Season 4? Or is it over after this?

[enumbs]

I was responding to your comment -

"In terms of critical reception and cultural significance the Return is clearly every bit as important as either of those films (probably a great deal more than WAH)."

Which was obviously a direct response to you saying “All I am suggesting is Lynch gaining the sort of talk and interest in whatever he's up to that happened with Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart”. You compared the reception of the two in the first place, so it’s a bit rich to call people silly for joining in your conversation. But whatever...

The Return could have been more accessible, but it would have meant consciously tailoring the story as a new beginning. Another FBI agent is working on a case with seemingly supernatural elements, and discovers records pertaining to a similar case from over two decades ago, in a small North West town called Twin Peaks...

That kind of template allows newcomers to discover the world and mythology through the eyes of a new character, easing them into the narrative. It is the reason why every reboot under the sun now adopts this approach. This means that this kind of delayed sequel feels stiflingly familiar however, and I am grateful that Lynch and Frost eschewed this formula for something richer and more audacious.

[TwinsPeak]

I didn't know this was happening https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1621415/?r ... flmg_act_1 probably old news to most of you.

[krishnanspace]

I remember it being in production from around 2014

[LateReg]

I was responding to your comment -

"In terms of critical reception and cultural significance the Return is clearly every bit as important as either of those films (probably a great deal more than WAH)."

All I meant was that I believe The Return to be no more critically or culturally significant than Wild at Heart. Yes, I do think the comparison itself is rather unfounded and silly anyway. Nonetheless, WaH had a MAJOR impact in its time. The Return had an impact but definitely not a HUGE one - it was viewed as an interesting extension and modern updating of a classic tv show.

Respectfully, I very much disagree, and I think my disagreement is very much founded. My personal feeling - based on various forms of evidence mixed with, well, personal feeling - is that nothing made this century in any medium is as significant as The Return, but whatever. Without taking anything away from Wild at Heart (which I appreciate your views on, and I myself think is extremely important to Lynch's evolving style of editing), as others have pointed out The Return has frequently been called a landmark, a masterpiece, a magnum opus and the most groundbreaking TV series ever; it's topped decade-end lists, and has done so in two mediums. It's appeared highly on film polls that haven't deemed it ineligible, despite the fact that some participating critics who love it won't vote for it since they don't believe it to be a film. And a majority of those who do include it on their lists usually place it number 1, while some that don't include it still make a point to include it as a special mention. The level of passion towards it and the hyperbole leveled at it in some circles (both critics and Letterboxd users) is off the charts in ways that I've rarely seen. This level of measurable critical accolades are not something that Wild at Heart can claim, so I'd have to conclude that The Return is easily the more critically significant of the two. Culturally, time will tell, but already The Return has inspired numerous creators including Sam Esmail and Damon Lindelof. It has noticeably influenced Watchmen, Seasons 2 and 3 of Legion, and opened the door for purely auteur-driven, no-restrictions TV like Nicolas Winding Refn's Too Old To Die Young, which itself sometimes resembles The Return (though Refn has always been influenced by Lynch). The freedom Lynch/Frost were allotted and how far they pushed that freedom is unprecedented and objectively important, and can only bode well for the future of TV. Part 8 alone is routinely billed as the most avant-garde thing ever aired on American TV, and The Return as a whole brings non-narrative, slow cinema into the relative mainstream of prestige TV. It is also EXHIBIT A in the Film vs. TV debate, a debate that gets heatedly stirred up every time it makes a film list, and a debate which, however pointless, is actually at the very center of the changing ways we have come to experience film and TV over the past two decades. Again, I believe this points to a significance at the highest level.

[FauxOwl]

If there was any chance of them announcing a new Twin Peaks at the Twin Peaks 30 event, it's been postponed until October. And if Lynch had been planning on starting production any new project soon, Twin Peaks or otherwise, I imagine that is on hold as well. Hope Lynch is being safe and staying at home for a while.

[AXX°N N.]

The comparison to James Joyce and some saying Lynch should just become more and more insular - I don't think any such comparison makes sense, nevermind seeming highly fake-pretentious (I don't believe anyone here is a scholar of Joyce, correct me if I am wrong) - is it not possible for the director to be as free with his own creativity but still hold the door open to as many lovers of cinema as possible?

Wouldn't "fake-pretentious" be an oxymoron? "Pretentious" being that you construe yourself or your point as being more profound or educated than it really is--there's already fakeness involved.

I brought up Joyce because I love Joyce. It's frustrating that bringing him up often ends in immediate hostility, but that only underscores why I associate him and Lynch, because Lynch will also agitate people at the first mention alone, who will then say him and his fans are faux-intellectual.

Joyce is someone who, like Lynch, is completely driven by art, and approaches art only for art's sake, disregarding whatever doesn't personally interest them, to the complete disregard of the many bridges that ultimately burns.

