In anticipation of Showtime's revival of the series, Jay and Josh gush over Twin Peaks for 45 minutes! Specifically, their love for the much maligned prequel film Fire Walk With Me, directed by David Lynch.
"Dale Cooper is worried about something and that's when David Bowie shows up" Has there ever been a more accurate discription of the bizarreness of Twin Peaks?
But in the show Cooper is more eccentric, enthusiastic, and eager to get the case solved, it's only as the show progresses that you see him gradually get worried.
@TET - COM "Judy" throughout Twin Peaks is a metaphor or symbol for a plot point's conclusion. He's sort of saying "whatever is going on, isn't over yet". The disturbed tone is due to the fact that characters in the show, when attention is no longer put on them through an active plot, disappear from existence. And he is worried that will happen to him again (he was just 'gone' for 2 years) when no attention was put on him.
The idea of watching Twin Peaks in the early 90’s with no message boards of theories or clarifications on what’s going on it must’ve been such an amazing experience.
Dunno if you'll see this as your comment is pretty old, but yes it was amazing. Looking back to when I was 10 and Twins Peaks was on TV, the really interesting thing to me is how all the kids in my class were huge fans of the show whilst our parents mostly dismissed it as weird and silly. We GOT it and they didn't. Great artists like Lynch keep the gifts they were born with, which is an incredibly difficult and rare thing to achieve.
Here is the big secret. We talked about it. Face to face, maybe over the phone, maybe through written correspondence. When I picked up a copy of The Secret Diary and read it, I was floored. Then came Fire Walk With Me. The failure of the movie critics, Hollywood folks and reviewers to acknowledge the absolutely wrenching and yet magnificent acting of Sheryl Lee not into account and reward her achievement in bringing to life the horrible death of Laura Palmer.
Shows like this were called “water cooler shows” bc every week, you would surround the water cooler at work and discuss the previous episode with all your coworkers
This was absolutely the most disturbing movie I have ever seen. I read that people from RAINN (Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network) said it's a very accurate description of incest and sexual abuse and I can see that fully in Laura Palmer. I think Jay and Josh get it right with the importance and accuracy of the emotions in this movie and the notion of Laura sacrificing herself by isolating her loved ones from the fucked up shit she both is subjected to and contributes to. Laura accepting her fate is such a powerful thing. Love this movie.
Lynch's description of her as radiating light but dying inside is so powerful to me. I don't think I've ever been moved by a character more, and knowing the tragic reason she exists in the first place just makes it so much more... oof. It hurts in a good way.
Sheryl Lee has said that victims of incest have told her in confidence that her performance as Laura has helped them come to terms with their own traumas
i love how you forgot the comma between r@pe and abuse to make it seem like r@pe is ok until some people take it too far to where it becomes abusive lmao. yes i had to censor myself because youtube deletes everything i say that isnt rated G
Also waiting for this, but i think that it's never happening. They review movies, not series, after all. We're just luck that they had to talk about the first seasons to give context for this movie.
@@fuccboiz1568 star trek is on another level. You don't see them reviewing a movie and ramdonly saying "oh, it reminds me of an episode of twin peaks".
Temparo : I agree with you. Bob is not scary. I actually started losing interest after they revealed him. "Hey everybody, see that guy, the guy who looks like he's a roadie for the Doobie Brothers? Yeah, that guy is an unspeakable evil. You should totally be scared of the guy in head-to-toe denim." I'm reasonably certain I could kick the shit out of him, and I'm supposed to be terrified? Yeah, he never really did it for me.
One of the scariest shots within the full context of each episode, IMO, is that shot we keep seeing in season one that's looking up at the dark hallway and ceiling at the top of the stairs in the Palmers' house
@@ryanjavierortega8513 Watch the third season. You’re missing out on so much beauty! And if you haven’t, the lady they’re referring to is just some person. No one knows her.
@@beezy5628 I'm a massive fan of FWWM. I was disappointed by The Return, only because of that stupid 'What year is this' ending. Really felt betrayed by Lynch's self-indulgence
FWWM is Lynch saving Laura’s soul. It’s his attempt to transform her from a husk - a shell - to a living, breathing, tragic heroine who stood resolute against her impending death. Regardless of how someone may walk away from this film, it’s unequivocally an important part of the canon and treats her character with the respect that it deserves.
