SickNotes

Sorry for the wall of text. There is a TL:DR at the bottom. CLWheeljack brought up the idea of magical realism early on, but I didn't remember enough of the details of Twin Peaks to definitively make a case for or against magical realism. You might think, Magical Realism sounds like a boring literary term, so why do I care? The reason Magical Realism is important speaks to the specific way Twin Peaks makes you feel when you watch it. The specific ways in which Twin Peaks plays with reality are its biggest strengths. A weaker example would break the rules of Magical Realism and just leave you irked. Magical Realism's first rule is that the plot has to have a mundane setting such as a small town like Twin Peaks. The second rule is that magical things have to go on in the background and the characters in the story simply have to accept the magical elements without question. A good example of this outside of Twin Peaks, from a culture with more instances of Magical Realism, is Like Water for Chocolate. I am talking about the movie here not the book, because I haven't read that. In Like Water for Chocolate, the narrator has a gift for cooking that has been passed down through the generations; however, she is not just able to cook exquisite meals, she is able to perform magic with her meals. If I remember correctly, she is able to do things like give her sister persistent flatulence and horrible breath or make a whole table full of people become sexually amorous. This is done so expertly that the viewer almost begins to believe in the magic of food. All this is set against the mundane story of a modestly poor family. Now, one of the things that Magical Realism can't do and still be called Magical Realism is confine all the magical and inexplicable things to a dream sequence. Dream sequences are psychological in nature and are the realm of surrealism. Dali is a good example of surrealism and when you look at his paintings, many look like something you vaguely remember from a dream and physics are out the window. The first Matrix movie does a good job of playing with your understanding of the surreal because we are made to understand that all magical and arguably surreal elements are confined to the "dreaming" world. Nothing magical happens in the mundane/drab world of the people in the waking world. Then, in the second(?) Matrix movie Neo uses magic in the real world to subdue some squids that are about to attack them and things become irksome because it breaks the rules but the series doesn't really move toward Magical Realism in any way. This is the best example I could come up with on short notice. Again, why does this matter? It matters because many of the surreal things that happen in Twin Peaks, happen in dreams. All the Red Room sequences are dreams, I believe. My memory is still hazy on the later episodes and season two. So, maybe this will be proven wrong. But for now, all the things that happen in Cooper's dreams are surreal not magically real. The surreal does not rule out the fact that Agent Cooper could be demented. Or, his dreams could simply be the surreal representation of his mind working through the clues and the secrets he learns there could be deductive jumps personified by the entities we meet in the Red Room. But the reason Twin Peaks is so exceptional in its handling of the surreal and magical is that it is attempting to marry surrealism and magical realism and not become irksome while doing so. Lynch and Frost make this easier by the overt characterizations, the music, the sounds and noises, and the quirkiness in the real world settings. In Like Water For Chocolate, the Magical Realism plays with the idea of food and its powers. It deals with the mythos of food and stretches the realities of what are possible with cooking. Twin Peaks has its own mythos that it uses to stretch our beliefs and that is the mythos surrounding FBI agents and the serial killer hunting agent in particular. From the moment we first meet Agent Cooper he is already endowed with the armor of previous incarnations of serial killer hunters. This is why movies such as Silence of the Lambs are so important to the mythos. Twin Peaks takes the precision of these other incarnations and places them in the likable incongruity of Agent Cooper. From the moment he finds the letter under the fingernail we understand that he has been "at this" for a long time. We also are made to gradually understand that he not only has gifted abilities of deduction, he can also intuitively tell when people are romantically involved. However, Cooper's deduction and intuition take a rapid turn in Episode 3: Zen, or to Catch a Killer. We see his otherwise orthodox methods flare out of control when he invites the sheriff's office to the rock throwing ceremony. This scene is really fun to watch with a group of people who have forgotten it or never seen it before, because at this point in the story, we begin to believe that Cooper believes he has otherworldly powers, but the characters in the show literally (four of them on a wooden bench) lean in to the explanation and the exercise. They take it as a matter of course, either because they understand otherworldly happenings, or because they believe in the mythos of the FBI agent serial hunter so strongly that we are given our first inclination that the characters aren't phased by the magical. Regardless, at this point, things get weird. This is followed later in the same episode by the Red Room dream where things become surreal. The trick and fun parts of Twin Peaks are determining those things which happen magically outside of Cooper's dreams or from his dreams until the two different types of fiction get lost in each other. TL:DR When magical things are confined to a dream sequence it is surrealism. Magical realism is when inexplicable things happen in the real world but don't really phase the characters. I believe Lynch and Frost are trying to gradually marry the two. EDIT: Changed the TL:DR to include the fact that surreal things can happen outside dreams.

