LostInTheMovies wrote:Here's a new spin on this question: what parts of the existing film SHOULD have been deleted?
N. Needleman wrote:I wouldn't cut anything.
I also wouldn't cut anything. Though I acknowledge that scenes such as those at the sheriff station didn't add much narratively (and possibly would have felt like fan service), I don't think any of the scenes outright should have been deleted.
FWWM works as a fairly tight and gripping portrayal of Laura's last seven days (after the Deer Meadow opening, arguably, which some might feel is a bit ponderous or disconnected in some respects, though I don't think it is). But, as much as it works the way it is, I would also have enjoyed it very much with ALL the Missing Pieces restored - as a more unwieldy and slower-moving four-hour odyssey, comprised of a tapestry of disconnected and interconnected scenes and vignettes from the town of Twin Peaks, with the Last Seven Days of Laura Palmer story at its core. (And I think that's what Lynch was going for originally.)
I have no idea where this will lead us, but I have a definite feeling it will be a place both wonderful and strange.
LostInTheMovies wrote:The Coop/Albert scene may be there for a similar reason, to break up two sequences between which a lot of the connective material had been cut - Laura at Harold's and Laura at the RR. I guess maybe it was also meant to create some tentative link between Laura and Coop but, much as I'm fine with the scene on its own terms (and it's always nice to see Albert again), I wish it had been cut. I think and this scene feels like a refugee from the movie FWWM was originally intended to be rather than the film it ended up being. There's simply nothing else like it in the film (at least when Bobby calls Jacques, it's in Twin Peaks and it's involving characters that Laura is enmeshed with).
I love this scene. I love Albert being simultaneously wrong in that Cooper DOES have a supernatural connection to Laura, but... he's not wrong at the same time! He's right that this kind of vague generalizations is basically cold reading. I love the transition of Kyle perking his head up and then Laura with the food and the twangy music. And I kinda love that it feels like it's in a different film. It's something Lynch does quite a lot in his later career (especially IE), cutting away to other characters miles away from the "main" events but who are nevertheless connected all the time.
If I wanted to justify it within FWWM, I would say that, since loads of people discuss the Leland material as "Would Leland be obvious as her father to a newcomer?" Cooper plays a dangerous role by being both small and important to newcomers. If this was its own thing, the logical thing would be the detective who we follow for the Teresa Banks investigation and who disappears would be the one who has a connection with Laura. Instead, a detective with way less screentime is the one who visits her in her dream and later stands by her as she's redeemed. People who have seen the TV show know this is poignant and that he's a WAY bigger part in this overall story, but there's very little in the film to connect for a newcomer, yet another FBI detective who shows up 30 minutes into the film with the later figure in the supernatural world. The scene provides a context in which he's the FBI agent but one where we're told that not only will this man solve the mystery of Laura's death, but has a connection with her before that even happens. Then, when he appears in the dream and afterlife, he's not so out of place.
The highlight of the Missing Pieces for me was the complete Philip Jeffries/convenience store scene, which was a hacked up mess in the finished movie.
But I always felt that it would have made a lot more "sense" and tied the first part of the movie together better if it had been Chet Desmond who materialized in the office raving about seeing Bob and the others. We just saw him disappear and presumably be taken to that world -- why wasn't it him who came back to tell us about it? Instead, it's some agent we have no other context for and who, distractingly, looks just like David Bowie. I think if they'd stayed with Chet the reaction might have been more positive instead of "what is David Bowie doing in this movie?"
All this talk of the continuity and condensing of Laura's last week reminds me - when was the picnic with Donna and James supposed to be? I wonder if it was ever even considered or drafted or if they just said 'fuck it'. I don't mind the film's rather loose approach to some of that continuity, but it might have been interesting to put in early on. Or maybe they figured it was untouchable, especially without LFB, which I wouldn't blame them for.
AnotherBlueRoseCase wrote:The Return is clearly guaranteed a future audience among stoners and other drug users.
N. Needleman wrote:All this talk of the continuity and condensing of Laura's last week reminds me - when was the picnic with Donna and James supposed to be? I wonder if it was ever even considered or drafted or if they just said 'fuck it'. I don't mind the film's rather loose approach to some of that continuity, but it might have been interesting to put in early on. Or maybe they figured it was untouchable, especially without LFB, which I wouldn't blame them for.
