Twin Peaks Actually Explained (Youtube)

General discussion on Twin Peaks not related to the series, film, books, music, photos, or collectors merchandise.

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JackwithOneEye
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Re: Twin Peaks Actually Explained (Youtube)

Post by JackwithOneEye »

Good points Late Reg.

Sunset Boulevard itself has lots of meta elements that I’m sure Lynch has picked up on, Gordon and Cole streets are sorta hidden puzzle pieces he found. But there’s tons of obvious stuff. Cecil b demille playing himself , Gloria Swanson playing a character not unlike herself. The whole thing centers on a performer ruminating on performance , wanting to enter a fake reality, yearning to essentially live inside a dream. And it’s all set in Hollywood, land of broken dreams/ people making illusions. Dashed of magical realism and absurdity with a screenwriter narrating beyond the grave.

The idea that someone can have different personalities / different masks is a thing Lynch is really into. Actors by nature are professional doppelgängers.

Also interesting how Cole has a Franz Kafka picture in his office. It could be that this is character building , because Cole likes cryptic and surreal literature , but Lynch has aknowledged him as a favorite author in the past...
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Cappy
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Re: Twin Peaks Actually Explained (Youtube)

Post by Cappy »

Those are all good points about the Gordon Cole character. I guess I just don't think much of an artist's intent when engaging with a work, so for me Gordon Cole is just another character, albeit one with supernatural and otherwordly intuition, but not one with any sort of meta-textual or extra-textual status as a vehicle for Lynch the director to wink at or acknowledge the viewer.

Cole's "special" status, at least by my viewpoint, comes from his hearing problems. He's deaf to a lot of the meaningless banter and minutiae that fills our days, but his deafness to that has enabled him a stronger focus on his own intuition and the Twin Peaks supernatural element. Perhaps this is a one-dimensional or shallow way of looking at Twin Peaks, but I worry that too much focus on Lynch's intent as an artist could take away from the subjective experience of viewing his work. I love that everyone has their own experiences and impressions of experiencing the world of Twin Peaks, and I'm a little uneasy about assigning any sort of objective explanation to any of it, whether it be in the form of a YouTube fan-vid or Lynch's clues to his intentions.

I think Lynch does an awesome performance as Cole, and it's fun to read about Lynch slipping these winks in via the character. However that's just not the way I approach Twin Peaks as a viewer.
LateReg
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Re: Twin Peaks Actually Explained (Youtube)

Post by LateReg »

Cappy wrote: Cole's "special" status, at least by my viewpoint, comes from his hearing problems. He's deaf to a lot of the meaningless banter and minutiae that fills our days, but his deafness to that has enabled him a stronger focus on his own intuition and the Twin Peaks supernatural element. Perhaps this is a one-dimensional or shallow way of looking at Twin Peaks, but I worry that too much focus on Lynch's intent as an artist could take away from the subjective experience of viewing his work. I love that everyone has their own experiences and impressions of experiencing the world of Twin Peaks, and I'm a little uneasy about assigning any sort of objective explanation to any of it, whether it be in the form of a YouTube fan-vid or Lynch's clues to his intentions.
That's a really cool reading of the character in terms of his deafness! But contrary to what you say about focusing on Lynch's intent as an artist, I'd just like to reiterate that focusing on Lynch's intent via Gordon Cole adds just another way to interpret things. Rather than taking away from your own subjective experience, it simply opens up another layer of interpretation. And again, I don't think Lynch is really cluing us into any single interpretation, but more so having fun with his own material, offering another rabbit hole that one may choose to follow. If someone takes that as the only path, then I think they're imagining an objective interpretation that doesn't actually exist. The reason I believe The Return works on so many levels isn't because Lynch is some genius mathematician, but rather that he was so open-minded/souled in the making of it that all of his and Frost's ideas fell into place, more or less, pulled from that unified field he talks about. Like he said, as long as you're true to the idea of the thing, you'll find interesting mirrors and rhymes within the art, and I think he achieves that by being completely open (spiritually and meditatively) to receive any and all signals. And that is also how the show must be watched, which is easier said than done in what is usually plot-driven entertainment (movies, TV).
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Re: Twin Peaks Actually Explained (Youtube)

