From: jblum@hamlet.umd.edu (Hi ho -- Kermit the Frog here...)
Newsgroups: alt.tv.twin-peaks
Subject: Re: Second Guessing
Date: 5 Oct 92 04:26:51 GMT
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park

In article <19h6gkINNphr@gap.caltech.edu> UnoJ writes:
>In article <15523@umd5.umd.edu> jblum@hamlet.umd.edu (Hi ho -- Kermit the Frog
>here...) writes:
>>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.

>Wow Kermit wow! You nailed me here.
...
>My point exactly. Bravo for making it so clear to me, too.

Whoa.  I'm flattered.  :-)

[more deleted...]

>In a sentence you have probably distilled David Lynch's 
>abilities: _powerful_. Yes, if a watcher/listener pays
>close attention to his movies they grip you like a lamprey
>and don't let go. If there is anything I remember from
>TP is David Lynch's ability in knowing how to make a particular
>scene keep your interest.

The classic example: the second-season premiere, where endless shots
of a doddering room-service waiter and Coop lying on the floor kept
me on the edge of my seat despite being boring as all hell.  :-)

[still more cut...]

>>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.

>You are correct here, but there should be a little respite
>from intensity now and then...so I think that there was
>a good amount of intensity in the right spots.

Agreed.  My only quibble was that there was too much of the non-intense
stuff that served simply to bewilder, not to build the mood.

 Although some
>scenes that were undoubtedly intense lost some of its grip
>due to the sheer difficulty in understanding them. The boy
>dancing behind Leland (intense, but what was that all about?) 
>and the LMFAP saying that the table is green (say what?).
>I think (very personal opinion) that these scenes were very
>powerful yet very frustrating because as a TP die-hard I have
>no clue about their significance.  

Well, they engaged my mind, but they didn't wrench my gut the way the
"Hit me" scene from "Blue Velvet", Frank Booth and "In Dreams", or the 
BOB-behind-the-dresser scene did.  Those scenes depict the clash between
the good and evil in characters, in very moving ways, while the convenience
store scene and so forth are merely (?!) stylish surreal film-making that
doesn't grab the emotions.  One style makes you ponder, the other makes
your heart palpitate.

>>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.

>Not really....the best parts about David Lynch are when
>he is able to sharply contrast an intense scene with
>some funny remark that shouldn't belong.

Like I said, Cooper on the floor.  And like you say, Andy crying in the
pilot.  The thing is, though, the comedy is mixed with the emotion-tugging
drama in those scenes, rather than being completely separate scenes.  In
the pilot, at the beginning of act two, the first shot is of Sarah Palmer
still sobbing hysterically.  You feel an involuntary urge to laugh -- Jeez,
is she STILL going on? -- but you're left in internal conflict because of
the obvious pain the character is still in.  You feel both the depth and
the humor at once.  There's no one scene in FWWM that mixes the two tones to
that extreme.

>The impact of this duality is enormous. That's why I say: keep
>both parts, the funny and the serious. They complement each other.

If they'd been able to mix in a little of this humor into Laura Palmer's
story, I'd have had no problem with that tone.  I love it.  But FWWM
suffered from having the two feelings in separate compartments, the
lightness in Deer Meadow and the heaviness in Twin Peaks.  They couldn't
complement each other in the same way when the tone was so clearly divided
into two parts, IMHO.

>Final remark: Someone pointed out earlier that this newsgroup
>has a high signal to noise ratio. To me Kermit's posting was
>an example of that truism. Kermit could have very easily flamed
>my reply to his/her posting (his I assume ;-)). Instead he 
>thought out an excellent reply. 

As did you, UnoJ.  Let's keep the mutual admiration society going
here...  :-)

(btw... "UnoJ"?  Looks suspiciously like backward-masked LodgeSpeak to
me...  :-)