David Lynch Friday #10 – Twin Peaks

I was a few months shy of eleven years old when Twin Peaks made its television debut. By this point in my life, I’d already had “the talk” with my parents and was generally allowed a bit more freedom in what I chose to spend my free time doing. My brother and I were routinely allowed to see rated R movies (as long as my parents pre-screened them for anything they deemed too gratuitous) and I was allowed to read pretty much anything I wanted. When I was in first grade, it became apparent to my teacher that I required a greater challenge in school. I was the first student finished with their work or tests and would become a bit disruptive while waiting for the other students to catch up. The solution was to send me to the library until the rest of the class finished. In first grade, I read through the entirety of Frank Dixon’s Hardy Boys series and quite a bit of the Nancy Drew series. I loved detective stories. My grandfather was a retired NYPD detective and a budding author. Detectives? Fiction? Yes please.

I became uncommonly familiar with my elementary school library and I can still recall its exact layout to this day. Second grade, read more and more. Third grade, read more and more. By fourth grade, My teacher moved me on to Edgar Alan Poe. I am not making this up. The first story I ever read from Poe was The Murders In The Rue Morgue. I would sit there with this giant collection of Poe’s stories and poems while keeping a dictionary close by to help me define the words I didn’t understand. I credit this specific moment in my life with providing me an above average vocabulary. I cherished this time and my voracity for reading has held firm these decades later. By fifth grade, I’d polished off Stephen King’s The Shining and then The Stand and Salem’s Lot. I loved detectives and horror and the general macabre. I was reading Neil Gaiman’s Sandman comics if I was going to read comics. Give me the weird.

When Peaks launched, I knew who Lynch was. I knew who Kyle Maclachlan was. Hell, because of Hillstreet Blues, I knew who Mark Frost was. I credit my mother with providing me any information I asked for. She taught me how much goes into the media we consume. Like I said a few weeks ago, I loved Dune as a kid and I remember sneaking into the hallway to see what I could of Blue Velvet when my parents rented it from the video store. (That was one film deemed too much for our little eyes, ears and minds, Lol) And here comes Lynch, Frost and Maclachlan with a detective story that quickly got weird in all the ways I loved. I was in.

I credit Lynch as a figure in my life who has helped shape the mind I use to this day. He’s odd in the way that I am odd and I still can’t view this world the way most people do — I see it from a different angle and at this point I assume I always will.

And so here we are in a tiny Pacific Northwest town with a murdered homecoming queen and a town in shock. In comes the FBI with a bright eyed agent, instantly enamored by this small town, to try and solve the crime. What none of us knew was just how indelible an impression this show would leave on the world in eight episodes.

At this point, I don’t even know how to dive in and dissect Twin Peaks anymore. I could talk and write about this show forever — it’s everything to me. The show was famously canceled at the end of its second season, leaving us with an impossible cliffhanger to deal with for twenty five years until it’s eventual return from the grave (or Lodge, if you will). The show was dead by 1992 but in those two short years, it paved the way for several shows to eventually be born in its wake and carry its torch. Shows like The X-Files and LOST could not exist without Twin Peaks paving the way. In actuality, nothing like The Sopranos or Breaking Bad or The Shield or anything else that refused to wrap up a storyline in sixty minutes could exist without Twin Peaks first paving the way. The idea of flawed heroes and redemptive villains who might be non-villains had never really been explored in any meaningful way before Twin Peaks.

Lynch and Frost famously never wanted to solve the murder of Laura Palmer. To them, the idea of the ever long mystery was a driving creative force. Once the mystery is solved, the spell it holds over an audience is broken. This was evidenced in season two when the studio forced their hand, the “killer” was revealed and the ratings promptly fell off a cliff. They then moved Peaks around the schedule and viewership fell even further. They never gave it a chance to recover. Some point to Lynch’s departure in season two and they wouldn’t totally be wrong. He left to complete his film, Wild at Heart, and him not being around to help fight the studio led to friction between him and Frost and the rest of the crew. The studio took advantage and killed off the darling that had recently lost some of its shine. Lynch returned to direct the season two finale and while he and Frost concocted a brilliant turn and cliffhanger in an attempt to force the studio to give them a third season, the gambit failed and their baby was dead. Lynch had more to say and immediately wrote and directed a film titled, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. The film was not initially well received but the subsequent years have been kind to it and Lynch’s vision. He aimed to better round out the character of Laura Palmer, adding layers of complexity to her character by introducing her as a high school girl, seemingly perfect, yet leading a double life. It’s in this film where we begin to see Laura as a full individual and not just a corpse. We also learn the truth about her home life and why her father killed her. Throughout the two seasons of tv, we kept seeing an evil smiling man hovering in many scenes who quickly became known as Bob. And Bob was the epitome of evil — a demon of sorts who could inhabit others and bend them to his will. In Fire Walk With Me, Laura’s father Leland is possessed by Bob and repeatedly rapes his own daughter, creating substantial trauma and ultimately killing her to keep her from telling on him. It crashes through myths and legends to present a reality so uncomfortable and ugly. It’s like turning the overheard lights on the night after a party and breaking the reverie of memory.

As I said earlier, this was 1992 and Twin Peaks was now dead and buried, done. Then in 2015, we began to hear rumblings about Lynch and Frost wanting to revisit their iconic story. Then it was announced as a twelve episode limited series for Showtime. And then Lynch quit over budget concerns and the hope we all felt, crashed down on top of us. But Lynch and Frost weren’t done yet. Showtime caved to their demands and actually increased the episode order to eighteen hour longs. In 2017 Twin Peaks officially returned to our lives. And this is where I pause and hit the rewind button for a bit.

As a kid, I lost interest in Twin Peaks during its second season. The middle run of episodes are pretty soft compared to season one and the final few episodes of season two. I do remember the finale well, as we finally got to visit the Black Lodge in all of its macabre glory. The red curtains and black and white zigzagged floor are forever etched into my brain. My beloved Agent Cooper, laughing maniacally after his “rescue” and smashing his face into the bathroom mirror while chanting, “how’s Annie?” Over and over again. That’s what we were left with for twenty five years. I would revisit the show in my late teens and early twenties. At this point in my life, I was completely enamored by Lynch and had my own Netflix account. (This was back when Netflix sent out actual discs via the actual mail) I tried to get my friends into Twin Peaks to no avail and so it drifted off in that way that demanding art often does.

I met my wife in 2002 and instantly saw an opportunity to sucker someone else in to my weird little circle. She had pretty good taste in movies, less so in music but we can’t have everything, can we? I kid, not about the music though, that’s a battle we’re still waging to this day. We were married in 2003 and soon she was into Sofia Coppola and Wes Anderson. She already liked Spike Lee and Tarantino. She tolerated Nolan and Jackson, got into Altman and Cronenberg and Jarmusch. We were on a good path. She knew how much I loved old detective movies and put up with that. Hitchcock was good to go and we both agreed that Bill Murray was the greatest person ever. These are the things that help make up a marriage. I could go on and on and one day I just might because I also love talking about my wife but I’ll fast forward to 2017. The Return was fast approaching and she finally agreed to watch Twin Peaks with me. I was beyond excited but also nervous because I knew that tv had changed a lot in the twenty five years since Peaks ended. I hit play. She was instantly hooked. I knew it, she was obsessed with true crime and I should have never doubted it or her. We laughed at the sometimes hokey acting but were enamored with the unfolding mystery. I was watching Twin Peaks for the first time again because I was seeing it through my wife’s eyes. It became a daily routine to drink coffee and eat donuts while we watched. We were completely into it and I was transported through my entire life again. The show got weirder as Lynch and Frost began to blow out the characters and explore the essence of humanity. We saw literal inspiration on our tv for the X-Files and LOST. I began to understand some more about myself and why I have been drawn to the things I’ve been drawn to.

