Diane Keaton talks (briefly) about her Twin Peaks experience

[They-Shot-Waldo!]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... LU9FU8.DTL
From the interview...

Q: You directed an episode of "Twin Peaks," which I think would surprise most people.
A: It was really exciting because I wanted to learn more about directing, and television was a venue that people seemed to be willing to hire me for. First, I did an after-school special, that's probably in the late '80s. Then I did an episode of "China Beach" and so on. And that's how I learned about directing. I did a documentary about heaven, which was summarily hated. But it was fascinating to me. The subject was fascinating. I did it in a kind of unusual manner. I've explored a lot of things regarding visual (arts). I'm interested in everything visual. I've now done seven visual books, a TV pilot, two features.
Q: Did you have much interaction with David Lynch? There were times during the "Twin Peaks" production that he was relatively uninvolved.
A: No. He was very interesting that way. When he gave a guest director the opportunity to direct "Twin Peaks," he just said, "Do whatever you want." That's very different, because most television shows have a pattern of how to shoot. ... They have an idea and (as director) you fit into the idea of what the format is for that particular show. With "Twin Peaks," (Lynch) just said, "Heh heh. Goodbye. Here, you have any ideas? Do it." So he was amazing in regard to that. But I didn't have, really, any contact with him.

[Brad D]

thanks lynch, look where that approach took the show...those episodes were probably the wrong time to try that approach.

[Evenreven]

The more I hear about David Lynch's creative decision-making in anything not regarding his own episodes, the more I think we're lucky the show never got any lower than episodes 21 and 22.

It's amazing how most of the directors were new in the business. Tim Hunter had directed one decent film; James Foley hadn't directed anything of note except music videos; Diane Keaton had made one documentary that no one liked; Duwayne Dunham had never directed anything in his life; Uli Edel had actually made a few decent films, though his career died a miserable death in the early 90s; Tina Rathborne had directed one feature (and, amazingly, hasn't directed anything at all since Twin Peaks); Lesli Glatter and Todd Holland were almost new to the game too. It worked sometimes though, like with the latter two, but they took considerable chances. I guess you have to in TV, though. It's not exactly like the best directors in the country were lining up in front of the Networks. Strangely, the big-name directors at the time, Edel and Hunter, are in my opinion the worst ones, and Holland, Glatter and Rathborne are the best ones.

I haven't seen Keaton's pilot or anything she's directed since, but I think she should have stuck to being an amazing actress.