I downloaded Fire Walk with Me in preparation for watching this re:View (and watching the new season), it was an hour and a half long, felt kind of disjointed; some of the transitions were just a cut to black for a couple seconds and then right into the next scene. Only by the time the credits rolled I found out I had watched the deleted scenes.
Basically every torrented version of FYMM is actually The Missing Pieces, which I think is really hilarious. I mean, I guess it's a great way to make it so that nobody watches the movie illegally.
Watching it on my phone for the first time just now terrified me. Then they played the Laura Dern one and I turned the phone around as far as I possibly could while still seeing and that was still horrifying.
Alluding to the fact that the original TV series had some of the strongest and most frightening scenes of all, ones that even outshone Fire Walk With Me, I feel like you omitted what was for me the absolute high point: Season 2 episode 7, the last third of that episode, the conclusion of Maddy's storyline.
When I finally got up to that episode when I watched the series on Netflix I was shocked. It's admittedly pretty tame by comparison to most things nowadays but it was so unexpectedly brutal that it really stuck with me.
I just saw this at an art theatre, and that Pink Room scene music vibrated through my very core; it was so f**king cool! Few movies have captured a club's sonic environment as well as this one.
P.S. Please do a special review together of Season 3 sometime! I know that RLM doesn’t do shows...but hey, it’s friggin’ Twin Peaks... If anything can get an exception, this show is it! I’d love hearing a discussion about it from you guys...and I’m surely not alone.
I'm still hoping Jay and Josh would do the return. Even if they don't have a strong grasp on what that whole season was about (who does), I would just love to hear their thoughts (And I would love it even more if they made two parts cause it's 18 hours).
How this film is still looked upon unfavourably is baffling. Regardless of how you feel about it's relationship to the TV series, it's arguably Lynch's masterpiece, and Sheryl Lee's performance is quite possibly one of the greatest pieces of acting ever committed to film.
It is _one_ of his masterpieces, it's hard to rank it among Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive, Lost Highway and Inland Empire... And of course the new season of Twin Peaks
Jonathan Vasilevic if you did not see the series it’s really a nonsensical mess. I had seen the series and remember sitting in shock after seeing TPFWWM for the first time
There was a huge backlash against Lynch at the time due to the controversy over Wild At Heart. Barry Gifford - author of the novel it’s loosely based on - talks about journalists pressuring him to slag on the movie. He would would tell them point blank he loved the movie and how it turned out.
"Black as midnight on a moonless night." My favorite quote by special agent Dale Cooper. One day I wish to ask for black coffee like that... but then I realize I would look like a complete asshole.
are you KIDDING? you might meet your soulmate that way! if a guy had come into the diner I worked the night-shift at, and asked for a cup of coffee as black as midnight on a moonless night, I would have thrown my badge down on the counter and driven away with him, no questions asked. DO IT
One fascinating and often overlooked element happens in the scene with Mike and Leland and the engine revving. The sound makes you think that Leland is covering up what Mike is saying to Laura. That is certainly part of what is happening. However the series points out that when Black Lodge spirits manifest it is accompanied by a smell reminiscent of that of scorched motor oil. See what is said when they see the mechanic in the parking lot at the tail end of this scene, fascinating.
-Hey, Chief, I got an idea. Why don't we take a look at Burns' suit? -Did you have the same backwards talking dream with the burning cards?! -I'll drive...
18:50 That kind of pissed me off about Ebert. He had no idea what was going on with Isabella behind the scenes and gave the movie one star partly based on this conjecture. On the other hand the lead actress in Last Tango in Paris was actually sexually humiliated by Brando and the director and he gave it 4/4 stars.