It always begins when you’re a child. Lynch has been with me nearly my entire life. This is why I hold him and King and Poe on these pedestals.

Twin Peaks had begun to shape our thoughts and we began to view current tv and film differently. We could see the imprint it left and we could see, clearly, when a project was taking the easy way out. We’ve become more demanding of what we now consume. If Twin Peaks could spark so much electricity in our minds, doing so with so much going against it and the issue of being twenty five years in the past, why couldn’t new shows? They should have heeded warnings and learned lessons but Hollywood loves to cut corners. Lynch has never cut a corner in his life. He has ways pushed the envelope and maintained his search for what comes next.

We caught up, thirty episodes in about ten days and then it was time to begin The Return. The two episode premier ended and I honestly didn’t know what to think. The show was weirder than ever and I loved that but it also already looked likely to subvert all of our expectations at every turn. It was time to open up and give in or else we were going to have a helluva time getting through this story. And right there I remember thinking that Lynch and Frost maybe had this planned all along. The Return was premiering almost exactly twenty five years after the cancellation, after Cooper went into the Black Lodge and here we were finding out that Cooper had been trapped there for twenty five years and it was his evil doppelgänger that escaped. I honestly wouldn’t put it past Lynch and Frost to have concocted this plan to wait two and a half decades and come back to their baby with full control.

The most interesting thing about the Return was how much took place outside of the town of Twin Peaks. They were acknowledging how the show had grown during its absence. They also gave us three (or four?) different versions of our beloved Agent Cooper. We had Mr. C, the evil one who’s wreaked havoc on the world for twenty five years. We had Dougie, Coopers attempt to escape the Lodge only to see part of his ego make it. And then there was the trapped Cooper who must navigate these extravagant settings as he attempted to return to us and save the day. Dougie was the most polarizing aspect of the Return, with his infantile demeanor bordering on grating and while we all hoped each week would bring Cooper fully back to us. Lynch and Frost waited until the final few episodes before Cooper made it all the way back and the catharsis in that moment was unlike anything I have ever felt from a tv show.

“I AM the FBI,” with that patented smile and thumbs up. Bravo.

But what does it all mean? What makes Twin Peaks so great?

The first season built a mystery infused with the unexplainable. We were given suspects and even though many of them at first seemed good fo the murder, it quickly became apparent there was more going on. The show began to dive in to the daily lives of all the inhabitants of this small town. This drew us in deeper because we grew attachments. As a kid, I thought Bobby was the coolest person I’d ever seen, even if James had a motorcycle, he was too morose for me. Bobby was exciting. And then, this was the point in my life where I was beginning to get interested in girls, and Audrey Horne is just the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. I was in loooooove. So, I’m growing up with this show, with this new family on tv.

The second season began to fracture. Lynch left to finish a film and the show dove into many side stories involving secondary and tertiary characters. Now, in 2021, it’s more interesting to me but back then, my interest waned. What was still enjoyable about season two was the main trio of Harry, Cooper and Hawk remained largely unchanged. Even with a dip in quality, the show was still more interesting than anything else on tv. We found out that the evil Bob had a partner in Mike, the mysterious one armed man. Mike was not the killer and in fact, somewhat of a reformed demon who wished to help Cooper. The show now fully identified itself as more than a mere mystery show — it’s diving headfirst into the macabre, the true nature of evil, and even aliens. Cooper’s old partner showed up as a major villain by the end of the show until he’s destroyed in the Lodge by Bob. Cooper was trapped while his doppelgänger escaped and this was what we were left with for twenty five years.

Lynch immediately went to work filming Fire Walk With Me but the film didn’t answer questions, instead opting to ask more of them. Cooper was Cooper again as this was all a prequel to the series and it’s main interest was in diving into the family dynamics of the Palmer household. There were some interesting developments here though. We’re given the first mention of the Blue Rose task force, which would eventually play a major role in the Return. We also met David Bowie’s character Phillip Jeffries. He was an agent who disappeared after investigating for the task force and only popped up to warn Cooper’s boss that Cooper wasn’t who they thought him to be. This, coupled with Cooper watching himself on a security camera was the first acknowledgment that what we saw in the season two final was as bad as we thought it was. Lynch really struggled with this film, he had too much to say for a single feature film and in the subsequent years, a version titled The Missing Pieces has seen the light of day with nearly two hours of cut material that serves to flesh out this world.

This brings us to the Return and it’s in these final eighteen hours of the Twin Peaks universe where Lynch and Frost begin to make their mission statement clear. They want to finish telling the stories of these inhabitants of a small Pacific Northwest town. For Lynch, he uses the eighteen hours to sum up his entire career and draw parallels between each and every one of his works. Twenty five years later and they still chose to challenge us as much as ever while again showing television the way forward. Love it or hate it, love them or hate them, the Return will prove to be a major influence on the stories we see in the future on the silver screen. They used the Roadhouse as an opportunity to provide us with real musical acts that somehow summed up a theme being explored in that hour of story. I was challenged several times by the Return. Part eight has proven to be the most famous hour of the Return and for good reason. It’s an hour unlike anything any of us have ever seen, film or television. It’s a journey into the dark heart of mankind as Lynch weaves a tapestry of horror and loss of innocence. We’re taken to the source of when mankind truly became dangerous to itself with the very first test of the atomic bomb in New Mexico. From there we are hurtled through time and space, inside the explosion to witness the birth of Bob by the evil presence Judy — the birth of literal evil. We then follow a young girl in the area as she unknowingly ingests some sort of mutant frog beetle. Later in the series, we’ll come to understand this girl as Laura Palmer’s eventual mother, Sarah. The evil was always there in all of us, waiting for us to remove our societal face and unleash Hell on Earth. I was personally challenged by this episode and it took me three viewings before I had a handle on what Lynch and Frost were getting at. I can also be honest enough about my feelings for Cooper’s infantile doppelgänger, Dougie. I so badly wanted Cooper back that I sometimes grew impatient with Dougie’s antics but once the show had told its story, I understood why we were made to wait. Lynch and Frost were attempting to reclaim their tale and the innocence of everyone involved. This is a tough trick to attempt because you simply cannot undo trauma but the final few hours of the series pulled off a fete for the ages. They began to unwind time as Cooper fought to not become trapped forever like his fellow agent Phillip Jeffries. Cooper defeated his evil doppelgänger and then with help, defeated Bob and sent him back to the Black Lodge where he belonged. He then journeyed through time and space in an attempt to heal all wounds. He showed up in the past, in Laura Palmer’s timeline before her murder and warned her. Lynch managed to insert current Cooper into a scene from Fire Walk With Me as Cooper prevented Laura from marching off to her death, instead disappearing. Cooper than arrived in our real world as a different man and tracked Laura down. She was going by the name Carrie Page in our world and this solved a twenty five year old mystery from early in the series about a missing “page” from Laura’s diary. Cooper and Carrie drove to Twin Peaks and knocked on the door of her childhood home. It’s answered by the woman who actually currently owns this house in real life. She didn’t now them — didn’t know what they’re talking about and shut the door on their hopes for closure. Cooper was rocked to his core and asked, “what year is this?” It’s at this moment where Carrie and Laura’s memories began to merge and she hears her mother Sarah call out to her the morning after she was murdered. She let out a howl of a scream and the lights all shut out, one by one, until we were plunged into complete darkness.