I think the picnic was more than a week before she died -- the date I'm finding is Feb. 12 and she died Feb. 24. Not that it appeared to be February in the movie.
I always wondered why there wasn't a scene between Laura and Dr. Jacoby in the movie. Even in the missing pieces you only see them talking on the phone, don't you?
Well the lore fan in me wants to say I really couldn't wait to see the extended scene in the Room Above the Convenience Store, even though it's pretty cosmic and aloof from the day to day tragedy of Laura Palmer. Regardless it's definitely my favorite of the Missing Pieces. Utterly fascinating.
As much as I enjoy the Desmond/Stanley/Jeffries scenes and the Teresa Banks investigation in Deer Meadow, I think a strong case could've been made to ignore all that and just focus on telling the Laura Palmer story, since that was clearly Lynch's passion for this film. That said, I think he knew that what most fans wanted was more Dale Cooper and if he had even less of a role or none at all, it would've been an even harder sell. But it would've left more time to explore her relationships with other characters in the town and make it feel just a little bit more like the Twin Peaks of the show as well as providing a contrast to what life becomes for the town without her. I could see a scene where Hawk pulls her over for speeding, for example, but she charms him out of the ticket. Or a session with Josie coming on to her. And I know there were reasons why the Hornes didn't reprise their roles, but I feel Ben was sorely needed, given how significant he was to her downward spiral.
Probably the Missing Piece I would most put back in the original film is the scene where Laura hisses at Donna outside the Pink Room bar, "What a downer you are!" when she refuses to take cocaine. Sheryl Lee looks so vamp in that scene and you can really see both Laura's anger at Donna for stepping into this world with her and her disappointment at the same time that she can't be there all the way with her. Like she wants to protect her but part of her also wants to corrupt her at the same time. Because, as Jacoby said, that's how she felt about herself. And the diary makes her disappointment over Donna not understanding her painfully apparent. Short scene but I think it says so much.
It has little place in the final film, but damn do I love, love LOVE the scene with the One-Armed Man chanting over a circle of candles, shirtless in his motel room. It's so evocative and magical. I'm so encouraged to hear that Al Strobel said he would come out of retirement if David Lynch gave him the call to appear in the new series at this past UK Twin Peaks fest because I can't get enough of Philip Gerard/MIKE.
Finally, I would've included the final Missing Piece with Annie and the ring and Cooper in the bathroom as a teaser after the credits rolled. That might've been enough of a teaser to temper some of the fan criticism of the film at the time since what most fans wanted, as Mark Frost knew, was to see the story go forward. Whether that would've translated to enough of a profit to actually ensure production of sequel films is probably highly doubtful, given that Twin Peaks was dead as a door nail in the mainstream by then.
WHAT I WOULD LOSE: I actually would tighten the opening section because Chris Isaak's somnambulent performance really pains me.
And when the movie cuts to the Laura Palmer section, I'd cut any scene not experienced from her point of view or Leland's. The weird bit where we see Shelly on the kitchen floor is lame (badly directed, her hair doesn't match, etc. - also, maybe even the moment with Peggy and Shelly talking in the diner...this way you really get a sense of how isolated Laura was IN the world of Twin Peaks - it's like no one else existed...
I'm going to say something others may not like, but watching the Missing Pieces actually made me appreciate how brilliantly FWWM was rescued and saved by further editing...other than the bit with Laura hiding in the bushes - which is terrifying - nothing else felt necessary. Omg, and the bit with Josie is awful.
And it's such a shame Kyle didn't investigate Teresa Banks. Can they just shoot that now and de-age him and recut that into the movie?
Somewhere in FWWM is a pretty harrowing and brilliant film.
I love Chris Isaak's performance because he is so aloof, cool, slick and yes, at times wooden. Chet Desmond is the classical squarejawed FBI hero, and he gets taken away by the Lodge like it's nothing. It's debatable how Lynch may see him, too - I know Lost's video essay posits him as "kind of a dick" for making Sam spill his coffee, and I think there is a physicality and quick violence to him that indicates something, too. I don't think that prank, or the fight with Sheriff Cable, are things Dale Cooper would do. I find the character and that whole prologue fascinating. Desmond is a skilled investigator, probing, relentless and very curious, but IMO I come away with the impression that its his conventional masculine daring and somewhat brutal straightforwardness that makes him vulnerable, the wrong man for the job.