Ebert actually did know a little about what was going on behind the scenes during filming. His print review at the time went into detail on it: Actors given just their lines of dialogue without seeing the full script, the Frank scenes withheld from all copies of it - so that they didn’t know the movie they were signing onto - which today would be considered unethical.
i felt like ebert had no credibility (read: hack fraud) for many of my formative years due to this and his lack of appreciation for the first tmnt movie (among other things). although, saying i've come around to him since is an understatement. i guess that's the plight of a critic: your initial reactions to films when they came out never go away. always blows me away when professional, even revered film critics just completely misunderstand great films. feels like they were sleeping on the clock.
Reminder that Ebert gave fear and loathing in las vegas one star because he missed the entire point of the movie (it's commentary on the failed idealism of the 1960s counterculture and the death of the American dream) and all he got out of it was DUDE DRUGS LMAO. He also gave kindergarten cop 3 stars and fight club 2 stars
I think that Laura is almost a christ-like figure, she sort of bares the entire burden of the town’s inherent evil and darkness, and attempts to take it with her to the grave. Fire Walk With Me is one of those movies that twists the stomach, I feel like it took something from me after I watched it.
Glad someone else thought of this too. Like Jesus she has a sacrificial aspect to her story without it being a tale of redemption. Her taking the ring to me is preventing Bob’s corrupting her, and just as she touched and affected everyone in Twin Peaks, she would be the logical conduit to corrupting the town as well, so she chose to not allow that. Powerful, harrowing stuff.
@@joelsmith5938 "Bob says he wants to be me" - just like he "tasted" through Leland's mouth. In Leland's death scene we learned Bob had used him since he was a boy.
A real stroke of genius from Lynch to both have this character who is a symbol of purity or "belief in goodness" for the entire town, while simultaneously portraying the immense burden of being cast in that role. Laura is an extremely nuanced character in what she represents, which is especially compelling considering how little screen time she has in the original run.
I love how everything in the opening is the inverse of what we're used to. Chet Desmond is basically a bizarro Cooper, grim and serious in opposition to Coop's light-hearted enthusiasm. Even their initials are inversed (C.D. vs D.C.)
On the whole "no no no, DON'T watch the prequel first" thing...I feel like that should be a general rule of thumb for ALL film and television. Always watch things in the order they came out, because there's always at least a little influence of the chronologically-second thing in the prequel, because at least to some degree it's designed for people who already watched the original. Biggest example I can think of is The Thing. If you watch the 2010 prequel first, it RUINS the first act of the 1982 original.
There are interesting exceptions, like maybe watching Monsters University before Inc. or the Machete Order for Star Wars. Though yeah, as a general rule I'd whole-heatedly agree. Like, Better Call Saul utilises the foreknowledge of Breaking Bad to create tension, and give more context to the characters.
Same here haha...it was so damned bewildering, but still brilliant. Watching the show later on, the twist in S2 was spoiled, but it still wasn't a bad way to experience Twin Peaks.
"It makes everything more tragic, you want to reach into the screen & help her".. Then the ending of The Return happens & Dale does exactly this...which creates it's own set of consequences - Lynch is a genius
I just saw this for the first time; I think that the movie makes Bob way more symbolic, or metaphorical. That Leland ins't ever Bob, and that maybe Bob is Laura's way of rationalizing the abuse.
Id like to personally thank redlettermedia, Jay, and Josh for introducing twin peaks to me. Especially in time for season 3. It was right up my alley, and it's like I've been searching for something exactly like this in subject matter. I absolutely love it. Thank you so much. You probably won't even see it, maybe 3 strangers will but this was a privilege to experience during my existence.
Despite the drop in quality afterwards, I think we can all agree that everything up to, including, and resolving that reveal was still incredible. Agent Coopers scene in the prison cell still gives me chills.
You left out part of the quote. "Has there ever been a series that was that loved, then crashed and burned that hard, THAT FAST? Game of thrones was popular for awhile before it pissed everyone off. Twin Peaks only had one season before it started to tank.
you guys nailed how this movie feels; sometimes i think the reason it was so hated when it came out was just how horrific, dark and unsettling it was. david lynch's capacity to evoke deep, intense emotion is often understated when people talk about his films; i think mullholland drive and eraser head, to a certain extent, achieve this as well, but not nearly as much as fire walk with me. i totally agree with jay, this is probably the worst i've ever felt for a character in a movie, and yet i love how it's never exploitative or excessive: david lynch treats the subject of laura with so much warmth and care that you really feel like you're there with her. anyway, great video guys, this is easily my fav re:view you've done so far.
