Jake

Twin Peaks Rewatch 31: Fire Walk With Me

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It's been noted (by someone somewhere but I can't remember where!) that the appearance of the spirits always coincides with distress or some kind of imbalance in the 'real' world. If that's the case then Leland is the one with the agency and culpability, giving in and opening the door for Bob.

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Sarah strikes me as a wife who's been through this before Laura was ever born and has internalized it on some level. 

 

Me too. That's one reason I quite like The Missing Pieces scenes with Sarah and Laura. They show their relationship independent of Leland and also provide more evidence that Sarah is prone to mental lapses and nervous breakdowns. It gives extra weight to the "wash your hands" scene where she timidly tries to stand up for Laura and gets shut down (Laura shoots her a look of desperation while Leland is clenching her hand and that's when Sarah chimes in only for Leland to brutally respond with "How do you know what she likes?"). One of the big realizations for me was that the thread connecting all of Leland's murders is his need for control. Maddy's death, which always seemed sort of random to me - just a roundabout way of showing the audience he killed Laura - makes much more sense in this light, and Teresa's death really does become the key to the whole mystery and goes a long way toward justifying the first part of the film as essential to the second.

 

Anyway with all of this in mind - particularly Sarah's role in this dynamic - "What is going on in this house?" (in episode 3 after Leland dances with and breaks Laura's portrait) becomes perhaps the most valuable line of the whole series! Mark Frost has mentioned that he and Lynch weren't sure yet who killed Laura when they wrote the pilot, but that it was decided very early in season 1 (long before ABC forced their hand about the reveal). I like to think it was that scene, and maybe even that line, which did it. But the funny thing is there are really strong hints from the pilot onwards that the "scene of the crime" was the home and not the woods. So there's some truth to Frost's phrasing that the "killer revaled himself to us" rather than "we chose the killer." It's like Laura's story had to be told and forced its way out from the inside, until by the end of the saga it was the only story being told.

 

Interestingly, Leland wiping blood on Laura's portrait wasn't supposed to happen. Ray Wise actually cut his hand on the glass and just rolled with it. It would be pretty wild if that gesture clinched him as the culprit, considering Wise himself was really averse to Leland being the killer when the truth came out.

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Also from the Missing Pieces there is that scene where Sarah is wearing some of Laura's clothes that give her a school girl clothes which heavily insinuates that Sarah is also the victim of Leland's abusive sexual desires. So yeah, I think Apple Cider is absolutely correct about Sarah knowing what's going on, but she is also so thoroughly traumatized and filled with shame that she is unable to do anything about it.

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Edit: I took contention with Jake's idea that Sarah Palmer should have "known" and the thing is that I does think she knows on some level. But given that dinner scene, I extrapolated that Leland is not just secretively sexually abusive but emotionally abusive as well. Sarah strikes me as a wife who's been through this before Laura was ever born and has internalized it on some level.

Sorry if I came across like I was blaming Sarah Palmer for not being aware and reporting Leland early or something like that. I agree with your assessment (and lostinthemovies post which followed it). I hadn't read this thread when recording this weeks episode but we talked about Sarah Palmer some more, in what is a hopefully more nuanced and on point way than any inadvertent half-bemused blamey notes in the FWWM episode.

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For what it's worth, I didn't think you guys sounded like you were blaming her in the FWWM episode, just confused as to why she was seemingly turning a blind eye and maybe a bit upset by that. That's understandable since her behavior does seem baffling. It's also something that rings very true to me.

 

I believe it's a pretty common response to live in some state of denial when someone you love or live with is leading essentially a double-life. Leland probably worked hard to keep his predilections a secret, and one of the most effective ways to do that would be to make her sound like the crazy one and treating her as such. So you have a woman who knows that something's "off", but she can't see exactly what that is and meanwhile, her husband is working hard to make sure she's off-kilter enough not to have concrete suspicions, to the point of drugging her to keep her unaware that he's doing these things in their own house. Even people like Doc Hayward become unwitting participants in this, almost, when they give her drugs and try to calm her down. They're trying to be helpful, but it's like Sarah's the canary in the poisonous coal mine of the house and they're ignoring her.

 

There's also probably a survival mechanism at play here, too, as you've noted.

