Movie Review: Irrational Man

Irrational Man
Directed by: Woody Allen.
Written by: Woody Allen.
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix (Abe), Emma Stone (Jill), Parker Posey (Rita), Jamie Blackley (Roy), Betsy Aidem (Jill's Mother), Ethan Phillips (Jill's Father), Sophie von Haselberg (April), Tom Kemp (Judge Spangler).

If you’ve read any interviews with Woody Allen, you know that the man makes films out of a preference for routine, rather than some driving passion. He’s essentially been making a film a year, every year, since the late 1960s, and his latest Irrational Man is his 47^th film (that includes a third of the omnibus film New York Stories and the TV movie Don’t Drink the Water). You can certainly tell that Woody’s heart isn’t in every one of his movies – especially when you watch something like Irrational Man. The film is lazily written by Allen – he is basically doing his umpteenth variation of what may just be his best film, Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), and the “morality or murder”. The characters are classical Allen archetypes, and the dialogue often seems like self-parody, not to mention that the movie is overly repetitive, and other than a few moments where the characters look at their cellphones or reference “the computer” could have been written by Allen back in the 1970s. Basically, Irrational Man is another one of Allen’s “late period” disappointments (his early period stretched from 1966’s What’s Up Tiger, Lily to 1975’s Love and Death, his prime between 1977’s Annie Hall and 1997’s Deconstructing Harry, and we’ve been in this late period ever since). This period has produced some gems – Sweet and Lowdown (1999), Match Point (2005) – another Crimes and Misdemeanors Variation – Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2007), Midnight in Paris (2010), Blue Jasmine (2013) – and any number of films that are, at the very least, entertaining. And to be fair, Irrational Man is not the nadir of Allen’s career – its way better than The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, Scoop, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger or To Rome with Love, and is at least slightly better than last year’s Magic in the Moonlight. Still, if it feels like Allen is going through the motions with this film, well, that’s because that is precisely what Allen is doing.

The film stars Joaquin Phoenix as Abe Lucas – the new philosophy professor at a small, liberal East Coast University, who mopes, drinks and says “very dark things”, and seems to have everyone fooled into thinking that he’s a deep, complicated man – when really, he’s just an asshole. It isn’t long before not one, but two women have fallen for Abe Lucas (and yes, almost every time his name is spoken, it’s said as Abe Lucas, and not just Abe). There’s the age appropriate Rita (Parker Posey), another professor, who is married, but has had many affairs, and sets her sites on Abe Lucas as her latest conquest. Then there’s the very much age inappropriate Jill (Emma Stone), one of his students, who follows Abe around like a lost puppy dog, while he “nobly” refuses to sleep with her, until, of course, he doesn’t. It’s while he is out with Jill, that they overhear a woman telling a sob story about the family court judge who is going to screw her over – when Abe Lucas gets an idea. Abe Lucas will kill the family court judge – making the world a slightly better place. After all, he’s tried to “do the right thing”, volunteering in Darfur and New Orleans, and other places and nothing helped. But murder? Perhaps that will.

This is all pretty standard Woody Allen stuff – and to be fair, some of it works. There is no way the three major characters should feel real or original, and they don’t, but the three actors do a hell of job with them anyway. Parker Posey is playing the “older”, slightly desperate and pathetic woman – ruining her marriage, drinking constantly, and while you could certainly find this character offensive (because, well, it is), Posey reminds the audience just how terrific she can be given a juicy role. This is her first movie with Allen – and not the last (she’s been announced for his next film) – so let’s hope he gives her the juicy role she has deserved for years now. Phoenix is playing what could be described as the Woody surrogate here – the neurotic, suicidal, pretentious intellectual, but like the best Woody surrogates, he doesn’t attempt an impression here – but takes Abe Lucas is an more interesting way. Phoenix is pudgy in the film, and morose, until he hits upon his plan when he becomes much happier. Phoenix, who is one of the best actors working right now, does way more to make this asshole into a believable character than Allen does – and it almost works. Best of all is Stone – who overcomes the limitations of the role (that like Posey’s, you could easily describe as offensive), delivering a wonderfully comic performance, that gives Jill far more intelligence and insight that appears to have been there in the screenplay. Stone was good in Magic in the Moonlight as well last year – so that makes two Allen movies she has saved from being awful in two years. Let’s hope that at the very least, Allen gives her a role as good as Scarlett Johansson’s in Match Point (or hell, even Vicky Cristina Barcelona, where Johansson was perhaps the least interesting major character) at some point.

