That show you like is going to come back in style

With the recent announcement that, after 25 years, the beloved, and bazar, David Lynch TV series, Twin peaks will return I thought it was only appropriate to post about the show. The cult show which ran for only two seasons and revolved around the murder of a young high school girl, Laura Palmer, and the mysterious story behind the magic of the town Twin Peaks. The show is going to pick up where it left off on ShoTime. The show was canceled because of its gradual decline in ratings, however in the years since it went off the air it gained a cult following. Other television shows began to barrow from the innovative shows format, including Lost, and perhaps most obviously The Killing, the Simpsons spoofed it, and the cast was reunited in an episode of Psych. However Twin Peaks strongly affected the music industry as well.

Many bands have been inspired by the strange show. The title of Sky Ferreira’s album Night Time, My Time, is a quote taken from the shows main character Laura Plamer.  El-P DJ Shaddow, and Mout Eefie all use parts of the shows dialogue in their work. Perhaps the most wildly known use of the show in music is by the British band Bastille, they have a song called Laura Plamer. There is also a band called “Twin Peaks”.

But why did all these musical artists find inspiration in the show? First of all the show was like nothing else on TV at that time. It was terrifying, filled with jump scares, and twisted plot lines that left you up at night. It was however also very funny, and paced with witty and quirky humor. This, I think drew the artists to the show. With so many boring or cliché shows out there it makes sense that the music industry would be drawn to one that totally broke the mold.

I think the artists were also drawn to the main character of the show, who we rarely see alive. Laura Plamer, quite like the show, she counterattacks cauterization. She is seen by her parents and the perfect Homecoming queen seen at the end of most episodes, wile she is really a cocaine abuser, slept around, and depreciated her fiends behind their backs.

Finally I think the music industry was drawn to Twin Peaks because of the music in the show. From the iconic opening song, to the music the little man dances too in the red room, the music is as strange and intriguing as the show itself. It is, in my opinion one of the best sored TV shows.   

Twin Peaks

David Lynch, of Eraser Head fame, made a very strange TV show in the 90's. Trying to explain what twin peaks is to someone who's never watched it is very difficult but I'll try my best. The show at first seems like a soap opera about a detective. It's melodramatic, slow paced, just like the opening credits. Then the plot.. thickens. Twin Peaks is not what it seems, almost nothing is what it seems, as log lady will tell you:

Characters like Log Lady (heres a funny buzzfeed list about her) are what make Twin Peaks so enamoring. Lynch and Frost create a town so small, and so weird, that you cant look away. One of the huge parts of the show is the sound and the score. Though at first it feels cheesy, accept the weirdness David Lynch is throwing your way and you will not regret it.

(Agent Cooper and his best friend)

(Audrey Horne, her hair is full of secrets)

First there's Agent Dale Cooper, an FBI agent sent to town to investigate the murder of Laura Palmer. He loves nothing better than an incredible piece of pie and a damn good cup of coffee.

(Bobby and Shelly)

Next is Audrey Horne, seductress, misunderstood, and written off by her father and many others as a silly teenage girl. She is strong willed and goes to extreme lengths to prove she's not a bratty airhead teenager, as she first seems.

Benjamin Horne, Audrey's father, mostly ignores her and treats her like a little girl. He is a twisted man, which I won't explain. Watch the show to find out just how awful a person he is.

(Leo & Shelly = creepy)

Bobby Briggs is the first suspect in Laura's murder, he was her boyfriend, and is a very 90s-grunge, angsty teenager. He is a smart ass, and as other rebellious teens before him, is the polar opposite of his military man father.

Bobby, however, was seeing Shelly Johnson behind Laura's back. Shelly is married to Leo Johnson but is very obviously scared of him. Shelly's relationship with Leo is more similar to an abusive father-daughter relationship than husband and wife.

(Donna Hayward on life post Laura Palmer)

Leo Johnson is a scary guy. There's something off about him, and he's somehow connected to the drugs that Laura was addicted to before her death.

