FINAL POLL!!!!!!! Your Reaction to The Return as a Complete Work

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Which option best describes your overall reaction to The Return as a complete work?

Poll ended at Sun Nov 12, 2017 7:09 pm

Like or Love
228
65%
Heavily Mixed, Leaning Towards Like
41
12%
Heavily Mixed, Leaning Towards Dislike
44
12%
Dislike or Hate
40
11%
 
Total votes: 353
Cipher
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Re: FINAL POLL!!!!!!! Your Reaction to The Return as a Complete Work

Post by Cipher »

Mr. Reindeer wrote:I think the distancing composition is a logical extension of the fact that this is by its nature an expansive work, almost the antithesis of DKL's prior mission statement that he only likes to do "neighborhood stories." I think the style will grow on me on repeat viewings, just as IE's "messiness" did. I agree that a lot of the shots kept us at arm's length, and I'm not quite sure what to make of that, even while I did find many of the compositions beautiful. But one scene really keyed me in on this: the Steven/Gersten scene is played almost entirely in a tight claustrophobic medium shot of the two of them, then abruptly cuts without warning to one of those patented wide wide shots of the woods, showing us how tiny these two are in the expanse of the woods. That use of the technique was anything but distancing, and I wonder if some of the other wide compositions will similarly resonate with me and others on repeat viewings where we can settle into this work on its own terms without being distracted by concerns about where the story is going.
I loved that scene for that contrast as well -- and you're right in that while it's emotionally charged, the wide shot certainly isn't from either character's perspective.

But we rarely get such power out of the wide shots. That's a little different than just seeing Mr. C., Cole, Diane, Ray, the sherrif's station crew, etc., neatly arranged in indoor spaces (and not, like, off-kilter medium-shot neat arrangements something like Lanthimos' Dogtooth runs on). I'm not sure what to make of those yet or if they'll ever grow on me -- at this point I find them considerably less interesting than the filmaking in Lynch's previous work -- but if not, oh well; it's hardly ruinous.
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Mr. Reindeer
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Re: FINAL POLL!!!!!!! Your Reaction to The Return as a Complete Work

Post by Mr. Reindeer »

Yeh, I do think the nature of the beast is that he had to shoot a lot of the piece in a more workmanlike manner, quick 'n' dirty, than on a theatrical feature. But if that's the reality he (and we) had to cope with to get this piece of art, I'm ok with it. Like you, I'm curious how the cinematography will sit me in a year's time.
Snailhead
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Re: FINAL POLL!!!!!!! Your Reaction to The Return as a Complete Work

Post by Snailhead »

Sadly just switched my vote to "mixed leaning towards dislike."

It's not sitting very well with me. 18 was great but emphasized how little I cared for the Las Vegas storyline.
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Re: FINAL POLL!!!!!!! Your Reaction to The Return as a Complete Work

Post by Kilmoore »

While I'm currently in the dislike portion simply due to lack of Cooper, Twin Peaks and a story, there is something I feel I have to mention: Nothing messes with my head like Twin Peaks. And in that sense, The Return did its job. Episodes 1, 8, 11 and 18 left me with a full night of delirious Twin Peaks -themed dreams. Nothing that coherent (flying as an owl with BOB, Mr. C trying to acquire nuclear bombers to summon Judy with nuclear explosions but stopped by time traveling Cooper disabling the explosives beforehand, BOB surviving the encounter in episode 17 and escaping by possessing a passer by are some that I can at least somewhat recall), but still full nights of my brain trying to wrap itself around what I watched. So, in that sense, it was truly Twin Peaks. But that's pretty much the only sense.
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Re: FINAL POLL!!!!!!! Your Reaction to The Return as a Complete Work

Post by DirkG »

Again I feel like this poll is unnecessarily pussyfooting a bit around. 'Like' and 'love' should again be separate choices, they are not synonymous by any stretch. But to get on topic, my personal opinion is that it's very yrev difficult to give a final verdict to this show. Mark Frost was not joking when he said they attempted to do something new. Ornette Coleman's album 'The Shape of Jazz to Come' truly springs to mind. I'm afraid I need to think about it a few more months or so before voting.
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Mr. Reindeer
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Re: FINAL POLL!!!!!!! Your Reaction to The Return as a Complete Work

Post by Mr. Reindeer »

To add to my comments on the extreme wide shots: in addition to contributing to the series' more epic grandeur/scope, it does feel like an extension of a style DKL has been in love with for awhile. I rewatched Part 1 last night, and the way Jacoby's shovel delivery was shot felt very much like certain "distancing" shots in The Straight Story. Not quite sure what DKL is going for with this -- not even entirely sure what effect it has on me as a viewer. To some extent, it leaves me feeling like an eavesdropper/outsider....but also wanting to CREEP closer to the TV to become part of the scene, almost desperate to crawl into the frame so I can see the actors' expressions and (in the case of The Straight Story) hear the lines better. In a weird way, it makes me more involved/attentive, while feeling less connected to the characters.
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referendum
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Re: FINAL POLL!!!!!!! Your Reaction to The Return as a Complete Work

