Why doesn't Cooper speak backwards in the Black Lodge?

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sycamoretrees
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Why doesn't Cooper speak backwards in the Black Lodge?

Post by sycamoretrees »

Hi all, new poster here.

Sorry if it's been asked before but I'm curious as to why Cooper is the only person who doesn't speak backwards in the Black Lodge? Has it ever been clarified? I initially thought it was only permanent residents of the lodge who did but we see Annie and Windom speak backwards too
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Re: Why doesn't Cooper speak backwards in the Black Lodge?

Post by LostInTheMovies »

sycamoretrees wrote:Hi all, new poster here.

Sorry if it's been asked before but I'm curious as to why Cooper is the only person who doesn't speak backwards in the Black Lodge? Has it ever been clarified? I initially thought it was only permanent residents of the lodge who did but we see Annie and Windom speak backwards too
Lynch has said somewhere (it's referenced in Martha Nochimson's book The Passion of David Lynch but I think maybe in Lynch on Lynch too?) that the Red Room reflects/changes depending on whoever has entered it. We're basically seeing it through their eyes. I suppose, theoretically, if our point of view was more with Annie in that sequence maybe she would talk regular and perceive Cooper talking "backwards"...
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Re: Why doesn't Cooper speak backwards in the Black Lodge?

Post by Audrey Horne »

Right. And I imagine initially when it was filmed in 1989 as an extension of Cooper dreaming, it was just a subjective viewpoint from Cooper. The Lodge wasn't imagined to be the Red Room until Lynch tackled the season finale script.
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Re: Why doesn't Cooper speak backwards in the Black Lodge?

Post by LostInTheMovies »

Audrey Horne wrote:Right. And I imagine initially when it was filmed in 1989 as an extension of Cooper dreaming, it was just a subjective viewpoint from Cooper. The Lodge wasn't imagined to be the Red Room until Lynch tackled the season finale script.
I've never quite figured out what, if anything, that scene actually was supposed to be when they shot in '89 (since initially it was part of the pilot). As I recall, in the international version it's presented as "25 years later" rather than a dream - which is pretty much just the flimsiest excuse to addend a non sequitur visual poem to a conventional if quirky plot. Though I guess you could also see the Red Room sequence as a surreal parody of the whole idea of a detective narrative (if so, that's what Lynch's subconscious rather than conscious mind was thinking).

I always like the story of Michael J. Anderson walking past Lynch's editing bay and overhearing him say, "So THAT's what I meant by that!" ;)
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Re: Why doesn't Cooper speak backwards in the Black Lodge?

Post by Audrey Horne »

You know I don't know either. Originally it might have just been Lynch having fun since they were contractually obligated to have an ending for the pilot by the international backers. I'd also have to go back and look at the scripts for the first season, and how and if Frost and Lynch decided to use it. I think it's become more public knowledge now that David's episode of the first season was actually filmed almost last during production.

But I guess since the fourth episode opens with Cooper telling Lucy and Truman the details of the full extended ending that the two planned to use the Red Room. What am I talking about, I'm off topic, right?
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Re: Why doesn't Cooper speak backwards in the Black Lodge?

Post by Audrey Horne »

Also in thinking about it, it's crazy that Mike Anderson waited about two years before filming again... Early 1989 and then winter of 1990/91 for the Josie death scene!
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Re: Why doesn't Cooper speak backwards in the Black Lodge?

Post by BOB1 »

I was wondering about the question in the topic, too.

This:
LostInTheMovies wrote:We're basically seeing it through their eyes. I suppose, theoretically, if our point of view was more with Annie in that sequence maybe she would talk regular and perceive Cooper talking "backwards"...
is the only explanation that works for me.
what, if anything, that scene actually was supposed to be when they shot in '89
I guess that's the famous intuition of Lynch's? ;) He didn't know what it meant or what would come out of it but he knew that's going to hit the nail! Kind of like seeing Frank Silva in the mirror and boom! this is the girl! He didn't think about possessing demons at that point, did he?
As I recall, in the international version it's presented as "25 years later" rather than a dream
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Brad D
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Re: Why doesn't Cooper speak backwards in the Black Lodge?

Post by Brad D »

The thing with the Lodge, it seems there are no rules and it's bound to change. 25 years later, will it look the same? For an ancient demon, BOB was wearing modern clothing at the time, same with LMFAP. I imagine we will all return to the red room in 2016, but it's nothing I want overexposed - who knows if it will look the same, or if anyone can actually get in and out. Wait - when do Saturn and Jupiter align again?!! :mrgreen:
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Re: Why doesn't Cooper speak backwards in the Black Lodge?

Post by Gabriel »

Brad D wrote:The thing with the Lodge, it seems there are no rules and it's bound to change. 25 years later, will it look the same? For an ancient demon, BOB was wearing modern clothing at the time, same with LMFAP. I imagine we will all return to the red room in 2016, but it's nothing I want overexposed - who knows if it will look the same, or if anyone can actually get in and out. Wait - when do Saturn and Jupiter align again?!! :mrgreen:
Which is why I wonder whether Cooper escapes in the interim and the 25 years later red room scene can be set when he returns to the Lodge in the new show. It would probably be feasible to use CGI compositing to put present-day Kyle's face over the old footage for wide shots, grip in new shots for close-ups and thus keep the Laura lookalike 'cousin' and the LMFAP looking the same as before.
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Re: Why doesn't Cooper speak backwards in the Black Lodge?