I just saw a screening of David Lynch: The Art Life, which is basically a feature length interview with him about his early life, painting, and his rise to filmmaking. He ends up talking about some already famed stories such as the crying naked woman in his childhood which served as inspiration for Rossellini's nude freakout scene in Blue Velvet, and how the small two-block town served inspiration for most of his work as a whole. Interestingly though, he brings up this 'double-life' he had in high school where he would go out drinking in the city at night with some of his unsavory friends. At a certain point he said that he felt like he was living a 'triple-life' where he had to act different around his family than he would his friend group A versus friend group B, etc. and how at the time it was very hard to reconcile the feelings of being a very split young person. A pretty eerie summation and inspiration for how Laura Palmer's character operates. FWWM is still pretty great though, and feels kind of like a bleak impressionist painting; if you look too close at the strokes you can sometimes get lost, but when you step back and view the whole thing it works pretty well, at least with Lynches intentions in mind. I listen to the OST at least once a week and I think it's even superior to the already great work on the TV show. I can't wait for Sunday!
The whole film is so emotional, so traumatising, so visceral and then you get to that ending. That moment at the end where Laura is smiling as she looks at the angel…at that point I just burst out crying, full on sobbing my eyes out. Watching FWWM is an emotional rollercoaster and by the end you feel like you’ve been through trauma yourself. An incredible piece of work and I’ll never understand why it’s so hated in some quarters.
Aww, Jay, you REALLY missed out on not seeing this in theaters! The sound, most definitely the Pink Room scene, was INCREDIBLE! Looking around the theater, between the strobe lights & red lighting, was wild with the pulsating bass and low-end drone sound. BTW, great correlation, saying Laura is kinda like Donnie Darko. Well done!
The episode when Bob punches Madeline in the face, that was the most shocking thing I'd seen back in the day on network TV up to that point. I remember reading a review in the local paper railing on Lynch for his ultra-violence... This was back in the PMRC era of things.
We definitely need an extended re:View of the new season of Twin Peaks. It's basically an (albeit 18-hour-long) movie, and so appropriate for a re:View.
I burst in years and quiet screams when watching Laura's scream in the last season, it was the same reaction I had when I confessed my sexual abuse to my supporting and loving life partner she is my Agent Cooper never gave up on me and my borderline pd, this series affected me so much and gave me power at the same time to tell someone. I could feel Laura as miself. It is truly an all time masterpiece.
Has anyone read The Diary of Laura Palmer? I thought that added a lot to the show and to Fire Walk With Me. It's also horrible and tragic as she goes into the horrible abuse she has been suffering since she was little.
Mark Frost also wrote 'The Secret History of Twin Peaks' which was released late last year, presumably to fill in the story hoes between how the series ended and the current available cast for the new series.
1) Sheryl Lee and Ray Wise deserve an Oscar each for their incredible performances in such incredibly difficult roles. The fact they didn't is a crime against humanity. 2) How on earth could this heart-wrenching, terrifying and beautiful film have been booed at Cannes after Wild At Heart won a Palm D'ore? 3) What am I saying? Fuck the Academy and fuck award shows. =p
One of the details of Twin Peaks I really like is the theme song, and how the last bits of it become so much darker in the end. Like it sounds so calm during most of it, but the last seconds of it become really really dark.
I love the theme for that reason, I forget whose theme it is, but the way it manages to smoothly transition from a soaring and optimistic piece directly into an extremely dire and nerve-wracking lament.
Something I realized after watching this movie recently...the sound the Man From Another Place makes after saying 'I am the arm, and I sound like this' can be heard when Mike pulls up in his truck behind Leland and Laura in the chase scene. So many layers of visuals and sound in Lynch's work. I'd love to see you guys review Twin Peaks Season 3.
