Yesterday I published, on my portfolio site, an essay I wrote about Twin Peaks: The Return by Rancho Rosa, Lynch/Frost, and distributed by Showtime.
Why an Essay?
Because I loved Twin Peaks: The Return. I watched Twin Peaks somewhere in time, around 2011. Pertaining to Twin Peaks, I was thrilled by it since my one and only contact with it. An almost-forgotten night in the late nineteen-nineties. One of the few nights of my late teens, that I sat in front of the TV very late at night.
I remember that all through childhood, and until my early twenties, I had a certain concept of David Lynch. I thought he was in the league of John Carpenter, and other horror genre masters, but without having actually watched anything by him. Without knowing the surreal, abstract style of his movies. Only the aforesaid night of Twin Peaks in my late teens.
This prejudice lasted only until I started watching his movies, in my early twenties. My idea of David Lynch’s style, in a nutshell, not just Twin Peaks, is that obviously, his painter background informs his film work.
I’ve read from the web a few things that make me conclude that he has an important following. The dilettante communities I’m talking about seem bent on recording their fan interpretations on his movies.
The Twin Peaks communities on the web must be as big as the communities interpreting any other of his works. But I haven’t checked out any of these, yet. I think that the content to read on David Lynch and his films that fans wrote would be fun to read. But my exploration of these communities was limited.
I kept it to a minimum for a reason. I thought that it didn’t make sense if I wanted to also write about my own interpretation of David Lynch’s artistic film-making style. And in this case Mark Frost, and the rest that had any input in the making of the Twin Peaks story.
Anyway, since I watched the series in the early 2010s, I came to superficially know of the communities and fans pushing their own interpretations, some of them in a very elaborate way.
But I didn’t want to have anything to do with that. I just didn’t want to share my own interpretations of David Lynch’s movie and TV works, which were as personal as they were underdeveloped.
Also, by the looks of it, I thought that reading the interpretations of others was a big time investment that I would rather not waste. To me, it looked like a waste of time, because I cherished my own takes on the material.
That maybe one day, when I had already formulated my personal rationale, and written something that I could share with others, I could get into other interpretations.
The Essay
I concluded that I could go by parts. To only read about what others have thought of a story after writing my own versions.
But then, when the piece, that was going to be an article, begun to grow into an essay I checked out how others interpreted it to compare my view with theirs.
What is the purpose of sharing my views of David Lynch and Twin Peaks with others? I’m telling this upfront because I don’t want to be misunderstood.
I just had a blast watching Twin Peaks season 3, and it moved me. My interpretation is just my own, and only one. I think there could be as many as watchers of the show do the mental motions to have their own.
Still, when I check out what are the other interpretations, specially the ones on this community, I hope to be thrilled. Not with views to impose my take on it, against the other interpretations, as I did in my essay.
For some people, not to want to read the interpretations of others, or to share their own, or even to have one, may be the most decent way out of this exchange of ideas.
For me, ultimately the beauty of art dwells in this: that everyone is entitled to have its own interpretation. Everyone has it, even those that watched it just for other reasons. Like watching it to learn, or for the photography. Or to veg the weekend’s leisure out, without caring for any subtleties of the plots.
What David Lynch does, as I see it, is to exacerbate this quality, or feature if you will, of art in the piecing together of his stories. This makes for a totally refreshing experience. A draft of fresh air for those that are addicted to the Hollywood-structured kind of movie.
I think this artistic angle of David Lynch’s style makes for very poetic kind of movies and TV series. Forgive me if you decide to read my essay and think that it sounds pedant to you.
This as consideration for the fact that, as I said, for me there are interpretations and meanings, as there are persons that watch David Lynch’s work and make an effort to find a meaning.
Making the subtext “extra-dimensional” gave David Lynch and Mark Frost a wide choice of themes. Surreal and magic narratives related to the psyche, death and dead characters, dreams, ghosts, demons, and aliens are appropriate for a choice like that. If I remember correctly, Twin Peaks uses all of those subjects. They’re handled very subtly, but they’re there.
What I Thought of Twin Peaks: The Return (a ~5000 words read)
Photo Credit: Sam Howzit