#‘Twin Peaks: The Return’ (2017) TV series by David Lynch | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

justforbooks · 4 months ago

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David Lynch

US director whose wildly unconventional films burrowed into the unsavoury depths of his nation’s psyche

David Lynch, who has died aged 78, was the most original film-maker to emerge in postwar America, as well as the greatest cinematic surrealist since Buñuel. His understanding of desire, fantasy and dread was unparalleled; the Paris Review called him “the Edward Hopper of American film”.

He made his debut with the experimental Eraserhead (1977), shot in sooty black-and-white and set in a churning industrial landscape where a man with a tombstone-shaped pompadour tends to his mewling, reptilian baby. From the first frames, Lynch mapped out a cinema of the subconscious that thrived on its own dream logic and nightmare imagery. It shaped everything he did, including his masterpiece Blue Velvet (1986), in which an innocent young man (Kyle MacLachlan) discovers a human ear and is drawn into the sleazy, violent world of a psychopath (Dennis Hopper) and a terrorised torch singer (Isabella Rossellini).

That film introduced into the archetype of cosy small-town America some potent notes of scepticism and revulsion that have never been dispelled.

This project to burrow into the unsavoury depths of his country’s psyche continued with the television whodunnit Twin Peaks, co-created with Mark Frost, which ran for two series in 1990 and 1991 then spawned a big-screen prequel, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992). The show returned 25 years later in a bold but often harrowing and impenetrable third series that, despite being made for TV, was voted the best film of 2017 by Cahiers du Cinéma and Sight & Sound magazines. To preserve the spell cast by his work, Lynch refused to be drawn on explanations. Asked what the third helping of Twin Peaks was about, he replied: “It’s about 18 hours.”

He exposed the horrors lurking beneath apparently placid exteriors, and found beauty in the quotidian, the industrial – “I’d rather go to a factory any day than walk in the woods” – or the repellent: “If you don’t know what it is, a sore can be very beautiful.” For all the darkness of Lynch’s vision, his films could also be extremely funny, peppered with verbal and visual non sequiturs, skew-whiff line readings, slapstick violence and comic embarrassment. The mix of folksy naivety and elusive strangeness in his work extended to his persona and even his wardrobe: 1950s-style slacks and blazer, and a shirt buttoned to the gullet.

He drank a milkshake in the same diner (Bob’s Big Boy) every day for seven years between the late-70s and mid-80s. Watching him on set, the novelist David Foster Wallace observed: “It’s hard to tell if he’s a genius or an idiot.” The musician Sting, who starred in his science-fiction adventure Dune (1984), called him “a madman in sheep’s clothing” while Mel Brooks, who produced Lynch’s second film, The Elephant Man (1980), described the affable director as “Jimmy Stewart from Mars”.

Though his films were wildly unconventional, Lynch was still nominated three times for the best director Oscar. (He won an honorary Oscar in 2019.) Wild at Heart (1990), a road movie marked by baroque violence and homages to The Wizard of Oz, won him the Palme d’Or at Cannes, and he was named best director by the same festival in 2001 for Mulholland Drive, a warped neo-noir thriller about an aspiring actor (Naomi Watts) whose dreams of stardom disintegrate horribly after she befriends the amnesiac survivor of a car accident (Laura Harring). Developed by Lynch from his own butchered TV pilot for a series rejected by the ABC network, Mulholland Drive was one of his most seductively strange pictures.

But linear narrative was not beyond him, as he proved with two deeply moving films based on real events: The Elephant Man, about the severely deformed Joseph Merrick (“John” in the screenplay) paraded as a circus freak in the Victorian era, and The Straight Story (1999), in which an elderly man travels 300 miles on a riding mower to see his ailing brother. Both earned Oscar nominations for their lead performers (John Hurt and Richard Farnsworth respectively), which served as a reminder that Lynch’s skill as a director of actors could sometimes be obscured by his extraordinary imaginative powers.

He was born in Missoula, Montana, to Edwina (nee Sundholm), known as Sunny, who occasionally taught English, and Donald Lynch, whose job as a research scientist for the US government’s Department of Agriculture dictated the family’s peripatetic lifestyle. When Lynch was two months old they uprooted to Sandpoint, Idaho, and by the time he was 14 they had moved a further four times.

He described himself as a “troubled” child who was quick to intuit that all was not well. “I learned that just beneath the surface there’s another world, and still different worlds as you dig deeper. I knew it as a kid, but I couldn’t find the proof. It was just a feeling. There is goodness in blue skies and flowers, but another force – a wild pain and decay – also accompanies everything.” The aftertaste of that memory can be found throughout Lynch’s work but particularly in the opening of Blue Velvet, where a montage showing schoolchildren, roses and white picket fences gives way to shots of insects thrashing in the undergrowth.