I know this ending left more than a few confused and disdained but this is the perfect ending for the saga of Twin Peaks. Cooper had gone back and prevented Laura from ever being murdered. The mystery was sprung anew. It didn’t even approach the idea of dismissing the trauma that she suffered at the hands of her father instead causing a new timeline where she disappeared from Twin Peaks instead of being murdered. This allowed Cooper to fulfill his hero’s journey while still honoring the devastating events in Laura’s life which led up to a specific moment. Lynch and Frost reclaimed their baby and left us with something indelible to ponder for the decades to come.

Now, I know we didn’t dive in to Twin Peaks with the same detail we dove in to Lynch’s other projects but it’s impossible to fit everything into one post. This one is already way too long as it stands and Twin Peaks is a subject I can talk and write and think about for hours at a time, every day of my life. It’s the biggest influence on my own work and will likely always be exactly that.

This brings us to the end of this post and this was really the only way I know how to talk about Twin Peaks here. It means too much to me to merely recount it beat by beat. It’s a work above and beyond anything else I’ve experienced in my life and I’m grateful I’ve been able to share it now with my wife. My nieces are next, say a prayer for them. And who knows? Perhaps Lynch isn’t as done with Twin Peaks as we thought. We know he’s starting work on a new series for Netflix, titled Unrecorded Night. There are major rumors circling that this new series will be tied to his signature work but that still remains to be seen. I for one believe we’ve seen the end of Twin Peaks and that Lynch and Frost ended the run on their own terms. Let’s just be excited for a new Lynch project of any kind.

Okay, that’s it, for real this time. Next week, we’ll wrap up and discuss what’s next. Until then, love each other.

David Lynch Friday #9 – Inland Empire

Oh man, this film. Fourteen years later and this film still confounds me. Watching it earlier in the week was the first time I made it all the way through. Back in 2006, I couldn’t do it. The film was obtuse and unwieldy and nothing clicked for me. This isn’t exactly uncharted territory for Lynch and his viewers. Inland Empire remained, for nearly a decade and a half, the lone Lynch work that just didn’t mean anything at all to me. Part of the reason for my doing this project was that it would provide me an opportunity to give Inland Empire another go. I initially planned to watch this film in two sittings — make it easier on my brain. Ninety minutes and ninety minutes. Monday night I sat down, hit play and was mesmerized for 180 minutes. I did it! I finished! And I did it in one go! Hurray for me!

This film still confounds me.

But now, it confounds me in a good way.

I’m on the path now.

There’s a destination in mind.

I will watch this again and again and then again and one day I will unlock all of its mysteries.

And this has been my ultimate point with the project: film requires us as much as we it. Fourteen years later, I’ve now exited my twenties and thirties. I am more mature from a life standpoint and most certainly from a film standpoint. This is why Lynch is my favorite filmmaker of all time: his work grows and matures with us because, love it or hate it, his films stay with us, in our subconscious, the entire way.

So, what exactly is Inland Empire?

The only thing I can say with certainty is that it’s Lynch’s most experimental film. It’s also likely to stand as his final feature, which is oddly satisfying as it bears a certain symmetry to his very first feature film, Eraserhead. Both films are experimental and with Inland Empire, it shows that, decades later, Lynch has never lost his spirit or individuality. Where Eraserhead, to be reductive, told the story of a man in trouble, Inland Empire, again being reductive, tells the story of a woman in trouble.

But let’s dive in a bit deeper.

The first thing to strike me as interesting occurs in the opening seconds of the film. Dark. Shadow. A flashlight clicks on. Flooding light. The unseen person holding the flashlight retreats and the title, Inland Empire is revealed. I love how Lynch shoots this sequence in reverse. Instead of highlighting the film as something found, he unearths the film by showing light retreating to the shadows. I’m sure this is going to be key, one day, to my ultimate understanding of this film.

We move on to a dream sequence, cloaked in shadow, featuring two fuzzy faced people. They engage in sexual intercourse. We’re immediately thrown off and cannot understand what they’re saying (subtitles help, lol). Then, SNAP! We’re in the aftermath. The film is colorized and a traumatized woman sits alone in a hotel room, staring at the snowy signal loss on her television. This is reality and the aftermath of a dream. Everything will only grow more abstract from here because where we snow, she sees a sitcom featuring three people in full rabbit suits. They speak using obtuse sentences that don’t connect to each other in any normal way. There’s a laugh track that makes no sense. Are we peeking into this woman’s soul? Has television snatched her soul? Our soul? I believe the rabbits are a commentary on art and the critique of art. They also come across as a way for Lynch to show us how something that doesn’t make sense to us, may make perfect sense to someone else. It is a fascinating opening salvo.

We move on to Laura Dern, who will dominate this film. She is extraordinary here, like she always is with Lynch. She’s an actress recently cast in a film alongside a mega star played by Justin Theroux. Before that can take place, she’s visited by her Polish neighbor, played with gusto by Grace Zabriskie. Zabriskie levels an ominous warning to Laura Dern about her film, stating that where Dern thinks the film innocuous, she should prepare herself for brutal fucking murder. She then tells a fable about a boy who went out to play…he looked into the mirror and evil was born. And right there folks, we have a direct connection into the world of Twin Peaks. The mirror. The evil twin. Lynch is incorporating all of his work into one gigantic universe and I am here for all of it. Yet there’s more to the fable than just a connection to Twin Peaks. The fable is central to helping us understand this narrative.

Continuing on, it doesn’t make much sense to further explore the plot because it’s borderline indecipherable. Lynch is toying with our perceptions of reality and he’s being overtly impressionistic here. He chose to shoot the film on video and it’s definitely odd at first but we get used to the look and feel and ultimately, we come to understand why he made this choice. The real star of Inland Empire, however, is the sound design. It’s, at once, sparse and all encompassing. The sound screeches at us and fills us with dread and anxiety, never relenting. It is out of this world — perhaps the best use of sound in Lynch’s career.

So what we have here is Lynch using his crew and everything else at his disposal to tell a story without a coherent or cohesive narrative. Why? Because he is obsessed with dream states and psychological story telling. The film in the film is a remake of an older Polish film that was never finished because the leads died during the filming — dead by murder. The film was deemed cursed and nobody involved now, knew this when they signed up. Soon, Dern’s character falls further into descent. Her husband is a violent Polish (possible) gangster. Theroux’s character, after having been warned to not have sex with Dern, does just that and disappears. The director (Kingsley) and a grip (Bucky) get into a hilarious spat on set. But what does any of this mean?

I wrote in my notebook: I am TORN on what this is!

And I still am.