Post by referendum »

Mr. Reindeer wrote:To add to my comments on the extreme wide shots: in addition to contributing to the series' more epic grandeur/scope, it does feel like an extension of a style DKL has been in love with for awhile. I rewatched Part 1 last night, and the way Jacoby's shovel delivery was shot felt very much like certain "distancing" shots in The Straight Story. Not quite sure what DKL is going for with this -- not even entirely sure what effect it has on me as a viewer. To some extent, it leaves me feeling like an eavesdropper/outsider....but also wanting to CREEP closer to the TV to become part of the scene, almost desperate to crawl into the frame so I can see the actors' expressions and (in the case of The Straight Story) hear the lines better. In a weird way, it makes me more involved/attentive, while feeling less connected to the characters.
there is a review of #18 somewhere, i haven't got time to find it ATM because i am at work, that talks about Lynch's filming of what the reviewer calls ' the great american landscape' as being a new thing in Lynch's work ( although it was there in straight story in some form ) these epic landscape shots where you can see miles and the land is almost half way to a map of the territory, this fits in with the ' broad canvas' of the 18 hour movie, i think, and the huge cast of occasional characters, and in scenes like hastings visiting the weird broken down shack, where you get the aerial shot, and then the details, it does kind of feed into both the big broad landscape wide perspective shots, and the more personal POV shots, Lynch with the vortex, Diane's POV to the car, i liked this scene alot, the way the people were distributed like players on a board, and everyone was doing a separate thing at the same time, but you registered them all at once.

right stop getting distracted by interesting things on dugpa and get some work done aaaagh
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Novalis
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Re: FINAL POLL!!!!!!! Your Reaction to The Return as a Complete Work

Post by Novalis »

referendum wrote:there is a review of #18 somewhere, i haven't got time to find it ATM because i am at work, that talks about Lynch's filming of what the reviewer calls ' the great american landscape' as being a new thing in Lynch's work ( although it was there in straight story in some form ) these epic landscape shots where you can see miles and the land is almost half way to a map of the territory, this fits in with the ' broad canvas' of the 18 hour movie, i think, and the huge cast of occasional characters, and in scenes like hastings visiting the weird broken down shack, where you get the aerial shot, and then the details, it does kind of feed into both the big broad landscape wide perspective shots, and the more personal POV shots, Lynch with the vortex, Diane's POV to the car, i liked this scene alot, the way the people were distributed like players on a board, and everyone was doing a separate thing at the same time, but you registered them all at once.
Right on. There are two aspects to this I think. Because I think largely in terms of art and images, I organise my thinking on this through comparisons with some popular and well-known artworks.

In terms of the simultaneity of many, many things going on between diverse groups of cast members it's a bit like Children's Games by Bruegel the Elder or Garden of Earthly Delights by Heironymous Bosch. Here the comparison is not based on any kind of visual resemblance at all, but in terms of how to go about understanding all that we're given when there is so very much of it. There's no way to process everything going on at once, you have to zoom in on the details of each relationship one by one and try to draw out connections to other relationships.

In terms of the empty expansiveness of the landscapes, and the love of hillsides, fog, or endless stretching planes, the super wide landscape cinematography reminds me a lot of Caspar David Friedrich's paintings.

I think there is some justification in calling the visual aesthetics of this season more impersonal than that of previous work, but it is certainly not what I would call cold. It is deeply soulful, and often melancholy in places. Very human, but also bewildering.
As a matter of fact, 'Chalfont' was the name of the people that rented this space before. Two Chalfonts. Weird, huh?
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referendum
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Re: FINAL POLL!!!!!!! Your Reaction to The Return as a Complete Work

Post by referendum »

I think there is some justification in calling the visual aesthetics of this season more impersonal than that of previous work, but it is certainly not what I would call cold. It is deeply soulful, and often melancholy in places. Very human, but also bewildering.
well, my initial reaction, scene #1 ep#1 the NYC box scene, was '' oo he's gone all modern and stark and dystopian '' and second, I like the HD resolution and the kind of flat light because you can SEE EVERYTHING. And for me these big landscape shots like the ones in ep #18 or the shots of mountain horizons that kept appearing, they were very WARM shots, sure, they were stark and minimal, like the NYC loft, but the pallette was recognisably that of the world that I am familiar with from my own eyes and from magazine and TV, so what you call impersonal visual aesthetics, i wouldn't call you that, it TOOK YOU PLACES, I think of the ep #16 scene, going slowly through the forest, that didn't feel impersonal atall, it was the HD and the pallette and the light that put you there, the level of detail : in S 1 and 2 this ' being in the forest ' feeling was acheived in a much more hand-made way, with hand held torches at night. Of course I liked that too. But i think the high resolution of the digital image is something Lynch really got his head round in this series, and many of the set pieces, the images themselves were, as you say, deeply soulful. And it was the ungrained focused particularity of the digital image that got us there. And also was used to very different ends in the ' Dougie' set up, the digital, recognisably ' now, present day' colours and the over-precise light.

