I’m a massive Twin Peaks fan, but this past weekend brought a very different perspective to the show, or at least its 2017 revival run, as I attended the weekend-long screening of all 18 episodes of Twin Peaks: The Return at Los Angeles’ iconic 123-year-old Egyptian Theatre.
I should note that they weren’t showing all 18 episodes in a row with no breaks, but rather playing them in three different blocks, with Parts 1-4 on Friday night, Parts 5-11 on Saturday afternoon and evening, and Parts 12-18 on Sunday afternoon and evening. That’s still a lot to watch close together, but with serious downtime (and important access to your own home and bed!) between the blocks, and a schedule that essentially felt like one you might do for a weekend binge of the show on your couch.
Watching the show in a classic movie theater is very different from watching it at home, and Twin Peaks: The Return truly felt ready-made for this type of presentation in a way few TV shows could be expected to replicate. I typically cringe at miniseries or TV seasons being described as “one long movie” by their creators, feeling like we should let TV be TV. But there’s never been a show quite like Twin Peaks, and there’s never been a creator quite like David Lynch.
Lynch and Mark Frost’s original ABC run of Twin Peaks was groundbreaking and influential in many ways, but The Return felt like it was operating at a whole different level, with an older and arguably even more esoteric and experimental Lynch refusing to stick to many of the expected rules of TV storytelling. The Return was challenging and beautiful and engrossing, and also understandably divisive, frustrating the hell out of even some old school Twin Peaks fans by its off-kilter approach (even by Twin Peaks standards) and its resistance to giving the audience what they thought they wanted from a revival of the show. But I’ve always loved it, and now, after this experience of watching it in a theater, I love it even more.
A Truly Cinematic Experience
Even those who disliked its storytelling would likely admit Twin Peaks: The Return looked and sounded great. It’s a beautifully shot series, filled with striking and unsettling dreamlike (or nightmare-like, depending on the situation) imagery courtesy of Lynch and cinematographer Peter Deming. The sound design from Dean Hurley and Lynch is equally phenomenal, and hearing it played loudly in the theater made it even clearer just how eerie and immersive it is, as Lynch uses sound to hint at the other realms the now firmly supernatural Twin Peaks was playing with even when they’re not on screen.
Not shockingly, The Return’s most acclaimed episode, “Part 8,” was especially effective in the theater. The sequence where we see the atomic bomb test in 1945, apparently tying the events of Twin Peaks to those seen in Oppenheimer for those really into universe-building, and its spectacular, beautifully horrific images of the explosion and the ensuing dimension-breaking consequences, was absolutely riveting, even beyond how it felt to first watch it transfixed at home. The music and sound effects truly surrounded you and brought you into these events in an amazing manner, elevating an already-spectacular episode. (When I reviewed “Part 8” for IGN, I gave it a 9, but in retrospect, it’s a 10. I mean come on, it’s got “The” Nine Inch Nails in it too!)
What was also so gratifying about watching Twin Peaks in the theater was being surrounded by other fans who cheered over and over again, both for the show’s title in the opening credits and for David Lynch’s “Directed By” credit as each episode began. Then there were moments like Dale Cooper’s declaration, “I am the FBI,” which received huge applause and cheers as if we were at an Avengers movie.
One aspect of the show that really shines in a group setting is its humor. One of the most polarizing aspects of The Return is Dougie, the dim-witted persona Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) initially assumes upon escaping the Black Lodge, as it meant that Lynch was making fans wait and then wait plenty more to get the full Cooper back. When he does fully become Cooper again, we get that great FBI line, but before that, there are a lot of wacky moments depicting what Cooper is up to as Dougie. When The Return first aired, it was nearly impossible not to be frustrated by how long this went on, but now, knowing the full scope of the series, and with the perspective of time, this stuff played like gangbusters to the packed audience. We were all cracking up as Dougie kept unwittingly (or is there more to it?) becoming a hero to nearly all those in his orbit, and applauding when he would briefly have a small moment of Cooper-esque clarity, like when he suddenly declared “He’s lying” about Tom Sizemore’s Anthony Sinclair.
This was the second full series marathon of Twin Peaks: The Return this year in the wake of Lynch’s death, after one in New York over the summer, and I really hope it can continue to happen for other areas. The American Cinematheque held the screening at the Egyptian, and one of their employees noted to the audience just how tricky it can be to book TV shows in movie theaters thanks to various stipulations, thanking Showtime, Paramount, and especially Twin Peaks Executive Producer Sabrina S. Sutherland for making this marathon happen. But it would be wonderful if more fans got this type of opportunity going forward, so fingers crossed those hurdles can be overcome.
The Return Happened When It Needed To Happen
There’s an extra feeling of sadness rewatching Twin Peaks: The Return now, thanks to all the notable participants who’ve passed away since, which is especially striking given the series is less than a decade old.
The fact that a Twin Peaks revival actually happened at all is still a Hollywood miracle. Even in an age of constant legacy sequels, reboots, and dusting-off of pretty much any title with name value, the odds felt stacked against Twin Peaks coming back…yet somehow it did. Now, David Lynch’s death earlier this year would seemingly close the door on any talk of another revival, and it certainly feels impossible to imagine anyone being foolhardy to try to do one without him (famous last words, I know). Lynch’s death also means Twin Peaks: The Return stands as the final film or TV project we’ll ever get from him, which makes both the show itself and the gratefulness that we got it in the first place stand out even more.