Post by djsunyc »

like others have said, trying to interpret twin peaks (or anything lynch), is 100% subjective b/c lynch never reveals his motivations for anything. so to me, this theory is just as valid as many others. and he makes a better case for his viewpoint than others which is why i like it. i personally don't know if i believe it all but due to how he presented it, it's resonates more with me than other theories.
ManBehindWinkies
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Re: Twin Peaks Actually Explained (Youtube)

Post by ManBehindWinkies »

djsunyc wrote:like others have said, trying to interpret twin peaks (or anything lynch), is 100% subjective b/c lynch never reveals his motivations for anything. so to me, this theory is just as valid as many others. and he makes a better case for his viewpoint than others which is why i like it. i personally don't know if i believe it all but due to how he presented it, it's resonates more with me than other theories.
I think I'd be less resistant to dive into his 4 hour subjective interpretation if he framed it as just that, his subjective interpretation. That would be the honest way to frame it. But on the podcast and intro he really seems to believe he's decoding Lynch's intent and providing an objective explanation of the meaning of the entire series.

I'd actually be far more interested in hearing about people's subjective, personal experiences with Twin Peaks or other works. Maybe not 4 hours worth, but it's something at least people can speak to with authority. There was actually a trend when S3 aired, not sure if it is still a trend, of people posting videos of them watching shows live, so you could watch their reactions. Too many of them seemed to be intentionally playing up their reactions that I lost interest, but I did find some of those rather interesting.
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Exar Kun
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Re: Twin Peaks Actually Explained (Youtube)

Post by Exar Kun »

"I don't want to over-analyse things. So that it can stay magical. It's such a nice feeling, capturing an idea. There must be a process, but I don't wanna really know about it." - David Lynch.

“When you finish anything, people want to talk about it. And I think it’s almost like a crime.”

"It's a lot like music. Music, they say, it's an abstraction. It is very far away from words. And a film is a thing that... People want to have an easy understanding of a film, but when it's music they don't have that problem. There is not an intellectual thing going on, it's just an experience. But films have those same elements, just experience. Plus, film can say abstractions that can be intuited, so you use your intuition, and then the understanding comes inside you. I think people should trust the understanding that comes to them from the experience. Now, it might be hard to take what's inside of you and tell your friend in words what it is, it's like a dream sometimes: you tell your friend a dream, and you can see in their face that they don't understand, the words fail you, but you still know inside. So it's not that difficult to understand if you trust your inner feeling. "

"As soon as you put things in words, no one ever sees the film the same way. And that’s what I hate, you know. Talking – it’s real dangerous.”


Videos like this contribute in killing this magic. The show is over. There's no further need for explanation; And never will be. Guys like this mistake Lynch with every other methodical artist and creator out there. This video is the complete opposite of what Lynch intends in his works. It's just like the first section of MD that was supposed to be some stories and characters of a tv show, having different meanings than what they ended up in the movie. There's so much nonsense in the video if I start with a list it could take hours.
Rhodes
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Re: Twin Peaks Actually Explained (Youtube)

Post by Rhodes »

Exar Kun wrote:Videos like this contribute in killing this magic. The show is over. There's no further need for explanation; And never will be. Guys like this mistake Lynch with every other methodical artist and creator out there. This video is the complete opposite of what Lynch intends in his works.
To be fair, the guy comments on this very point.
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Re: Twin Peaks Actually Explained (Youtube)

Post by Rhodes »

Of course it is bullshit that this theory is the final indisputable answer to all TP-related questions. He is not David Lynch and the show can have multiple meanings and interpretations.

That being said, not all interpretations are equally sound. To say, for example, that Laura Palmer's death is symbolic of the German soldiers who died fighting the Roman Empire is obviously ridiculous. Some theories are supported by more and better arguments than other theories. After hearing his explanation, I am 100% convinced that he is onto a lot of important stuff. The quality and detail of his research is just incredible. He makes a very, very solid case for his main argument.

Nevertheless, I think he is too confident about himself, and I am sure he missed and misinterpreted a lot.
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Re: Twin Peaks Actually Explained (Youtube)

Post by Rami Airola »

I think he's on to something in saying how the characters are in a tv show and sometimes the characters might even know that on some level. It makes television be sort of an actual medium for these ideas interact with our real world. The normal world in Twin Peaks is a television show. The Lodge stuff are perhaps more from our world than from the world of Twin Peaks. The Lodge stuff speaks more deeply of what we are, spiritually, mentally. And that world enters the television show. Regular Twin Peaks world interacts with us by being shown on tv and us watching it, while at the same time our world at its deepest level enters the television show using electricity and tv set mechanics. We have our way of basic understanding of our lives and the people in Twin Peaks have their own way of basic understanding of their lives, and in between us and them is the spiritual reality, and that reality goes between our world and their world, communicating deeper truths to them and at the same time communicating deeper truths to us.

