Hello, I loveTwin Peaks.I love it so much I want to marry it.
It’s on my list of the 10 best TV shows of 2017, likeveryhighon that list.
It’s a movie, declares the British Film Institute’sSight & Soundpoll!
Credit: Showtime
They saidMulholland Drivewas the best film of the 2000s.
They saidTwin Peaks: Fire Walk With Mewas one of the best films of the ’90s.
IsTwin Peaksfilm or television?
Showtime
Silly to have a definitional debate, maybe.
To quoteLynch himself: It’s not a science lab.
He’s allowed to say this, because he’s David Lynch and you’re not.
Showtime
But claiming that a TV show isn’t a TV show is a sacred pitch for TV shows.
of data pipe mission statements.
It was so simple long ago, maybe too simple.
You watched a movie in theaters, and you watched television on television.
But at no point in any onscreen credits does the phrase “The Return” appear.
The newTwin PeaksBlu-ray release features an amended subtitle, with a cover proclaimingTwin Peaks: A Limited Event Series.
It was an astounding experience.
Which is weird, because the Ace Hotel Theater can’t hold anywhere close to ten thousand people.
But who can count the faces in the dark?
Were those first two episodes ofTwin Peaksa movie?
I brought along my fiancee, who had never watched any of the originalTwin Peaks.
But even bringing up superhero movies can only muddy this whole TV and film debate.
I’ll let Wendy’s explain:
IsTwin Peaksa movie?
This is not a new question, maybe cuts to the core of whatTwin Peaksis.
Lynch directed theTwin Peakspilot, which runs sans commercials a little over 90 minutes.
TheTwin Peakspilot came out on television the same year thatThe Godfather Part IIIcame out in theaters.
TheTwin Peakspilot started a TV show, but agh!
itwasalso made to be a movie, sort of.
This “ending” isn’t canon, makes less immediate base-logic sense than most things inTwin Peaks.
And yetFire Walk With Meonly makes our current situation more confusing.
It is so obviously an extension of the TV show.
Is it a weakness if a “movie” requires 22+ hours of pre-viewing?
There’s no overarching narrative, but who says movies need a story?
It may be the best Peggy Lipton moment ever captured on camera.
And so what do you call that?
Is there a better word than “life”?
One problem with definitions is how indefinable Lynch’s own career is.
He ended the century working on a TV show that never was,Mulholland Drive.
The finished (ha!)
movie is great, and maybe it’s too easy to get bogged down in extra-filmic information.
Semantics are fun to debate.
Saying that the newTwin Peaksis both televisionandfilm feels accurate, but also erratic.
You feel the need to get creative with your definitions.
There were occasional check-ins with Nasty Mr. C, who was forTwin Peakswhat Uncle Traveling Matt was forFraggle Rock.
People understand figurative language.
All of these arguments seem academic, too rooted in generalizations.
He’s on the record as being anti-Watching Movies On Phones.
But he’s hardly a luddite.
The younger generation of filmmakers seem more precious in their delivery methods.
There’s a scene from Part 15 of the newTwin Peakswhen Kyle MacLachlan sits at a dinner table.
He eats some chocolate cake, notices a remote control.
We’re used to watching content that is heavily edited, cut to every chase.
He hits the right button.
The TV turns on.
Gordon Cole is a character inSunset Boulevard.
That name provided inspiration for Lynch and Frost.
InTwin Peaks, “Gordon Cole” is a character played by David Lynch himself.
The camera cuts back to MacLachlan; for reasons plotty and cosmic, his mind is blown.
We should get better and weirder about transmedia definitional qualities.
But to angrily respond “No, it’s television!”
feels like an act of mutual assured destruction, fighting fire with fire.
Do we need to hang a chain aroundTwin Peaks neck?
Surely some defining crux ofTwin Peaksis how itisboth, and neither.
And there is this new 18-part series.
I prefer to classify the newTwin Peaksas “a summertime.”
“A feature film in 18 parts,” Lynch said.
Would anyone sit in a movie theater for that long?
I assume some hip movie theaterwillair a fullTwin Peaksmarathon sometime in the next year.