I like your take on this, Turkey. I don't think it is a spoiler to mention that David Duchovny will show up later in Twin Peaks. I believe the X-Files is one of the natural progeny of Twin Peaks.

This will be explained in episode 4, Rest in Pain.

CLWheelJack, I'm a little confused. You said in another post: I guess my issue arises with the notion that you seem to be arguing that the plot line with the mill and a possible shutdown is analogous to the Asian (Japanese) takeover of the car and other industries taking place at that time. So, that points to the modernity encroaching idea that was broached on the podcast which you seemed to argue against. The outside world is causing pressures both through the examples of the drug trade and business. I fail to see how these things don't point to the idea of the pressures of modernity. Do you agree with sclpls who stated? I am tending to think that the show works because of the friction between that threat of the modern world encroaching and the intrinsic evil that already exists there. Not trying to bust your balls. I am just asking for clarification.

Haha Jake, but which "dramaturgical dyad" didn't James fit into? Love that episode.

Regarding Josie and the sawmill. I'll leave the racial question be for a minute and point out that this whole show is patterned after a soap opera. Soap Opera's can be tough to watch and keep all the threads together. In fact, the meta-read of us getting confused by the plot is integral to the watching of the plot. Scenes in television and movies where manly men or other unlikely people are able to fill in the plot points of soap opera being watched is an actual comedy trope I have seen many times. "Now, why is Daniel kissing Madeliene? I thought he had nearly thrown her under a truck?" "No, that was Debbie her twin. Madeliene and this guy planned that together to get soul ownership of their father's estate." Not only is it confusing, but your mind tends to zone out on the threads that you particularly don't enjoy. You "go back to ironing your man's briefs" at that point? One of the great qualities about Twin Peaks that lends itself to discussion is that Soap Opera plot heavy narrative that you can clear up with your friends or other forum members. For instance, the fish in the coffee...

Haha, yeah. I don't know how I got into the devil's advocate spot of defending James. I'm not a fan of his story line or his acting, either.

Haha, this whole discussion reminds me of Hayden Christensen. Everyone is all like, he was good in Shattered Glass? Yeah, where he also played a role that was suited to a whiny bitch! The podcast mentions in the the episode two cast non-spoiler section that Haha. One part of me almost wonders if David Lynch used him specifically cause his acting was so wooden?

I am ashamed to admit, I have never seen Eraserhead! Aghhhh. For a long time it just wasn't really available, then it was but only from one website...and now, I have no excuse. And apparently, that's where David Lynch's love of sound was most forceful. My wife and I will have to watch it now...on yet, another recommendation to do so. Luckily, it is more widely available. I was wondering what David Lynch's process for coming up with all the sounds was for his films, because, at some point, you actually have to think, when an article tells of the importance of sound to David Lynch, okay, so, is David Lynch the Sound Designer? Because, there is a quality to the sounds in a lot of his movies that must have taken a lot of work and is definitively ...him. And the answer, because I just looked it up, is a man called Alan Splet. I am going to link to an article, but the interesting part is the embedded youtube video in which David Lynch describes how Splet and he worked on the sounds for Eraserhead for 9 hours for 63 days to come up with the sounds for that film. They created all the sounds instead of just referencing libraries of sounds. Then Splet went on to design sounds for a bunch of other of Lynch's movies. It's a shame Splet's wikipedia page isn't longer, because I'm pretty sure his progeny are vast. http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2014/05/13/snapping-humming-buzzing-banging-remembering-alan-splet/

Also, as long as we are talking about David Lynch and sound, I thought I would post this. Dune (1984) gets a bad wrap, but it has the sickly feel of David Lynch AALLLL over it. He is a master of understanding that sound, particularly ambient sound and noise are integral to creating a world. I think the effects for the guild navigator are poorly done here (meaning the creature puppetry is somewhat bad) but the sounds when his "train" is rolled in and the phrase, "The Bene Gesserit witch must leave" haunt me. Also, the fact that the guildsmen mop up his ooze as they leave is pretty disturbing. Tried to make the video start at 3 minutes 11 seconds:

Haha, I misspelled segue up there and didn't even think about it. Segway is now spelled segway for all intents and purposes in my mind.