I also think the film handles Jacoby just right. Season 1 and his own words mythologize Jacoby's role in Laura's life, and it's certainly true that I like the character and believe his speech at Laura's grave, and think he has a tortured goodness to him. But in terms of who he was to Laura, I think the Missing Pieces paints him as what he really was - a pathetic, predatory, needy older man preying on an underage girl, nothing more, nothing less. It's cold water.
AnotherBlueRoseCase wrote:The Return is clearly guaranteed a future audience among stoners and other drug users.
N. Needleman wrote:Desmond is a skilled investigator, probing, relentless and very curious, but IMO I come away with the impression that its his conventional masculine daring and somewhat brutal straightforwardness that makes him vulnerable, the wrong man for the job.
Despite this though, I think the film makes it clear that he has that same preternatural sort of sense or intuition that Cooper does, possibly from his Blue Rose training (perhaps that's a quality Cole require of the agents he assigns to Blue Rose cases). As evidence of this, I cite Desmond slowly walking through the Fat Trout trailer park in the evening and we hear the Indian bellow in the powerlines and he clearly seems to register something and gets this strange sort of sense that draws him to the Chalfont trailer and the mound of dirt with the Ring below it.
When Cooper goes to the trailer after him, he too is inexplicably drawn to that exact same spot, even though the trailer is gone now.
Oh, I agree he has it. If he didn't he wouldn't be working the Blue Rose cases. But I think there's something a little too conveniently masculine and aggressive about Desmond to know how to face down the spirit world. I think him in Twin Peaks, working with Harry, experiencing the town and its inhabitants and discovering the Lodge, would be a very different story.
AnotherBlueRoseCase wrote:The Return is clearly guaranteed a future audience among stoners and other drug users.
I think the sce that should have made it in was the complete Jeffries scenes I agree they are jumbled in the movie and all we get is the audio of Bowies brilliant performance? Yeah and as a personal favorite though not part of the actual narrative I laugh everytime I see the scene of pete at the mill with Mibbler lol 2x4s
LostInTheMovies wrote:The Coop/Albert scene may be there for a similar reason, to break up two sequences between which a lot of the connective material had been cut - Laura at Harold's and Laura at the RR. I guess maybe it was also meant to create some tentative link between Laura and Coop but, much as I'm fine with the scene on its own terms (and it's always nice to see Albert again), I wish it had been cut. I think and this scene feels like a refugee from the movie FWWM was originally intended to be rather than the film it ended up being. There's simply nothing else like it in the film (at least when Bobby calls Jacques, it's in Twin Peaks and it's involving characters that Laura is enmeshed with).
I love this scene. I love Albert being simultaneously wrong in that Cooper DOES have a supernatural connection to Laura, but... he's not wrong at the same time! He's right that this kind of vague generalizations is basically cold reading. I love the transition of Kyle perking his head up and then Laura with the food and the twangy music. And I kinda love that it feels like it's in a different film. It's something Lynch does quite a lot in his later career (especially IE), cutting away to other characters miles away from the "main" events but who are nevertheless connected all the time.
If I wanted to justify it within FWWM, I would say that, since loads of people discuss the Leland material as "Would Leland be obvious as her father to a newcomer?" Cooper plays a dangerous role by being both small and important to newcomers. If this was its own thing, the logical thing would be the detective who we follow for the Teresa Banks investigation and who disappears would be the one who has a connection with Laura. Instead, a detective with way less screentime is the one who visits her in her dream and later stands by her as she's redeemed. People who have seen the TV show know this is poignant and that he's a WAY bigger part in this overall story, but there's very little in the film to connect for a newcomer, yet another FBI detective who shows up 30 minutes into the film with the later figure in the supernatural world. The scene provides a context in which he's the FBI agent but one where we're told that not only will this man solve the mystery of Laura's death, but has a connection with her before that even happens. Then, when he appears in the dream and afterlife, he's not so out of place.