Because this seems to be an exploration on how we, as humans, interact with each other. If it’s just that, it’s fascinating but I think there’s more at work here. There is also a central theme of women navigating a dangerous world. It’s like a noir-ish mashup of Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz. The thing is, the real world is just as wild and dangerous as these aforementioned fantasy worlds — especially for women. Our female counterparts must always be cognizant of their surroundings and who could be inhabiting the shadows. Nothing is easy or safe for them but I still think there’s more at play here.

Here’s one other thing I know for certain: the final hour of this film is equally haunting and mesmerizing — the viewer cannot look away.

But what else is going on?

So I had a thought about the woman watching all of this unfold on her television. Is she watching the original Polish film? Is it all in her head? Is she watching a fictionalized version of her own life and how it could be? Or…is she…us? This is where Lynch’s home video look makes sense to me. The camera is us. We’re judging all of these events and these people experiencing said events. We are the viewer and this is the story as seen through the eyes of the viewer but still, there’s more going on here.

And this is the major reason I find this film so confounding. I simply cannot land on solid ground.

I think back to that fable about the little boy and the mirror. The mirror can be seen as an instrument of vanity and vanity is the evil twin. A world obsessed with itself is an evil world. We must look inward to project outward. This is vitally important in art. There are sometimes two sides of an artist. You have the creative side and the destructive side. The process of filmmaking is no easy undertaking and there are plenty of aborted projects or projects that die for various other reasons. There are allusions to a possible miscarriage by Dern’s character and part of her journey can be seen as her way of coping with the loss and trying to make sense of the world in the aftermath. But then again, it could merely be Dern reflecting on events and non-events from her past that have already happened. This could be purgatory and she is already dead. Hell, this could be Lynch commenting on his own creative process — the trials and tribulations of the eternal life of success and crushing defeat of a project’s death.

Or.

This is all about two sides of the same world. We have the surface and we have what’s just below the surface. Just below the surface is where the engine revs and powers what we see on the surface. Perhaps, it isn’t the twin who is evil but the world that decided to mirror itself and confound us with its lies. And maybe through sacrifice, the good side, the side of courage and perseverance, can give and receive love.

And then again, maybe I’m all wrong. Either way, I have begun to open myself up to Inland Empire and thus it has begun to share some of its secrets.

Next week, Twin Peaks. Until then, love each other.

My 10 Favorite Books Of The Pandemic Year 2020

If there was a silver lining to 2020, we’re still waiting to find out what it was. I’m kidding but not really but we’ll pretend I am. If there WAS any sort of silver lining through the pandemic year, it was that quarantining led to an abundance of time to absorb different forms of art and media. In the next four weeks, I’ll be sharing my favorites in books, television, gaming and film. We’ll start with books and according to my Goodreads, I read sixty eight books and over twenty thousand pages this year. I remember beginning early with Alan Moore’s nearly 1300 page doorstop of a novel, Jerusalem. He’s so talented that I actually think I hate him. I am definitely intimidated by his seemingly limitless ability. I also mixed in plenty of comics, which is nothing new for me. Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez found some extra creative life out of their Locke and Key series and Hill himself released the awesome, Basketful of Heads. We also received the final run of issues for both, Sex Criminals and Gideon Falls. So yeah, 2020 delivered more beautiful art and writing from three of my favorite comic series ever. We also received the first issue of, The Last Ronin, the astonishing new take on TMNT.

As for the rest, I mixed in some nonfiction with my fiction (still skew heavily toward fiction). Read some memoirs like Greenlights and another one which will be on the list. Didn’t get to as many as I would’ve liked but I like to think that those are good problems. Overall, I didn’t really read a bad book this year and that is always a welcome occurrence. Caught up on some of the backlog, read some new stuff and even revisited some old favorites such as The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.

But enough blathering on, these were my favorite reads of the pandemic year 2020.

HONORABLE MENTION: FIND ME by Andre Aciman – The sequel to the beloved Call Me By Your Name catches us off guard by spending the first part of the novel with Elio’s father as he embarks on a newfound journey of love. We then meet an older Elio and eventually catch up with Oliver and it isn’t until late in the novel that the two lovers from the first novel reunite. Regardless, Aciman writes with delicate affection for life and love and he treats us to another special offering.

10. MADI: ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE FUTURE by Alex Di Campi and Duncan Jones – This was a Kickstarter project for a graphic novel that would serve as the final part of a trilogy Jones began with the films, Moon and Mute. Di Campi and Jones create a story that is equal parts heartwarming and heartbreaking while being joined by dozens of the best artists in the business (each drawing approximately six pages of this project) ultimately crafting something wholly unique.

9. ANTKIND by Charlie Kaufman – A book about a film that takes a few months to view. A book about a man losing everything in his life, even his mind. A book about destruction, about hope, about love, about anger, about anxiety, about depression. It’s a big one but we should come to expect nothing less from a man so full of ideas that his first book has almost too many. Somehow, Kaufman may end up on two different year end lists for me this go around. His brain is one of a kind.

8. THE LIVING DEAD by George Romero – The sign off from an all-time great. Romero was still pushing at the boundaries until his dying breath and this novel, his final work, ties off his decades long zombie saga with an insane amount of depth and heart. This is a must read for any horror fans out there.

7. FAIR WARNING & THE LAW OF INNOCENCE by Michael Connelly – So a cheat, I know. Maybe we should instead focus on how it’s possible Connelly can release two books of this ridiculous quality in the same calendar year. First, He finally brought Jack MacEvoy back for those of us who were sorely missing the dogged reporter and this one was a doozy. Connelly’s best villain since The Poet. Second, Connelly released another Mickey Haller thriller and this time, everyone’s favorite defense attorney was tasked with defending himself…in a murder trial. Again, Connelly is supernaturally prolific.

6. BROKEN by Don Winslow – A book of six stories that all represent some broken aspect of the American dream. Winslow not only never disappoints, he’s getting better and more incisive each time out.

5. HOLLYWOOD PARK by Mikel Jollett- A memoir about fathers and mothers and their sons, about abuse, about addiction, about growing up, about losing your shit, about perseverance, about humility, about the grandiose nature of life, a little bit about a cult and a whole-lotta-bit about love. Jollett writes with a painter’s touch — like words aren’t enough.

4. UTOPIA AVENUE by David Mitchell – This not being number one on my list is indicative of how struck I was by the next three novels. Utopia Avenue is a masterpiece. I loved every word. I wish I actually knew these characters, especially Elf. I fucking love her so much. It’s the story of a British psychedelic rock band in the midst of rising stardom in the 1960s. Oh but it’s also about so much more than that. It is the essence of life. It is about a centuries old demon trying to kill one of the characters due to a vengeful blood lust. It’s about a hundred other things. Mitchell finds ways to tie this novel to almost every single other novel he’s written. It’s like a magic trick that brings the reader nothing but joy.

3. CONSIDER THIS: MOMENTS IN MY WRITING LIFE… by Chuck Palahniuk – Chuck finally sat down to write a novel about writing. It’s the most entertaining, helpful, and useful book on writing that I have ever read. It is my new bible and has already helped improve my own craftsmanship. A must read for any writers out there.

2. GOD-LEVEL KNOWLEDGE DARTS: LIFE LESSONS FROM THE BRONX by Desus and Mero – These two have been my saving grace this year. They are, at once, hilarious and incisive. They cut through any and all bullshit while they bullshit. I moved form New York to Texas this year and these two have kept me feeling like home isn’t too far away. Between their show on Showtime and this book, they’ve helped me stay sane. Easily one of the funniest books I have ever read.