Lynch’s death came a couple of years after the passing of composer Angelo Badalamenti, Lynch’s frequent collaborator, and another key contributor to Twin Peaks given how much power and atmosphere his music added to that world. Then there’s the returning cast members we’ve lost since the show was produced, including Catherine E. Coulson, Peggy Lipton, Walter Olkewicz, Harry Dean Stanton, Miguel Ferrer, Al Strobel, Marv Rosand, Julee Cruise, and Warren Frost, not to mention those new to Twin Peaks in 2017 who’ve since passed away, like Robert Forster, Richard Chamberlain, and Tom Sizemore. Seeing them all on screen at the Egyptian during the marathon added an extra level of poignancy, and underlined that The Return happened when it needed to.
Lynch spent his final years battling emphysema, keeping him housebound and reliant on supplemental oxygen, which he acknowledged was due to being a lifelong smoker. There are several funny moments in Twin Peaks: The Return involving smoking, mainly due to Diane (Laura Dern) disregarding frequent requests not to do just that. Lynch himself, in his role as Gordon Cole, is a part of some of those moments, including sharing a cigarette with Diane at one point. That material is still warm and funny, but there’s no denying the melancholy feel to it as well now, knowing what took Lynch and his genius from the world.
Remembering David Lynch
This marathon had a true event feel to it from the start, kicking off Friday night with two songs performed by Chrystabell, who frequently collaborated with Lynch on her music and also appeared as Agent Tammy Preston in The Return. Plus, there were in-person introductions for select episodes throughout the weekend from Twin Peaks: The Return cast members, including Ray Wise (Leland Palmer), Dana Ashbrook (Bobby Briggs), Caleb Landry Jones (Steven Burnett), Balthazar Getty (Red), George Griffith (Ray Monroe), Sky Ferreira (Ella), Amy Shiels (Candie), and John Pirruccello (Chad Broxford).
All of them spoke about their love for Lynch, how memorable and inspiring it was working with him, and getting distinctly Lynchian direction from him. Griffith recalled Lynch telling him after a take, “It’s gotta be more…mysterioso.” A veteran of the original series, Ashbrook laughed about how on his first day shooting The Return, he was probably being overly mannered as he settled back into the weird world of Twin Peaks, with Lynch giving him the direction: “I can't believe I'm going to say this to you, but not as weird!”
Shiels recounted how tricky it could be to work with the notoriously troubled Tom Sizemore, but how it led to the humor of seeing Lynch, with his trademark delivery, declaring to Sizemore, “You gotta quit the bad stuff!” Pirruccello, a longtime huge fan of the original series, said how surreal it was to feel like he stepped into a TV set as he went to work at the Twin Peaks Sheriff's Department. Wise, so terrific as Leland in both the original series and in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, has a very small role in The Return, but joked about his failed attempt to get Lynch to introduce Leland’s long-lost twin brother.
After the finale of Twin Peaks: The Return was shown on Sunday night, culminating with the bone-chilling scream of Sheryl Lee as Carrie Page (or was that Laura Palmer?), the marathon wrapped up with a Q&A that included Pirruccello, Shiels, Chrystabell, Griffith, and Wise joined by First Assistant Director Scott Cameron, Editor Duwayne Dunham, Executive Producer Sabrina Sutherland, and On-Set Dresser Mike Malone.
Sutherland spoke about how they truly did produce The Return like a giant film instead of a TV show where episodes are planned and filmed individually, explaining: “We did all the pre-production up front. We started shooting, we shot the whole thing, and then we did the editing.” Malone noted that while The Return began with a single huge script, it initially seemed like it might be four hours or so of material, not 18, “but you could see as we were shooting that the script on Cori Glazer, our script supervisor’s, notebook just kept getting thicker and thicker,” noting that Lynch kept writing additional material as they moved forward.
Dunham got his start as an Assistant Editor on Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, and was one of the editors on Return of the Jedi before his collaborations with Lynch began with Blue Velvet. He said that Twin Peaks: The Return was the only time he needed to keep a script next to him as he edited, simply because of how big it was. As far as Lynch’s eclectic style and approach, Dunham said that when he’s asked to compare Lucas and Lynch, his reply is: “I worked seven years with George Lucas and he taught me how to build a box. I worked only seven months with David Lynch before he taught me how to take the lid off.”
Twin Peaks: The Return was shot under a shroud of secrecy, which extended to most of the cast, who were often only given their script pages. Pirruccello noted that sometimes even the other characters he’d be in a scene with had their dialogue redacted, so he didn’t know what he’d be responding to ahead of time. Still, the entire cast stressed that they found the experience of working on the show an incredibly positive one, both because of the upbeat, welcoming attitude of Lynch and the crew, and because of how much trust they had in Lynch’s vision…wherever it was taking them.
Lynch obviously was not one to typically give straightforward explantions within his work, but during the audience Q&A portion, I asked the cast if he would ever be a bit more specific with them in terms of their characters and motivations. Griffith smiled, saying the most direct Lynch ever was with him was before he shot one of his first scenes, where we see his character, the criminal Ray, sitting with Dale Cooper’s dark and dangerous doppelganger in a diner.
Griffith recalled that regarding Ray, Lynch told him: “‘You are such a fucker. You are such a fucker! When we get there, you're the only one who can fuck with this guy...so do it!’” Griffith said he was now extra excited to shoot the scene, and when they first began filming, he was exuding menace towards Kyle MacLachlan’s evil Cooper as he delivered his lines, only for Lynch to get on the bullhorn after a take: “‘You fuck with him that much, he's gonna fucking kill you!’”
source https://www.ign.com/articles/revisiting-twin-peaks-the-return-with-an-epic-movie-theater-binge-watch