Showing posts with label April 2018. Show all posts
Showing posts with label April 2018. Show all posts
Monday, April 30, 2018
Sunday, April 29, 2018
Saturday, April 28, 2018
Friday, April 27, 2018
Tuesday, April 24, 2018
The Lynch Meditations 17: Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992)
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD . . .
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me goes backwards in the timeline of Twin Peaks to tell the story of Laura Palmer's last week alive on Earth. The movie is both prequel and sequel to the television series, due to some strange space-time effects of the extradimensional salon known as the Black Lodge, but it is mostly a prequel, with just a little bit of sequel in the mix. What you get has mostly to do with the prehistory of the overall saga, but there are small moments here and there that address the fates of characters towards the end of the series.
Fire Walk With Me is so bizarre that when I first watched it, I assumed it to be about Laura Palmer's point of view more than anything else: a series of grotesque hallucinations brought on by the trauma of violence, abuse, incest, and manipulation, and further complicated by cocaine, booze, and escapist fantasies of salvation, but the first half hour establishes a world outside of Laura Palmer's experience with two FBI agents investigating the murder of a woman named Teresa Banks who ends up having a connection with Laura.
When we are first introduced to Laura, she is walking down a sidewalk, the very picture of normalcy, someone that if you saw them on the street, and knew nothing of their life, you would not be likely to speculate about the horrors of their existence. As the movie goes on, Laura's life is revealed to be a nightmare of rape, sexual exploitation, and supernatural attacks on her very soul. It is important to keep in mind that Laura is a teenager-we are dealing with the destruction of a child. The world of Twin Peaks, despite its surface quirkiness and charm and damn fine coffee, also consumes its youth without mercy.
I saw this movie a couple years before I watched the television series in full, which is not how you should watch it, but I don't regret it. Fire Walk With Me isn't about mystery, so much as it is about the nature of human evil. From the moment we enter Laura Palmer's narrative, it is very quickly established that Laura's father, Leland, is a manipulative, abusive, overbearing presence in Laura's life. It is also quickly established that he is a rapist, and that his victim is his own daughter. Later, Leland is revealed to be the murderer of Teresa Banks, a sex worker whom he had patronized and confided in about his fantasies about Laura. Leland is clearly a predator who murders both Teresa and Laura and attempts to murder another young woman, Ronette Pulaski, in order to maintain the facade of 1950s patriarchal normalcy. This is somewhat different from the way Leland is presented in the TV series, where his crimes are largely blamed on his possession by a demonic spirit known as Killer Bob.
Killer Bob is a presence within Fire Walk With Me as well, but when I first watched it, he came across as a kind of fantasy scapegoat created by Laura to avoid dealing directly with the fact that her own father is the one creeping into her bedroom at night. Bob, along with other bizarre supernatural entities, are present within this movie, but they are not allowed to take the blame for Leland's actions as much as they are in the TV series. In Fire Walk With Me, Leland is a monster whose actions result in him losing his soul, as opposed to a man who is possessed against his will.
Laura has to deal with the crimes committed against her essentially on her own. Every male presence in her life contributes to her suffering: her high school boyfriends James and Bobby are too selfish to inquire about her obvious pain and distress; her psychologist exploits their intimacy to fulfill his own desire; and the Canadian-American gangsters use her and other teenagers as both a drug mule and a sex slave. Laura is totally consumed by the underworld of the idyllic-seeming Twin Peaks. Fire Walk With Me drags you into an abyss of horror with only tiny spikes of the quirky humor and sugary earnestness of the TV version.
This unrelenting hellscape, I think, is best experienced before watching the TV series. Remember, the TV show wasn't planned out in every detail from the beginning. The writers and directors found the story as they worked on it for a few years, so the mystery, as it unfolds, is rather thrown together. And you can tell, as you watch, that the shaggy dog approach to characters, story, and plot goes down some slow roads here and there. But if you watch Fire Walk With Me first, the series becomes a totally different beast: we see Leland Palmer putting on a truly sickening and desperate show-at times, a literal song and dance number-of his innocence and grief. It makes the TV version unbearably tense and unnerving to see the monster hiding in plain sight episode after episode.