1. BLACKTOP WASTELAND by S.A. Cosby – This motherfucker right here. This badass, fucking razor sharp stiletto of a novel right here. Blacktop Wasteland is a crime novel like we haven’t read before. Sure, there are echoes of Walter Mosley and Elmore Leonard in these pages but Cosby isn’t as laid back as those two. No, he wants it all right there, right up front. His characters aren’t just cool, they’re real. This is an important distinction and it’s what separates the pretenders from the contenders. Perhaps this isn’t the best analogy because Cosby ain’t even a contender, he’s got a boot up on that throne. This baby cooks with gasoline from page one, never lets us go and never lets any of its characters off the hook. I haven’t been this excited from my first experience with a writer since I read Ken Bruen’s The Guards. Cosby is that. Fucking. Good.

That’s all I got, folks. Keep reading. Next week will be television (spoiler alert: Desus and Mero pop back up). Until then, love each other.

David Lynch Friday #8 – Mulholland Drive

Lynch originally envisioned Mulholland Drive as part of the larger universe of Twin Peaks. It was a work conceived as a way to further explore the character of Audrey Horne and her adventures in Hollywood and quickly deemed a no go as a new television series. It was later workshopped as a feature and was still deemed a no go. Eventually Lynch reworked his idea into what we would eventually see on screen but upon the ramping up of the production, it was discovered that most of the sets and props had been destroyed. Almost as if the world was gathering to conspire against this project, Lynch and his team got serious and persevered. What we received is, in my opinion, Lynch’s greatest film. A puzzle box of a noir that is more inspired than most anything we could reasonably expect from the genre and one that is constantly more infatuated with the characters over the plot. I have this ranked as the number one film of the 2000s. Let’s dive in.

We open with a town car winding its way around Mulholland Drive with Laura Harring’s character in the backseat. The car stops, a gun is trained on her as she is ordered out of the vehicle. Before that can happen, two other cars careen out of control and one smashes into the town car. This results in the two men up front being killed and Laura Harring’s character stumbling around, concussed. This is THE moment in the film but a first time viewer would not know this yet. The moment is preceded by the camera laying down on red sheets until the camera blacks out. These two moments, placed together, tell the entire story of the film and I love how Lynch always drops the keys to his mysteries right in front of the viewer. This is what makes any Lynch mystery so worthwhile — there are no tricks and no logic leaps. When a viewer returns to a Lynch mystery, they will always have the tools necessary to solve it.

The first half of the film unfolds as a multi-layered classic noir-ish mystery, albeit one where the events we’re seeing are happening all out of order. There is also a heightened sense of reality throughout the first half because what we’re seeing isn’t exactly what has actually happened. The truth is hiding from us and choosing to play a game of peek-a-boo — sometimes literally as we meet death a few times in the film in the form of the person living behind the diner and when that person shows up at the apartment door. One of the keys to understanding the mystery is to give in to it and allow the story to wash over you at first. There are small touches that will stand out. Lynch’s oft used POV shots put us directly in the story. Why would different characters get POV shots? Good question and the answer is one of the keys necessary to unlocking this story.

Cards on the table, everything we’re seeing in this film is from the perspective of Naomi Watts’ character. Her name, at first, is Betty and she has just arrived in Los Angeles to pursue her dream of acting. She befriends Laura Harring’s amnesiac Rita as they try to solve the mystery of the car accident and Rita’s true identity. They stumble across a name of Diane and search her out. When Diane’s apartment is found, it’s in a funhouse mirror version of their current apartment complex. Where Betty’s life in Los Angeles has been brightly lit and full of pluck, everything suddenly shifts to muted and somber. At first, this world revolves around Betty and her life. Everyone seems so invested in her. When the key to the mystery finds its keyhole, the reasoning behind all of this will become crystal clear. Nothing in this film is where it should not be.

One quick little addition here is that Lynch infuses some of this film with hilarious slapstick humor. There’s an entire assassination attempt that goes about as wrong as it could possibly go and the hitman’s attempt to clean up his mess spirals completely out of control in the funniest possible way. There’s also another small detail in this sequence that we’ll dive into in a moment.

Back to the new apartment complex where betty and Rita meet a woman they believe to be the Diane they’re looking for. This woman is not Diane but knows her and she bears a striking resemblance to Rita. Hmmmmmm. Our two leads break into the apartment where they find Diane dead in her bedroom. The only thing we can determine from the dead body is that she was a blonde. Hmmmmmm. They also find a curious blue box that looks to match a blue key in Rita’s possession. Betty and Rita return to the nice apartment in order to figure out their next move. They comfort each other and engage in a love affair. Rita tries on a blonde wig. They are becoming one, in both a figurative and literal sense. Rita and Betty awake to Rita chanting the word: Silencio, over and over again. We’re then transported to a nightclub which goes by the name Silencio. Betty and Rita are ushered in and take their seats. Oh baby, this should have Twin Peaks fans all hot and bothered because this is beginning to directly connect with the fabled show. We’re in the lodge — the black lodge now. The red curtains and blue lights. A performance by Rebekah Del Rio. The sounds and sights of electricity. The mic turning into a pulsing blue orb. This is where souls go to be processed. What is going on? We are so close to answers. But first, the sadness begins to grip everyone involved.

Back at the apartment and Betty has disappeared, leaving Rita in a Betty wig, all alone. She pulls out the blue box and inserts her key. She opens the box to see it empty — a black hole. The camera is again POV here and we get sucked in and through the box.

The film is now completely different.

Everything is more muted and somber, the bright colors and pluck are few and far between. We’re in an alternate world or perhaps we’ve left the alternate world. Betty now goes by the name Diane and Rita goes by the name Camilla. They are lovers on the outs. Things are beginning to clear up. Lynch has partly been telling us a story about ego. We can question everything we’ve seen so far. We humans are infatuated with ourselves. We exist with the idea that we live in a fishbowl, with everyone watching and commenting on our lives. This film was released twenty years ago and it’s even more relevant today. Another relevant tidbit: Lynch stuck himself in this film. Justin Theroux’s conflicted director is Lynch himself. He wants us to understand how difficult this profession can be to navigate in a corporate world. Inspiration can be fleeting and we’re rarely on solid ground.

The film continues and we watch Diane (Watts) spin out of control. She returns to her apartment (the sad one) and throws herself on the bed. Red sheets, look familiar? Her parents are laughing and mocking her in her mind. We originally met them as strangers so full of love and hope for young Betty. Oh the tables have turned. Diane cannot quiet the voices and shoots herself dead in a fit of desperation. The room fills with smoke followed by super lit and superimposed scenes of Betty and Diane before fading out and reentering Club Silencio for good.

So what exactly happened?