 

When she finally has it all laid out and knows the truth when Cooper and Truman tell her who killed Laura, she seems calm and in control for the first time in the whole series. It's like having the truth that she's suspected somewhere in her brain dragged out into the sunlight has given her some peace, even though it's a horrible thing.

 

(Sorry if you ended up saying the same thing on this week's episode! I haven't had a chance to listen to it yet. Also sorry if that makes no sense at all; I was trying to figure it out as I was typing.)

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Wow. After the Turkey Twizzlers that is season 2 we have the full steak dinner that is Fire Walk With Me. This film is a stunningly human horror. The closest I can equate it to is Jacobs Ladder which although very different also focuses on the downward spiral that is a persons fractured psyche. In many respects I think that the oddly discontinuous tone of the film is one of it's strongest assets. You never have a chance to settle into the narrative because the structure, much like Laura's internal life, is so intensely complex. It is also odd that a 2 hour film can feel more complete than a full TV series, at least for my money. I guess that may just be down to the compression factor that you get with a film. However, I do think it is also about the film being far better written and paced than much of the show, which in comparison is a whole lot baggier and ill mannered. In that respect I agree that Twin Peaks needs FWWM far more than the film needs the TV series (I actually saw the film before watching the show for the first time and never felt like I was missing anything substantial by viewing it that way round). The film has always been what I instinctively think of when I think about Twin Peaks, which is a bit odd when I try and envisage what a third season could actually look like. Given the darker, more involved nature of TV shows nowadays I can only wonder at the possibilities of getting a more full blooded version of Lynch on TV. Less, Days Of Our Lives, if you will, and more The Sopranos with added backwards talk and pie.

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Yeah, my contentions were fulfilled in the Missing Pieces episode, I wasn't mad at all! Just strive for nuance, since the abuse storylines in Twin Peaks are the ones that affected me the most emotionally (for obvious reasons.) Sarah Palmer was a pretty abused and violated person and Leland Palmer was pretty motivated to keep control on these women. What kept me going through some of this stuff is just the fact that we're not often dealt a narrative that has abuse in it that feels so validating from a victim's perspective. The dinner table scene just made me feel a lot more for Sarah Palmer in general, since I think it was very easy to see how much she exists in compartmentalize/survival mode. She's a woman who knows how to emotionally tread water but doesn't have ability to get out of the current, so to speak.

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In this light and especially given Leland's reaction in the train car, Cooper's worried advice to Laura - "Don't take the ring" - appears to be flat-out wrong. There are many interpretations of why this is so, but my take is that this is a further demonstration of his fallen state. We are most likely seeing "the good Dale in the Lodge" but while he is well-intentioned, he wound up in there precisely because he COULDN'T do what Laura must: confront his own dark side, accept that the good and evil are intertwined, and swim with the currents of the subconscious rather than resist them (compare the temperament and purpose of Cooper's first visit to the Red Room, in his dream, to his final entrapment in the Black Lodge)

And that's not to even get into garmonbozia...!

At any rate, the supernatural and the psychological are deeply interrelated throughout FWWM, essentially two sides of the same coin in a war between denial/repression and discovery/freedom (however painful).

I've been thinking for a while about the transactional nature of many things in the show. It seems like Twin Peaks is a town built on a karmic economy where good must be paid for with evil. The picture-postcard dream of it all exists intertwined with prostitution, abuse, incest and murder. Jake's comment about Twin Peaks being better than Deer Meadow in every way, even the murder, made me consider why that is. Deer Meadow's got the sheriff and the diner and the trees but it's all tasteless and lifeless and dull. The sheriff's not evil or interesting, he's just stupid. The town is a bland and suffocating vacuum and when Lynch transitions to Twin Peaks and we hear that 'bom-Booommmm...' we all breathe in the fresh Douglas firs and feel the spray off the waterfall and thank God we're back. The coffee and pie are a pleasure. The horrors this police force confront are repayed with a dreamlike spread of doughnuts. Laura is discovered like a sleeping angel on a crisp, fresh morning. Murdered, yes, but beautifully. 'Average' does not exist here, just the twin extremes of love and fear. If only poor Teresa had lived here rather than Deer Meadow.

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I'm finally catching up, and I glossed over the last page or two, but I also wanted to say that all these posts are awesome.
 