"We already know the back story of Laura Palmer, so why do we need to see the prequel?" is the exact attitude Lynch was trying to correct through making Twin peaks. He wants us to actually care about characters... especially the ones who suffer.
I have to admit the first time I saw Fire Walk With Me I was pretty confused. I didn't know what to make of it and it certainly wasn't what I expected it to be. Upon repeat viewings I've grown to love it. It's intense as hell and I've never once watched it without coming away with a different feeling and a different point of view as to what I've just seen. It's the perfect compliment to the series.
Amazing re:view! To bring something up, I interpreted the reason that Cooper told Laura “don’t take the ring” is that he knew that taking that ring is what kills her, which it does. If she hadn’t taken the ring she would have been possessed by BOB, but she would be alive and that’s what Cooper prioritizes.
I guess I’m in the minority but I’ve always loved the second season. The James/Evelyn thing sucked, Bens Civil War was questionable, the middle dragged a bit, and Donna became a bore but the rest was great. The first 7-8 episodes are wonderful, and the final 2 episodes are some of the best of all 3 seasons. Especially the finale. There wasn’t anything like it before and hasn’t been anything like it after. Except maybe episode 8 of the return. FWWM is great, too, but I actually prefer the first 30-40 minutes. Would love a continuation of that. Speaking of, The Return is amazing and rivals season 1 easily.
Yeah first time watching I stopped before they revealed Leland as the Killer and then revisited it in film school cause I was getting super into Lynch (still am) and I have the same complaints. I think from the time Leland dies till Heather Graham got introduced there was really nothing special. The James story was stupid although I'm sorta glad he came back in the Return although I'm not a fan of how he acts. He comes off as some creepy old guy who can't get over the fact he's not young anymore. Ben's psychotic break was interesting and I liked how it made Bobby relevant and then I absolutely hated Donna in season 2. She was just so whiny and demanding unnecessary attention and pretty much destroyed her family through that although I'd be pissed too if I found out my dad wasn't my actual dad. Wyndom Earle was a really cool character and of course the finale was the greatest piece of television I've ever seen
@@flilcha I never mentioned a specific amount of episodes I liked. I just pointed out that those in particular are great. The middle episodes are still good, just not on par with the rest.
Sheryl Lee was so amazing in the film, I always wondered why she did not go on to star in many more. This is probably just a silly idea, but I thought maybe everyone was so in love with the Laura Palmer character that they almost couldn't bear to see Sheryl Lee play someone else.
It was definitely a case of being "typecast", but even more extreme, like... "rolecast". The role becoming so iconic that the actor suffers because... how do you ever believe that actor as being anyone else? It's like if you tried to cast Leonard Nimoy as anyone but Spock. It also didn't help, I'm sure, that the series fell in popularity so precipitously at the end.
Every year in my hometown we have a Harry Dean Stanton festival, and one year they showed "Fire Walk with Me". As my boyfriend and I were walking out, I overheard an elderly couple saying "I have no idea what that was" and I explained to them it was based on a TV show called "Twin Peaks", that's on Netflix and they had never heard of it and were even more confused.
i couldnt agree with jay more on the song "the pink room" .... such a hypnotic bowed double bass line and the bluesy guitarr over the swinging rock drum beat w little accents of atmospheric violin and deep drones.... its such an amazing song
Recently rewatched this for my Fiance's first viewing. She had to check out at the Pink Room because it was just so assaulting on her senses and it made her "feel like something was going to happen to me." she told me. I went ahead and finished the movie, and when it gets to the scene with Leo and Jacques, i just started crying. Nothing even happened yet, cinematically, but it just broke every ounce of love and warmth in my heart and I was overwhelmed with emotion. Watching Laura Palmer put herself in situations that she knows she does not want to be in, but knows no alternative to, its an evil that I hope no other piece of media will ever attempt to create. No innocence like that should ever be hurt by this world.
Iloved Twin Peaks the show more than anything I've ever watched I believe. Mesmerizing. I'd rewatch it just for the dreamy comforting atmosphere, and the smoke-filled Diners, the cherry pie, and the shockingly beautiful women.