Allen still knows how to direct – and he does a better job there than on the screenplay. I like the look and feel of the college campus, engulfed in green throughout the film, and there are a few set pieces that work quite well. You can see that there is still talent in Allen. Which is what makes a film like Irrational Man so frustrating. Even though this is the umpteenth version of Crimes and Misdemeanors he has made – that storyline can still work (as Match Point and the grossly underrated Cassandra’s Dream prove). But in order for it to work, Allen needs to give a shit, and actually try. The fact that Irrational Man is as good as it is – and it is, overall fairly mediocre – is a testament to Allen’s undeniable skill. The fact that it’s not any better is a testament to his laziness.

The Films of David Lynch: On the Air (Episode 1) (1992)

On the Air – 1^st Episode (1992)
Directed by:  David Lynch.
Written by: Mark Frost & David Lynch.
Starring: Ian Buchanan (Lester Guy), Nancy Ferguson (Ruth Trueworthy), Miguel Ferrer (Bud Budwaller), Gary Grossman (Bert Schein), Mel Johnson Jr. (Mickey), Marvin Kaplan (Dwight McGonigle), David L. Lander (Valdja Gochktch), Kim McGuire (Nicole Thorne), Marla Rubinoff  (Betty Hudson), Tracey Walter ('Blinky' Watts), Raleigh Friend (Hurry Up Twin), Buddy Douglas (Buddy Morris), Raymond Friend (Hurry Up Twin), Irwin Keyes (Shorty the Stagehand), Everett Greenbaum (ZBC Announcer).

A year after Twin Peaks went off the air, David Lynch and Mark Frost returned to network television for the surreal, half hour comedy On the Air. More than a decade before 30 Rock or Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Lynch and Frost’s show was a behind the scenes look at a live variety show – this time set in the early days of television in the 1950s. The network, ABC, apparently hated the show – and ended up only airing three of the seven episodes that were made in the summer months before pulling it off the air forever. The show has developed a cult following – of course – in the years since though. Lynch directed the first episode of the series, but none of the rest. Having never seen the show, I thought I’d take a look at that first episode to decide if I wanted to venture through the next six. The short answer to that question is no. Had I been a Lynch fan in 1992 (when I was 10), I probably would have stuck with the show to see if it went anywhere. Watching it 23 years later though, I felt the first episode was an unfunny mess – and I don’t see much point in continuing the series.

The show was takes place on the set of fictional television program The Lester Guy Show. Lester Guy (Ian Buchanan) was a movie star coming over to TV, because according to the network, the research shows that the audience wants that. The pilot episode has a series of bad things happening before the show that they work out, and then the show itself – which went out live – was a complete and utter disaster. Anything that could go wrong, did go wrong. The punchline being, of course, that the show was an immediate smash hit because of all the screw-ups.

I found the pilot episode of On the Air to drag – a lot – but not in the way most pilot episodes do. Many pilots are mediocre at best, because you have to spend so much time setting up the characters, their relationship to each other, and the basic outline of the show. By the time you get that out of the way – especially in a half hour sitcom – there’s no room for anything else. I didn’t find that to be the case with On the Air – which spent most of its time dealing with just a few characters, which is smart, but ones who are horribly unfunny and one joke characters, which is not smart.

So, for example, there was Betty Hudson (Marla Rubinoff), the blonde co-star of the show, whose one character trait seems to be that she is the dumbest dumb blonde in the history of the world. She doesn’t understand anything, and has to have it explained to her multiple times (the part about her mother ironing was painful). Then there is Valdja Gochktch (David L. Lander), the show’s director “from the old country” who is supposed to be funny, I guess, because he has an accent. The star of the Lester Guy Show isn’t actually in the opening scenes – as they prepare the show – very much, but once it gets started, he has a lot of slapstick comedy (which, admittedly), is pretty good. There are lots of other characters – like Miguel Ferrar playing the network executive you would expect him to, and a strange soundman named Blinky.