Golden Calf, I love that one. As long as we are talking about videos that rely on inscrutability a la Twin Peaks, I think this is also a good version of that song. Warning: slightly disturbing, but an actual Radiohead version, think: EDIT: Better version added with background on the video. You'll have to watch it at Vimeo, but I think it is a better version than the one I posted before.

DefaultHuman, I agree it is serendipity. It must be something in the water?

The wrinkles are explained at the beginning of the next episode. Yes, the are supposed to be wrinkles. Interestingly enough, the wikipedia article for The Man From Another Place has a section on the backward talking. Don't go there unless you don't mind spoilers, but important part is this: "The strange cadence of the Man’s dialogue was achieved by having Anderson speak into a recorder. This was then played in reverse, and Anderson was directed to repeat the reversed original. This "reverse-speech" was then reversed again in editing to bring it back to the normal direction. This created the strange rhythm and accentuation that set Cooper’s dream world apart from the real world.[3] Anderson recalls that his reverse-speech was not difficult to master as, coincidentally, he had used it as a secret language with his junior high school friends. Series creator David Lynch was unaware of this when he cast Anderson in the part, and had hired a trainer to help Anderson with enunciation. When he found out Anderson could already talk backwards, he canceled the trainer and wrote more difficult lines of dialogue for Anderson to read.[4]"

I think that if someone were to describe the stop lights in some sort of observable system, then I would be more interested in them. Failing that, I see them the same as the shots of the swaying pines. They are nice segways that remind you of the isolated nature of the town? There is so much going on in the show that I choose not to go down that road. So, I don't think they are not meaningful, but I leave it to others to interpret.

The hand rubbing, both when he has his back to us, and when he sits down is brilliant.

Posted this for a brief time, before; however, someone was good enough to alert me to the fact that I was one episode ahead. I have seen other people get confused since then, so I'm not as ashamed for jumping the gun. I love this episode, too. The dream sequence is this episode is really great and is often what gets parodied in other shows like the Simpsons; i.e. the dwarf dancing, backwards talking. Will try and confine myself to only the things in the dream, because Cooper explains the dream a little more at the beginning of episode 4. I couldn't wait to watch it after the cliffhanger ending! I really love the move the original Wicker Man (1973). I think Twin Peaks and that movie have strong similarities. They both have morally upright, pure law men who journey to a small back water community to solve the mystery of a missing/dead girl. The Wicker Man's protagonist is as repulsed by the community that he finds as Agent Cooper is infatuated with Twin Peaks. I also really like the idea of juxtaposing this serial killer drama against the genre defining Silence of the Lambs. In Twin Peaks, the Red Room sequence is a place where Cooper "goes" to connect the dots as it were. We can see it as a purely magical place, or, at this point, just think of it as Cooper's unconscious mind working on the issues. Regardless, some of the most indelible sequences and characters happen there. Silence of the Lambs has it's own "Red Room" sequences when Agent Starling is sent to interview Hannibal Lecter. Silence of the Lambs has a lot of imagery that casts Starling as a Knight questing into the world to find the monster. She even has to go to a castle (the psych ward) and transit into the earth to talk with another trapped monster (Lecter) in order to get the knowledge necessary to catch her monster. However, in Silence of the Lambs, Lecter challenges Starling to figure out the why of the killings in order to catch the killer. It is not a whodunit. We don't have to select from a cast of characters like in Twin Peaks. In both examples, however, the payoff is not the killers, but the people in the Red Rooms who are really interesting. Hannibal Lecter is awesome because he is infinitely wise but still evil and a predator. What would make one man Yoda has made Hannibal a slave to his pleasures regardless of his wisdom. In Twin Peaks, the Red Room sequence introduces the dwarf character who has a certain type of knowledge and wisdom that comes out all garbled, but he is necessary for Cooper to make the deductive leaps.

