Part 12 - Let's rock (SPOILERS)

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AgentEcho
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Re: Part 12 - Let's rock (SPOILERS)

Post by AgentEcho »

LostInTheMovies wrote:Thoughts on Pt. 12: http://www.lostinthemovies.com/2017/07/ ... -rock.html

Each individual episode is such a roller coaster, not just as I watch but afterwards. There were parts last night where I thought, "This is absolutely one of the best episodes of Twin Peaks! This Sarah Palmer stuff is amazing! Every scene has me absorbed!" When it was over, I feel like some of that sensation was already starting to fade, overshadowed by the weaker parts (perhaps purposefully weaker - I'm thinking of that egregious Jacoby here-we-go-again scene which perfectly teed us up for the Audrey shock), but even so I retained some of that excitement. And then after writing my response, I went to Twitter and saw that a lot of people didn't like it.

One reason I'm glad that I'm recording my thoughts as they go is that each episode will appear so differently to me when - if? ;) - I know where it's all going. Hell, even rewatching them a few days later the experience is often quite different.
I really like your observation about the placement of the Jacoby scene preceding the Audrey revelation. Even the cut was super awkward, with it jumping in mid pan. I don't know how people can watch the scene and not come to the conclusion that it's intentionally exasperating, especially when Audrey at a certain point in the scene because a perfect surrogate for frustrated audiences.

I'm seeing a lot of comments that people pointing out that this is intentional shaggy-dog storytelling are "justifying" or just can't admit Lynch can make a mistake. I'm sorry, but that's nonsense. I certainly can't blame people for not liking it... I mean it wouldn't be fulfilling it's purpose if it didn't piss some people off. But if you're not seeing that Lynch is intentionally toying with expectations with the series you just aren't paying attention at this point. It's been constant throughout the show, but if it was only an interpretation before this episode, it should be unambiguously apparent now. There is literally no other reason for the scene to play out like it did, including the Jacoby segue, other than f***ing with the legion of fans who had demands and expectations tied to Audrey role in the new series, or for matter fans who had any expectations or demands story wise for the new series at all.
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The Gazebo
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Re: Part 12 - Let's rock (SPOILERS)

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AgentEcho wrote:But if you're not seeing that Lynch is intentionally toying with expectations with the series you just aren't paying attention at this point. It's been constant throughout the show, but if it was only an interpretation before this episode, it should be unambiguously apparent now. There is literally no other reason for the scene to play out like it did, including the Jacoby segue, other than f***ing with the legion of fans who had demands and expectations tied to Audrey role in the new series, or for matter fans who had any expectations or demands story wise for the new series at all.
Do you know his motivation for doing this? I mean, I can understand an approach where he tells the story in a way that he knows will be difficult for the audience (but where he retains sympathy for their "plight"). But is there some deeper purpose to this rather malevolent set-up?
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Deep Thought
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Re: Part 12 - Let's rock (SPOILERS)

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alreadygoneplaces wrote:Sherilyn wasn’t bad, but it felt like there was zero rapport between her and the guy who played Charlie. It felt like two actors who’d just met for the first time minutes earlier, and were running through their lines for the first time. Which may well have been the case. The dialogue seemed off- seeming focussed on obfuscation, while still managing to make the few moments of real exposition seem awkwardly forced.
In MD compare Betty arriving at the airport to Betty at her audition. Lynch can coax actors in drastically different directions according to what he is trying to evoke, and most of the time he is in touch with a deep understanding of human nature, as Mr. C would say. I have no doubt that the criticisms above you have about this scene are what Lynch was trying to accomplish. We've seen he is a master of "making it real" when he wants to. Whether you enjoyed the scene is a different matter of course.

As Robert Forster said on the red carpet about his role in MD, he didn’t know why Lynch kept telling him to talk more slowly in his scene, until years later when he realized his character was part of a dream.

Audrey is in a purgatory of sorts, so I would expect the dialog and pacing to be a little off. At least they were speaking forward!
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Jonah
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Re: Part 12 - Let's rock (SPOILERS)

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If Audrey's not in the real world, then why is she discussing Billy (mentioned previously in the real world) and the roadhouse?
I have no idea where this will lead us, but I have a definite feeling it will be a place both wonderful and strange.
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Dreamy Audrey
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Re: Part 12 - Let's rock (SPOILERS)

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Jonah wrote:If Audrey's not in the real world, then why is she discussing Billy (mentioned previously in the real world) and the roadhouse?
Real persons and places can appear in dreams...
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referendum
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Re: Part 12 - Let's rock (SPOILERS)

Post by referendum »

@ alreadygoneplaces
- Coordinates +2? What? Also, in the flashback, while Diane is memorising the numbers from the photo, she seems to mouth the word “co…ord..in..ates”. Huh?
^^^ a mnemonic.
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Deep Thought
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Re: Part 12 - Let's rock (SPOILERS)