I didn’t really laugh during the first episode of On the Air. The show did get better as it moved along, but in general, I found the whole thing so overtly silly that none of it landed for me. For the most part, I believe you need to have something ground a show like this in reality – that allows you to take weird flights of fancy – but in this show everyone and everything has to be so zany at every second that grounding is impossible.

I’m not surprised the show didn’t last on ABC – hell, I’m surprised it even made to air on ABC at all, or any other network. Perhaps now, with so many channels looking for content, Lynch and Frost could have created a show this outlandish for a small and passionate audience – but not back in 1992. I loved many of the zanier aspects of Twin Peaks, but there they had something to balance them out. Here, they don’t – the whole pilot seems like its cranked up to 100, and this ends up making it the weird combination of boring and exhausting. Yes, it’s certainly a David Lynch TV show – but in this case, just not a very good one.

Movie Review: Whte God

White God
Directed by: Kornél Mundruczó.
Written by: Kornél Mundruczó & Viktória Petrányi & Kata Wéber.
Starring: Zsófia Psotta (Lili), Sándor Zsótér (Dániel), Lili Horváth (Elza), Szabolcs Thuróczy (Old man), Lili Monori (Bev), Gergely Bánki (Dog-catcher), Tamás Polgár (Dog-catcher).

If White God wasn’t as brutally violent a movie as it is, it would be a suitable movie for children. It is in many ways, not unlike a fairy tale – and its ultimate message is both very broad and very obvious – and is basically that those on top shouldn’t treat those underneath like dogs. The fact that the movie uses actual dogs to make this point makes it even more obvious. However, even if the political “subtext” doesn’t really hit as hard as director Kornel Mundruczo would like it to, that hardly effects the movie at all – which is violent, quickly paced, entertaining, and at times jaw dropping in what precisely they get these dogs to do. It also contains one of the greatest canine performances ever (two actually, since two dogs were used) – as the main character emerges of Hagen, a dog leader that rivals Caesar from the recent Planet of the Apes movies – but more impressive, since it’s not Andy Serkis.

The lead human character in the movie is Lili (Zsófia Psotta), a teenage girl whose mother and stepfather are heading off to some sort of three month long conference (no, it makes no sense, but the movie needs to get rid of them), so she has to go and live with her distant, somewhat cruel father Daniel (Sándor Zsótér), along with her beloved dog Hagen. The problem is that Hagen is a “mixed breed” dog – which requires an additional tax be paid – and Daniel will be damned if he’s goes to for his ex-wife’s dog. So, he kicks Hagen out into the streets – and while Lili vows to find him, she is also a typical teenager, and gets drawn into her own drama. Meanwhile Hagen gets to know the rest of humanity aside from Lili – and like Balthazar, the donkey in Robert Bresson’s masterpiece Au Hazard Balthazar (1966) finds that there is little out there except for cruelty. Unlike Bresson’s donkey – who gets his “happy” ending when he sits down to die, Hagen decides to fight back – and does so in the bloodiest way imaginable.

White God touches on many different genres throughout its two hour runtime. It is a fairy tale, with a message so simple that it wouldn’t be out of place in a children’s movie. It also has elements of a horror movie – particularly in the last act, when Hagen goes out to get revenge on all the humans have been cruel to him – stalking them, before killing them in brutally violent ways. It is also a domestic drama, with Lili taking steps towards teenage rebellion – and yet also becoming closer to her father, who becomes more sympathetic as the movie goes along.

The human half of White God is fine, if a fairly typical coming of age family drama. It’s the dog half – the woman that hardly ever leaves Hagen’s side that makes White God as good as it is. Part of that is the rather astonishing performance by the two American dogs playing Hagen. Of course, the credit belongs to the director, who was able to find ways to make the dog’s face express many different types of emotion (none more so than sadness, especially in a scene after a dog fight when he realizes what he has done). Mundruczó also does amazing things with the large group of dogs who swarm near the end. It is truly amazing stuff.