Post by StealThisCorn »

And let's not forget comments Al Strobel and Robert Engels have made in various interviews, where they explain there was this idea they came up with to explain the backwards talking for the filming of Fire Walk With Me--that Mike and Bob's "dimension" (my words) runs in reverse, and so to evoke that dimension or get back to it somehow, they speak backwards. It also seems to be, from the Missing Pieces scene of Gerard chanting backwards in Mike's voice over the circle of candles, how they work some form of magic.
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Re: Why doesn't Cooper speak backwards in the Black Lodge?

Post by LonleyMan »

As I remember Jimmy Scott didn't sing backwards either.
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Another thought about the Red Room and Black Lodge

Post by LostInTheMovies »

EDIT: I am leaving the follow in up because it could spark some other interesting ideas - i.e. are there other ways of seeing the Lodge, how does the convenience store relate, etc. - but I realize now this theory couldn't possibly work because of the garmonbozia sequence at the end of FWWM, definitely set in the Red Room, and definitely having nothing to do with Cooper. Oh well...

*

Something just occurred to me the other day... We know that when Cooper "crosses over" (either in dreams or in reality) he experience the Lodge as the Red Room. We know that the room is supposed to change depending who's in it which is usually taken to mean the furnishings (although the furnishings are different between the season 2 finale & the end of the Missing Pieces even though both times we're seeing it through Cooper's eyes). But what if it isn't the contents of the room that change - what if it's the room itself?

What if the only reason we see the Red Room in Laura's dream (and perhaps at the end of the film) is because that's where Cooper is? What if the creaky hallways and empty rooms "above the convenience store" are Laura's version of the Red Room, the way SHE sees the Lodge? What if in the new series every time a character envisions/enters that sphere of reality, we see an entirely different type of room?

I would love this, but think it's too good to be true. Most likely the Red Room is, well, a red room, for everyone who enters and the convenience store/hallway Laura goes through is more like the portal to it (besides, Jeffries talks of "above the convenience store" as well though I suppose one could argue he entered Laura's vision of the area the way Laura entered Coop's - besides which his convenience store is a lot livelier than hers). But man, would this be cool.

It would also lend new meaning to some of the scenes in FWWM/Missing Pieces - the scene above the store in which the Little Man and Bob crawl through the curtains would be them first infiltrating Cooper's consciousness (this would also lend extra resonance to the red-curtain superimpositions when we cut to Cooper for the last time in FWWM and when episode 14 ends).

I got the idea, somewhat loosely, from some of the discussions on alt.tv.twin-peaks.com. It would be a very cool twist in 2016, I think but again, probably wishful thinking.
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Re: Why doesn't Cooper speak backwards in the Black Lodge?

Post by StealThisCorn »

LostInTheMovies wrote:What if the creaky hallways and empty rooms "above the convenience store" are Laura's version of the Red Room, the way SHE sees the Lodge?
Just wanted to add have you noticed that the dilapidated floral wallpaper in those creaky rooms Laura passes through in her dream with Mrs. Tremond and the Grandson are the same wallpaper as can be seen sometimes in One-Eyed Jacks in the series? I wonder if there's a connection there or what it would be.

But yeah, I also agree that the garmonbozia scene where it is just the Little Man, Bob and their hosts kind of seems to enforce the idea that whatever extra-dimensional space the Red Room occupies, that look is somehow intrinsic to it's nature or at least looks that way because it's masters want it to. It's not as compelling as a space that changes based on the viewer, but does give the mythology of 'Twin Peaks' it's own distinctive setting.
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Re: Why doesn't Cooper speak backwards in the Black Lodge?

Post by LostInTheMovies »

StealThisCorn wrote:Just wanted to add have you noticed that the dilapidated floral wallpaper in those creaky rooms Laura passes through in her dream with Mrs. Tremond and the Grandson are the same wallpaper as can be seen sometimes in One-Eyed Jacks in the series?
Ok, this is very unrelated to the rest of the topic but...what the hell happens/ed to One-Eyed Jacks?! It's a major location for a season and a half and then we get that one last visit in ep. 17 and never see it again. The showdown with Jean takes place at a totally new location, Dead Dog Farm.

A little more on-topic, perhaps...the relationship between One-Eyed Jacks to Dead Dog Farm strikes me as very familiar to the relationship between the Red Room and above the Convenience Store. In both cases, we have two locations that serve the same group of, well, villains (if that's the right word for the dark Lodge spirits) but the one where they interact with their clients/victims puts up a glamorous front while where they get down to their dirty business by themselves is transparently seedy.

I feel like throughout the series there are gestures leading us to associate the Red Room & One-Eyed Jack's and I wonder how conscious they were, or if they were designed to serve a general purpose. The Dead Dog-convenience store similarity occurred to me on a recent viewing, but bringing it up right now is the first time the four-way link has occurred to me.
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Re: Why doesn't Cooper speak backwards in the Black Lodge?

Post by Audrey Horne »

Thinking about it, and not sure if it was brought up, but the main reason he doesn't speak backwards in the Red Room is because it is his dream, journey. He's the subjective view for us, him. Remember this was initially conceived as a dream, not the Black Lodge. We make sense in our dreams, but sometimes the people we encounter do not. We are in his mind, so he makes sense to himself and to us.
God, I love this music. Isn't it too dreamy?
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