Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
It had been awhile since I last watched Fire Walk With Me, and oh how had I forgotten that movie’s ability to scare me so bad that despite being an adult I wanted to sleep that night with the lights on. Twin Peaks has the remarkable ability to make me laugh one second, cry another, and then scare the bejeezus out of me, all in the same episode or in this case movie. There are a number of terrifying moments in the movie, but that dream sequence where Laura sees Annie in her bed amongst other things, is truly one of the most frightening scenes I’ve seen in a movie.
Like a lot of the show, Fire Walk With Me is uneven at times, but the highs are so worth the momentary lows.
It’s true that Chris Isaak isn’t going to be winning any awards for acting, but apart from that I was struck by how solid the movie was. For some reason I remembered it as being a lot more disjointed, but then some of that may be because this is the first time I’ve watched it since Twin Peaks The Return aired on Showtime. Having seen The Return, I noticed the reference to “Judy” and the burnt woodsmen from the Gotta Light episode showing up in a dream sequence. I can’t be sure which way he does it, but I suspect that Lynch tends to put a lot of fairly random things into scenes and then bring them back when he does something new like he’s planting seeds to harvest later. Whether he plans it ahead or does it at random, the effect is magical.
One of the reasons I like Twin Peaks is how much it inspires other artists to create. That’s a big part of why I’m watching it ahead of embarking on another novel.
I like how Lynch uses weirdness to world build. Lily’s Codes defining the Teresa Banks murder as a “Blue Rose Case,” I think does a lot for inspiring me as a writer. I think this did a lot for expanding the world of the show. Characters in The Return can ask, “a Blue Rose case?” and everyone instantly knows they’re not talking about a normal investigation. I once ran a roleplaying game I called Blue Rose Cases, which was a blend of Twin Peaks and Fringe. Of course part of the reason I’m watching this all again is for inspiration, but I’m also looking forward to how much art I believe Twin Peaks is inspiring yet again in others.
One of the most memorable sequences from Fire Walk With Me, the biggest take away of it I think I had when I first saw it in the theater, is the scene with David Bowie. In it Cooper says that it’s the day that the dream he had took place. And we watch the dream unfold. Cooper stands in front of a security camera, then goes back to the room that monitors the cameras. He repeats this until he sees himself somehow still standing in the hall despite also being in the security room. Philip Jefferies (Bowie) enters and starts ranting about all sorts of craziness until he disappears. I think that trick with the camera feed is a good way of noting that something unnatural, or unexplainable is occurring. Even in a scifi story with no magic, I think that might be a good way of denoting a fork in reality or crossover of universes.
I said in my last blog post about Twin Peaks that Lynch had improved on his already prodigious ability to utilize dream sequences, and that improvement continues into Fire Walk With Me. Holy cow the dream sequence with Laura and Annie… As Philip Jefferies says, “We Live In A Dream.”
Next up: Twin Peaks The Return