 
White God is an uneven movie to be sure – and its political message doesn’t really work. It’s such a broad message, and it falls apart when you look at it too closely, because it doesn’t find anything specific to ground itself in. Still, White God is still a very good movie – scary and intense and an amazing achievement – truly, you may never see better dog acting than in White God, and that by itself, makes it worth seeing.

Movie Review: Woman in Gold

Woman in Gold
Directed by: Simon Curtis.
Written by: Alexi Kaye Campbell.
Starring: Helen Mirren (Maria Altmann), Ryan Reynolds (Randy Schoenberg), Daniel Brühl (Hubertus Czernin), Katie Holmes (Pam Schoenberg), Tatiana Maslany (Young Maria Altmann), Max Irons (Fritz Altmann), Charles Dance (Sherman), Antje Traue (Adele Bloch-Bauer), Elizabeth McGovern (Judge Florence Cooper), Jonathan Pryce (Chief Justice Rehnquist), Frances Fisher (Barbara Schoenberg), Moritz Bleibtreu (Gustav Klimt), Tom Schilling (Heinrich), Allan Corduner (Gustav Bloch-Bauer), Henry Goodman (Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer), Nina Kunzendorf (Therese Bloch-Bauer).

Helen Mirren is one of the great actresses currently working, so it’s always slightly sad to see her in a movie like Woman in Gold – which she seemingly is nearly every year. Last year it was The 100 Foot Journey, where the talented Mirren had to do an over-the-top French accent (but speak in English), and play the stereotypical snooty French woman, whose exterior rudeness is eventually broken down by the lovable Indian family from across the way. This year, Mirren has to do an Austrian accent - but speak in English again – although this time, the movie addresses it – as she plays a no-nonsense Austrian-Jewish woman in her 70s in the late 1990s. Many of her family died in the Holocaust, but she made her way to America. Now, she wants what is hers – the priceless art work that the Nazis stole from her family – most notably the Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer by Gustav Klimt aka the Woman in Gold painting. No doubt, you know this painting – I know it, and I don’t know much about painting. It is widely considered a masterpiece – valued at over $100 million – and according to Maria Altmann, the woman Mirren plays, should belong to her – not the Austrian government. In the late 1990s, Austria, in an attempt to make themselves look good, decided to allow people to apply to have the artwork stolen from them by the Nazis returned to them. They didn’t expect what they got – but they deserved it.

The story of this is, admittedly, fairly interesting – and perhaps could have made for the basis of fine movie. Unfortunately, Woman in Gold isn’t really all that good, mainly because it tries way too hard to milk tears from the audience, and is basically a paint-by-numbers movie that hits all the beats you expect it to, and none that you don’t. It has been programmed to appeal to older audiences – which is a good thing, since they don’t get much aimed at them – but is basically the same movie we’ve seen before. Take a little Philomena, substitute the Holocaust for the abuses of the Catholic Church and voila, you got Woman in Gold.

Mirren is one of those actresses though that make anything watchable. Yes, her is a clichéd role to be sure – one that she could play in her sleep, but she doesn’t phone it in. She’s acting up a storm, and while it doesn’t do anything unexpected, it’s still fun to watch her. Ryan Reynolds is an odd choice to play her Jewish lawyer – Randy Schoenberg – who gives up everything to help her, but it’s a decent performance in its own way – even if it’s more clichéd than Mirren’s role. Daniel Bruhl is on hand as an Austrian journalist, who basically shows up to explain everything to audience – repeatedly – and then disappear. The talented Tatiana Maslany plays the younger version of Mirren’s character – in scenes set just before her family is taken away, and she flees to America – in the types of scenes that you’ve seen a thousand times before in glossy, Hollywood movies about the Holocaust. Poor Katie Holmes plays “the wife” role (to Reynolds character), and as such is given absolutely nothing to do.

 
Woman in Gold is a safe movie in every sense of the word. It doesn’t seek to challenge the audience in anyway, but serve them easily digestible pabulum, and send them out of the theater feeling good. Does it do that? Perhaps – but it’s hardly satisfying. Mirren is too good for movies like this – and yet it seems like all she is being offered to do. That’s just sad.