Before the new season, Inland Empire was already in my mind as the closest thing in film format to the kind of ambitious, long, elaborate, obscurantist work that Ulysses and Finnegans Wake in my mind are the best examples of, especially because like Joyce's work, Inland Empire seemed to be 'about' the medium itself, film about film. Then the new season came. And yet again, a lot of it seems "about" itself, not just television, or film, but the fact of it being a long-standing established narrative--and take into account the many interpretations people have that it's "about" the nature of watching something. Can you name another 18-hour film experience that is so rich in theme, not to mention content, as impenetrable, yet as engaging? Because Joyce is, despite his reputation, fairly well-known. He and Lynch are both "popular obscurantists," a paradox.

The comparison is firm in my mind. I didn't intend to make it seem insincere.

[Mr. Reindeer]

(Waves hand in the air)

Also a huge Joyce fan; one of my favorite authors. Also not a scholar by any means, but I’ve read him cover to cover.

[Soolsma]

Geez, and I thought that no S4 because of COVID 19 would be bad, but Lynch dying because of it would be even worse.

[AXX°N N.]

Shocking and disorienting to see COVID-19 infecting every point of interest, excuse the pun.

Lynch has said he doesn't like going outside more than he absolutely has to, so i'm sure he can make hunkering down comfortable.

[krishnanspace]

https://deadline.com/2020/03/stranger-t ... 202882758/

Apparently Netflix has shut down all of its productions. So that means the rumoured Lynch Netflix show too might be affected

[NormoftheAndes]

https://deadline.com/2020/03/stranger-t ... 202882758/

Apparently Netflix has shut down all of its productions. So that means the rumoured Lynch Netflix show too might be affected

A rumour that seemed spun out of very little, right?

I was just enjoying the discussion above for the sake of itself. The comparison to James Joyce, one issue I had is I don't think Lynch is inspired by him nor has he read him.

Regarding The Return and its overall significance, yes I think you're right in it having an impact. Too Old to Die Young, I am pretty sure would have been made regardless of Lynch.

[eyeboogers]

Too Old to Die Young, I am pretty sure would have been made regardless of Lynch.

I can confirm that TPTR in various ways was a major influence on "Too Old To Die Young".

[AXX°N N.]

The comparison to James Joyce, one issue I had is I don't think Lynch is inspired by him nor has he read him.

The comparison has been made quite a few times, and Lynch is at least familiar with him. Here's an example from this interview, by the interviewer, and Lynch responding:

Maybe, suggests the defeated interviewer, "Inland Empire" should be approached like James Joyce's "Finnegans Wake": Accessible as lyrical art, but filled with puzzles for those wanting to go deeper.

Lynch nods, swigging one of his tepid cappuccinos. "Yes, with James Joyce, word combinations conjure things. He uses them as an art form and a language for abstractions. Cinema is its own language. As the sound and picture get going and things begin to happen, it can get pretty abstract, but it's a language that says something that can't be said in words -- or maybe could, by a poet."

--

This displays a clear understanding of what Joyce's technique is, especially in Ulysses and in Finnegans Wake, something that signifies an understanding of Joyce far from shallow, even if he (maybe?) hasn't read him much.

And just because it's interesting, David Patrick Kelly sings a song Joyce wrote to Lynch in the Return BTS, and iirc gives a bit of history and info about it.

[NormoftheAndes]

Too Old to Die Young, I am pretty sure would have been made regardless of Lynch.

I can confirm that TPTR in various ways was a major influence on "Too Old To Die Young".

Really? How?

I've seen Too Old...and quite liked it but I couldn't see any major link to The Return. Apart from perhaps the pacing being glacial at times, although it was markedly slower-paced than Season 3.

[LateReg]

I can confirm that TPTR in various ways was a major influence on "Too Old To Die Young".

Really? How?

I've seen Too Old...and quite liked it but I couldn't see any major link to The Return. Apart from perhaps the pacing being glacial at times, although it was markedly slower-paced than Season 3.

I'd like to know what eyeboogers thinks, but for my part...Because of when it aired - two years after The Return premiered - and how it felt it struck me as the first true post-The Return series. It struck me as such due to the complete creative freedom, the total narrative subversion that borders on testing patience and fucking with the audience, and the uncompromising extremity of the work of art. Beyond this, specific similarities were its glacial pacing (which Refn has been practicing for years now but never to the degree that this longform experiment allowed), the focus on a world gone mad and the rot at the center of America, and especially a few very specific, dry shots that introduce a scene that couple with sound design to feel exactly like those in The Return (especially a slow pan across a rack of tires in a garage). It is pure speculation on my part that these elements are a sign that Refn was directly influenced, but I do believe it was likely greenlighted in the first place specifically due to the news that Showtime was funding the auteur-driven Lynch project (and HBO funding Sorrentino's The Young Pope). At any rate, I think that influence by osmosis counts. The Return is very much in the air.

I've seen Too Old To Die Young three times and also like it a lot, btw.