the book was to give his definitive “setting the record straight” version of his life and career to quash all the “bullshit.”

I’m taking my time with the book and haven’t reached the TP chapters yet, but based on the snippets I’ve read: I agree that to some extent this is DKL pulling a Fred Madison (I noticed that in the photo credits he claims to have played Tom Pinkle, when in reality it was Gregg Fienberg!). But I also think to some extent the nature of the original show was anathema to his artistic nature. He has always said that he would make every movie the way he made Eraserhead if he had his druthers, with a crew of five and him painting the sets and doing the makeup personally. Delegating his world to other writers and directors, as well as other compromises that were a necessity of producing a ‘90s TV show, were enormously painful for him, and he has implied as much over the years. Granted, some of this was his own fault. For instance, he could likely have cowritten and directed the entire first season (which was produced in a vacuum on a fairly loose timeline) himself. One of the things I really wish he would clear up (although he never will) is why he just HAD to make W@H at that exact moment in time, instead of devoting his attention to TP in its nascency and doing W@H at a later date (the damn novel hadn’t even been published yet!).

Joel wrote an eloquent paragraph on the fact that the original series of TP exists more as a platonic ideal to him than as a finished work, toward the end of this post: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3523&hilit=Woods&start=75#p80843. I think DKL pretty clearly agrees with the sentiment. I also think he feels more comfortable distancing himself from the original series now that TP:TR is out in the world and has been received well. He feels that he has reclaimed the property, whereas before I think he was uncomfortable expressing his lack of ownership of the majority of the existing canon.

If I’m not mistaken, in Brad Duke’s book (which I don’t have in front of me), Harley Peyton referred to DKL as an “orbiting satellite” throughout most of TP S2, occasionally checking in (often at midnight regarding the next morning’s shoot). And it’s documented that he was occupied on W@H for much of S1 after the first couple. DKL is undeniably there in both broad strokes and smaller details of the series (as demonstrated by something as minor as the Philadelphia Band Box theater, where DKL first screened The Alphabet, popping up in MLMT). His relationship to that original run remains complicated and ultimately impossible to quantify. But I think it’s become increasingly clear over the years that Mark Frost deserves even more credit than most of us thought for much of what we love about the original show.
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Re: "Room to Dream" about 'Twin Peaks' (SPOILERS)

Post by N. Needleman »

I'm going by the tone of many excerpts from the book - from what I've seen, he seems to be speaking very plainly and also at times very much from the gut without a ton of foresight.

I agree Lynch has always been and continues to be ambivalent about working in/having worked in network TV and its restrictions, and given how things shook out he understandably harbors a lot of negativity for elements of it. But we have too many stories about him getting very involved in the nitty-gritty of this scene or that story in both Seasons 1 and 2 - and we saw how hard he campaigned for it to survive - for me to take all of that studied latter-day posture of ambivalence as a fully accurate rendering of his behavior then. It's okay if he disagrees. What matters to me is the work that's lasted, and his (and others') contributions to it.
AnotherBlueRoseCase wrote:The Return is clearly guaranteed a future audience among stoners and other drug users.
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Re: "Room to Dream" about 'Twin Peaks' (SPOILERS)

Post by Mr. Reindeer »

I agree that DKL has historically been affectionate toward the stuff that came between the Pilot and E29. I’ve always liked the Log Lady intros because they show that several years later DKL was still thinking about the series, even some of the more obscure/arguably dodgy elements of it like the death mask. However, I do think his feelings on the original show and the experience of making it may have shifted a bit recently. I know you have chalked his recent comments up to him speaking off the cuff, but DKL isn’t a guy who is prone to ramble in interviews...he tends to err on the side of speaking with precision and caution (and up until recently, his disappointment in later S2 was expressed in much more subdued terms: “sadness” as opposed to outright suckiness). I think the shift in his feelings goes hand in hand with whatever clicked in his mind and gave him permission to finally reenter this world. To me, it almost feels like the only way he could make more TP was to allow himself to mentally reject on some level everything that didn’t have to do with the “pure” vision he revealed back in that initial meeting with ABC when he described a wind in the woods. The Pilot, E29, FWWM, and now TP:TR were somehow natural outgrowths of that feeling/idea for him; the rest was not, maybe even including some of his own directed episodes in the original run.

Of course, I have no idea if I’m right. But it’s interesting that he has suddenly become a lot more caustic about the original show decades later, at the exact moment he has reclaimed control of the TP world...and based on what I know of his temperament, what I’ve written above makes sense to me. He’s always been big on building very specific worlds that feel internally consistent to him, since Eraserhead (even before, in The Grandmother); it makes sense that even the work of respected colleagues like Hunter, Deschanel, Frost, and even his own daughter would feel like a violation of his very personal vision of what TP is (as demonstrated by his staunch refusal to read Jennifer and Mark’s books and potentially taint his own vision of TP). He has written/spoken over the years about the fact that to some extent you have to be selfish to create personal art, and his rejection of his colleagues’ contributions to TP feels like a weird extension of that, as part of his process of creating TP:TR.