The Films of David Lynch: Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992)

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992)
Directed by: David Lynch.
Written by: David Lynch & Robert Engels based on the series by Lynch & Mark Frost.
Starring: Sheryl Lee (Laura Palmer), Moira Kelly (Donna Hayward), David Bowie (Phillip Jeffries), Chris Isaak (Special Agent Chester Desmond), Harry Dean Stanton (Carl Rodd), Ray Wise (Leland Palmer), Kyle MacLachlan (Special Agent Dale Cooper), Mädchen Amick (Shelly Johnson), Dana Ashbrook (Bobby Briggs), Phoebe Augustine (Ronette Pulaski), Frank Silva (Killer BOB), Eric Da Re (Leo Johnson), Miguel Ferrer (Albert Rosenfield), Pamela Gidley (Teresa Banks), Heather Graham (Annie Blackburn), Frances Bay (Mrs. Tremond), Peggy Lipton (Norma Jennings), David Lynch (Gordon Cole), James Marshall (James Hurley), Walter Olkewicz (Jacques Renault), Jürgen Prochnow (Woodsman), Kiefer Sutherland (Agent Sam Stanley), Lenny Von Dohlen (Harold Smith), Grace Zabriskie (Sarah Palmer), Gary Hershberger (Mike Nelson), Al Strobel (Philip Michael Gerard), Gary Bullock (Sheriff Cable).

Spoiler Warning: This post reveals plot details from the TV show Twin Peaks, including its finale.

It is easy to see why seemingly everyone hated Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me when it came out. The show had lost almost all of its audience by the time it ended, but those who stuck around were treated to a giant “fuck you” ending to the series. Co-creators David Lynch and Mark Frost must have known the show was coming to an end, but rather than crafting a more traditional, wrap-up finale for Season 2, they decided the best way to end the series was to have its hero, Agent Dale Cooper, trapped in the Black Lodge, while his evil doppelganger, now Bob the spirit that had possessed Leland Palmer and killed Laura is running free. When Lynch announced a follow-up feature, fans, naturally, assumed that he would wrap up all their questions. Why else do one? What Lynch did instead was make a prequel to Twin Peaks – focused almost entirely on the final week of Laura Palmer’s life – and while he does clarify what happened to Cooper, he doesn’t really resolve it. Most of the main characters from the series weren’t even in the film at all – or had mere cameos. And perhaps most offensive to all to this crowd, the movie wasn’t just a two hour long episode of the TV series. Free from the confines of network TV, and of co-creator Mark Frost, who Lynch had clashed with in season 2, Lynch could do whatever the hell he wanted – and he did. The TV series, at its best, was a masterful mixture of tone – thriller, noir, parody, comedy, melodrama – but Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me discards almost all the light elements of the show, for its dark, surreal, nightmare tone. Fans wanted a Twin Peaks episode, and Lynch gave them a David Lynch film. They were not happy. The film got booed at Cannes, was decimated by critics and ignored by audiences. Lynch, who had wanted to make this a trilogy of sorts, further exploring the Black Lodge, had killed Twin Peaks. I have to admit, when I first saw the film – after watching the series the first time, I shared some, but not all, of the feelings of its detractors. The first time through it was confusing and disappointing in many way. Watching it the second time though – more than a decade after my first viewing, and after having watched the entirety of the Twin Peaks series again, I have to say this. I was wrong. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me may not rank among Lynch’s masterpieces – but it’s still a great movie. And rather than a fuck you to fans, what Lynch actually does in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me is make the whole series better in retrospect – which was already pretty great.

The first half hour of the film concerns the investigation into the murder of Teresa Banks (Pamela Gidley), another 17-year old girl whose murder predates Laura’s by a year, and is part of the original series. FBI Agent Chester Desmond (Chris Isaak) is assigned the case, alongside Sam Stanley (Kiefer Sutherland). He receives the opposite greeting that Cooper would receive in Twin Peaks – as the local Sheriff doesn’t want him around, and makes no effort to hide his feelings of contempt for the FBI. Desmond doesn’t care, he’s looking into this murder anyway. He seems to be making headway – but what he really needs to know is where Teresa’s ring is – it was clearly on her finger at some point, but has gone missing. The final thing he Desmond does is find the ring underneath Teresa’s trailer – he bends down to pick it up, and then the movie fades out – Desmond is gone.