I personally find attempts to give a concrete LORE explanation to the corporeal existence of "Bob" to be a little unsatisfactory. There was some posts about "if this wasn't Lynch would it be good?" To which I'd say NO WAY. One thing Lynch does exceptionally well is imbue significant meaning in otherwise mundane things. It's one of the lasting qualities I've retained from the show. Not everyone can point a camera at a ceiling fan and imbue it with menace. Applying a deeper meaning to the events of our lives, when they can also be seen as merely the repercussions of another persons base actions seems so central to the quality of twin peaks.  
 
Lynch is so good at the implied mean that he also acknowledges that manipulation in the form of copious red herrings. Acknowledging that the implied meaning is just a psychological necessity and it really isn't there.  EDIT: I think Lil is a good example of a Lynchian red herring and seeking meaning. EDIT 2: she's wearing red with a red wig for goodness sake!
 
I wish I was better at philosophy, because Leland/Bob seems to be a nice representation of my totally rudimentary understanding of Lacanian "mirror stage"/duality stuff. Twin Peaks is just rich with, even FWWM. Idealist Coop's idealized Twin Peaks vs darker Chet and miserable Deer Park. 
 
I wonder if Teresa's numb arm is a parallel to Mike freeing himself? Teresa failed to turn herself around and it led to her, where Mike cut it off and survived?  
 
One last thing. The pink room band. I feel like that HAS to be a reference to The Birthday Party? The grinding repetitiveness, the filthy sexiness, the lasciviously gyrating cowboy: 
 

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Ha - the pink room band made me think of early Touch & Go sleaze - like early Butthole Surfers (the strobes probably contributed to that association), and the like. But the Birthday Party is a great point of reference.

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Also, the ring seems to be made of the same material as the table that the “Man from Another Place” (The little man) runs his hands over while saying, “This is the formica table”. If I’m not mistaken there’s even a chunk of the table missing, presumably the piece that the ring is made from.

 

While it's true that a piece of formica is missing from the table, there are no reflective flecks are embedded in the green material of the ring. The ring is definitely not made from the formica table.

 

v◊v  ^◊^  v◊v  ^◊^  v◊v  ^◊^  v◊v  ^◊^

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I'm new to the forum and just started on the podcast. My wife and I are on episode 16 of our rewatch. I'm posting here because I think I'm the only person who watched FWWM before the series. I was in college at the time and was blown away. It was 1995 or so and I couldn't get enough of the film. I went on the internet (such as it was at the time) and tried to learn everything I could about the movie. 

 

Anywy, I'll dig into the other posts on the forum in between binge-watching episodes. 

 

It is happening again,

ajw

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10 hours ago, ajw said:

I'm new to the forum and just started on the podcast. My wife and I are on episode 16 of our rewatch. I'm posting here because I think I'm the only person who watched FWWM before the series. I was in college at the time and was blown away. It was 1995 or so and I couldn't get enough of the film. I went on the internet (such as it was at the time) and tried to learn everything I could about the movie. 

 

Anywy, I'll dig into the other posts on the forum in between binge-watching episodes. 

 

It is happening again,

ajw

I may have also seen it before the show, or at least before I saw most of the show. (My girlfriend in college loved it and preferred it to the main series by far and we watched it together. I remember being totally bowled over at the time that something as simple and benign as the shot of the old sign on the power pole outside the trailer park could be evocative and kind of intimidating. It was years until I saw the full series past the first couple episodes.)

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Yeah, I had watched the movie before even knowing of the show, because a friend was watching it, her being a big Twin Peaks fan. I didn't watch all of it, but caught Laura's murder and was forever spoiled on the show's mystery. When I finally did watch the Twin Peaks series it didn't matter much, I felt. It's still mysterious and the way they introduce the image of Bob made me question if I'd remembered the film correctly.

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Watched this this week in lieu of episode 9 >.<

 

Did anyone else have the thought that Leland using Teresa's services might have been a way of trying to satiate BOB/keep him away from Laura? The way he commented that she looked "just like my Laura" really struck me as pretty gross but notable and often uncommented on.

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I re-watched this movie before the new series began to air, so about 2.5 months ago, and I have literally thought about it every day since. This is absolutely the most unsettling film I have ever seen. When I'm lying at wake at night, the evocation of any one of many images from this film will send a shiver down my spine. The kid with the papier mache nose who jumps around in the convenience store; the Tremond/Chalfonts; Annie appearing in Laura's bed; even something as simple as the glazed otherworldly look of Laura's face throughout the entire film. The images by themselves aren't anything, but something about the context of the film gives them this incredible power. I can't get over it. 