Donna Hayward, the deceased Laura Palmer's best friend is devastated by her death. Donna is left questioning why Laura died, and why she hid so much of her life from Donna. She's also struggling with her feelings for James Hurley, who Laura was seeing behind Bobby's back.

(James' reaction to Laura's death)

James Hurley is arguable the worst character on the show. His character is weak, uninteresting, and his reactions are unbelievable. It's a wonder he was able to get Laura or Donna to give him the time of day.

There are many other interesting characters on the show I could continue to go on about forever but these few are the most important. You'll just have to watch the show to find all the other weird people.

Coincidentally it was just announced that Lynch and Frost will be writing an directing a continuation of the series to air in 2016.

"New Cinema" and the Emergence of the Puzzle-Box Film

Last week, I watched The One I Love. An impressive directorial debut, it's a film that, on the surface, appears to be a typical indie relationship dramedy with a quirky sci-fi slant on the story. What it actually is is a one of a kind mind bender that somehow manages to grapple with relationship issues in fascinating ways, dealing with themes of longing, identity and the fallacy of romantic idealism. The film is almost impossible to talk about without spoiling the twist(s), so I'll keep it at this: Imagine Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf meets The Twilight Zone as written by Charlie Kaufman and you'll get something somewhat similar to The One I Love.

So, this got me thinking about a trend in modern cinema, and that is the trend of the "puzzle-box film". By this term, I am referring to the type of film that holds the audience at arms length with its meaning, steadily doling out pieces of information in a way that is perhaps not immediately graspable. It's difficult to characterize, as I could easily be referring to surrealism, but the likes of El Topo are not what I'm driving at. These films may have outlandish characteristics, but the stories themselves, when looked at closely are mostly grounded. It's the methods of telling the stories that are complicated. Like a puzzle box, these films can take several days or several viewings to figure out.

This is not the puzzle box I'm referring to.

The puzzle box film is not necessarily a "new" creation, though. In last week's post, I mentioned Last Year at Marienbad, a movie that is possibly the ultimate puzzle box film, inspiring a wider range of theories than anything else out there. Robert Alman's 1977 film, 3 Women could probably fall under this classification, too, as well as David Lynch's Mulholland Dr. The point I'm trying to make, though, is that there seems to be more of them coming out as of late (and made by relatively younger filmmakers). The One I Love is an incredibly mild version of this, but also released this year was Denis Villenueve's cerebral doppelganger drama, Enemy and James Ward Byrkit's challenging debut, Coherence. Spearheading this pseudo-movement is Shane Carruth, who, since 2004, has directed, written, edited, shot, musically scored, starred in and personally distributed two of the most difficult and innovative puzzle box films of the last decade with Primer, a time machine thriller like no other and Upstream Color, a beautiful, yet elusive identity drama with romantic undertones.

You don't want to know what he's looking at...
"Enemy" has one of the most startling endings of all time. 

Two questions lie at the heart of all this is: Where is cinema headed and have we really seen it all? People love to say that all the stories have been told and you can't do something truly new in film, so is it possible to develop a new cinematic language? The aforementioned Upstream Color and this year's masterpiece, Under the Skin (by Jonathan Glazer) are the closest I think we've come to doing so in the last few years. Even if the basic story is old or the themes have been seen before, the manner of expression can still be fresh. Seeing young(er) filmmakers tinkering with editing and storytelling methods is very exciting to me. It shows that invention continues to thrive and not just in the creation of fantastical lands and stunning visuals. Could it be that the art of storytelling, itself, in the realm of film is under renovation? I don't expect every film being released 20 years from now to be as complex and multi-layered as Primer, but as long as experimenters and innovators like Carruth and Glazer (among others) exist in the film community (and they always have), the medium will inevitably evolve and reach heights we never dreamed of.

Also, for a taste of Shane Carruth's unbelievably ambitious and likely never to be made film A Topiary, check out this link.