The rest of the film takes place in Twin Peaks a year later – the final week of Laura Palmer’s life. In the show itself, Laura Palmer was really just a symbol; - a reflection of the town itself, as when Cooper first gets there, he thinks he’s investigating the murder of a complete innocent – the beloved high school homecoming queen, but the further he investigates the more dark secrets about Laura’s past he uncovers. Laura, like the town of Twin Peaks itself, had a perfect exterior that hides unspeakable darkness. What Lynch does in Fire Walk with Me is make Laura much more a human character – this deepens the rest of the series as well, as we are no longer dealing with a symbol, but a human being.

When the movie beings, Laura is already well down the path to self-destruction. She walks into high school alongside her best friend, Donna Hayward (now played by Moira Kelly, as the original Donna, Lara Flynn Boyle either didn’t want to be a part of the show, or had a scheduling conflict, depending on who you believe) – and everything seems fine. They flirt with their boyfriends – Mike and Bobby (Dana Ashbrook), and seem like regular high school girls. Then Laura goes into the bathroom, and takes a couple of bumps of cocaine. From there, her slide gets worse when she comes home from school and sees Bob (Frank Silva), the man she says has been climbing into her window since she was 12 and raping her. But when she runs outside, it isn’t Bob she sees exiting the house – but her father Leland (Ray Wise). Is it possible that it is Leland who has been raping her this whole time? As the movie progresses, Leland’s behavior becomes more erratic, and Laura looks at him differently – trying to figure out if she can trust what she saw. Meanwhile, she’s embroiled in the typical high school love triangle – caught between Bobby and James Hurley (James Marshall), which takes on darker dimensions because of what Bobby is involved with – and she’s also working as a prostitute for Jacques Renault (Walter Olkewicz).

Like many Lynch films, Twin Parks: Fire Walk with Me plays like a surreal nightmare for much of its running time. Nowhere is there more apparent than in the scene in Renault’s bar, where Laura goes to work as a prostitute, and Donna follows. Donna wants to see what Laura is doing – and wants to help save her – not realizing just how far gone Laura already is. The scene, with its red glow, loud thumping music (which required subtitles) really does play like something out of hell. Donna tries to act tough – she doesn’t want Laura to know she’s scared, and ends up getting herself into trouble. It is Laura how saves her – showing she hasn’t completely lost herself. She may have given up on herself, but she hasn’t given up on Donna. There are other dreams – some set in the Black Lodge, others of visions Laura has (including a disturbing scene with Heather Graham as a bloody Annie Blackburn back for a cameo) that up the nightmare and weirdness quotient.

The movie is dark and disturbing – with none of the lightness of the TV show to offset it. It’s fitting though, as this really is a story about a young girl, traumatized by years of sexual abuse, spiraling out of control, and finally realizing that it was her father who was raping her all along. How can you not make that dark? Sheryl Lee is brilliant in the movie – the movie asks her to go to very dark places, and she does, and delivers a startling performance that makes you wonder how she didn’t become a bigger star. The film is one of the darkest of Lynch’s career, as he offers no humor to offset the darkness, as he just takes us further and further into the dank, depressing existence of Laura’s before she was murdered. The murder itself is also depicted – and is appropriately disturbing and nightmarish. If Lynch offers any hope, it’s in a final scene, where at least we know Laura is no longer suffering.

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me is not the masterpiece that several Lynch films are – but it is hardly the disaster that many thought it was back in 1992. The film is perhaps a little too episodic, and Lynch tries perhaps a little too hard to cram in scenes with Agent Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan, in an extended cameo), and his investigation into Teresa Banks and Agent Desmond, as well as a very strange scene involving David Bowie, as another missing FBI agent, who shows up for a scene, which allows us back into the Black Lodge – alongside Bob, Mike and The Man From Another Place, for some more backwards talking strangeness. The movie doesn’t always flow naturally between these scenes.