What happened is that Naomi Watts starred as a young, hopeful actress named Diane who couldn’t quite catch the breaks she needed to sustain a career. Her girlfriend (Rita/Camilla) caught the breaks and they drifted apart. Diane fell deep into a depression with no end in sight and unfortunately succumbed to her depression by committing suicide. The first half of the film is a rendering of Diane’s life — somewhat as it happened and somewhat as she wished it had been. The Blue box represents the truth and once we pass into it, we’re then in actual reality. This is what happened to Diane. The second half of the film is the harsh truth. Remember the hitman? Did you notice how he had two different colored eyes? One eye was Betty and the other Rita. The first half of the film is the moment between when Diane shot herself and the moment she actually died. Still, as harsh as the story is, Lynch is telling us a love story. Sure it’s sad but you cannot have sadness without happiness, love without anger, life without death. That is the yin and the yang of life. Mulholland Drive is ultimately a film depicting the various stages of our lives. We travel from the wild eyed wonder of infancy to the adventurous spirit and mystery of growing up. We then enter our work/purpose phase and this is often where it can go all right or all wrong or everything in between. This is where the ego rules over all. Adoration can lead to doubt which can breed anxiety and then enter depression which holds the hand of helplessness and walks us up to death’s door. It’s a miracle of a film that throws everything at us and mixes it up to the point where we question our own reality but it also gives us the tools to solve its central mystery. It’s about creation and inspiration as much as it’s about depression and destruction. It’s a journey about the journey and I love it as much as it’s possible to love a film.

One last thing before we go: Naomi Watts is flat-out fucking astonishing in this film. Her performance is easily one fo the best I’ve seen in the last two decades.

Next week, Inland Empire. Until then, love each other.

David Lynch Friday #5 – Wild At Heart

Wild At Heart. Phewwwww boy. Where to begin? I don’t know how to write about this film and it’s beginning to terrify me. I looked over my notes and they don’t make any sense — they’re all questions. I specifically remembering deciding not to get stoned beforehand because I knew this film was a bit of a crazy ride. Now, I’m wondering if I did get high before watching and somehow forgot that I did that. Seriously, this is a question I wrote down and I present it to you verbatim: Is this a visual representation of smoking a cigarette? Love=cigarette?

Uh, what?

First, it’s Lynch and then on top of that, it’s Nicolas Cage. Lynch and Cage together is a recipe for volcanic eruption. Then, you add Willem Defoe and it becomes the end of the goddamn world.

What’s it about?

It’s about a karate kicking guy named Sailor, who’s in love with a hyper sexual woman named Lula. Lula’s mother is a maniac in love with a mobster and she hates Sailor with a passion. She will stop at nothing to murder him in order to keep him away from her daughter. Sailor and Lula embark on a cross country trip full of every vice imaginable as they flee Lula’s mother. There is a ton of sex, multiple cigarettes being smoked at once, murder, mayhem, car accidents, a robbery gone wrong, a decapitation and of course, a snakeskin jacket. After all, it’s a symbol of Sailor’s individuality.

Is it good?

Yes, in a crazy way and definitely not a for everyone way. The film starts, right off the bat, at level 100 and only escalates from there. It can be a bit exhausting. There’s a line in the film that goes: the world is wild at heart and weird on top. That’s Lynch’s philosophy on life and here he is all about showing us the unkempt nature of blossoming love. For the record, the actors are all fantastic in their own scenery chewing ways. Cage has always been both the best and worst actor alive and here he lays the blueprint for every supernova Cage we’ll see during the rest of his career.

We can’t escape the crazy in this film — it’s all consuming. Even when the film slows down a bit as Sailor and Lula reach the town of Big Tuna, we’re only exchanging crazy for a different sort of more unsettling crazy. And then the film ramps it all up again. It is sort of mesmerizing in a reckless way.

Lynch sprinkles plenty of his Twin Peaks cohorts around in the film and also tips his hand toward what we would see in a couple years with Fire Walk With Me. Lynch is always mining himself and his viewer for a deeper understanding of what makes us all tick. Wild at Heart is more soap opera than crime flick while also being Lynch’s completely fucked up version of, The Wizard Of Oz. It’s all there and honestly pretty overt, especially for Lynch. It’s like melding Oz with the Hell depicted in The Divine Comedy.

Everything in the film is set at odds with Sailor and Lula — they are all distractions wishing to keep Sailor and Lula from their ultimate goal. It’s an awesome representation of the trials of young love when two lovers must decide if what they have is real and sustaining or flippant and fleeting. They are tested, and the cigarettes do mean something. Lynch loves the flame and loves the phrase: fire walk with me. Even if that phrase is never uttered in this film, it’s there for us to infer. The flame here represents burning desire and everything else is life after desire has burned itself out. Most of the characters are like zombies because they’ve become trapped by their own emotional failings. Sailor and Lula (really Sailor) are headed here as well until two things: Lula’s pregnancy and Sailor triumphing over his own demons. Lula makes a decision to live her life for their son and Sailor makes a decision to initially stay wild and let Lula go. He’s then assaulted by a group of random thugs after calling them an insensitive sexual slur. It’s after his beating that he realizes the error of his ways. And we realize these thugs to be a representation of Sailor’s inner demons. You cannot conquer your demons with violence and ugliness. You have to recognize them and accept them if you ever hope to walk away and move forward. Sailor finally learns this lesson and returns to Lula and his son, a (slightly) changed man and we’ve all learned a little bit about acceptance.

Next week, Lost Highway. Until then, love each other.

David Lynch Friday #1 – Eraserhead

Eraserhead. Been awhile. Like much of Lynch’s work, Erasherhead benefits from time and exposure. The more time you spend with the film, the more you will get out of it. This was Lynch’s feature film debut, way back in 1977 and in the spirit of total honesty, it’s a miracle anyone saw this film and then decided to give Lynch money to make a second feature. This isn’t a knock on the film, it’s a wonderfully complex work and supremely assured for a debut feature but the film is also a nightmarish puzzle box. It is not easily digestible and at times it’s even a bit offensive to the senses. Lynch is challenging his audience right out of the starting gate, a trait that will never abandon him.

Watching it again now, after Lynch was able to revisit Twin Peaks, it’s clear that there is a lot here that either exists in the same universe of Twin Peaks or at least the universe of the Black Lodge. Erasherhead will be a major talking point when we wrap this project up with the sure-to-be massive post featuring everything Twin Peaks. For reference:

The apartment lobby floor is the same as the Black Lodge.
Electricity is prominently displayed throughout the film.
The electric, old-fashioned humidifier looks a lot like Phillip Jeffries.
The tree growing in Henry’s apartment looks exactly like THE ARM from the Black Lodge.
There is also a small photo of an atomic bomb explosion next to Henry’s bed.

So yeah, we will be revisiting all of this because I feel like I am on the verge of some new, mind blowing Twin Peaks revelations. But we will get back to that at a later date.

One of the themes of Erasherhead is that of parenthood and specifically fatherhood. The opening scene with Henry’s face superimposed over some kind of cosmic egg is an easy to grasp metaphor for the paranoia of parenthood. Lynch loves the technique of superimposing and still uses it to this day as a filmmaker. Jack Nance also has a face made for closeups — I swear it’s as malleable as clay. It says, “what have I done?” This could also be Lynch working through his feelings on birthing an idea and creating life in art.

An undervalued aspect of Lynch’s work is how funny it often is. Erasherhead is full of body horror and psychological torment but it’s also hilariously uncomfortable. Lynch uses black and white photography to cloak the film in shadow, like there is a looming, negative force overseeing everything. This also serves to exude a silent film vibe. It’s like if Charlie Chaplin were cast in Nosferatu. I love this. The dinner scene where Henry visits his girlfriend’s family is uproariously creepy. Everything is there to be considered normal but it’s all heightened enough to be off. The catatonic grandmothers cigarette. The tiny chickens and enormous carving knife. Then comes the blood. Then comes the tiny chicken seizures. Later on, Henry literally loses his head and some kid runs over and steals the severed head. Again, wild and hilarious. The kid then sells the head to the pencil factory where they turn it into a literal eraser head. I am not making this up.

