austin_walker

@austin

here comes the boy

he/him
friendsatthetable.net/

writer | storyteller | podcaster | ???

austin_walker @austin

8/4/2023, 8:06 PM

@bluemonk asked:

I finished watching Twin Peaks: The Return last week and it's been on my mind non-stop since then. On today's Shelved by Genre, you were talking about preferring things to not be over-explained, and the joys of ambiguity in storytelling, so I wanted to see if you had watched Twin Peaks: The Return, and if you had any thoughts on it (or Lynch's approach to ambiguity more generally).

I think it's a gift. Love it all the way through, love the ways it plays with the expectations that Twin Peaks set up for the viewer in the same way that Twin Peaks was already playing with (and sometimes playing straight!) expectations set up by the soaps of its era. Is some of the cosmology goofy? Sure, but I truly do not care. It's such an excellent example of tricking companies into letting you make cool shit with their money. Some of those episodes are among the best episodes of television, period.

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in reply to @austin's post:

@bluemonk8/4/2023, 11:18 PM

Thanks for the response! Very much agree, I think it's a really tremendous accomplishment, especially put against the Lost-ification of feeling like you have to (over-)explain every mystery.

jex @jexjthomas8/7/2023, 2:18 AM

I have a tendency to go into a very analytical mode with movies, and it really doesn't often do me any favors. It certainly made my relationship with Lynch a little tricky at times. I rewatched all of Twin Peaks (which I'd always loved) and much of his other filmography (which I've loved some of and hated the rest of) in the lead up to the Return, and I'm so glad I was able to unhook from that analytical mode and just experience it. The idea that films are puzzles to solve -- sometimes that can be fun, but jesus christ is it tedious when it's the main way so many people seem to interact with film.