As for Laura, she is left to fend for herself on earth and in the Black Lodge, which is also a kind of bizarre afterlife, Hell, Heaven, and Purgatory all in one. At the very end of the movie, she is comforted by a psychic projection of a noble FBI agent who was not able to save her; and she is brought peace by an angel seemingly derived from a painting which hung on her bedroom wall all those years she was preyed upon by Leland. The angel didn't protect her in life, but in the Black Lodge it manifests as a kind of giant, living Christmas ornament. All this seems to be a hallucination brought on by a cascade of neurochemistry at the moment of death. Her mind takes mercy on Laura, and gives her comforting visions of angels and a cinematic FBI agent to make the plunge into oblivion less agonizing.
Meanwhile, spiritual parasites fight and barter over their scraps of pain and sorrow, operating according to codes and norms and laws totally alien to humankind, neither saving us nor damning us.
Laura Palmer, in the end, faced unimaginable suffering and death on her own with only fantasies and hallucinations to comfort her.
NEXT: 5/8/18 Premonitions Following An Evil Deed (1995)
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me goes backwards in the timeline of Twin Peaks to tell the story of Laura Palmer's last week alive on Earth. The movie is both prequel and sequel to the television series, due to some strange space-time effects of the extradimensional salon known as the Black Lodge, but it is mostly a prequel, with just a little bit of sequel in the mix. What you get has mostly to do with the prehistory of the overall saga, but there are small moments here and there that address the fates of characters towards the end of the series.
Fire Walk With Me is so bizarre that when I first watched it, I assumed it to be about Laura Palmer's point of view more than anything else: a series of grotesque hallucinations brought on by the trauma of violence, abuse, incest, and manipulation, and further complicated by cocaine, booze, and escapist fantasies of salvation, but the first half hour establishes a world outside of Laura Palmer's experience with two FBI agents investigating the murder of a woman named Teresa Banks who ends up having a connection with Laura.
When we are first introduced to Laura, she is walking down a sidewalk, the very picture of normalcy, someone that if you saw them on the street, and knew nothing of their life, you would not be likely to speculate about the horrors of their existence. As the movie goes on, Laura's life is revealed to be a nightmare of rape, sexual exploitation, and supernatural attacks on her very soul. It is important to keep in mind that Laura is a teenager-we are dealing with the destruction of a child. The world of Twin Peaks, despite its surface quirkiness and charm and damn fine coffee, also consumes its youth without mercy.
I saw this movie a couple years before I watched the television series in full, which is not how you should watch it, but I don't regret it. Fire Walk With Me isn't about mystery, so much as it is about the nature of human evil. From the moment we enter Laura Palmer's narrative, it is very quickly established that Laura's father, Leland, is a manipulative, abusive, overbearing presence in Laura's life. It is also quickly established that he is a rapist, and that his victim is his own daughter. Later, Leland is revealed to be the murderer of Teresa Banks, a sex worker whom he had patronized and confided in about his fantasies about Laura. Leland is clearly a predator who murders both Teresa and Laura and attempts to murder another young woman, Ronette Pulaski, in order to maintain the facade of 1950s patriarchal normalcy. This is somewhat different from the way Leland is presented in the TV series, where his crimes are largely blamed on his possession by a demonic spirit known as Killer Bob.
Killer Bob is a presence within Fire Walk With Me as well, but when I first watched it, he came across as a kind of fantasy scapegoat created by Laura to avoid dealing directly with the fact that her own father is the one creeping into her bedroom at night. Bob, along with other bizarre supernatural entities, are present within this movie, but they are not allowed to take the blame for Leland's actions as much as they are in the TV series. In Fire Walk With Me, Leland is a monster whose actions result in him losing his soul, as opposed to a man who is possessed against his will.
Laura has to deal with the crimes committed against her essentially on her own. Every male presence in her life contributes to her suffering: her high school boyfriends James and Bobby are too selfish to inquire about her obvious pain and distress; her psychologist exploits their intimacy to fulfill his own desire; and the Canadian-American gangsters use her and other teenagers as both a drug mule and a sex slave. Laura is totally consumed by the underworld of the idyllic-seeming Twin Peaks. Fire Walk With Me drags you into an abyss of horror with only tiny spikes of the quirky humor and sugary earnestness of the TV version.