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AgentEcho wrote:But if you're not seeing that Lynch is intentionally toying with expectations with the series you just aren't paying attention at this point. It's been constant throughout the show, but if it was only an interpretation before this episode, it should be unambiguously apparent now. There is literally no other reason for the scene to play out like it did, including the Jacoby segue, other than f***ing with the legion of fans who had demands and expectations tied to Audrey role in the new series, or for matter fans who had any expectations or demands story wise for the new series at all.
Wow, how to even respond. I guess I will say the story is not about you, it's about Audrey. Her story may wind up being tragic or joyful, but it will play out. To balance out your garmonbozia, I will send a golden orb your way - I thought the Audrey scene was brilliant, and hopefully you will feel the same as the story evolves.
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Dreamy Audrey
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Re: Part 12 - Let's rock (SPOILERS)

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Do we know the Billy who Audrey mentioned was Billy from the Double R scene? Couldn't he be Bill(y) Hastings?
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counterpaul
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Re: Part 12 - Let's rock (SPOILERS)

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LateReg wrote:I still don't get the whole speculation about the "extension from 9 parts to 18" thing going on here. We don't know exactly what happened, but we do know that Lynch has complete control. By that logic, he wanted it to be 18 hours, or thereabouts.
This drives me totally batty. We don't know exactly what happened during Lynch's walk-out, of course, but from interviews with David Nevins, it seems that Showtime execs misinterpreted L/F's intentions with regard to length based on the number of pages in their script. Lynch never thought nine episodes would be sufficient for this thing. Conventional Hollywood wisdom is that a page equals about a minute of screen time but Lynch is not a conventional filmmaker. And, actually, even with other directors, I remember Bob Engles talking about how it took them a few episodes, back during Season 1, to figure out that they were initially writing way too long for the 45 minute time slots and they finally discovered that around 30-35 pages was the sweet spot for Twin Peaks scripts. And then when Lynch directed, he regularly cut scenes even from those short scripts to accommodate his pacing.

When he walked, what Lynch was demanding was freedom. He was never locked into any particular number of parts. Even after production wrapped, Showtime did not know how many episodes of this show there would be. The number of parts was determined after the fact, based on what they had shot.

There's no "padding." There's no "running out of time." There's no "wasting an episode." The whole thing was done before the first part aired (Lynch specifically mentioned in an interview that they had the final cut locked before anybody saw the premiere). I'm not saying everybody has to love what they're seeing, but I am saying that there isn't some set amount of time that L/F had to tell their story. They wrote whatever they damn well pleased, then shot the whole thing, and only then divided it up for television. We can all relax.

Love or hate a scene on its own merits, but how much time it takes up out of the whole is completely irrelevant, except in the sense of you feeling like your own personal time has been wasted. Fair enough on that one. But know that any scene that got cut/shortened would just make the whole TPTR project shorter. Now, you can argue that would be a good thing. That's a matter of taste. The only things I'm arguing against are the claims that (1) there's only X hours left and Lynch is running out of time to tell the story or (2) that Lynch is padding this out to fill a demand for 18 episodes when they only wrote a script for 9. Both of those claims are false.
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Re: Part 12 - Let's rock (SPOILERS)

Post by Hockey Mask »

garethw wrote:
crash_and_burn wrote:
garethw wrote:There are a heck of a lot of references to smoking in this show.

Gotta light?

The spelling of that's kind of odd. Out of context, wouldn't one would naturally read that as a contraction of "got to light"?
It's standard spelling for the short-hand vernacular usage of "Have you got a light?"
But it's not short hand - that was my point.

"Gotta go" = "Got to go". That's a contraction. When people speak, they don't enunciate the word "to".

"Got a light" is exactly how it is written and spoken, so there is no contraction. If it's really meant to mean "got a light", it's wrong.
It isn't wrong.

got·ta
contractioninformal

have got a.
"I gotta licence"

have got to.
"you gotta be careful"
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AgentEcho
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Re: Part 12 - Let's rock (SPOILERS)

Post by AgentEcho »

The Gazebo wrote: Do you know his motivation for doing this? I mean, I can understand an approach where he tells the story in a way that he knows will be difficult for the audience (but where he retains sympathy for their "plight"). But is there some deeper purpose to this rather malevolent set-up?
I'm certainly not claiming I completely understand Lynch's intentions... it would be a folly for anyone to claim they do. But, there's certain times when an the intention of a scene is pretty obvious. I mean we don't really need to hyper-analyze why Hitchcock used a dolly-zoom shot in Vertigo right? This may not be as obvious but it's close. When you take into account scenes like the sweeping shot, how brazenly unfamiliar the start of the series was, etc. what other conclusion is there? I'd be interested to hear an alternative theory.