Overall though, I found Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me to be a much better experience the second time around – a near great movie that retroactively makes the series better, richer and deeper. It’s every inch a David Lynch movie as well, and one of his darkest. Yes, I know why fans still have a hard time with the movie – it is not the same as a Twin Peaks episode. And I know why non-fans haven’t embraced it either – it is so tied to the convoluted backstory of the TV series, that if you haven’t seen the series, you’ll be lost in the movie. But for those willing to take a dark, disturbing trip, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with me offers a disturbing, graphic descent into hell. It’s a great movie – and deserves a better reputation than it has.

The Films of David Lynch: Twin Peaks (1990-1991)

Twin Peaks (TV Series) (1990-91) 30 Episodes
Created By: David Lynch & Mark Frost.

Note: This isn’t an episode by episode breakdown – not even of the six directed by Lynch - of the show just some general thoughts on it. I don’t have the time for that – although I have seen the entire run of the show within the last six months – for the third time.

More than 20 years after Twin Peaks went off the air, the series still stands as perhaps the weirdest show ever to make it to network television in America. Stranger still is the fact that for a brief time, Twin Peaks was the pop culture sensation of the moment. It’s thrilling first season – a two hour pilot and 7 more 1 hour episodes – became must watch TV, no matter how weird it all got. Perhaps it was inevitable that the show could not maintain the level of inspired genius of season 1. With Lynch not as hands on in season 2, the series suffered – it took weird detours into overstuffed subplots, and started to feel like it was just adding stuff for the sake of being weird. The mastery of tone that was present throughout season one – perched precariously between parody, thriller, comedy and surreal nightmare – began to slip. Knowing they were going to be canceled at the end of the season, Lynch and co-creator Mark Frost decided not to wrap up the series, as most would do knowing the ax was falling, but instead end season 2 with what seemed like a giant fuck you to the audience and the network. Than when Lynch went on to make the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me the year after the season was cancelled (which will get its own post), people assumed he would wrap the series up for real. Instead, once again, Lynch basically said fuck you to the audience with the film – no wonder it was hated (and not wonder it has since found the cult it deserves). Lynch was a cult director before Twin Peaks, and he returned to one after. But for a few glorious moments, David Lynch had mass appeal – and he used it to its full potential.

The first season of Twin Peaks remains one of the great TV seasons of all time. If you’re looking for the start of auteur driven television – which has since given us everything from The Sopranos to Mad Men – it’s here. The series opens with the body of Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) being discovered in the titular small town. Twin Peaks seems like the perfect place – an idyllic logging community, where everyone knows everyone else, and people are friendly. They have a square jawed Sheriff, a bumbling deputy, the local diner, where everyone eats. Life revolves around the high school, the diner, and the logging companies – where most people work, or depend on anyway, to support them. Laura was one of the stars of the town – a beautiful, teenage blonde, who was dating the popular football star, Bobby, and was best friends with the goody-two shoes Donna. The pilot episode is all about the immediate aftermath of discovering the body – and how it affected everyone in town in strong ways. Laura’s parents (Ray Wise and Grace Zabriskie) most of all, but hardly alone.

Into this town walks FBI Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) – who immediately falls in love with the place. It has the smell of pine, great coffee, and one hell of a piece of pie. He sees the inherent goodness in the town, and wants to get to the bottom of the case. He gets “feelings” sometimes about a case – and occasionally has dreams in which he’ll discover clues. Perhaps the most famous scene in all of Twin Peaks is one such dream – in an episode directed by Lynch himself – as a mysterious dwarf in a red room speaks backwards telling him what he needs to know.

The first season of Twin Peaks works brilliantly because it is able to keep all its many moving pieces in the air at the same time. It’s certainly an odd series of television – and we’re never quite sure how everything is going to fit together, but you also don’t really care. It feels like Lynch and Frost have you right where they want you – and twist the series every so often to keep you guessing. The cast is large – but it makes sense since the show isn’t solely about a murder of a woman, but her effect on the town. As the season progresses, Agent Cooper continues to believe in the inherent goodness of the town and its people – but we in the audience aren’t as convinced. There is something evil in this place – and it’s been there a long time – and the town has seemingly actively avoided it. Laura’s death makes it impossible to look away. The season ends with a cliff hanger – Agent Cooper getting shot by a mask man. It was the perfect way to end – and set up what was to come brilliantly.