I haven't watched the last 30 minutes of that video so I don't know if that's the actual angle he's looking for, but he has definitely gone that direction in his analysis.

Now that said, I think he has overestimated Lynch's will to criticize television. While the importance of television and television receiver seems to be something he might be very much right about, I think he is wrong about how much stuff shown in Twin Peaks is supposed to be criticism of television. I don't think the point of Twin Peaks ever was to show how bad regular shows are and how television should be done, and that seems to be the main claim in his analysis. But I think he is right in how we should look at a television set being literally connected to the whole thing. So, right about our real world television sets having a meaning in Twin Peaks but wrong about Twin Peaks being any sort of platform for criticizing television entertainment.
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Re: Twin Peaks Actually Explained (Youtube)

Post by Rhodes »

I cannot believe this topic has only two pages, considering that thousands and thousands of pages have been produced on TP theory/interpretation on this board.

I am not saying that this guy is correct on every single detail (or that this is the only perspective on the show), but some of his discoveries are just astonishing and some of the the evidence he presents simply cannot be dismissed. The implications of his videos (there is a second one, that deals with Senorita Dido, Candy and other things that were left out for the first one) are HUGE and undeniable. Why aren't they discussed?
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Re: Twin Peaks Actually Explained (Youtube)

Post by Rhodes »

Rami Airola wrote:Now that said, I think he has overestimated Lynch's will to criticize television.
After watching his analysis I am 100% convinced that the television/cinema/viewer angle is a crucial and very likely THE most important angle to understanding the show.
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enumbs
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Re: Twin Peaks Actually Explained (Youtube)

Post by enumbs »

Rhodes wrote:I cannot believe this topic has only two pages, considering that thousands and thousands of pages have been produced on TP theory/interpretation on this board.

I am not saying that this guy is correct on every single detail (or that this is the only perspective on the show), but some of his discoveries are just astonishing and some of the the evidence he presents simply cannot be dismissed. The implications of his videos (there is a second one, that deals with Senorita Dido, Candy and other things that were left out for the first one) are HUGE and undeniable. Why aren't they discussed?
I just don’t think the theories are in any way as impressive as you say, and I’d imagine most Dugpa posters agree (although discussion on here has been very quiet for a while in any case). I don’t really know what you’re talking about when you mention “discoveries”, and I cannot see how any of his confirmation-bias riddled interpretations could be regarded as “undeniable”.

I did attempt to express some of my thoughts on Reddit, so I’ll repost them in case you’re interested:

Twin Perfect begins the video by saying he’s addressing the “doubters out there”, condescendingly adding “that’s good for you, you can think for yourself” and giving a self-satisfied look of comic exasperation to camera. Within a minute he has already illustrated a big part of what people find irritating about him: unbridled smugness. He is not attempting to discuss divergent ideas about the show in a mature way, instead framing the conversation as him and the true-believers vs the “doubters”. This is not the language of a reflective critical voice but of an egotistical fanboy.

Twin Perfect then goes on to argue against the idea that it is impossible to decipher Lynch’s intentions with Twin Peaks, and that particular interpretations cannot be regarded as more plausible than others. I do agree with him here, although I must say that I haven’t actually seen the view he’s criticising espoused very often. Most people just seem skeptical of his absurd confidence in assuming every single one of his conclusions is the most plausible one, to the point where he positions his video as a definitive explanation.

It is only in the last ten minutes that Twin Perfect addresses people who think he is simply wrong about David Lynch’s intentions - my own view, and probably the most frequent criticism. He doesn’t really address the issue of confirmation bias or his convoluted symbolic system whereby every character or motif rigidly represents a single thing within a convoluted metaphor, but he does respond to criticism that he’s “taking issues that surround incest and filicide and reducing it to a considerably less lofty commentary on the shallowness of television”. He says he says he has a “flawless counter argument” (again, what serious critical thinker talks in this way?), stating that Lynch takes spoiling a TV mystery every bit as seriously as sexual abuse, and citing a quote from the writer Chris Rodley claiming that Lynch said he checked into a rape-crisis centre in response to a particularly intense interview.