Having shown an aptitude for painting since adolescence, Lynch began studying art at the age of 18 at the Boston Museum School, then dropped out after a year to travel to Europe with his friend (and future production designer) Jack Fisk, only to return to the US a fortnight later. He got on better at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, where his canvases took a darker turn (one work, The Bride, showed a woman performing an abortion on herself). It was there that Lynch met Peggy Lentz, a fellow student, who in 1967 became the first of his four wives. Together they had a child, Jennifer, and there have been almost as many attempts to link the pressures of youthful parenthood to the plot of Eraserhead as there have been theories about what exactly that film means, with its flying sperm-like creatures, roast chickens that writhe when sliced, and a balloon-cheeked chanteuse who lives behind the radiator.

He had his first solo exhibition in 1967, the same year he made his debut film work, the one-minute loop Six Men Getting Sick. He received a grant from the American Film Institute to make his 34-minute 16mm featurette The Grandmother (1970), in which a neglected child grows an elderly companion from a seed. The film combined jerky stop-motion animation with live-action footage, and showcased the sound design work of the great Alan Splet. Along with Fisk and the composer Angelo Badalamenti, Splet would become one of Lynch’s most vital collaborators.

In 1972, Lynch began work on Eraserhead. The shoot lasted five years, with regular pauses whenever the production ran out of money; Lynch would then supplement the budget with cash from family and friends (Fisk and his wife, the actor Sissy Spacek, were among those who donated) and by working odd jobs, including a paper round. After his marriage broke down, he also slept in the stables where the film was being shot. When it was finally released, Eraserhead was received with bafflement in many quarters, and with a slow-dawning fanaticism by those who caught it in the midnight movie slots at cinemas in the US, where it played, in some cases, for several years consecutively.

The film attracted the admiration of the poet Charles Bukowski and the musician Tom Waits, and went on to influence film-makers including Terry Gilliam and Darren Aronofsky, the Coen brothers and Stanley Kubrick, who reportedly screened it to the cast and crew of The Shining to put them in the appropriate mood.

During the early stages of production on The Elephant Man, Lynch’s attempts to design the complicated makeup failed catastrophically. But the finished film, with makeup by Christopher Tucker, a clammy feel for Victorian England and some unmistakable Lynchian touches (such as the main character’s birth in a giant ball of smoke), was an outstanding success. It melded the director’s sensibility with compassionate, classical storytelling, even if it did play fast and loose with the facts (the real Merrick, for instance, took a healthy cut of profits from being exhibited).

Lynch’s next project, an adaptation of Frank Herbert’s sprawling space epic Dune, was the only one of his films to escape his control entirely, and to be released in a form not approved by him. He was unsuited to the rigours of blockbuster film-making, and his attempts to wrestle Herbert’s many-tentacled narrative into coherent shape were doomed. The film was an expensive flop – Lynch called it “a fiasco” – but it still contained astonishing sets, costumes and sound design. And it introduced Lynch to MacLachlan, who played the bland hero and would become the director’s on-screen alter ego, the Mastroianni to his Fellini, in Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks. In the latter, MacLachlan played the coffee-and-cherry-pie-loving FBI agent Dale Cooper, whose dreams guide his detective work as strongly as any physical clues.

The experience of making Dune left Lynch drained and depressed. “I was almost dead,” he said. “Dune took me off at the knees. Maybe a little higher.” He amused himself by contributing a four-panel comic strip, The Angriest Dog in the World, to the LA Reader newspaper; it ran for nine years, during which time his drawings of a dog chained in a yard remained unaltered and only the text in the speech bubbles changed.

His fortunes were revived, along with his right to final cut, with the sumptuous and terrifying Blue Velvet, a project he had been planning since before Dune. The novelist JG Ballard called it “the best film of the 1980s – surreal, voyeuristic, subversive”.

Wild at Heart could only look frivolous by comparison, despite game performances by Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern as the lovers on the run. But Lynch was back at the height of his powers with the first series of Twin Peaks, which began with the discovery of Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) washed up dead and wrapped in plastic. It altered television irrevocably, paving the way for shows such as The X-Files and Lost, True Detective and The Killing; David Chase also cited it as an influence on The Sopranos.

That enthusiastic reception made it all the more bruising for Lynch when Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me was widely panned. In its focus on the days leading up to Laura Palmer’s murder, the film sacrificed the quirkiness of the series in favour of an intense mood of violence and suffering, and it was several years before the picture was reappraised more positively.

Lynch’s next film, Lost Highway (1996), was a profoundly unsettling thriller that hinged on an audacious narrative fracture: one moment a jazz saxophonist suspected of murder is sitting in his prison cell; the next he has vanished and the guards find in his place a young mechanic who has no idea how he got there. The film was steeped in deadpan humour and violent imagery (there is a memorable death-by-coffee-table), as well as nausea-inducing high-speed driving footage that would be subverted comically in his next movie, The Straight Story, which never exceeded 4mph.

Acclaim for The Straight Story and Mulholland Drive restored Lynch to his late-80s standing – the latter went on to be voted the best film of the century so far in a poll of critics conducted by the BBC in 2017. His last film, Inland Empire (2006), was concerned, like Mulholland Drive, with an actor (Dern) suffering a breakdown. But at three-hours-plus and with an unusually ugly visual style (it was shot by Lynch on a handheld Sony digital camera), as well as a meandering narrative interrupted occasionally by a rabbit sitcom complete with laugh-track, it offered little of the compensatory seductiveness of the director’s other films.