What came, of course, was the wildly uneven Season 2. For everything that worked brilliantly – like the opening of Season 2, with Agent Cooper lying on the ground bleeding for the first half of the first episode – there were an ever increasing number of subplots, characters and detours that took us away from what we really wanted to see. Lynch and Frost conflicted about whether or not to solve the murder – Lynch didn’t want to, Frost did (they both said they knew from the beginning who the murderer was) – and when they did solve the murder halfway through season 2, the show didn’t seem to have a plan on where to go to next. Ratings kept dropping, and the show was eventually axed – but not before Lynch returned to direct the series finale, a mindfuck of an episode worthy of him.

Twin Peaks remains one of my favorite TV shows ever – even the uneven season 2. Say what you want about – it was still weirder and more daring than anything else on TV. No, it didn’t work anywhere near as well as season 1 – but it was something anyway.

At its best, Twin Peaks was a masterful mixture of tragedy, comedy, thriller, parody and surreal nightmare. It walked that line brilliantly – and introduced us to a host of characters that remain lodged in your mind. The first season is genius – and deserves all the praise it receives. The second season is deeply flawed, but is worthy of your attention. Twin Peaks represented the apex of Lynch’s popularity – for a short period of time it seemed that people were on his wavelength. It didn’t last long – but I’m amazed it happened at all.

The Films of David Lynch: Industrial Symphony No. 1: The Dream of the Brokenhearted (1990)

Industrial Symphony No. 1: The Dream of the Brokenhearted (1990) 
Directed by: David Lynch   
Featuring: Laura Dern, Nicolas Cage, Julee Cruise, Michael J. Anderson, Josh Bell.

What is one to make of Industrial Symphony No. 1? The “story” begins with Laura Dern and Nicolas Cage on the phone with each other (they look they are dressed like Lula and Sailor, but I don’t think they’re really playing them). Cage breaks up with Dern, who cannot believe what she is hearing, and does not want to accept it. From there, we are transported to a stage – filled with strange, industrial machinery, where the bulk of the action will take place. Julee Cruise, a very talented singer, is playing the “dream self” of the heartbroken woman – and she’ll spend most of the rest of the movie singing love ballads to the one who broke her heart. The music was written by Angelo Badalamenti and Lynch, and features some music from Twin Peaks, as well as wholly original music.

The story of the movie is simple – and fits in with much of what Lynch has done before. He has often made films that spend time inside of dreams and nightmares. Here, he has a made a lament of a woman with a broken heart – and it features some beautiful, sad music, well performed by Cruise. Lynch and Badalamenti are among the best director/composer duos in film history – working together on every Lynch feature from Blue Velvet to Mulholland Dr. (as well as on Twin Peaks, and in various shorts, etc). The two are just in synch with each other – with Badalamenti’s haunted melodies a perfect fit for the dreamlike worlds created by Lynch, but whose music can turn equally dark and nightmarish. The best thing about Industrial Symphony No. 1 is the music.

The actual “movie” though is another story. It’s only 50 minutes long – and it was a filmed play, that was staged only twice in Brooklyn in 1989, before Lynch shot it and put it out of Laserdisc and VHS the following year. I have to give Lynch credit here – the film never just looks like a photographed play. Lynch tries very hard to make it all visually interesting by the way he shoots and edits it all together. But it’s not easy to make a stage play – especially one that is this visually dark – interesting when filmed, and Lynch doesn’t really succeed in doing so with the film.

Like much of Lynch’s non-feature work, Industrial Symphony No. 1 is never less than interesting, but also not quite satisfying. As an avant-garde stage experience, this may well have worked. As a film, it doesn’t. Yes, the music is haunting, and beautifully performed – and Lynch fans will enjoy it more than non-Lynch fans. But even for me, at 50 minutes, this one felt long – felt like it repeated itself too often - musically, visually and thematically. It’s a curiosity piece to be sure – but not much more.