Twin Peaks Rewatch 1: Pilot

[sclpls]

I can see where Chris was coming from, even if I agree it isn't really about modernity. I can distinctly remember the first time I watched Twin Peaks. I had just started college, and I met someone in the dorms that was interested in watching the series, and managed to secure the VHS boxed set from someone else on campus. It was kind of late, so we decided to watch it the next day. That next day happened to be 9/11/2001. Classes were cancelled for the day, and after feeling kind of numb and awful from staring at the news, we elected to spend the rest of the day watching Twin Peaks. At that moment in time it was impossible to ignore the thematic element of a community coping with a (seemingly) unexpected trauma. Instead of modernity, we can think of it as the event that throws the identity of a community into a state of shock.

[SickNotes]

Is it inaccurate to call Twin Peaks magical realism? I never see it described that way, but that seems like it may be appropriate.

 

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.

 

One possible Magical Realist moment is that several people in the show witness BOB such as Leland's wife. So, both Laura and her mom perceive Leland as BOB and BOB is completely magical. He exists in the same physical place where Leland should which is impossible and because we see that two people see him, we can't blame it on Laura merely creating him to keep from believing it is her father abusing her.

 

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 also think another argument for Magical Realism happens when The Giant gives him a ring? I seem to remember that happened

 

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.

[emptybob]

Watching this pilot again, I was really unnerved by Jacoby. When he starts to talk about Laura, I noticed he absent mindedly puts his hands under the skirt of the hula lady on his tie. 

 

And this reminded me of Norman Bates on Psycho, who starts unconsciously rubbing his inner thigh when talking about his taxidermy

 

My initial impression of him was just another wacky character in a weird town, but this made me think of him as much more insidious person.

[SickNotes]

And this reminded me of Norman Bates on Psycho, who starts unconsciously rubbing his inner thigh when talking about his taxidermy.  My initial impression of him was just another wacky character in a weird town, but this made me think of him as much more insidious person.

 

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.

[Guest Aaronofthe]

Wanted to point out a book Lynch wrote:

 

http://www.amazon.com/Catching-Big-Fish-Meditation-Consciousness-ebook/dp/B0024NP55G/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1413876934&sr=8-1&keywords=catching+the+big+fish

 

It's sort of centered around his interest in Transcendental meditation, but there's lots of interesting anecdotes from his career and other bits about his approach to creativity.

 

Also - regarding that mirror thing, here's a passage from the book:

(someone mentioned part of it, but I didn't see anyone mention the rest)

Ideas come along in the strangest way when you just pay attention. And sometimes things happen on the set that make you start dreaming.

 

When we were shooting the pilot for Twin Peaks, we had a set dresser named Frank Silva. Frank was never destined to be in Twin Peaks, never in a million years. But we were shooting in Laura Palmer’s home and Frank was moving some furniture around in her room. I was in the hall, underneath a fan. And a woman said, “Frank, don’t move that dresser in front of the door like that. Don’t lock yourself in the room.”

 

And this picture came to me of Frank in the room. I went running in and I asked Frank, “Are you an actor?” And he said, “Well, yes, I happen to be,” because everyone in L.A. is an actor. And maybe everyone in the world. So I said, “Frank, you’re going to be in this scene.”

 

We did a pan shot of the room, twice without Frank and then one time with Frank frozen at the base of the bed. But I didn’t know what it was for or what it meant.

 

That evening, we went downstairs and we were shooting Laura Palmer’s mother on the couch. She was lying there in sadness and torment. Suddenly she sees something in her mind’s eye and bolts upright, screaming. Sean, the camera operator, had to and follow her face as she bolted up. And it looked to me like he did a perfect job. So I said, “Cut—perfect, beautiful!” And Sean said, “No, no, no. It’s not.”

 

“What is it?”

 

“There was someone reflected in the mirror.”

 

“Who was reflected in the mirror?”

 

“Frank was reflected in the mirror.”

 

So things like this happen and make you start dreaming. And one thing leads to another, and if you let it, a whole other thing opens up.

 

[syntheticgerbil]

God that actor who plays James is just terrible at his job. I think his shitty acting ability is what ultimately made me quit the series Season 2 after finding out about the killer. Whiny fucking caveman looking expressionless jock on a motorcycle.

[Twig]

Wow lots of hate for James.

 

Maybe I empathize because I'm sort of outwardly-emotionless a lot of the times when I'm trying/failing to express emotion, and that's like an over-the-top surreal version of how I sometimes often usually always act. Except for sadness, which I always radiate like a sun made of misery and despair. Which is like James. I like James.

 

Guess I'm weird.

[feelthedarkness]

Good first show! This was definitely the impetus to get me to watch the show for the first time. 

 

One of the things that I think makes Lynch a genius is that for a surrealist he's totally unpretentious about working within genre conventions.  

[DefaultHuman]

Having not watched the series before, I feel like I was really missing out on many later game and movie references. Lynch's genre play between comedy, noir, soap opera, etc., allowed for references or homages in a variety of media.

 

There are scenes, especially in the first high school segments, that feel very much like a point and click adventure game, and it's only now that I see influences of the show in DOTT and, more recently, Puzzle Agent.

[Twig]

Puzzle Agent is most definitely an almost direct A to B influence, yeah.

 

There's also Alan Wake, which pulls some of its strongest plot devices from small elements of Twin Peaks, and just overall has a similar setting/tone (although is more overtly and obviously horror than it is just Weird Shit Happenin').

 

And then, of course, there's the cult "classic" Deadly Premonition, but I've not played that.