This unrelenting hellscape, I think, is best experienced before watching the TV series. Remember, the TV show wasn't planned out in every detail from the beginning. The writers and directors found the story as they worked on it for a few years, so the mystery, as it unfolds, is rather thrown together. And you can tell, as you watch, that the shaggy dog approach to characters, story, and plot goes down some slow roads here and there. But if you watch Fire Walk With Me first, the series becomes a totally different beast: we see Leland Palmer putting on a truly sickening and desperate show-at times, a literal song and dance number-of his innocence and grief. It makes the TV version unbearably tense and unnerving to see the monster hiding in plain sight episode after episode.
As for Laura, she is left to fend for herself on earth and in the Black Lodge, which is also a kind of bizarre afterlife, Hell, Heaven, and Purgatory all in one. At the very end of the movie, she is comforted by a psychic projection of a noble FBI agent who was not able to save her; and she is brought peace by an angel seemingly derived from a painting which hung on her bedroom wall all those years she was preyed upon by Leland. The angel didn't protect her in life, but in the Black Lodge it manifests as a kind of giant, living Christmas ornament. All this seems to be a hallucination brought on by a cascade of neurochemistry at the moment of death. Her mind takes mercy on Laura, and gives her comforting visions of angels and a cinematic FBI agent to make the plunge into oblivion less agonizing.
Meanwhile, spiritual parasites fight and barter over their scraps of pain and sorrow, operating according to codes and norms and laws totally alien to humankind, neither saving us nor damning us.
Laura Palmer, in the end, faced unimaginable suffering and death on her own with only fantasies and hallucinations to comfort her.
NEXT: 5/8/18 Premonitions Following An Evil Deed (1995)
Monday, April 23, 2018
The Lynch Meditations -17
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me was my first taste of Twin Peaks.
Yeah, I did it all wrong. Fire Walk With Me gives it all away, but I didn't care at the time. Even though I was a fan of David Lynch from Blue Velvet, Dune, and The Elephant Man, I had no interest in sitting through hours of television even if it was something with the vaunted cult reputation of Twin Peaks. So, I purchased a VHS copy of Fire Walk With Me, watched it almost as many times as I watched Raiders of the Lost Ark, and loved every minute of it.
Weirdo FBI agents investigate crimes with no earthly solutions.
Hey, that's David Bowie! Oh . . . now he's gone.
A gang of demons hang out in a ratty apartment wheeling and dealing for creamed corn shares of garmonbozia ("Pain and Sorrow").
A bizarre, curtained-off salon represents some kind of hellspace of judgment (?).
A one-armed man bellows a mortal warning to a young woman in danger, his face burning with emotion, fighting to have his voice heard above revving engines.
An out of control drugs-and-booze orgy in an after hours club features subtitles to render dialogue understandable above the punishingly loud music.
A tracking shot across a wasteland of crushed-out cigarette butts,
the ruins of addiction,
of pain unceasing,
desire unending,
no cure, no magic pill in sight . . .
I loved every minute, even if I didn't understand all those minutes. My take on it was that it was a plunge into a hell of murder, rape, incest, hallucinations, small town conspiracies, extra-dimensional influences, and ultimately, absurdly, inevitably hope. Sure, it's a hope found in the final traumatic moments of death as a broken mind unleashes a cascade of uplifting electrochemical sensations to give you a gentle glide into the abyss. But you take hope where you can find it in this life, right?
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me is a detective story, a teenage romance (featuring twenty-six year old teenagers, of course, but that's probably for the best), it's a character study featuring magnificent dialogue and engaging performances, and it is most definitely a kind of horror film. It transcends easy genre categories, and, at the time when I watched it, I saw it as an extension of the approach Lynch took with Blue Velvet. I still think this, but now I also see Fire Walk With Me in the context of the Twin Peaks TV series. It might also be my favorite Lynch work after Twin Peaks: The Return/Season Three.
Hmm . . . how will it hold up after another watch?
Yeah, I did it all wrong. Fire Walk With Me gives it all away, but I didn't care at the time. Even though I was a fan of David Lynch from Blue Velvet, Dune, and The Elephant Man, I had no interest in sitting through hours of television even if it was something with the vaunted cult reputation of Twin Peaks. So, I purchased a VHS copy of Fire Walk With Me, watched it almost as many times as I watched Raiders of the Lost Ark, and loved every minute of it.
Weirdo FBI agents investigate crimes with no earthly solutions.
Hey, that's David Bowie! Oh . . . now he's gone.
A gang of demons hang out in a ratty apartment wheeling and dealing for creamed corn shares of garmonbozia ("Pain and Sorrow").
