Subject: Re: Second Guessing
From: jblum@hamlet.umd.edu (Hi ho -- Kermit the Frog here...)
Date: 1992-09-17, 18:40
Newsgroups: alt.tv.twin-peaks

In article <1992Sep15.042511.27712@cco.caltech.edu> UnoJ writes:
> >In article <15441@umd5.umd.edu> jblum@hamlet.umd.edu (Hi ho -- Kermit the Frog
> >here...) writes:
>> >>[editing the flick for focus...]

> >Now now.. I heartily disagree here. The first half (? I thought it was
> >a little longer than that) was brilliant.

...

[re the Laura bits]

> >I disagree again. This is a part of the movie I would have shortened.

> >You seem to have preferred the "let's really tie all those little
> >threads together" approach. The way it was was just fine for me
> >thank you. Sure, I would have made minor changes here and there,
> >but I was satisfied. It opened up another set of totally unexpected
> >questions and discussion possibilities. Just what the show at
> >its best was all about.

Agreed on that.  The problem was, the movie was trying to tell two
stories at once -- the what-the-hell-is-going-on-here mystery behind
Twin Peaks, and the personal story of Laura Palmer.

> >Concluding remarks: I have noticed that most people who griped
> >most vociferously about the movie had a whole set of expectations
> >before they entered the theater. I'm not trying to say that it's
> >a bad thing, I just trying to say that rarely have I liked a 
> >movie where I expected it to be exactly the way I envisioned it.

> >When I walked in I just had this in mind: "Mr. Lynch, wash the
> >TP world and mystery over me again...make me gasp in disbelief"
> >And for me, that happened many a time throughout both my viewings.

It seems like you had expectations of your own, though.  You expected
another episode of Twin Peaks: The Series, building more onto the mysteries
established in hour after hour of television.

If I had any expectations, it was that I would get to see a film by
David Lynch.  Nothing more.  It would have the powerful storytelling
of "Blue Velvet" and the weird somehow-it-all-hangs-together logic
of "Eraserhead", two absolutely fabulous films.

What I saw left me moved -- devastated, even.  My girlfriend and I walked
out of the theater at the end holding tightly onto each other... and
that was the second time I saw it, so I knew what was coming and it still
hit me hard.  I loved this film.

But it was not a perfect movie.

A perfect movie would not have garnered the reactions from the non-fans
who sat behind me at the first showing.  They snickered and laughed at
all the wrong moments -- every time the LMFAP said anything incomprehensible.
They fidgeted through the first half-hour of the film, giggled at the
white horse, and made vague "what the hell is this" noises at the sight
of Lil the dancing girl.

When Blue Velvet came out, I saw it with a bunch of friends who were in
that kind of a mood, and the film gripped even us by the throat and forced us
to listen to what it said.  We had known nothing about Lumberton or David
Lynch, and the film still grabbed us.

That's powerful filmmaking.

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me had the potential to do that to audiences.
Some of the scenes -- Laura with James at the end, and BOB at Laura's
bookcase -- were the kind of moments that movies live for.  But there
was still too much stuff that lessened the intensity.

Now, as a Peaks fan, I liked the first half-hour of the film.  In fact,
I would have loved to have seen it explored in much greater depth, as a
separate movie.  A film made strictly with the fannish audience in mind,
with the somewhat lighter touch of the series.

But piggybacked onto the story of Laura Palmer, it lessened the impact
of what is a truly universal story.  The story of a woman coming to
terms with her life and her death.  A story which, if allowed to play
out without distractions, would have silenced even the most carping of
critics. 

Twin Peaks itself is simply too big a story to fit into two hours.  It's
like the awful movies they've made of Homer's Odyssey: either adventures
are left out entirely, or they are whittled down to incomprehensible
passing moments.  I think neither Laura's story nor Teresa's deserves
that fate.

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