Yeah, I think that's what they were going for. I think Cooper kind of falls along that borderline of "seems very extraneous in a standalone film" and "essential to connect it to the series (especially as a kind of conclusion)". For the most part they were able to cleave the two categories with surprising neatness. Much as I miss the ensemble, they don't feel necessary in a way to end the "first Twin Peaks cycle" (which I guess what I have to call the pilot - FWWM from now on). But Cooper does. We have to him there with Laura in the end to bring everything full-circle. At the same time, ESPECIALLY since MacLachlan refused to do the Deer Meadow stuff, he really sticks out like a sore thumb most of the time.
I think the reading of the Coop-Albert scene that has most made me appreciate it is John Thorne's notion that it's the only time in the film we see a non-dreaming, non-Lodge Cooper connected to Laura. Of course for that to work I'd have to believe the first third of the film is Cooper's dream which I don't necessarily (although I like to humor the idea).
N. Needleman wrote:All this talk of the continuity and condensing of Laura's last week reminds me - when was the picnic with Donna and James supposed to be? I wonder if it was ever even considered or drafted or if they just said 'fuck it'. I don't mind the film's rather loose approach to some of that continuity, but it might have been interesting to put in early on. Or maybe they figured it was untouchable, especially without LFB, which I wouldn't blame them for.
I think the picnic was more than a week before she died -- the date I'm finding is Feb. 12 and she died Feb. 24. Not that it appeared to be February in the movie.
I always wondered why there wasn't a scene between Laura and Dr. Jacoby in the movie. Even in the missing pieces you only see them talking on the phone, don't you?
No scene of her tutoring Josie either (though there was the deleted Horne scene). It's this type of thing that makes me scratch my head about what they were going for with this script. They definitely COULD have made a film about Laura interacting with the community in the last 7 days of her life, and it would have been really interesting (and more along the lines of what people were expecting). That type of thing also could have allowed more breathing room for scenes of the townspeople on their own. If Frost had been onboard with a prequel, that's probably the type of film they would have written. But that's not the film Lynch obviously wanted to make - he was interested in a more personal, subjective, inner take on what Laura was going through, more along the lines of later works like Lost Highway or the final stretch of Mulholland Drive or most of the material in Inland Empire (even the footage without her feels like it's being filtered through her consciousness).
And yet he still tries to stuff all these non sequitur scenes in there in a very halfhearted attempt to be that type of movie AND a sort of "Twin Peaks on the big screen." I wonder how much of the lackluster-ness of that latter idea was down to casting issues or Lynch drawing closer and closer to the core of what he actually wanted to tell. Maybe he and Engels wrote the townspeople stuff first and expected the Laura material to be more intertwined until they really started digging into it? (My one wish about Engels is for him to actually address the Laura part of the movie, which I don't think I've ever heard him do - I would love to know more about the process of how that stuff came together.)
LostInTheMovies wrote:Here's a new spin on this question: what parts of the existing film SHOULD have been deleted?
Although I find it to be an exceptionally strong scene, I'm going to make the controversial suggestion that the film would have probably been stronger (and moved along better towards the end) if they completely cut the scene of Laura and Bobby doing drugs in the woods. The "You Killed Mike" scene.
I know, I know, it's a fantastic scene, and there are things about it that are impactful within the story (the way we see Laura laughing at the gory death right before her eyes) but the last few times I've seen the film, this feels like the place where there's a certain momentum happening in the story and then this scene comes along and sort of pulls you in a different dark direction for a while, and right towards the end of the film. With the exception of fulfilling the series' promise that "Bobby killed a guy" and Laura knew about it, this scene doesn't feel necessary to me. Even though it's a fantastic Lynch/Lee/Ashbrook scene, I think this should have been a missing piece along with all the other elements related to Bobby's drug deal, the laxative, etc.
bosguy1981 wrote:With the exception of fulfilling the series' promise that "Bobby killed a guy" and Laura knew about it, this scene doesn't feel necessary to me. Even though it's a fantastic Lynch/Lee/Ashbrook scene, I think this should have been a missing piece along with all the other elements related to Bobby's drug deal, the laxative, etc.
Don't forget that this scene also is connected with the prologue via the Deputy Cliff character.