That said, Lynch was not alone in feeling that Dern deserved an Oscar nomination, even if his decision to express this view by sitting on a Hollywood street corner with a cow and a poster of the actor’s face was more unorthodox than the usual method of taking out a full-page ad in the trade papers.

With the exception of the third series of Twin Peaks, Lynch devoted the rest of his days to painting, music and writing, while resisting suggestions that he had retired from film-making: “I did not say I quit cinema. Simply that nobody knows what the future holds.” Among the albums he released was the avant-garde blues collection Crazy Clown Time (2011). He also worked with the journalist Kristine McKenna on the memoir Room to Dream (2018), in which her biographical chapters about him alternate with ones in which he muses on what she has written and adds his own reflections, and gave an uncanny performance as the eye-patch-wearing, cigar-smoking film-maker John Ford in the final scene of Steven Spielberg’s autobiographical coming-of-age drama The Fabelmans (2022). Though initially reluctant to take the role, he was persuaded by Dern and by Spielberg’s assurance that there would be a large bag of Cheetos waiting in his dressing room. “Any chance I can, I get them,” Lynch said.

He was a passionate advocate of transcendental meditation, writing and speaking at length on the ways in which it had helped his work and enabled him to “catch fish” – his favourite metaphor for the creative process. (“If you get an idea that’s thrilling to you, put your attention on it and these other fish will swim into it.”) The clarity engendered by meditation was perhaps at odds with the gnomic quality of much of his work.

Last year, he revealed that a lifetime of smoking had left him with emphysema. “I can hardly walk across a room,” he said. “It’s like you’re walking around with a plastic bag around your head.”

He is survived by his fourth wife, Emily Stofle, whom he married in 2009, and their daughter, Lula; by a daughter, Jennifer, from his first marriage, which ended in divorce; by a son, Austin, from his second marriage, to Mary Fisk (sister of Jack), whom he married in 1977 and divorced in 1987; and by Riley, his son with Mary Sweeney, who edited and produced many of his films from the 1980s onwards, as well as co-writing The Straight Story, and whom he married in 2006 and divorced the following year.

🔔 David Keith Lynch, director, born 20 January 1946; died 16 January 2025

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

#just for books #David Lynch #in memoriam

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world-cinema-research · 11 months ago

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Two-Film Essay: How Twin Peaks: The Return (2017) and Magnolia (1999) Highlight the Intricacies of Human Connection

By Rachel Powers

In this essay, I will be comparing Twin Peaks: The Return and Magnolia, two works that explore the intricacies of human connections and behaviors through large, interconnected casts of characters. Both pieces employ symbolism and elements of the supernatural to delve into the complex web of relationships and emotions that define their narratives. These films excel at immersing the viewer in the detailed, captivating worlds crafted by their directors, showcasing the profound interconnectedness of human lives.

Twin Peaks: The Return (2017) - First Two Episodes

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In 2017, the third season of David Lynch's Twin Peaks was released. The above trailer is quite vague, but fans of the original two seasons will recognize many of the characters. This trailer is quite a teaser, enticing die-hard Twin Peaks fans to return to the show one final time.

“The return of Twin Peaks in 2017 came like a Taser shock to the “golden age of television,” overturning audience expectations for what Twin Peaks—and TV— could encompass, both in narrative and form.” - Aliza Ma, "Now It's Dark"

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This behind-the-scenes documentary of the making of Twin Peaks: The Return is about 30 minutes long. It shows director David Lynch and many of the series’ original actors reuniting and working together again after such a long time. My favorite part is watching David Lynch explaining the scenes that he envisions in great detail. He and the actors discuss not only the characters actions, but the thoughts, feelings, and motives behind them.

Twin Peaks: The Return brought back much of the same cast as prior seasons over 25 years ago. But actors were not the only things returning to the screen.

Laura Palmer, played by Sheryl Lee.

In the third season, Twin Peaks: The Return, we are introduced to a talking tree called “The Arm.” The Arm traces back to prior seasons of the show. In the original series, “The Arm” was “The Man From Another Place.” This role was played by Michael J. Anderson. Due to many personal reasons, Anderson did not return to film Twin Peaks: The Return, and was replaced by the talking tree.

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Another element seemingly brought back into this third season is the appearance of creamed corn. In season 3 Agent Cooper’s evil doppelganger is at a restaurant, and there appears to be corn on his plate. Creamed corn has had many appearances and references in previous seasons, as well as in the film Fire Walk With Me. It is called “garmonbozia,” and it is a symbol of pain and sorrow.