A bizarre, curtained-off salon represents some kind of hellspace of judgment (?).
A one-armed man bellows a mortal warning to a young woman in danger, his face burning with emotion, fighting to have his voice heard above revving engines.
An out of control drugs-and-booze orgy in an after hours club features subtitles to render dialogue understandable above the punishingly loud music.
A tracking shot across a wasteland of crushed-out cigarette butts,
the ruins of addiction,
of pain unceasing,
desire unending,
no cure, no magic pill in sight . . .
I loved every minute, even if I didn't understand all those minutes. My take on it was that it was a plunge into a hell of murder, rape, incest, hallucinations, small town conspiracies, extra-dimensional influences, and ultimately, absurdly, inevitably hope. Sure, it's a hope found in the final traumatic moments of death as a broken mind unleashes a cascade of uplifting electrochemical sensations to give you a gentle glide into the abyss. But you take hope where you can find it in this life, right?
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me is a detective story, a teenage romance (featuring twenty-six year old teenagers, of course, but that's probably for the best), it's a character study featuring magnificent dialogue and engaging performances, and it is most definitely a kind of horror film. It transcends easy genre categories, and, at the time when I watched it, I saw it as an extension of the approach Lynch took with Blue Velvet. I still think this, but now I also see Fire Walk With Me in the context of the Twin Peaks TV series. It might also be my favorite Lynch work after Twin Peaks: The Return/Season Three.
Hmm . . . how will it hold up after another watch?
Thursday, April 19, 2018
The Lynch Meditations 16: Twin Peaks Episode 29 (1991)
In the year 1991 . . .
Episode 29 . . .
Until 2017, this was the farthest along in the saga of Twin Peaks we were able to get. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me actually took us all back in time to explicitly tell the story of the last week of Laura Palmer's life. So we had the complete backstory, but for many years we didn't know what happened next. In fact, Episode 29 strongly suggested there was no next.
Hmmm . . . my decision to not do spoilers when discussing Twin Peaks has become onerous. I think I'm going to go heavy into spoilers starting with Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. After all it is the chronological beginning of the whole saga, and it was the first thing I watched before I ever saw the television series.
But about Episode 29: I recall the excitement I felt as I watched this episode so many years ago. I realized just how monumentally fucked-up the very last episode was going to be, and how I had never watched every episode of a television series from beginning to end before Twin Peaks. This was my first complete watch.
Episode 29 represents the triumph of mystery. The original premise of the show involved the murder of Laura Palmer never being solved. Well, her murder got solved. New mysteries were uncovered. Mysteries so powerful they well up and swallow what's left of hope and truth and love . . . yeah, it gets dark at the end. I dug it back in the day, I dig it even more, now.
Okay, next up is Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. I'll be doing spoilers from here on out.
And I will definitely be coming back to Twin Peaks as a whole,
Enemy Time permitting . . .
NEXT: 4/24/18: Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
Episode 29 . . .
Until 2017, this was the farthest along in the saga of Twin Peaks we were able to get. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me actually took us all back in time to explicitly tell the story of the last week of Laura Palmer's life. So we had the complete backstory, but for many years we didn't know what happened next. In fact, Episode 29 strongly suggested there was no next.
Hmmm . . . my decision to not do spoilers when discussing Twin Peaks has become onerous. I think I'm going to go heavy into spoilers starting with Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. After all it is the chronological beginning of the whole saga, and it was the first thing I watched before I ever saw the television series.
But about Episode 29: I recall the excitement I felt as I watched this episode so many years ago. I realized just how monumentally fucked-up the very last episode was going to be, and how I had never watched every episode of a television series from beginning to end before Twin Peaks. This was my first complete watch.
Episode 29 represents the triumph of mystery. The original premise of the show involved the murder of Laura Palmer never being solved. Well, her murder got solved. New mysteries were uncovered. Mysteries so powerful they well up and swallow what's left of hope and truth and love . . . yeah, it gets dark at the end. I dug it back in the day, I dig it even more, now.
Okay, next up is Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. I'll be doing spoilers from here on out.
And I will definitely be coming back to Twin Peaks as a whole,
Enemy Time permitting . . .