The best thing about this movie is how we get to see everything from Laura's perspective. Until that point we only get specific snippets of her and a lot of rumors which leaves the audience to wonder what is true and what isn't, granting her an almost unknowable quality due to the varying accounts of her deeds. The Movie changes everything about how we see Laura by confirming that it was basically all true and by showing that it was in fact much worse than we could have really imagined. Truly a masterpiece of acting, writing, and directing.
Ray wise spoke about how David Lynch didn't want anyone to know who the killer was, when he signed on for the show he had NO idea. David Lynch had Ray Wise, as well as the actors who played Ben Horne and Bob, all shoot the scene where they kill Madeline. Sheryle Lee spent 15 hrs on set getting 'beaten and killed' by three seperate men. When Lynch revealed to Ray Wise he was the killer, he considered quitting. Not out of outrage for the material or Lynch, but because he has a daughter himself (she was 2 at the time) and the thought of even pretend killing a pretend daughter kept him up at night. Lynch was able to make it ok for him however, when he described to Ray the scene where he is dying in Coopers arms, the tibetan passages guiding him to a gentle death. He sees his daughter and her arms are open to him, forgiving him for what Bob had made him do. Without that forgiveness from Laura's character, there's a chance Ray would have been unable to do the scenes at all So, Laura is forgiving her Father in the end and Leland was truly possessed by Bob. I believe this should be accepted as canon out of respect for Ray Wise and how hard he worked to see this through Also, I reccomend watching the interveiw, his impression of Lynch is bang-fucking-on and hilarious RU-vid: 'Ray Wise describing how he found out he was the killer on Twin Peaks' - BeckyVids (1:41 for Ray's Lynch impression)
Watching this film made me think about Bob and what Albert says in season 2: "maybe thats all that bob is, the evil that men do". in my view Bob is both the evil spirit the show leads us to believe in and the personal darkness of Leyland Palmer.
I remember the song so well. I recall the huge hype the film and the show had back then. Even all these years after I was in high school I remember the show and the movie. I never saw it but felt like I had with all the hype and talk going on about it.
Lee Erickson that was exactly what I was thinking, but its crash was so different in nature, due to the change in show format, that I'm not sure it quite fits.
I would have to agree with True Detective, at least on a personal level. Season 1 was a perfect storm of so many different factors, there was no way to repeat that.
I love Josh. Although Mike tries, he just cant reach Jay's level of nerd when it comes to film. Josh on the other hand not only equals it, he sometimes passes it.
I actually watched Fire Walk With Me after just watching the pilot and the film is what hooked me into watching the show. Not only the show but I've really grown to appreciate Lynch's work.
Miami Vice is actually an earlier example of film-style cinematography on TV. Not trying to discount Twin Peaks or anything, but it's worth checking out if you want to see something that was very different in 1984. I think it holds up well, too. Very different TV shows though, obviously.
To anyone obsessed with Twin Peaks, I would highly recommend watching Twin Perfect's four and a half hour video explanation of the entire series (I'm aware of the irony in trying to "explain" Twin Peaks at all, but so does he).
And I say: No! The whole explanation or understanding is in the series, the movie and the viewer. It's really important to have your own interpretation.
@@wertor666 Rudeness aside... there IS a single correct interpretation, which you will see is fact if you actually watch that video essay. ^^ Does that mean the one we believe is automatically THE correct one, then? No--but given the fact that Lynch says there is one right interpretation, I fail to see what else it could possibly be given the clues. Theorize all you want, but don't get up in people's faces because we've gobbled up enough media to understand that Lynch really did have one specific interpretation in mind.
This movie was so hard for me to watch. I felt so bad for Laura and how tortured and abused she was I was that I felt queasy, but that also says so much about Sheryl Lee's performance.
So is the Return worthy of a re:View or a Hlaf in the bag episode like Stranger Things? The new season is so unique and "out there" that I would really like to ear Jay and Josh opinions on it.
The fact that Sheryl did not get nominated for an Oscar and is not just as big as some of the most celebrated actresses working today is literally a crime in 🎥. I have never seen a performance so moving.