Twin Peaks was not the only thing returning in 2017. The Total Solar Eclipse of 2017 made it's own long awaited appearance after 38 years. Both Twin Peaks: The Return and the Total Solar Eclipse share a mysterious and surreal cosmic atmosphere. It had been a very long tine since the previous Total Solar Eclipse in the U.S., so this event felt unfamiliar, awe-inspiring, and almost supernatural to people who weren't sure what to expect. Likewise, these unfamiliar, mysterious and supernatural themes are also present in Twin Peaks: The Return, as well as a play of light vs dark, good vs. evil.

As we step away from the cosmic spectacle of the Total Solar Eclipse, we return to the narrative of Twin Peaks: The Return. The first two episodes of this third season are quite unconventional for television. For viewers who do not remember all of the details of the previous two seasons (as well as the film Fire Walk With me), these episodes will likely be quite confusing and difficult to follow. The show jumps around to different characters and strange situations that probably won't make sense to the average viewer. As I have only watched these first two episodes for this assignment, I anticipate the plot coming together by the end of the season. This is similar to Magnolia, the second film I watched for this assignment. Magnolia follows an array of characters and the events of their separate lives, with their connections pulling the plot together by the end of the film.

Magnolia (1999)

Magnolia was released in 1999. It was made with an estimated budget of $37 million, and has grossed over $48 million worldwide.

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The trailer introduces each of the film’s many characters and their individual stories, and states “…this will all make sense, in the end.” The poster demonstrates their connectedness by portraying each character on a separate petal of a magnolia flower.

Like Twin Peaks: The Return, this film jumps around between scenes and characters frequently. Unlike Twin Peaks, Magnolia is much more of a conventional film. Although there is a lot going on in this film, it makes sense and it all comes together. Director Paul Thomas Anderson made sure that it would be relatively easy to follow despite the complicated nature of multiple main characters. Other conventional qualities include it's A-list cast, large budget, and fame of it's director Paul Thomas Anderson who had just seen huge success with his film Boogie Nights.

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This seven-minute clip from the beginning of the film introduces each character, moving quickly from one to the next. The movie does not slow down from here. Aimee Mann’s song “One” is looped in the background for the duration of this sequence. If you pay close attention you will notice how each of these characters is connected, even if just loosely.

The film continues to follow all of it's main characters throughout their separate lives. The infamous frog scene is the event that each character experiences simultaneously, bringing the entire film together. It is symbolic of a plague sent by a higher power, and impossible for any of the characters to ignore.

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“This bizarre apocalypse gives the clue to Anderson's notion of structure. He works by accumulation, piling detail on detail, moment on moment, small telling revelation on revelation, until finally something has to blow: the characters explode, the world boils over, the narrative house of cards caves in on itself.” - Johnathan Romney, "Every Petal Tells A Story"

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The above documentary about the making of Magnolia is over an hour long, but worth the watch if you’re a fan of the movie. It follows director Paul Thomas Anderson through many different aspects of creating this film, including the raining frogs scene.

In 1999, the year that this film was released, Americans were also paying attention to a real life drama involving multiple characters and their interconnected lives. President Bill Clinton was impeached on December 19, 1998 for obstructing justice and lying under oath to a grand jury. These charges stemmed from an affair that he had with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. His impeachment trial took place during January and February of 1999, where he was ultimately acquitted of all charges.

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In Magnolia, the intricate lives of its characters and their complex behaviors demonstrate themes of interconnectedness. Similarly, in Bill Clinton's impeachment and subsequent trial, themes of interconnectedness was prevalent among him and White House staff. This historical event also demonstrates how human nature and complex behaviors, both personally and professionally, can impact even high-status figures such as the President of the United States.

Twin Peaks: The Return and Magnolia both feature large casts and explore the intricate connections between their characters. Each uses symbolism and supernatural elements, such as the raining frog scene in Magnolia, though Twin Peaks delves much deeper into a surreal and symbolic supernatural realm. While Twin Peaks is known for its unconventional, complex narrative and cult following, Magnolia remains more conventional and accessible despite its intricate storyline. Both films excel at immersing the viewer in the detailed, captivating worlds crafted by their directors.

#THE112C01RachelPowers #Youtube

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male1971 · 9 months ago

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Film-maker David Lynch has said he is now too ill to direct films in person and could only work on projects remotely.

In an interview with Sight and Sound magazine, Lynch said: “I’ve gotten emphysema from smoking for so long, and so I’m homebound whether I like it or not. I can’t go out. And I can only walk a short distance before I’m out of oxygen.”

He added: “Because of Covid, it would be very bad for me to get sick, even with a cold. So I would probably be directing from my home … I wouldn’t like that so much. I like to be amongst the thing and get ideas there. But I would try to do [a film] remotely, if it comes to it.”

Lynch’s most recent full-length production was the 18-episode TV series Twin Peaks: The Return, which premiered on Showtime in 2017, and his last feature film was Inland Empire, released in 2006. Lynch’s unrealised projects include a feature film script Antelope Don’t Run No More, apparently completed in 2010, and a rumoured 13-part Netflix series called Wisteria/Unrecorded Night, supposedly in development in 2020.