NEXT: 4/24/18: Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
Wednesday, April 18, 2018
The Lynch Meditations -16
The last episode of Twin Peaks Season Two is up there with my favorite last episodes: Neon Genesis Evangelion, Cowboy Bebop, The Wire-it brings the hammer down. Whatever the flaws of Season Two-which is widely regarded as deeply flawed, as missing a step, losing the plot-the very last episode brings the threads together, reminds the loyal superfans why they got hooked in the first place.
By the way, I've never agreed with the negative critical assessment of Season Two. I have only one explicit criticism, which I'll try to convey without spoiling anything: a character impersonates another . . . and that twist has not aged well. Not so much the idea of a character disguising themselves, but rather the uncomfortable representational politics of it . . . more I will not say. If you take the time to watch the entire series you will immediately know what I'm talking about. Aside from this one element, Season Two has never been a deal breaker for me.
Oh, yes . . . I will have to come back to this show in full . . .
By the way, I've never agreed with the negative critical assessment of Season Two. I have only one explicit criticism, which I'll try to convey without spoiling anything: a character impersonates another . . . and that twist has not aged well. Not so much the idea of a character disguising themselves, but rather the uncomfortable representational politics of it . . . more I will not say. If you take the time to watch the entire series you will immediately know what I'm talking about. Aside from this one element, Season Two has never been a deal breaker for me.
Oh, yes . . . I will have to come back to this show in full . . .
Tuesday, April 17, 2018
The Lynch Meditations 15: Twin Peaks Episode 14 (1990)
Episode 14 . . .
"It is happening again."
I'll try not to spoil too much . . . but this episode contains a startling depiction of profound metaphysical defeat.
Agent Coop's sitting in the Roadhouse, taking in a live music show when a giant of prophecy manifests upon the stage, displacing the band to some other space-time reality for a moment or two. The giant tells Coop,
"It is happening again."
And then there's the look on Coop's face . . . he's staring into the very abyss. For he realizes he has failed to save a life. Again.
This is a mysterious, yet devastating scene, one that strikes me with more force now than whenever I first watched it back in the day.
NEXT: 4/19/18: Twin Peaks Episode 29
Monday, April 16, 2018
The Lynch Meditations -15
Episode 14 . . .
"It is happening again."
Killer Bob claims another victim . . . how in the fuck did they air this horrific scene of rape and murder on mainstream television in 1990? This scene-which I will not spoil, I guess-has always scared the living shit out of me. It is absolutely nightmarish.
The more I think about it, the more I realize that some of the most disturbing scenes I've ever seen in TV or film come from Twin Peaks. Most of Twin Peaks isn't like this, though, and so, until recently, I tended to remember Twin Peaks as a show filled with brilliant dialogue, excellent acting, and memorable characterizations. But there is some horrific shit in this show.
Even my recent watch of Twin Peaks: The Return/Season Three, which has some memorably horrifying sequences, didn't remind me of the disturbing scenes from Seasons One and Two. Season Three might be my favorite stretch of live action television next to Ultra-Q and The Wire. My memory of the first two seasons, until recently, was of a quirky, talky, somewhat fantasy oriented drama-comedy. It is also, in certain sequences, pure depravity and horror. So, what I'm saying, is that the third season has largely eclipsed what has come before, but I am starting to realize I really need to carve out the time to revisit Seasons One and Two in full.
Enemy Time . . . working against my ass . . .
"It is happening again."
Killer Bob claims another victim . . . how in the fuck did they air this horrific scene of rape and murder on mainstream television in 1990? This scene-which I will not spoil, I guess-has always scared the living shit out of me. It is absolutely nightmarish.
The more I think about it, the more I realize that some of the most disturbing scenes I've ever seen in TV or film come from Twin Peaks. Most of Twin Peaks isn't like this, though, and so, until recently, I tended to remember Twin Peaks as a show filled with brilliant dialogue, excellent acting, and memorable characterizations. But there is some horrific shit in this show.
Even my recent watch of Twin Peaks: The Return/Season Three, which has some memorably horrifying sequences, didn't remind me of the disturbing scenes from Seasons One and Two. Season Three might be my favorite stretch of live action television next to Ultra-Q and The Wire. My memory of the first two seasons, until recently, was of a quirky, talky, somewhat fantasy oriented drama-comedy. It is also, in certain sequences, pure depravity and horror. So, what I'm saying, is that the third season has largely eclipsed what has come before, but I am starting to realize I really need to carve out the time to revisit Seasons One and Two in full.
Enemy Time . . . working against my ass . . .
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