The more I learn the more this new series really seems to be a continuation of Lynch’s dreams within dreams obsession, where a character escapes reality by jumping into pleasing fantasy worlds, ultimately to their peril.
Mulholland Drive was a fairly straightforward example of this, but Inland Empire kept the identity of the dreamer ambiguous - we only saw worlds within worlds, with no idea which one was the anchoring reality, if any.
Now with this new season of Twin Peaks, Lynch seems to be including the viewer as a potential dreamer, and involving real people like Monica Bellucci as themselves. He’s not really interested in the lives of our favourite characters, and in a way punishes us for getting so attached to them. The penultimate episode, I’m now convinced, is like an idiot’s ending - with a silly superhero kid who need only punch a floating Bob orb to ‘win’ - it turns out to be a false ending, a fantasy, with episode 18 as the true ending - something far more cynical, painful and strange.
Cooper, who always seemed so capable and enlightened, once again seems beaten by the dark spiritual forces he takes on. It’s as if he is punished for wanting to make things right. Like us, he is punished for seeking closure.
Reading Frost’s Final Dossier, it seems characters whose fates were unknown have suffered hugely. Annie is catatonic in a mental home, and so is Audrey, after having been raped by evil Coop and given birth to a monster. Twin Peaks seems to have spiralled into a crazy town, where Officer Bobby is confounded by the growing dysfunctional weirdos around him. The youth particularly seem deeply deranged and detached.
Lynch was always gutted that the studio made him and Frost reveal who killed Laura Palmer. He wanted that core mystery to be a central tree from which new mysteries could branch off. Well here he seems to have fixed that by creating an alternate timeline where we no longer know who killed Laura Palmer, or if she’s even dead.
I’m still trying to understand what Twin Peaks is really about, why has Lynch created this story? Is it another cautionary tale about delusional fantasists, with some digs at America thrown in (nuclear testing and gun ownership get a bad rap), is his Transcendental Meditation fanaticism finding its way into his work? Are all attempts to end the inherent suffering in life fruitless and counter-productive, and instead must we simply sit and accept what IS?
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Odpověď od Drooch
18.12.2017 v 11:49 ODP.
I can see why Lynch would say Mulholland and Inland are about the film industry, not dreams, but that’s not to say that dreams and dreamers aren’t major elements of those stories.
Similarly, one could argue Rocky is actually about self-belief, not boxing, though boxing and a boxer are major elements in the film.
Now I’ll try to follow your Inland explanation...
Odpověď od Drooch
19.12.2017 v 12:19 DOP.
OK I’ve read it, seems to add up. Got some questions - if it’s about this Scrooge-like cautionary vision of the future for actress-Dern then what is the significance of:
The rabbits.
Southern Dern and her grizzly confessions to the fat guy.
The Lost Girl (who many theorise to be the dreamer).
Jeremy Irons shouting ‘what’s going on!?’ as if his movie set is fusing with reality.
The bizarro end credits sequence which seems like another dream fusing multiple worlds.
If YESTERDAY was TOMORROW, wouldn’t NOW be two days ago?
Odpověď od Drooch
21.12.2017 v 8:16 ODP.
TWIN PEAKS
I like those thoughts on the new series. I do get the vibe that Lynch is punishing the audience for nostalgia, and a desire for closure.
The trouble with this kind of postmodern deconstruction is that it offers no useful alternative. Once Lynch has torn down the things he hates, what does he have to offer in their place? Any adolescent can whine about the modern world while offering no useful solutions.
Turning our hero Cooper into a fool (as the Wachowskis did with Morpheus in the Matrix sequels) is an admirable move, but having no enlightenment following the disillusionment is just pointlessly nihilistic. Cooper embodies many great values - is his enormous act of self sacrifice and years in hell in order to save Annie and Laura just a big mistake that he should never have made?
I was interested to discover that the Tremond lady at the end is played by the real-life owner of the Palmer house. Has Cooper arrived in our Monica Bellucci reality..? If so, wasn’t Tremond a black lodge spirit?
Odpověď od Drooch
23.12.2017 v 4:53 ODP.
INLAND EMPIRE
Can you explain these things given your theory:
The men ‘morphing’ into rabbits.
The guy with the lightbulb in his gob.
The scary slo-mo clownface Dern.
The Lost Girl reuniting with... Dern’s husband, and the fact that he was Dern’s husband in two ‘realities’.
Odpověď od Drooch
24.12.2017 v 12:03 DOP.
MULHOLLAND
That’s an interesting alternative theory but I’m sticking with the ‘Hey pretty girl, time to wake up’ dream theory. It holds water.
Adam is portrayed as easily pushed around, so Diane can justify to herself that she lost the part due to evil forces bullying a weak director, not because she’s insufficiently talented/pretty as is likely the case in reality.
The hitman is portrayed as inept so Diane can believe he probably never succeeded in killing Camilla as she paid for - the dark secret which manifests as the man behind Winkie’s.
Lost Highway, however, is less clear. I’m leaning toward the dream (or more precisely psychosis) theory, but the business at the end where Fred appears to be doing a ‘job’ for Mystery Man by collecting Dick Laurent has me wondering if it’s more of a supernatural story - one where Fred and Pete swap places to avoid the law after each committing a murder, arranged by the Devil/Mystery Man in exchange for you becoming an employee. Be interested to get your thoughts (perhaps on the LH board..?)
Odpověď od simian_ninja
09.03.2018 v 8:24 DOP.
The more I think about it, the more I feel that Twin Peaks is the dream of someone who is dying. I'm not concerned as to whether or not it is Laura Palmer, Richard & Judy, or Cooper himself.
It's a disjointed dream that is taking place while somebody is slowly dying and trying to make sense of what's happening to themselves. It's almost a fight to try and bring oneself back to reality and back into life. Maybe Laura's most likely, delirious and dreaming that someone can come and save her etc.
I had a pretty bad panic attack last year that made me feel that I was trapped inside of my body and pretty much made me confront my mortality for the first time. Then I came across this...
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/mind-works-after-death-consciousness-sam-parnia-nyu-langone-a8007101.html
That's the only way I can explain the end of Twin Peaks and it's own personal meaning to me - despite what the creators think and what their intentions were. A good piece of art strikes up an individual conversation with a person, and that's the conversation that I have with Twin Peaks.
Odpověď od simian_ninja
15.03.2018 v 11:00 ODP.
Thanks for your reply, I love that Twin Peaks is one of those things that everybody can take something away from it. Defo gonna check out that movie Stay...
Odpověď od bobmc
13.04.2018 v 7:05 ODP.
This show was the first of its kind for a network production.
Because it preceded the www it was THE next day topic around the water-cooler. Great times citizens of all ages discussing all the twist and turns with the quirky characters.
I suppose if I had to summarize it for todays new viewers I'd start by describing it as a precursor to 'Supernatural'.