In the Sight and Sound interview, Lynch said he had a complicated relationship with the cause of his health problems. “Smoking was something that I absolutely loved, but in the end, it bit me. It was part of the art life for me: the tobacco and the smell of it, and lighting things and smoking and going back and sitting back and having a smoke and looking at your work, or thinking about things; nothing like it in this world is so beautiful. Meanwhile, it’s killing me. So I had to quit.”

#david lynch #twin peaks

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oldbutchdanielcraig · 3 months ago

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i do think wrwwr is a show no one really watches unless you're really into jack dylan grazer or chloe sevigny lol so no one ever talks abt it BUT i think it's lovely and deserves to be discussed on the same level as bones and all and cmbyn.... it's def more political than some of his other work (american military base in italy as backdrop brings all that that implies, also its 2016) and idk how well that comes across, but also one of the main plots is about one of the teens exploring their gender and that really made me weepy.... i think bc i was that exact same age in 2016 on that exact same gender timeline and it was like very sweet to see that. i think its just interesting to see what luca does with an 8 part series rather than feature length film

riiiight i was going to say that i was an it (2017) girl but not to the extreme so i knew about it because of jdg but didn’t feel compelled to watch 😭 you have adequately compelled me with this description though because i’m interested to see luca’s politics as it always feels like something that’s there but in a tongue in cheek way? idk that’s opening up a whole can of worms to get into but anyway i am interested. also totally agree about the series rather than a film because he is one of those directors that’s like. I HAVE A LOT TO SAY. and the powers that be are like ok. well you have two hours. and again that’s not necessarily always a positive thing but (and this is an evil comparison probably and one i’m using more as a “guy who’s seen one thing” comparison than something real) but like. the david lynch story of being highly restricted by network tv during twin peaks run and then making a MOVIE that condensed the show’s themes into something feature length and then actually getting to do what he wanted with the return. the point is yeah i like seeing what a director can do with a different medium. will be streaming eventually thank you 😌

#asks

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nazmulbd00m-blog · 4 months ago

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#IFTTT #Hollywood News - FNNEWZ

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owls-are-not-what-they-seem · 2 months ago

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I love their little friendship so much 💜

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stoeff · 1 year ago

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Ein «paar» Gedanken zum neuen #ZüriWest-Album «Loch dür Zyt» - meiner Meinung nach ihre beste Platte diesem Jahrtausend. Vielleicht sogar ein Meisterwerk.

Selbstzitate …gibt’s viele auf diesem Album - musikalische als auch textliche. Kurze Referenzen an die Vergangenheit, an frühere Songs, Stimmungen und Charaktere.

Kunos Stimme …die auf der Single «Loch dür Zyt» so erschreckend brüchig und müde klang, ist auf dem Rest des Albums viel stärker und sicherer.

Keine Refrains - dieses Prinzip ziehen Züri West auf diesem Album noch konsequenter durch als früher. Praktisch alle dieser Songs haben keinen eigentlichen Refrain, und hören meistens - auch das ein Kuno-Special - hören mit einer Wiederholung der Anfangs-Zeilen auf.

Coverversionen …hat’s gleich deren 3:

Mercury Blues (im Original von K.C. Douglas https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsTfCITzISM)

Im Bett (im Original von der CH-Band Frostschutz https://mx3.ch/t/aWv)

Vanishing Act (im Original von Lou Reed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9As6iYfdlCY)

Bettgeschichten Es gibt nicht viele ZW-Songs, die im Bett spielen - auf dieser Platte hat’s gleich deren 3. Aber auch die typischen ZW-Song-Locations werden nicht vergessen, die Bushaltestelle zum Beispiel, oder der obligate Küchentisch (diesmal sitzt David Lynch dort).

Tastenspielereien Das Klavier spielte, von 7:7 mal abgesehen, lange keine grosse Rolle im Sound von Züri West. Aber auf diesem Album ist es fast omnipräsent, und das ist richtig gut so. Die Gitarre wird dezenter eingesetzt. ZW sind musikalisch in diesem Jahrtausend vielfältiger geworden.

D’Idee Der grossartige Album-Opener - ein Text, den Kuno 2021 bei «10vor10» vorgelesen hat. https://www.srf.ch/play/tv/10-vor-10/video/zueri-west-ikone-kuno-lauener-wird-60?urn=urn:srf:video:6034752d-2002-4fec-8448-8f9c25b7edf9 Der Song reiht sich nahtlos ein in die Gruppe der tollen ZW-Songs übers Songschreiben (zBsp. Haubi Songs, Eerlechs Lied, Göteborg, Nüt aus Nacht).

Hü Witzige Dreiecks-Bettgeschichte. Meine Theorie: Der tote Ex, der soff und spielte und betrog, ist Hans-Peter, der alte Erzfeind von Kunos Ich-Erzähler, der ihn selbst aus dem Jenseits noch verfolgt. HP’s späte Rache für das Kuckuckskind?

Schnägg Ein sehr lustiges Lied mit leicht melancholischem Unterton. Bei «Schöre» und «Schtöfu» musste ich sofort an Span denken - Kuno war als Jugendlicher grosser Fan.

