Subject: Lynch - CRITICISM!!!
From: gln@cs.arizona.edu (Gary Newell)
Date: 1990-12-03, 10:31
Newsgroups: alt.tv.twin-peaks

 About a month ago, I read an article in the Sunday paper which dealt
with a book that had been recently written. The book contained criticism of
modern directors. The article was released by the Gannett news service and was
in the living section of the paper (if your local rag subscribes to Gannett
then you may have seen it or may be able to find it - I'm afraid I
didn't save it and I cannot remember the title or author).

 Anyway, the article went through a number of directors and Lynch was
one of them. At the time, I knew there were a number of things about
TP's that I didn't like but I thought that they were distinct and
individual problems and hadn't really seen a connection, until I saw
this criticism. What was said is that Lynch's work lacks and real
plot development. It pointed out that Lynch's work is made up of
separate scenes and dialogue that do nothing to further the plot
and tend to become more and more bizarre - and then, in the final 5-10
minutes, the entire plot unfolds. I realized that this was true (in my opinion)
of Blue Velvet and I began to think about TPs. It seems to me that
this same problem runs through TPs as well. We see 30-40 minute 'chunks' 
of scenes that do very little plot development (if any at all) and then
we see 5-10 minute segments (although not always at the end of any
particular episode, but instead spread through the whole series), where
the actual story is explained and developed and advanced. 

 The idea that the images become more and more bizarre also seems to be valid. 
I realize that some would claim this to be "atmosphere" but to what end? and
how much "atmosphere development" does the show need? The scene with naval
personnel bouncing rubber balls in the GN while a spastic one-armed man
wiggles in his chair would seem an example of this in my opinion - what
purpose did those people serve? Did it relate in anyway to the plot? 
How was it used as anything other than an attempt at a bizarre image? Now
some might claim that they think that this is a very good thing (I enjoy
the images, but only up to a point), however I think that it is a case of
form over content - a show or a movie without a solid plot is still a
show with little plot no matter how nicely packaged it is.

 This lack of adequate plot development seems to show up in the episodes 
where the viewer is hit over the head with a barage of little facts
all at once (the Leland did it episode and the last episode (why Leland
did it) are good examples of this). It is as if they are saying "well, we
really have to wrap this thing up - now what haven't we dealt with yet?
We'll put all that stuff in the last 10 minutes and be done with it".

 That is not to say that the show is without any merit. The unique and
interesting images are often "worth the price of admission" so to speak,
but the show could be better if it was more careful with its plot and
less focussed on simply being bizarre. IMHO of course.....


gln