I think it is the fact that David Lynch mystifies the actors whether by failing to direct or suspecting that they know what he is talking about. The reason I think the bad acting thing is a put on is that David Lynch used this to a stunning degree in Mulholland Falls. The actress is called upon to act poorly for one part of the movie, then actually act in another. In other words, he is telling them to over act in many places in order to make things more surreal, I believe. In order to get a since for how hard it must be to take directions from him, here's a piece about Anthony Hopkins working with David Lynch on the Elephant Man: http://www.davidlynch.de/hopkins.html Again, I can totally see how this is a dangerous excuse for any actor in the series who might actually be poor at acting. You would have to find actors you think are poor, then follow-up by finding them in other things where there acting was good. James Hurley aka James Marshall played Louden Downey in A Few Good Men. I think he does a reasonable job in that though I haven't seen it in a long time.

That's a really interesting comparison, EmptyBob. My wife and I noticed the hula skirt as well. The whodunit nature of the show sets up many of the characters with idiosyncrasies which could point to their guilt in the crime. Jacoby is obviously a character who marches to his own drum even by Twin Peaks standards.

Whenever I see James on his bike going down a lonesome curving, stretch of road, I think, "Ugggggghhhh, we get it. He is a loner."

I have messaged an admin. Maybe he can still see it. Can't find it listed anywhere. Thanks for pointing out the spoilers.

I have hidden the post. Let me check episode 2. You are correct. My apologies. I was thinking that the pilot was 0 and that 2 was 3. I have hidden the post, how do I go back to edit it and reveal or at least copy it for the next episode. I think my points were worth placing in the episode 3 discussion when that shows up.

You could argue it, I think. But you would have to come up with examples of magical things that happen "in reality." And those are few. The majority of situations in which actual physics in the world are broken are few and that's how I usually think of magical realism: lots of bizarre events that many characters witnessing throughout. Magical things happen in the Black Lodge segments or, at least, inexplicable things, people talk backwards, people float, things appear and disappear. But that all happens "elsewhere." In Twin Peaks, people are confronting the horrors of reality and trying to reconcile them. But the easy way to remember it is that the Black Lodge is like The Matrix. Neo and his compatriots do not have power outside The Matrix ...well mostly. Magical Realism is like this. If a character in the show were to get up and fly around no explanation was given it would be magical realism. Additional: Many of the magical things that happen are witnessed specifically by Agent Cooper alone. Many times he is dreaming or delusional when these things happen; therefore, they are not magical realism, they could be argued to be Cooper's subconscious mind "working" on the clues and producing solutions. I definitely think that David Lynch is using the concept to play with reality. He know what Magical Realism is, but he only uses it in VERY isolated occurrences.

I don't think he is a bad actor. I seem to remember on watching the whole series that his range seems purposely overtly menacing. Also, David Lynch is a weird guy and he asks his actors/actresses to sometimes play parts in "off" ways. He seems to asks some actors to pretend to act poorly. So, I guess what I am trying to say is it must be tough to have him as a director, cause he asks his actors to play stuff overly sentimental or over the top. Also, and I know this is dangerous territory to step into where acting is concerned, there is a central element of the series being like a soap opera. So, Truman has a lot of "gosh" and "golly gee" moments to the point where it feels they almost had to write Andy to make him seem less so. Don't get me started on Hawk. The dangerous part for the actors is that point when you put in for other roles in future casting calls and you have to explain, "No, I was acting poorly on purpose." Haha. "Yeah, when we need someone to act poorly, we'll give you a call."

I was re-watching this episode with my wife and she pointed out the scene with Dr. Jacoby. Particularly, she pointed out it was funny and really creepy that his tie was a hula girl with an actual grass skirt. When he tells Cooper and Truman that Laura's parents didn't know he was seeing their daughter, he is actually caressing the hula girls genital area under the skirt. Creepy and funny.