So, what could this all mean?

There is more than just a singular theme — this is true for all of Lynch’s work. Sure it’s about fatherhood but it goes deeper. It touches on how children are our soul transferred into a new being all while being born of our own faults and demons. It’s also about how alien-like babies are and Lynch establishes this in the most heightened way possible. Lynch is also commenting on nature versus industry. We are inundated with images of machinery and general industry encroaching on and diminishing nature. Lynch then gives us plenty of background scenery depicting nature attempting to reclaim its place by invading the characters’ homes.

This brings me to one final conclusion: Erasherhead is very spiritual. Lynch drives us through an intense white light and I think he’s depicting how birth and death are the same. He then pushes us through a soupy mess and into a puddle that turns into a black hole. This is him differentiating between duty and desire — daily life and intense lust. I’ve also contemplated the possibility that the barnacled man is Henry’s grown-up son who has trapped his father in some kind of nightmare purgatory of his own creation. It’s like an eternity being forced to live through all of your own failings.

In the end I think that part of the film is Henry’s subconscious shown to us as real life. Henry is full of self doubt and this is best represented by the baby. The infant is a slimy, hideous creature who resembles ET in the worst possible way. Here’s the thing: the baby doesn’t actually look like how we see it. The baby is a manifestation of Henry’s self doubt. Parents worry, especially with newborns, that there is something wrong with their child. Their baby is different in a bad way. It’s a trick the mind plays on its subject. This is where Erasherhead leaves us, with Henry attempting to free his child by murdering it — killing his self doubt. Lynch hits out at life as an all encompassing process.

Birth. Life. Failure. Sex. Duty. Murder. Death.

Next week, The Elephant Man. Until then, love each other.

David Lynch Friday #0 – The Intro

My first experience with David Lynch was watching Dune as a child. I loved it. Now, I know that isn’t exactly the popular opinion with that film but it certainly mesmerized me. I also recall my parents watching The Elephant Man and then Blue Velvet. I specifically remember Blue Velvet because my mother thought it was crazy in a good way and my father thought the exact opposite — not at all his type of movie. Next was Twin Peaks. I was about ten years old when Twin Peaks came out. My mother was excited and I was already a huge fan of detective stories. To me, a new show from the guy who did Dune, starring the guy from Dune, and it was sort of a detective story? Yes please.

As I grew older, Lynch faded from me for a bit. I began my true obsession with his work when I was in high school. This was the jump off and I never looked back. I’ve devoured his work ever since and have loved it all, even when I hated it. There was only one film of his that I missed completely, The Straight Story. Disney Plus rectified that for me and now my only blank spot is Inland Empire. For the record, I’ve watched it, just not all the way through. I have a blu-ray waiting for me and I’ve revisited the Rabbits in the years since. I’m looking forward to it now.

This is what I cherish about Lynch’s work — it is uncompromising. Even when Twin Peaks returned, there were moments that drove me up the wall but I have learned to trust Lynch’s process and have found rewards at every turn. He is my favorite. He’s been my favorite for a long time and only recently challenged for the title by Sofia Coppola. We’ll see how this all holds upon this new revisiting of his oeuvre. Typically, I would focus solely on feature films but Twin Peaks in it’s entirety will be thrown in here because it is my absolute, number one, favorite thing ever. I will also be breaking the timeline and holding Twin Peaks for the very end. There is a chance that week will see my largest post ever. I always have a ton of thoughts on Twin Peaks and there is not a day that goes by without me thinking about the show.

Here we go. The David Lynch project will begin with Eraserhead next Friday. Until then, love each other.

Dark – A Slice Of German Perfection

Dark is a German science-fiction show brought to the United States by Netflix. It involves time travel and the end of the world. During its three season run, it was easily the best show in the world. I’ll die on this hill, especially if that were to happen on this show where I could somehow be resurrected to continue, either in this world or another. I have wanted to write about it for a long time but I find it difficult to articulate exactly why this show is so special.

I’ll give it my best shot.

Dark began with a suicide. It would take a long time for us to understand the ramifications throughout time and space of that action but we would eventually get there. Shortly following the tragic event, a group of teenagers would go exploring a secret cave in their small town. Strange sounds would scare the teenagers away, sending them fleeing until they realized that the youngest of them was missing. This is where things really jumped off. A search would return no results. The viewer is than shot back in time to the 1980s where the missing boy has turned up 27 years in the past. This boy would grow up to be the man who committed suicide at the onset of the series.

It only gets crazier from here.

We soon learn that there are three distinct time periods where children either go missing or are murdered. People begin popping up in various timelines, changing things in the other timelines on a constant basis. A new mysterious figure emerges and is eventually revealed as one of the main characters back from the far future. The timelines begin to expand. The plot becomes more intricate and alliances are formed. It appears we’re getting something superfluous and really only about good versus evil — we are not. This entire time, we are shown that the local power plant will explode and cause the apocalypse. Two distinct sides form, trying to either prevent the apocalypse or create it. Throughout the many different characters we meet and plot lines we follow, there is one main thread — love.

Our two main characters we follow throughout the three seasons are the two teenage star-crossed lovers: Martha and Jonas. Their story is initially sweet and full of young, blossoming love. Ultimately, it’s a story full of tragedy, consequences and sacrifice. In fact, the entire story is one of sacrifice.

The way the writers layer the plot with character is extraordinary. There is so much intricate plotting done here but the overall story is always character first. This is a rare feat and one that should be applauded. I have never seen a show quite like Dark. It gave me flashbacks to LOST, another plot heavy show that ultimately ended up being a multiple character study on our highs and lows as human beings.

With that out of the way, season three was launched worldwide on the exact date of the show’s apocalypse — nifty. Where season one was largely contained, season two expanded the timelines and who travelled between them. Season three introduces new worlds. If you don’t recap or rewatch beforehand, it will be easy to get lost. Two new worlds emerge: one made of Jonas’ creation and one of Martha’s. The two, through their time travels, form opposing factions and in Martha’s world, Jonas does not exist. They find it hard to trust anyone as they are constantly being manipulated by versions of people they once knew and trusted. No matter what they have ever tried, the apocalypse still happens. There is a knot that binds everything together and one faction is desperate to undo the knot, believing the end of all things will be their salvation. The other side seeks to preserve the knot and let the world be as it will. These are wonderful ideological debates to have during a final season as everything around them is ramping up.

I’m now realizing that writing any further about this amazing show and even more amazing final season will require complete spoilers and I don’t want to do that. What I will say is that a third world is discovered and the origin it represents is heartbreakingly beautiful. We fully understand the motivation behind its creation and I totally empathize with its creator.

Where the show ends begins with amazing cosmic imagery and descends into harrowing simplicity. There is no true happy ending to this story but the ending we receive is justified. Strike that, it’s not only justified, it’s perfect. How a show so crazy can stick a perfect landing is beyond my comprehension but the entire crew behind Dark did the impossible.

Love can create and it can destroy. Simple. Beautiful. Perfect.