Mercury Blues Richtig cooler Elektroblues mit einer heissen Gitarre. Wer behauptet, ZW könnten 2023 nicht mehr rocken, soll sich diesen Track laut anhören.

Loch dür Zyt Ja, das ist die perfekte 1. Single. Der Song schliesst einen Kreis, schlägt eine Brücke von heute zurück in die Band-Anfänge. Schön, dass wir nach 40 Jahren endlich erkennen können, was für eine grossartig poetische Zeile «Mir frässen’üs es Loch dür Zyt» ist. Am Ende der Studioversion klingelt ein Telefon. Wer ruft wohl an? Ich glaube, es ist Lou Reed aus Lied Nr. 12: «Kuno, komm runter, ich warte an der Bushaltestelle!»

Badalamenti am Klavier Kuno lässt sich gern von Büchern und Filmen zu Lyrics inspirieren - hier ist’s David Lynchs grossartige TV-Serie «Twin Peaks». Das passt: Denn wie dieses Album strotzte Lynchs Neuauflage «Twin Peaks - The Return» von 2017 nur so von Selbst-Zitaten.

Blueme Tier u Vögu Ein schönes, pures Liebeslied. Mir gefällt das kindliche «Bimerbliebebitte» am Schluss. Schön, hatte dieser Sohn Platz.

Im Bett Ich muss grinsen bei dieser Ode ans Bett. Sie kommt in Kunos Mundartübersetzung wesentlich geschmeidiger und noch verschmitzter daher als im hochdeutschen und etwas gstabigen Original von Frostschutz.

Schöne Morge im April Ein Lied aus der Corona-Pandemie von einem, der sich zurückgelassen fühlt und auf das Zwitschern (oder Twittern?) einer Amsel wartet. «I wünsche mir e Frou» - ein weiterer Callback ans «Sport & Musik»-Album (Ragazze & Ragazzi).

Schnee vo Philadelphia Ein wunderschöner Trennungs-Song. Es geht nicht um eine Frau, sondern - der Callback an die «Hoover Jam»-Aufnahmen in Philadelphia verrät’s - um die Band, wahrscheinlich um den Ausstieg von Drummer Gert Stäuble.

Und nun die 3 Schlussongs übers das, was zu Ende geht, übers Loslassen, Abschliessen, Abschiednehmen und Sterben. Sie sind ein emotionaler Hammer - für mich schon ziemlich nahe beim grandiosen Schlusstrio von R.E.M.s «Automatic For The People»-Album, einem thematisch ähnlichen Album. Ich weiss, man soll den Ich-Erzähler nie mit dem Texter gleichsetzen, vor allem nicht bei einem brillanten Geschichtenerzähler wie Kuno, der schon aus der Sicht von Kinderschändern, Selbstmördern, Amokläufern oder Vampieren sang. Und trotzdem: Ich schaff’s nicht. Ich höre 3 Songs von einem, der sich intensiv mit dem Tod befasst.

Blätter gheie Ein Herbstlied mit Blättern, die absterben, vom Baum fallen und im Wind herumwirbeln. «Dass Stärbe eso luschtig cha sii», singt Kuno.

Vanishing Act Der Ich-Erzähler nimmt, zusammen mit Lou Reed, den Bus «dür e Näbu, über d’Brügg» an einen Ort, der nicht auf dieser Ort zu sein scheint. Zurück will er nicht mehr. Ein sanftes Cembalo ist zu hören, als würde John Lennon im Himmel in freudiger Erwartung “Because” von den Beatles klimpern. Viel stärker als Lou Reed im Original textet Kuno hier in Richtung Sterben, finde ich. Wäre dies der letzte Track auf dem Album - ich würde viel zu viel in diese Lyrics hineininterpretieren und wäre am Boden zerstört.

Winterhale Aber zum Glück kommt noch dieses stimmungsvolle Meisterwerk des Albums. Kuno spaziert müde und melancholisch, aber trotzig zuversichtlich einem neuen Jahr entgegen. «No grad giben’i nid uf». Spätestens da fliessen bei mir die Tränen. Und mein Herz chlopfed u chlopfed u chlopfed.

Bei Züri West kann ich nicht neutral werten. Ich finde das Album grandios. Ein würdiges Werk einer meiner liebsten Schweizer Band. Würden Kuno, Küse & Co. nun im U3 den Stecker ziehen - ich wäre zwar unendlich traurig, aber es wäre ein starker Schlusspunkt.

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rrrauschen · 4 years ago

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(1) Michele Soavi, {1994} Dellamorte Dellamore (Cemetery Man)

(2) Mark Frost & David Lynch, {2017} Twin Peaks: The Return

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daisywtf · 6 years ago

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i am so in love with Lynch, and this masterpiece..