Now, in case this isn’t obvious to everyone apart from Twin Perfect, I’d like to point out that Lynch was obviously fucking joking. It’s not a joke in especially good taste, but it nonetheless very clearly a joke. How dense do you have to be not to see that?

Here is another quote from Chris Rodley’s book: “(Fire Walk With Me is about) the loneliness, shame, guilt, confusion and devastation of the victim of incest. It also dealt with the torment of the father... the war within him”. If we’re interrogating Lynch’s own words in order to understand the show, then surely that’s a pretty definitive place to begin? Even disregarding authorial intent, it frankly astounds me that somebody could be so shallow as to watch such a devastating and empathetic portrait of sexual abuse, and believe that Lynch was thinking predominantly about exploitative TV rather than what is right there on the screen. Bob being a human abstraction of an idea does not make him a “meta” commentary on “shallow TV violence”, it makes him representative of real and terrifying human impulses and behaviour.

Twin Perfect argues that people find his ideas “too easy and too simple” but they are actually deeply counter-intuitive. His analysis does not depend on how the show makes you feel or even the thoughts it provokes on its own terms, but instead depends heavily on external knowledge of the show’s production history. I have no doubt that Lynch has drawn on his feelings regarding the show throughout it’s production, but Twin Perfect’s videos are a classic case of looking at the hole rather than the doughnut. Twin Perfect says that Lil’s clues revealing banal answers indicates that Lynch’s mysteries have answers and that they are disappointing. Here is another reading: the detectives are so fixated on straightforward clues and riddles that they miss what’s really going on, the undercurrent of emotional trauma that they can never truly understand. Jeffries, Chet, Cooper, Twin Perfect, they all wind up lost in abstractions, unable to grasp what really matters...
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Re: Twin Peaks Actually Explained (Youtube)

Post by BGate »

enumbs wrote:It's a didactic and silly theory. Yes, there is a strain of meta-commentary throughout Twin Peaks, but to view it entirely as a piece of media criticism is such a banal take. This isn't quite as terrible as the Twelve Rainbow Trout video, but it's perhaps even more irritating. The number of people who are buying into it a hundred percent is deeply dispiriting indeed
This 100%. And it's a shame because the guy did his research and clearly put a ton of effort into it, and the presentation is well done (not including any time he's on screen or doing a dopey impersonation). But it's all in service of this embarrassingly facile reading.

Just watch Joel Bocko's videos instead if you want something equally well-informed with a more sophisticated analysis that actually deals with formal elements and not just plot.
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enumbs
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Re: Twin Peaks Actually Explained (Youtube)

Post by enumbs »

Joel Bocko's videos really are the cream of the crop. His latest few on Lynch's collaboration with Mary Sweeney are particularly good.

Just to keep the positivity flowing, here are a number of other video essays which I think are worthwhile for various reasons:


To Linger With You by Corn Pone Flicks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKYb3Ofj7EY

Overviews by Corn Pone Flicks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyfcCnU ... z_tUpJj2eG

In Focus: The Broom Is Not What It Seems by The Long Take
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psYESfU_Sn0

Twin Peaks: The Universe in Entropy by Flower Guardian
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvZBpHLPuKE

Lost in Time- The Aesthetics of Slow Cinema by Omega Reviews
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRtqKX3nddo


The Corn Pone Flicks overviews in particular are a good example of how to present subjective interpretations in a level-headed, honest and funny way. The last few minutes from his final video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0ak5nUdl7k&t=17m27s) show a greater understanding of what makes Twin Peaks special than all of Twin Perfect's content put together.
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Re: Twin Peaks Actually Explained (Youtube)

Post by LateReg »

Rhodes wrote:
Rami Airola wrote:Now that said, I think he has overestimated Lynch's will to criticize television.
After watching his analysis I am 100% convinced that the television/cinema/viewer angle is a crucial and very likely THE most important angle to understanding the show.
For my part, I think the reason this theory isn't being discussed in greater detail is because a lot of us, myself included, have always incorporated the meta-TV critique in our analysis of the series...as one layer of the many in which the series seems to be operating. To me, the layers work in intersecting fashion, and if you wish you can go whole hog into each and every one of them. That's what Twin Perfect does with this one layer, and its very fascinating and in-depth, but I believe that it is indeed just one layer of many that works best in communication with other layers.
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