I don't really find it malevolent at all... I mean all we are doing is watching a show... anyone taking it more seriously needs to calm down. It seems pretty good natured to me. I can only guess as to why Lynch wants to do it, but I know I've been a bit irritated by the entitled fan culture that has precipitated these revivals of old franchises, and given some of the opinions Lynch has expressed, I doubt he looks very kindly on fans thinking they get to define a story more than the writers. So I can imagine him setting up some elaborate good natured ribbing with certain scenes. But there's more to the series than that, and we're getting more. People just forget about all the great stuff when they get upset over a scene or two.
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Re: Part 12 - Let's rock (SPOILERS)

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Deep Thought wrote:
AgentEcho wrote:But if you're not seeing that Lynch is intentionally toying with expectations with the series you just aren't paying attention at this point. It's been constant throughout the show, but if it was only an interpretation before this episode, it should be unambiguously apparent now. There is literally no other reason for the scene to play out like it did, including the Jacoby segue, other than f***ing with the legion of fans who had demands and expectations tied to Audrey role in the new series, or for matter fans who had any expectations or demands story wise for the new series at all.
Wow, how to even respond. I guess I will say the story is not about you, it's about Audrey. Her story may wind up being tragic or joyful, but it will play out. To balance out your garmonbozia, I will send a golden orb your way - I thought the Audrey scene was brilliant, and hopefully you will feel the same as the story evolves.
I think you probably didn't understand my point... your comments have absolutely no relevance to my perspective on the scene. I was cracking up during the Audrey scene so I didn't hate it, but if you thought it was beautiful and moving from what we saw, that's fine. I'd be interested to hear you elaborate on that.
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Jonah
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Re: Part 12 - Let's rock (SPOILERS)

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Some good points counterpaul. But they did write a script of 400 pages which - by conventional stand-points - would be about 8 or 9 episodes, hence the original 9 episode order. Then I think improvisation took place on set - and some scenes ran longer. And Lynch wanted to try other things, such as Episode 8 for example. If that was scripted, I imagine it was only about 10 minutes on paper until it was stretched - visually - to episode length. Then we have numerous long, slow scenes and repeated footage (Jacoby), etc. I don't think Lynch is doing any of this to fill an episode order. But I think what people are saying is, that perhaps a tighter, more edited down 9-episode order that stuck to the script more would have been stronger. I feel this myself, though maybe 12 episodes would have been okay too which would have given some more wriggle room. Extending to 18 I feel has hurt the show because in my opinion it's led to a lot of scenes that feel really drawn out and some that either could have been deleted scenes or cut way down (an example being the most recent Audrey scene, which ran over 10 and a half continuous minutes in a scene that would have felt long at 3-4 minutes!). I think people are just pointing things like that out, not implying Lynch is trying to fill up 18 episodes, but rather saying it seems like he isn't cutting anything. (I would be very surprised if there's many deleted scenes. It really does feel, even moreso than with something like "Inland Empire" - which even had 1.5 hours of additional footage - that Lynch was reluctant to cut ANYTHING here. See more on the Audrey scene on the next page. It really does run 10.5 minutes and this episode also has a scene where a woman takes 2.5 minutes to stand up from a couch!) A good writer/director always knows when to cut the fat, in my opinion. Either way, as you say, it is a matter of taste. A part of me does like that we get to see all of this, warts and all, but another part just feels a shorter, tighter cut with less episodes would have produced a stronger, more compelling series.
Last edited by Jonah on Mon Jul 31, 2017 5:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I have no idea where this will lead us, but I have a definite feeling it will be a place both wonderful and strange.
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Re: Part 12 - Let's rock (SPOILERS)

Post by gary2381 »

Jasper wrote:
HagbardCeline wrote:
freeek wrote:In the original TP series, the last scene we ever saw featuring Sarah Palmer was her escorted by Jacoby (I think) and entering the Double R. She was clearly possessed by *someting*. Remember that creepy voice ?
Wasn't that Windom Earle getting the taunting message to Cooper through someone who had been touched by the lodge enough to communicate it?

Unfortunately that scene wasn't in the screenplay for that episode so we're never 100% sure whose voice that is supposed to be.
It's been reversed, and it's pretty much definitely the voice of Kenneth Welsh, which entirely fits with the Earle storyline.
I am not sure how much stock one puts into the closed captioning but I rewatched this scene on the Blu-Ray collection with the captioning on. The captioning stated:

(In Windom Earle's voice) "I'm in the Black Lodge with Dale Cooper."
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Jonah
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Re: Part 12 - Let's rock (SPOILERS)

Post by Jonah »

Still thinking about that Audrey scene.

It really does run 10 and a half minutes. This has to be some sort of record. How long was the "slow" scene at the beginning of Episode 8 with Cooper and the waiter? 3-5 minutes?

The new Audrey scene must be the longest take in the history of the series and perhaps in any TV show. It reminds me almost of Hitchcock's films that took place in one room (just like this scene) and had very long takes such as "Rope" or even "Dial M For Murder". It gives it a play-like feeling too. But, unlike in the Hitchcock movies, in this scene the characters barely even movie. Audrey has a little bit of physical movement putting on her jacket and her husband, Charlie, has some minor physical interaction with the phone. Otherwise, for a full 10 minutes and 30-something seconds, the two characters remain in the one position, talking. It has to be some kind of record.

A part of me thinks that that's great, but it was a very frustrating scene to watch. And, from a writing and editing standpoint, I feel it could have been cut down to a couple of minutes - and still felt long! (Remember, even the "long"/"slow" scene of the woman in Cole's room was 2.5 minutes.)
Last edited by Jonah on Mon Jul 31, 2017 5:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I have no idea where this will lead us, but I have a definite feeling it will be a place both wonderful and strange.
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