[SuperBiasedMan]

Deadly Premonition is highly thieving, but with it's own style of weird so that it actually feels like a worthwhile experience rather than a rip off.

[Bjorn]

DP was, apparently, even closer to its source material originally, and was delayed to make changes in order to avoid the likelihood of a lawsuit (I know I saw a story about this when DP was originally released, but I'm not finding it now). 

[DefaultHuman]

Thank you for the reminders! I'd heard that AW had influences and kept hearing about DP feeling a lot like the show. I've yet to play either but will have to rectify that.

[SuperBiasedMan]

Oh wow, was it really?

 

Spoilering because I've already forgotten if a detail here was explicitly stated in the pilot

I wonder how much more similar it was before. As it stands, you have an eccentric but brilliant FBI Agent with mildly supernatural detective skills. He travels to a small town to solve a murder case that's attached to a serial killer he's been following. The reason he knows about the case connection is because of a tiny thing he finds under the fingernails of the latest victim, as seen in previous cases. He also really loves coffee.

 

I highly recommend DP but only if you have an Xbox 360. It's a bit of a lottery whether or not the PC port will actually work for you at all (mine used to, then a save file kept crashing the game, now the game won't even open). And I've heard that the PS3 one is also a bit dodgy, though I have no personal experience with it.

[Bjorn]

I played through on 360 and loved it.  I own the PC version, but haven't played it yet.

 

I just did some searches, and apparently it was originally titled Rainy Woods back in 2004, and when it was first shown off, it was almost literally Twin Peaks the game (like every single character might as well have been lifted straight from TP).  It was eventually canceled, and then rebooted in 2008 and some more changes were made to dial back the similarities amongst the characters in the game. 

[Rexneron]

God that actor who plays James is just terrible at his job. I think his shitty acting ability is what ultimately made me quit the series Season 2 after finding out about the killer. Whiny fucking caveman looking expressionless jock on a motorcycle.

 

Terrible at his job or following direction? I forget exactly where I read or heard this but I believe much of the cast was directed to evoke soap opera stereotypes, "bad acting" and all. Overly dramatic, soap opera jock is exactly his role and I think he plays it out just as intended.

[SickNotes]

Terrible at his job or following direction? I forget exactly where I read or heard this but I believe much of the cast was directed to evoke soap opera stereotypes, "bad acting" and all. Overly dramatic, soap opera jock is exactly his role and I think he plays it out just as intended.

 

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.

[syntheticgerbil]

Terrible at his job or following direction? I forget exactly where I read or heard this but I believe much of the cast was directed to evoke soap opera stereotypes, "bad acting" and all. Overly dramatic, soap opera jock is exactly his role and I think he plays it out just as intended.

No, I get that, but there's purposefully bad camp acting and there's really bad acting. Almost everyone on the show falls into the former category except for James. Judging by his imdb, I'd guess the movie and TV industry agrees.

[JustJosh]

Just re watched episode 1: what a treat. I haven't seen it since it originally aired: I watched the whole series during it's first run when I was in eight grade. I had the soundtrack on a cassette that I nearly wore out playing in my Walkman (I was kind of a moody kid).

Oh how I've missed the Log Lady!

[BobbyBesar]

God that actor who plays James is just terrible at his job. I think his shitty acting ability is what ultimately made me quit the series Season 2 after finding out about the killer. Whiny fucking caveman looking expressionless jock on a motorcycle.

 

He's so bad that it almost seems like it must be a deliberate choice.

 

Oddly, I've just started Season 2, and it seems like he went to some acting workshops between the first and second seasons. He's still bad, but he's less wooden, and very clearly emoting more with his face.

[syntheticgerbil]

Well I tried to read some forums on his acting ability and it seems like there's this idea that at some point

his storyline ends and he no longer appears on the show because of his acting ability. So maybe I quit a little too soon in Season 2, I was just getting really tired of whatever the hell was going on with his stupid road trip and this whole separate thing where he's sleeping with some guy's wife. I actually don't really believe they got rid of him because of his acting ability, because why would they give him so much screen time right before that?

[SickNotes]

Oddly, I've just started Season 2, and it seems like he went to some acting workshops between the first and second seasons. He's still bad, but he's less wooden, and very clearly emoting more with his face.

 

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

Laura Palmer specifically calls him out as dumb.

Haha. One part of me almost wonders if David Lynch used him specifically cause his acting was so wooden? 

[DefaultHuman]

I think that the note (in your spoiler) is actually helping me to tolerate the character. I still don't like his acting, but I'm a lot more forgiving when the show acknowledges it.

[SickNotes]

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. 

[BobbyBesar]

I mentioned in a previous comment that Cooper feels like an intentional noir throwback character plucked out of his setting and placed into a modern TV show. I think this fundamental tension is one of the key elements of the show (between the characters and their setting, between the music and onscreen action, etc).

 

James and Bobby both feel that way to me. They're both anachronistic throwbacks. James, a comically 50s biker greaser, and Bobby, at times a comically 60s rebel without a cause. The fact that both wear leather jackets (a somewhat anachronistic "bad boy" signifier, although possible less anachronistic at the time the show was made) reinforces this. (Generally, all the characters are quite heightened versions of their character's archetype.)

 

The overall point being, I find it hard to take either character seriously within the context of the show, which makes me feel suspect that James is intentionally isolated from the rest of the show at large, similar to how Cooper's fast-talk patter sets him apart. Of course, the bad acting eventualyl outweighs the benefits of the "bad actor" joke.