I can join the ''profoundly disappointed'' in complaining about some things in this series, but i love the way it LOOKS.
''let's not overthink this opportunity''
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Saturn's child
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Re: FINAL POLL!!!!!!! Your Reaction to The Return as a Complete Work

Post by Saturn's child »

Mr. Reindeer wrote:
Mr. Jackpots wrote:It felt like 2 endings for the price of one.
Lynch give two rides. :lol:
I laughed long & hard at this.
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Jasper
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Re: FINAL POLL!!!!!!! Your Reaction to The Return as a Complete Work

Post by Jasper »

DirkG wrote:Again I feel like this poll is unnecessarily pussyfooting a bit around. 'Like' and 'love' should again be separate choices, they are not synonymous by any stretch. But to get on topic, my personal opinion is that it's very yrev difficult to give a final verdict to this show. Mark Frost was not joking when he said they attempted to do something new. Ornette Coleman's album 'The Shape of Jazz to Come' truly springs to mind. I'm afraid I need to think about it a few more months or so before voting.
The poll's not pussyfooting around anything. It's divided into quarters. Within each quarter there's a range. It says "Like or Love", which does not in any way imply that they are the same thing, but instead indicates that they both fit into the range covered by the top quarter.

This poll was made to be very simple and symmetrical, avoid a neutral choice, and read with extreme ease. It was important to me to avoid a high number of categories which would result in a mess of data that doesn't read easily and thus doesn't do a good job of communicating the big picture. This poll should read as easily as glancing at the hands of a clock. I do not like the idea of hyper-categorizing a reaction to art, as art often involves wavering emotional sensations and ongoing intellectual processes.
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twin-b
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Re: FINAL POLL!!!!!!! Your Reaction to The Return as a Complete Work

Post by twin-b »

Deep Thought wrote:Where are the clichés? I didn't notice any. Where was the fan service? I didn't see any. Where was the originality? In every blinking moment! From someone who is pained by conventional plotting and storytelling, I bow down to this creation.

I know the source, I know the pedigree, I trust appreciation will come to those who look for it. "But it's not what I think of as sound storytelling" is exactly why I love it! This is new for TV but not for art. I hope season 4 is even more aggravating!
I'm mixed/leaning toward dislike, but if that's your angle then I agree with you about season 4. I wish TPTR had been more outrageous, more avante-garde, more of an art piece. If its goal was to eshew traditional storytelling it did so timidly, imo. It lived in a middle ground for the most part... it pulled us along (on the back of 25 years worth of expectations) with teased storylines and setups rather than giving us true avant garde film. Every part should have been more like the mauve room, part 8, and the end of the finale. Instead we got lots of exposition on tulpas, coordinates, dates and times, etc that seemed to indicate plot and story were important.
Snailhead
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Re: FINAL POLL!!!!!!! Your Reaction to The Return as a Complete Work

Post by Snailhead »

twin-b wrote:
Deep Thought wrote:Where are the clichés? I didn't notice any. Where was the fan service? I didn't see any. Where was the originality? In every blinking moment! From someone who is pained by conventional plotting and storytelling, I bow down to this creation.

I know the source, I know the pedigree, I trust appreciation will come to those who look for it. "But it's not what I think of as sound storytelling" is exactly why I love it! This is new for TV but not for art. I hope season 4 is even more aggravating!
I'm mixed/leaning toward dislike, but if that's your angle then I agree with you about season 4. I wish TPTR had been more outrageous, more avante-garde, more of an art piece. If its goal was to eshew traditional storytelling it did so timidly, imo. It lived in a middle ground for the most part... it pulled us along (on the back of 25 years worth of expectations) with teased storylines and setups rather than giving us true avant garde film. Every part should have been more like the mauve room, part 8, and the end of the finale. Instead we got lots of exposition on tulpas, coordinates, dates and times, etc that seemed to indicate plot and story were important.
Amen.
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Re: FINAL POLL!!!!!!! Your Reaction to The Return as a Complete Work

Post by oldforce »

Jasper wrote: The poll's not pussyfooting around anything. It's divided into quarters. Within each quarter there's a range. It says "Like or Love", which does not in any way imply that they are the same thing, but instead indicates that they both fit into the range covered by the top quarter.

This poll was made to be very simple and symmetrical, avoid a neutral choice, and read with extreme ease. It was important to me to avoid a high number of categories which would result in a mess of data that doesn't read easily and thus doesn't do a good job of communicating the big picture. This poll should read as easily as glancing at the hands of a clock. I do not like the idea of hyper-categorizing a reaction to art, as art often involves wavering emotional sensations and ongoing intellectual processes.
Thank you for not making a shitty survey. +100 survey karma.
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Jasper
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Re: FINAL POLL!!!!!!! Your Reaction to The Return as a Complete Work

Post by Jasper »

oldforce wrote:Thank you for not making a shitty survey. +100 survey karma.
Thank you kindly.

I hope that it proves to be an interesting and useful record well into the future, and through the darkness of future past.
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