Next week, a show I struggled with a bit but enjoyed overall, Hollywood. Until then, love each other.

Gilliam Friday #12 – The Wrap-Up

We find ourselves at the end of the Terry Gilliam project — twelve straight weeks of the madman’s work. We began with his Monty Python efforts and ended with his finally finished dream project, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. What a ride. I was reminded of films I loved, found new love for films I originally struggled with, and some old loves now fell flat. Throughout this project, I was reminded that from a visual standpoint, Gilliam stands alone. His films are each unique in their own way and even more when compared to where cinema was in general when each of those films released.

But seriously, what did I learn from all of this?

Let us begin with Gilliam as a visual artist. Every single film he has ever crafted has been visually stunning. He is a true auteur, unafraid of any subject matter and uncompromising in his vision. He forces the viewer to buy in. Whatever you gain from viewing his work will always come on his terms. This is something that will shut down some viewers and keep them away. The flip side to this ideal is that those who buy in willingly, typically come away astonished. I also learned that Gilliam hates bureaucracy — hates it. Most of his films have a subtext dealing with the annoyance of red tape and failed governance. He is also an artist obsessed with paranoia and juxtaposition. You will find this on a constant basis in his films with the palettes he uses and his deep focus camera shots. Everything in his films is heightened in order to hold the viewer’s supreme focus while still keeping them off balance.

One other thing we must get to right away is that I now wonder if Gilliam has a problem with women. It cannot be overstated that his comments earlier this year about how tired he is that white men get blamed for everything, is extremely troubling. He has also thrown support behind Harvey Weinstein which is blatantly wrong-headed. I don’t sanction or agree with any of this — hard pass for me. With that said, I wonder where this stems from? And that’s the craziest aspect of all of this: Gilliam the person is still largely a mystery. We can infer all of these things we’ve already discussed but he has still managed to keep us all at bay — protecting his innermost desires to the end. I both like and dislike how he views the world. He paints in his films with a childlike wonder. Gilliam shows us worlds that are like electric carnivals used as a mask for societal rot and despair. He also shows heart here, especially with how he depicts the homeless in many of his films — the unfortunates are ignored and trampled by the powerful. This is in stark contrast to his depiction of women in most of his films. The truth is, as I’ve gone film to film, the women are mostly seen as annoying, trouble, or both. Many times they are devices to serve the plot. His visual talent is so extraordinary that I think these themes become overshadowed but they are there if you look hard enough. Two films stand out to me where this was not the case: The Fisher King and Twelve Monkeys. They also happen to be two films that Gilliam did not write. This definitely begs for further discussion.

The final thing we’ll discuss today is how Gilliam’s career is split into three sections (and hopefully an upcoming fourth). His early work is where he found his feet. Working as a member of the Python troupe allowed him creative freedom. It’s the least populated portion of his career. He followed this up with a thirteen year prime where he dealt masterful film after masterful film. This is an insane run from a filmmaker uninterested in making typical studio fare. Brazil, The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen, The Fisher King, Twelve Monkeys, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Any filmmaker would kill to make one of these films. Gilliam made them all…in a row.

Of course, with the highs come the lows. Gilliam’s disastrous attempt to make his dream project, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, derailed his career. He then entered a ten year funk where he still hit some high notes but his films felt more disjointed and angry — lacking the intrepid energy from his earlier work. He began to regain his footing with The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus and again, tragedy struck that film multiple times.

Terry Gilliam finally got the proverbial monkey off his back when his dream was finally realized. The Man Who Killed Don Quixote showed me that the madman still has the goods to be a true auteur. We will see if he has the stuff to give us some more to chew on.

I’ll leave you with this, a ranking of his solo films. This means that I’m not counting the python work. Worst to first, here we go:

The Brothers Grimm

The Zero Theorem

Jabberwocky

Time Bandits

Tideland

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

The Man Who Killed Don Quixote

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

Brazil

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Twelve Monkeys

The Fisher King

And that is a wrap. I had fun revisiting these films and filmmaker I have adored nearly my entire life. I found it enlightening and not always in a good way. I now look at Gilliam a little differently because of his depiction of women on film — something I was either not able to see while younger or just willfully ignorant of until now. I guess I learned some things about myself as well — things I still need to work on. I’m willing to do the work.

Next up on the docket is another of my faves, Sofia Coppola. I’ll outline the project next week and then dive into The Virgin Suicides on Friday, September 18th. Until then, love each other.

Gilliam Friday #11 – The Man Who Killed Don Quixote

Finally, the monkey is off his back. After decades of struggle, heartbreak and misfortune, Gilliam finally achieved catharsis in getting his magnum opus onto the big screen. To some, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote may seem like just another film, a weird film, but still just a film. To those of us who have followed Gilliam’s career, this film being released is everything. Before we get any further into the film itself, let’s chronicle the entire production just to gain some perspective on this journey.

Gilliam began work on the film in 1989. This was shortly after the financial debacle of The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen. Hollywood didn’t really have a good sense of how to deal with Gilliam as an artist. He began writing Quixote while taking on directing jobs for two films he didn’t write: The Fisher King and Twelve Monkeys. It took Gilliam nine years (and a third straight success with Fear and Loathing) in order to secure funding for his Don Quixote project. Soon after, he secured the services of Johnny Depp as his star and they began the shoot in 2000. The production did not last long. Flooding, illness, and other monetary (not to mention insurance) issues ended production of the film. Gilliam would try and resurrect his project several times to no avail. Eventually, Depp had to drop out and many of the sets were completely destroyed. This hammered several nails into the film’s coffin. While they were filming, Gilliam began shooting behind the scenes footage for a “making of” supplement to the film. This became the documentary, Lost In La Mancha, and was released in 2002. It stood as a chronicle of disaster.

The troubled, disastrous production of, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, plagued Gilliam for the latter part of his career. From the distracted job he did with The Brothers Grimm, to some serious dark material in Tideland and Doctor Parnassus, the filmmaker was trying to shake himself from a depression.

Well, he finally did it.

The Man Who Killed Don Quixote finally hit screens and it is largely a triumph. Gilliam still has the goods and really really really knows how to cast. He stepped in a golden pile of shit by casting Adam Driver and Jonathan Pryce together as his leads. They are perfectly balanced in opposition. Pryce is no stranger to Gilliam and he digs into his role as a man who believes himself to be the famed adventurer. Adam Driver, is a wonderful counterbalance as the young filmmaker who’s spent the last several years trying to find his true self. Gilliam has altered his film to better fit the dark period this new vision was born from. Quixote is a film at once about the folly of youth and the regret of old age. We can sense the freedom of spirit that Gilliam rediscovered in finally getting his pet project completed. The production design is exquisite and the script is better than ever. I couldn’t imagine any other actors than Driver and Pryce in this film now — call it kismet. I love the idea put forth of a story about two men, one old and one young, whose lives never amounted to what they once hoped for themselves. Quixote is chock full of second guessing, calling men out on their views of the world, silly fight scenes, musical numbers, and ultimately immense heart. This is Gilliam laying it all out and reclaiming his position as one of film’s unique auteurs. I hope he gets to make more films, at least one more, before he hangs it up. He deserves a victory lap and one last dance now that he is free from his albatross.

Bravo Mr. Gilliam, bravo.

Next week, the wrap-up. Until then, love each other.