None of which diminishes my love for the original show...and I agree with you that DKL probably has more affection for it than he is currently expressing. He and Frost even obviously incorporated certain elements of late S2, such as Denise Bryson, Garland’s prominence, Ben trying to be good, &c. into TP:TR, so he certainly isn’t outright dismissing that material. But I do think there has been a shift in his temperament.
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Re: "Room to Dream" about 'Twin Peaks' (SPOILERS)

Post by Mr. Reindeer »

Just happened to flip open to this passage, which I think reinforces my point:
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Re: "Room to Dream" about 'Twin Peaks' (SPOILERS)

Post by N. Needleman »

LOL! Every new excerpt makes this sound like a great read. But yes, I think we're mostly saying the same things.
AnotherBlueRoseCase wrote:The Return is clearly guaranteed a future audience among stoners and other drug users.
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Re: "Room to Dream" about 'Twin Peaks' (SPOILERS)

Post by Mr. Reindeer »

“Somewhere along the way Twin Peaks became like a TV show rather than a film, and when it stopped being just Mark and me I kind of lost interest. And then I read Wild at Heart and really liked the characters. ...”
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Re: "Room to Dream" about 'Twin Peaks' (SPOILERS)

Post by Mr. Reindeer »

Interesting that, after everything, he still refers to MJA by the endearment “little Mike” when discussing ‘Industrial Symphony.’

Also: “You could say that Laura Palmer is Marilyn Monroe, and that Mulholland Drive is about Marilyn Monroe, too. Everything is about Marilyn Monroe.”
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Re: "Room to Dream" about 'Twin Peaks' (SPOILERS)

Post by Soolsma »

Mr. Reindeer wrote:Interesting that, after everything, he still refers to MJA by the endearment “little Mike” when discussing ‘Industrial Symphony.’
It only makes sense he still has very fond memories of working with MJA. Probably Lynch doesn't just see MJA as the jerk he's become, but also as a person with serious mental problems. On multiple occasions in my life I've been close to people with similar problems (paranoia but also full on schizophrenia), one of whom developed a grudge towards me. Though the bond of friendship we once shared has surely been broken, it's hard to blame that person for something he clearly suffers from himself.

In the other thread you mentioned:
Mr. Reindeer wrote:The quotes and anecdotes are nice (particularly thoughts Ontkean contributed in October 2016, a year after he had opted out of S3).
I'd be really interested if you'd be willing to share some bits of those.

And I'm getting this book.
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Re: "Room to Dream" about 'Twin Peaks' (SPOILERS)

Post by Mr. Reindeer »

Soolsma wrote:It only makes sense he still has very fond memories of working with MJA. Probably Lynch doesn't just see MJA as the jerk he's become, but also as a person with serious mental problems. On multiple occasions in my life I've been close to people with similar problems (paranoia but also full on schizophrenia), one of which who developed a grudge towards me. Though the bond of friendship we once shared has surely been broken, it's hard to blame that person for something he clearly suffers from himself.
Agreed. Jennifer expressed similar sentiments back when everything went down. But DKL has wisely remained mum on the subject publicly. It’s nice to see some indication that he may feel the same way as Jen. One certainly couldn’t blame him for harboring feelings of anger, given what was said.
In the other thread you mentioned:
Mr. Reindeer wrote:The quotes and anecdotes are nice (particularly thoughts Ontkean contributed in October 2016, a year after he had opted out of S3).
I'd be really interested if you'd be willing to share some bits of those.

And I'm getting this book.
As in Brad Dukes’s book, Ontkean’s contributions border on being poetry. My favorite: “With David it’s always soulful, and it’s always some form of homemade circus transformed into an offbeat pagan ritual.” Mike’s so cool. He also has a beautiful description of his first meeting with DKL, but you’ll have to buy the book. ;)
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Re: "Room to Dream" about 'Twin Peaks' (SPOILERS)

Post by Agent Earle »

Since you're speaking of Ontkean: is there any indication WHATSOEVER as to the reason(s) he dropped out of S3 production? The matter's driving me bugshit! :)
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Re: "Room to Dream" about 'Twin Peaks' (SPOILERS)

Post by Mr. Reindeer »

I’m taking the book slowly; I’m still about 26 years away from TP:TR. ;) I tend to doubt it, but I’ll let you know if I come across anything.
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Re: "Room to Dream" about 'Twin Peaks' (SPOILERS)

Post by mtwentz »

Agent Earle wrote:Since you're speaking of Ontkean: is there any indication WHATSOEVER as to the reason(s) he dropped out of S3 production? The matter's driving me bugshit! :)
I never believed Ontkean was going to leave his comfy perch in Hawaii in order to film in Washington. I always thought his participation was at best highly doubtful.

And if it's true that everyone except Kyle was offered scale wages, can you imagine Ontkean flying from Hawaii to Washington for such low pay?

I know people say it was some personal or medical reason, and maybe it was, but I can't imagine Ontkean wanting to participate anyway unless they made it worth his while financially (and from what we've heard, it's not clear that Ontkean would have ever received an offer any better than the offer made to the rest of the supporting cast.)

Edit: And if I were Ontkean, I probably wouldn't leave Hawaii either unless I was offered substantial $$$$$
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