I just re-watched Fire Walk With Me and I continue to feel that it’s a bizarre and messy masterpiece of suggestion, mystery, and surrealism. It answers some questions, maybe too neatly. Because I always felt it was obvious what was REALLY going on throughout Twin Peaks entire. Maybe not the WHOLE thing, but the inciting events … to me, they’re right there, plain as day. But besides that, Fire Walk With Me is suffused with such a feeling of emotional violence and horror – and Sheryl Lee is so damn good, she goes so far into the role – Laura Palmer, this girl who was an object, a mystery, a puzzle, undeniably a dead blonde girl, projected upon, acted upon – throughout the series – that it’s unforgettable what happens to her, what she went through.
I can’t believe this Twin Peaks thing is really happening. My boyfriend and I (at the time) watched the whole series, devoted to it week after week, from our apartment in the St. Airy neighborhood of Philadelphia. It was one of the few ways we connected. Our whole week was organized around Twin Peaks night. And here it is again, decades and lifetimes later. I’m OLD, FATHER WILLIAM.
Now’s a good time to link, again, to Kim Morgan’s essay on the unforgettable music composed for the series: Beyond the Beyond.
I never worked up the courage to watch Fire Walk With Me. A friend lent it to me in university years ago (he was doing his honours paper on the series and the film, I think), but after watching the trailer I was already too traumatized. I loved Twin Peaks when I watched it about 10 years ago (I was born mid-eighties so missed it when it was on) but like all of Lynch’s stuff it is sooo disturbing in a way that is particular to him. So I love it, but I feel like it also took a year off of my life with every episode! It’s like entering a whole other world that, once you’re in, will never leave you, not the other way round. You can’t escape it. It’s like going into the abyss, which I’m quite fond of (haha?), but holy shit it all disturbs me to my core. But of course I still want to. Maybe I will work up the courage now that the series is returning… maybe.
// I feel like it also took a year off of my life with every episode! //
I know just what you mean. It’s the creepy-crawliest of creepy-crawlies. (Have you read David Foster Wallace’s gigantic essay on Lost Highway and his set visit? I think it’s one of the greatest pieces of film criticism in the last 30 years, maybe more. He really gets at what it is that makes up the “Lynchian” universe – in his typical DFW obsessive way.)
But anyway, I know what you mean. The moments of sheer terror are rare (Bob charging across the living room still haunts me – and Laura screaming in the final episode too) – but the overall feeling of uneasiness and dread is just so thick that it frays your nerves to shreds.
I find Fire Walk With Me harrowing and tragic. The isolation/objectification/dark-impulses of that girl nobody really wanted to know – the girl nobody thought there was anything to know ABOUT – Sheryl Lee seems (to me) like she is honestly having a nervous breakdown in some of the scenes. It’s devastating.
Took a while for the film to let me go.
I have high hopes and am very VERY excited about the cast he’s lined up – and the cast returning … the world has changed so much. How will that be reflected in Twin Peaks? It’ll be interesting to see.
No I haven’t read the DFW piece but I know about it. Will get on that. I think he goes into some sort of abyss, but more metaphysical and enigmatic and that’s what I think makes what Lynch does so traumatic. I like that he goes there but there’s something deeper that bothers me about him and the whole transcendental meditation stuff… like a gut feeling I can’t shake. I can’t quite figure it out. I’m having a very bad few months so maybe I should watch FWWM since I already feel traumatized. Ha ha? I just watched the trailer right now and was reminded that we see Laura die. Fuck. They should show this at the theatre and have like a trauma concession with hard drugs, alcohol, prescription meds and shrinks on hand for after. Who the hell can watch this and eat popcorn?
So I was just checking the screenings in TO for the next week and apparently FWWM is playing for the next week or so downtown at one of the Cineplex theatres. OMG. I think I’m going to do it. I can feel Bob pulling me in. If I survive, I’ll let you know. I’m ready to be destroyed.
// apparently FWWM is playing for the next week or so downtown at one of the Cineplex theatres. //
!!!!
Of course I just realized as I hit post that I did my honours thesis on Antichrist, which makes me laugh now. I stood up in front of my profs and talked about the fucking nightmare that is that film and I’m too chicken to watch FWWM!!
// I did my honours thesis on Antichrist //
Okay that made me legit laugh out loud. HAHA!!
and I’d love to hear more about your thesis – if you’ve already mentioned it and I already asked about it – please forgive me!
I actually have it on a hard drive I can’t access now, so haven’t read it for six years. It was completely rushed because I only had a semester to write it and in the end I hated it because it kept getting more and more complex and I had to just throw it together. But I think my point was that she basically becomes a self-hating female, that she turns everything that happened onto herself, and the horrible climax scene (pun intended… ugh) was a result of her son dying while she was mid orgasm. The title was “The Final Cut: The End of Misogyny in Antichrist?”, although I HATE that word now and how people use it. I didn’t mean it in this stupid, simplistic way that people shout it out now, but in the sense that it was the most directly self-inflicted act of misogyny, that what she did was sort of an end point. Like there’s nowhere left to go after this. Something like that, plus a lot of other stuff including how people who label Von Trier a misogynist don’t get him or his films at all. It seems like the female characters are a reflection of him more than anything. And biblical crap also, I think? God. It was out of control.