#twin peaks #twin peaks the return #lynch #david lynch #laura palmer #agent cooper #25 years #tv series #1990s #2017

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eye-contact · 8 years ago

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Twin Peaks: The Return

Dir. David Lynch

#Twin Peaks: The Return #tv series #cinema #david lynch #2017 #Twin Peaks

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cynema · 8 years ago

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If you're feeling Twin Peaks deprived just listen to the soundtrack honestly it's helped me so much

#twin peaks #kyle maclachlan #david lynch #90s #1990s #special agent dale cooper #dougie jones #the return #2017 #mark frost #favourite #tv show #tp #tv series #tv

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jedivoodoochile · 4 years ago

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August 13, 2017, David Bowie made a posthumous appearance in the TV series Twin Peaks: The Return. The late singer, who made a cameo appearance as a deranged FBI agent in the cult classic's 1991 prequel, Fire Walk With Me, was supposed to return for the show's revival but died before filming. Director David Lynch used archive footage from the movie to bring Bowie to life in the episode.

#david bowie #david lynch #twin peaks

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michaelfoote2000 · 4 years ago

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David Lynch & Surrealism: When the Non-Traditional Becomes Traditional

Often described as “one of the most unique visionaries working in cinema today,” it is not hard to see why director David Lynch and his unusual catalogue of work have garnered a lot of attention since the 80s (ScreenRant). Looking at his career holistically, it is evident how little his style has actually changed. Meanwhile, public perception of him and his productions has fluctuated quite a bit from decade to decade. After a somewhat uncertain start in the 1970s, he eventually rose to become arguably one of the most popular directors in the 21st century, which brought about strong implications for the world of independent cinema. The rise in popularity of David Lynch’s small but strong category of films brought about a wider acceptance of surrealist storytelling, as more audiences embraced the non-traditional storytelling so often associated with independent projects, further blurring the lines between industries and individuals.

David Lynch’s directorial debut, Eraserhead, actually serves as a perfect microcosm of his cinematic style and approach. First and foremost, it is utterly and proudly surreal. The entire film takes place in an ambiguous and unsettling interpretation of America – as many of his projects do – operating within a world that manages to both feel very familiar and very foreign at the same time. The film’s plot, focusing on a man and his grotesque, barely human child, is incredibly vague; Lynch keeps the purpose of the story open to interpretation, simply leaving the viewer with the shock and confusion at what they just watched. Eraserhead does not hold back: like many of Lynch’s films that follow it, it is gruesome, graphic, and sexual (ScreenRant). In other words, it had many of the characteristics that defined a number of flicks as independent cinema. Taking the risk of making such an off-putting movie did not come without its consequences, though.

Released to limited audiences in 1977, the film initially received a good amount of backlash. Variety denounced it as “unwatchable” due to the vagueness and brutality of its content, and since Lynch is notorious for refusing to give any clarification on most of his projects, interviewing him about the project provided no satisfying answers (Variety). It has since become something of a cult classic, embraced by fans of such dramatic and stupefying cinema (Chion 3). But it is easy to see why Lynch did not fit in with mainstream cinema at first. He made it clear that the kind of work he wanted to make did not have accessibility or comfort in mind. If Lynch wanted to be a surrealist director, it seemed he would have to accept that he would inevitably fail to capture the hearts of the average American viewers.

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And yet, despite such a baffling first project, Lynch managed to break into Hollywood rather quickly. He found himself directing an adaptation of the science fiction novel Dune only seven years later in the mid-1980s. Much unlike his first work, Dune turned out to be very slow and boring. Its story is far more concrete, given it is drawing from a popular source text in a genre proven to have reliable appeal. The appeal did not transfer over, though; Dune was a commercial and critical flop (Hollywood Reporter). Lynch was not happy with it either; famously, there were a multitude of clashes and complications with the studio that led to the final release of the film differing greatly from his original four-hour vision. The disconnect is not only felt by Lynch, as Dune does stand out like a sore thumb amongst the rest of his filmography. It is considerably less obtuse and unusual than everything that came before and after, and yet still audiences refused to embrace it. The mainstream had rejected Lynch once again, who refused to be deterred.

Lynch stuck with his comfort zone and returned to writing and directing projects that outright ignored the mold in favor of the atypical (as independent filmmakers are known to do) (Nochimson 11). For instance, Blue Velvet was another clear example of Lynch’s untethered approach to storytelling, a late-80s suburban tale that was much more in line with his personal stylings than that of the mainstream movie circuit (Nerdist). Blue Velvet was a success, much more so than Dune or Eraserhead, but still did not become a Hollywood-level hit (Far Out Magazine). At this time, independent cinema had not quite reached the heights of popularity that it would soar to by the turn of the century. Audiences were not used to his level of surrealism…that is, until the arrival of a certain TV phenomenon. David Lynch’s first major foray into television was the mystery series Twin Peaks, premiering in 1990 on the ABC network. The opening episode was actually shot as a movie in case the show did not get picked up – and was even released as one outside of America with a more ‘concrete’ ending (well, concrete by Lynch’s standards). This premiere is arguably the most important work of David Lynch’s entire career, as it kickstarted what was his first project to really achieve true mainstream success. Its original run only lasted two years before a swift cancellation, but it made a huge impression on the audiences it did reach, especially after it took a hard turn into supernatural elements and had a massively ambiguous ending. Audiences were enthralled and intrigued after being hooked with the more mainstream premise of a teenage girl’s murder; Lynch had finally found a way to hook more viewers on to one of his non-standard projects (Nerdist). Thus, the attention achieved from the original finale of Twin Peaks (the only episodes he directed outside of the opening few of the first season) naturally had a very tangible impact on Lynch’s career.