 

As I think more about it, I've come to the conclusion that, for me, Fire Walk With Me is the centre-piece around which Twin Peaks as a whole revolves. The first time I saw the show, I thought it was good but not great, and even re-watching it now, I only enjoy probably about 3/4 of the scenes, even in the good stretches. However, what sticks with me about the show is the intrusions from the Other Place. I suppose that's obvious to say, but within the context of the original series, these elements don't actually feel like they reach a satisfying pay-off at all. The series finale is fantastic, but even within that, it feels like there is so much left to explore with the Man From Another Place and his pals, and that's where I think Fire Walk With Me comes in. It's so simple, but just the expression of the concept of "garmonbozia", the collection of humanity's sorrow and despair, provides a framework for the original series to be placed into. Suddenly, the presence of all these elements in the original series actually feels totally appropriate; they have a reason to hold an interest in the murder of a young woman in a small town. They are so intrinsically tied to the story of Laura Palmer, to the point that their appearances in the show after her death feel almost like aftershocks, leftover fragments from when they were involved with Laura. Fire Walk With Me cements Laura Palmer as the pillar supporting the story of Twin Peaks, not just a narrative device to prompt a kooky investigator coming to town. 

 

I think this is why I've been enjoying the new season far more than the original series. Almost every storyline in the new season is connected to the Other Place in some way, which gives the whole season a more cohesive feel. Even if her presence is just as, if not more so, unseen than in the original series, it's clear that "Laura is the one." Although, perhaps this is just me unconsciously ignoring a bunch of the other lore-y stuff in order to focus on the details I like. 

 

Maybe none of this makes any sense. I honestly didn't mean to write this much. I just can't stop thinking about this movie. 

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After completing my watch of all things twin peaks in the most odd order (series 3, original series and ending with fire walk with me) the thing has ended in a kind of deflating way. 

 

I wonder if listening to the podcasts and how much fire walk with me was important to the whole the sense i get is that the film is kind of unecessary in a lot of ways (maybe in the absence of series 3 it was less so) but now it feels like literally everything important in fwwm is transplanted into series 3 it is really not the thing to watch last. (Or at all perhaps now). 

 

The overriding feeling I ended up with was that this was the Laura Palmer thing lynch needed to do because Laura Palmer had a whole bunch of mythology bubbling around but no real version of her existed on a canvas.  Unfortunately I think the version of Laura we got was done in a really creepy and ogling way - while I can sort of see the point of some of it in a certain story telling way a lot of it felt exploitative for the “coolness” of it. 

 

There were some real bum notes - I really think the film missed Lara flynn Boyle - it would have been amazing to see that Donna bounce off Laura (I think fake Donna did a good enough job though)

 

some of the stuff in the weird montage felt like dropping stuff for the sake of having something to hang a reveal on. Its interesting to hear the legendary status of the Formica table only for it to turn into a literal nothing (particularly when the film opens with a dancing woman bopping you on the nose about details). 

 

Series 3

 

Spoiler

How does bobby get away with murdering a cop!! And become a policeman himself. The 

 

I thought there’d be more in relation to David Bowie but it was pretty much nothing really over meaningless fluff that retrospectively has meaning placed on it. 

 

I wonder what I did like. Leland being sweaty is always good. 

 

Im glad they worked in Harold too. 

 

The whole crap version of twin peaks town was a nice touch and then open with twin peaks tv show. 

Its kind of interesting to see this sort of layer cake of universes that exist but are slightly different twin peaks. 

 

Sheryl lee does do a fantastic job. Her scene when she’s laughing about bobby killing mike is top class work. 

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On 29/05/2015 at 12:54 AM, mikemariano said:

I've been trying to figure this out in my head and I don't know if anyone else has an opinion: Does Chester Desmond really exist?

 

His sudden disappearance made me think of Bill Pullman in Lynch's Lost Highway, who is likely an alter ego of Balthasar Getty's character.

 

Previously, the show hinted (and I guess the novels state?) that Cooper was the investigator on the Teresa Banks murder.  Maybe he still is?  But a part of him is Chris Isaak?

 

Reading this after watching series 3 is a really intriguing experience. 

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