// Something like that, plus a lot of other stuff including how people who label Von Trier a misogynist don’t get him or his films at all. //
Fascinating. I agree with this totally.
Interestingly enough, my first encounter with LVT was “Breaking the Waves” – which I despised on arrival, so much so that I got into an actual fight with the guy I was dating, on the sidewalk after the movie. That movie inFURIATED me, and much of the “defense” of it also infuriated me.
So my main thought was: “I can’t stand this guy.” Which … was very unfair and VERY unlike me (and makes me think I need to revisit Breaking the Waves). It colored my reactions to the films that came after – I gave them a side-eye even before I saw them. (This has rarely happened to me – maybe something about Breaking the Waves hit too close to the bone, which is basically what the guy I was dating tried to say to me on the sidewalk, which is when I hit THE ROOF.)
It wasn’t until Melancholia that everything changed. He became one of my favorite film-makers – based on that one film! I went back and re-watched everything. I now think he’s one of the few filmmakers working today who is truly interested in women – in the way I’M interested in my own state, my own place on this planet.
With this new filter – openness as opposed to closed – and maybe a bit more maturity, a bit more dealing with myself, and accepting the less-acceptable parts of myself … LVT seems like a prophet.
I flipped for the two Nymphomaniac movies.
And Anti-Christ really gets to the heart of the matter.
So yeah, I guess I should re-watch Breaking the Waves. Ha!
I can’t wait for this to happen! We recently did a rewatch of Twin Peaks with our son and he was fascinated and frustrated by the pacing and the music (going so far as to download some of it). Never watched FWWM, although my husband has it cued up on Amazon Prime whenever I’m ready for it. Might as well take the dive, right?
//Have you read David Foster Wallace’s gigantic essay on Lost Highway and his set visit? I think it’s one of the greatest pieces of film criticism in the last 30 years, maybe more. He really gets at what it is that makes up the “Lynchian” universe – in his typical DFW obsessive way// This goes to the top of my to-read list. Thanks for sharing!
Paula – I know, I can’t wait either!!
DFW’s essay is a high watermark and if I can ever write anything that even approaches the level of greatness that that piece lives in, I’ll consider myself very very lucky.
Noel Murray has been doing re-caps of the old series for the NY Times and they’ve been a great refresher course – especially in regards to initial reactions.
There are those who always saw it as a “whodunit.” I never did. I saw it as an exploration of evil versus innocence. Who killed Laura Palmer was the least important part of the story. But Noel Murray really breaks down audience participation back in the day, and audience reaction – especially in regards to Season 2 which gets … so soap opera-y after “Bob” is revealed in the TERRIFYING episode 8 – an episode that still stalks my dreams. I just re-watched it and found it still unbearably sad … more than sad – it’s TRAGIC.
I am not looking forward to all the “takes” that will be out there – Lynch is a filmmaker I prefer to swim around in, making my own associations, letting my subconscious take over …
I am definitely looking forward to seeing all of those people again!
I’ve had a lot of fun re-watching.
Here’s Noel’s recap of the pilot for the NY Times. (He was my old editor at The Dissolve, when the Dissolve still existed – so I always love to see nice people get great gigs.)
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/20/watching/twin-peaks-recap-season-1-episode-1.html
and then you can just follow the links to his other re-caps.
Started re-watching the series yesterday. Going to see FWWM at the movie theatre on Sunday. Excited!
I watched the show at a really fucked up period of my life, so it’s interesting to see what stuck and what didn’t.
I’ve been having a lot of fun re-watching too. I’m now coming to the end of Season 2 …. Season 2 is SO WEIRD. Even weirder than the rest because once we figure out “who done it” – what’s left are beauty pageants, Benjamin Horne’s Civil War re-enactment mania, UFOs … It’s hilarious. But then comes the finale which has to be one of the weirdest hours of television in television history.
So excited for you all going to see Fire Walk With Me in theatres!!
Just came across an obsessive OBSESSIVE piece about FWWM in Grantland. Oh Grantland, how I miss thee:
http://grantland.com/features/twenty-things-david-lynch-fire-walk-its-20th-anniversary/
I never watched FWWM because I was so irritated by the fact that it was a prequel that offered no resolution of the cliffhanger finale, but now that we’re getting a season 3, I can probably let that go and watch it ;-)
I just signed up for my free month of Showtime – can’t wait to get this started!
In re: FWWM – I know!! A prequel! The NERVE! It’s an extremely unsettling movie – not a movie about its plot – but a deep dive into the mood of Twin Peaks, and the landscape of Laura Palmer’s emotional life, which is of course a total shit-show of horror.
It doesn’t really tie up loose ends although it does make explicit what is already pretty explicit by S2 of TP – in that horrifying episode when Maddie is killed. (it still terrifies me that sequence.)
I can’t wait either. My friend Larry is in it! Of course I have no idea what he plays because they all signed draconian NDAs. But he did share some pictures of the red carpet premiere – and made a comment like: “This is who David Lynch is – inviting a character actor like me to be on the red carpet for this. You dream of a moment like this as an actor.”
It’s all very exciting!!
I will MISS Michael Ontkean TERRIBLY though.
I just interviewed Larry and his wife about their web series! http://www.sheilaomalley.com/?p=126940
So you can look for him in the premiere. :)