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After writing and directing another mind-bending independent film that came in the form of 1997’s Lost Highway, David Lynch signed on to direct the G-rated Disney romp The Straight Story (Filmmaker Magazine). This 1999 film is easily David Lynch’s most mainstream work. However, miniscule touches of his style are still prominent throughout the film. While it is the kind of saccharine story one would expect from Disney, it has a colorful cast of side characters (reminiscent of the residents of Twin Peaks) and its camerawork shares some broad similarities with Blue Velvet (Variety). All of this makes sense, given that The Straight Story was the first feature film that David Lynch directed while having no hand in the writing. Still, Lynch’s involvement in the project proved that Hollywood was finally recognizing his talents and seeking his unique style.

Ever since then, David Lynch has remained in the peripheral vision of mainstream audiences. While not quite a household name, his works have propelled him to being one of the more well-known American directors of the past half century or so. People retroactively began to look back on his older works and find renewed interest, turning Eraserhead and Blue Velvet into strong cult classics among film nerds alongside Twin Peaks. Concurrently, Lynch worked on a number of short films and shows across the 2000s, 2010s, and even into the 2020s. One of his most intriguing and baffling productions was a short, 60-second commercial he made for a Sony video game console, dubbed simply PlayStation 2: The Third Place. It is no more nonsensical than the rest of Lynch’s work, but it stands out because of its role as a promo for what would go on to be one of the best-selling video game consoles of all time. Even though it would be misguided to credit that all to Lynch’s advertisement, it nevertheless left a sizeable impact on a widespread audience, remaining in the memories of gaming communities for decades to come. In part thanks to the opportunity to reach wider audiences due to advancements made in the internet age, surrealist art was touching more people than ever and finding new audiences. Along with the rising popularity of independent film around the turn of the century, where non-traditional storytelling almost became its own miniature fad in Hollywood, David Lynch’s style was on its way to becoming mainstream.

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What really cemented David Lynch in the hearts of cinephiles was his 2001 film Mulholland Drive. It felt like a perfect companion piece or spiritual successor to Twin Peaks with its interweaving plotlines, otherworldly side characters, and unclear lines of reality. The ending of Mulholland Drive is perhaps one of the most debated story moments of Lynch’s career because of just how surreal and non-linear it was. The film was quickly labeled one of the best films of the decade and has remained on many such lists in the following two decades (Nerdist). Since its release, Lynch has shifted his attention to television and other short-form content. He has continued to make surrealist short films like What Would Jack Do? that ended up on Netflix among other originals that became some of the most popular mainstream media of the decade. Meanwhile, he has used his YouTube channel to produce loads of short videos colored with his signature oddities, which consistently draw in thousands of viewers (Far Out Magazine). But the ultimate evidence of cultural power that Lynch managed to achieve – despite his rejection of mainstream filmic practices – was the story behind the Twin Peaks revival season that aired in 2017, known simply as The Return. A season that almost did not happen when executive and budget limitations stopped him from making the project, Showtime gave David Lynch completely free reign to make the 18-episode story he desired. It was slow, raw, abstract, uncomfortable – everything his works have come to be known for (Nerdist). And it was a massive success. Fans tuned in every week for to watch some of the most bizarre, dream-like television ever produced, proving that Showtime’s permission of creative liberties paid off.

Although Lynch may permanently shift mediums going forward, his surrealist style of storytelling will likely never dissipate. Not only is it essential to building the character of his works, it has become widely embraced across the nation as the appeal of his films (Creed 2). Lynchian surrealism brought him from the world of independent cinema to mainstream eyes, demonstrating how non-traditional storytelling has found popularity and widespread success with film audiences in recent years.

Want to learn more? My sources:

David Lynch by Michel Chion

The Passion of David Lynch: Wild at Heart in Hollywood by Martha P. Nochimson

The Untamed Eye and the Dark Side of Surrealism: Hitchcock, Lynch and Cronenberg by Barbara Creed

ScreenRant: https://screenrant.com/david-lynch-eraserhead-established-director-style/

Nerdist: https://nerdist.com/article/david-lynch-filmography-streaming/

Far Out Magazine: https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/david-lynch-career-eccentric-master-cinematic-surrealism/

Hollywood Reporter: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/dune-review-1984-movie-953878/

Variety (1): https://variety.com/1999/film/reviews/the-straight-story-1117499811/

Variety (2): https://variety.com/1976/film/reviews/eraserhead-1200424018/

Filmmaker Magazine: https://filmmakermagazine.com/110889-theres-so-much-darkness-so-much-room-to-dream-david-lynch-on-lost-highway/#.YJK4JrVKiM9

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