The chosen past time of my friends and I the past few weeks has been to watch Twin Peaks while under the influence of heavy intoxicants. These get-togethers of ours introduce the “soap opera” to me for the first time. Now, I finally understand why the show received the fanfare that it did when it was first broadcast in my elementary and junior high school years.
Anyway, as I watch, I continually find myself wondering: is the, for lack of a better word, hokeyness of the noir cinematography, the ridiculously emotive/repetitive background music and the forced acting deliberate (after all, the eccentric characters and the intricate while seemingly spontaneous storyline were obviously quite carefully crafted) in which case I would rate these qualities on par with modern HBO dramas –a truly remarkable feat, considering the series was filmed for evening network TV in the early 90’s– OR are the above identified qualities in question the unintended byproducts of David Lynch and company’s style, that, coincidentally and quite perfectly, typify daytime soap operas?
I feel dumb asking this question because I think the answer is obvious to any hardcore TP fan. Unfortunately, the state of my consciousness during all of the episodes that I’ve seen so far, has hindered my ability to judge for myself.
5 replies on “A Question, For Those of You in the Know”
I have a couple of David Lynch experts over here…I’ll have them get back to you on that (I personally liked the series, scared the bejezzus outta me, but dislike DL).
I take your question to be this: is Lynch exploiting the “soap opera” technique or mocking it? I think the answer is: Both.
I too missed out on the TP frenzy when it was on the air. All my friends were obsessed with it – annoyingly so – so I steered clear (except I must admit that I read the Diary of Laura Palmer and saw Fire Walk With Me, having never seen the show, which was a bit odd) until about 2 years ago when I decided that it would be a better use of my time to watch the entire season over the course of 2 weeks instead of doing homework. Good decision.
Like JKF, however, I generally don’t like Lynch, so I defer to the experts.
I agree with meg — like or dislike Lynch, seems like he always knows what he’s doing.
I watched it religiously when it was on the air, but I was young enough that I didn’t think about things like cinematography. Watchng it now, it seems like it was like his big joke on the network to have it keep getting weirder and more involved the production values stayed so consistantly cheesy.
I remember at the time they said they had to cancel it as abruptly as they did because it had reached a point where there were so many loose ends that it couldn’t attract new viewers, so it would be impossible for it to get better in the ratings.
Which means… thug is probably dead on when he’s comparing it to more recent cable dramas — maybe if people could have caught up on dvd, the show wouldn’t have been pulled…!
Hey All::: Thanks for your feedback. And, thank you JKF for your efforts in referring Lynch experts over here from Drunken Bloggen Daaz, to answer my question. I’ll keep in mind that Lynch knows what he’s doing from now on; and know that whatever reverence his works may evoke is most likely warrented.
Ah, BS, Lynch sucks. He’s a film makin masturbator, making movies just to make himself feel better. That’s fine, but why people want to watch them is beyond me. Yes, they are pretty. But I’ve seen plenty of pretty movies that actually have a plot. (how’s that for trying to piss people off?)