Binge

Always Returning To Twin Peaks

Diane, my recorder is on the table. I’m unable to reach it at this time. I can only hope that I inadvertently pressed the voice activation button. I’m lying on the floor of my room. I’ve been shot. There’s a great deal of pain and a fair amount of blood. Fortunately I was wearing my bulletproof vest last night per bureau regulations when working undercover. I remember folding the vest up trying to chase down a wood tick. If you can imagine the impact on your chest of three bowling balls dropped from the height of about nine feet, you might began to approximate the sensation. All things considered, being shot is not as bad as I always thought it might be. As long as you can keep the fear from your mind. But I guess you can say that about almost anything in life. Its not so bad as long as you can keep the fear from your mind. (Dale Cooper, once upon a time)

Jean Luc Godard hat einmal gesagt, Kino heisse, dem Tod bei der Arbeit zuzusehen. Michel de Montaigne hat einmal geschrieben, leben heisse sterben lernen. Willkommen in Twin Peaks. Der wunderbare Soundtrack von Angelo De Badalamenti erleichtert den Zugang zu diesem modernen Klassiker der Fernsehgeschichte. Und ich glaube, man kann die Person David Lynch am besten aufspüren, wenn man sich noch einmal in die Welt von Twin Peaks begibt. Und auch nicht davor zurückscheut, sich auf Staffel Numero Drei einzulassen. Ins Schmunzeln gerät man bei „season three“ nur selten. Die Doughnuts von Dale Cooper sind Geschichte! Um etwas zu schaffen, das bleibt, musste David Lynch sein „anti-nostalgia ray gun“ aus der Asservatenkammer holen! 

18 episodes rush over you with the inventiveness of radical cinema, anti-nostalgia (what an ability to disappoint our expectations – and then to fulfill at least some of them when we are all ready to give up) – and an even higher level of bleakness that can only be handled with a big step into surrealism, dream territories, and some fleeting moments of relief. The third season of Twin Peaks is a fanatstic achievement, and one of the most effective renditions of surrealism in modern TV history. A master in filmmaking like few others anyways, a chain-smoker, a music lover! Now that „Cellophane Memores“ has become Lynch’s final album, it doubles as a fitting coda — as does its closing track, “Sublime Eternal Love.“ It’s a haunting, romantic vocal performance atop modulating synthetic production, the kind sound long associated with Lynch.

It takes some time to discover old traces of humour and burlesque again, but they still exist in this ominous season 3. As does a prevailing sense of wonder. This is enlightening stuff from the department of darkness, and more so for those who have seen the first two seasons decades ago. A show that once changed the landscape of television forever – ask Damon Lindelof, the mastermind of LOST and THE LEFTOVERS. Or, simply, do remember! And play Angelo‘s fucking genius soundtrack, or Julee Cruise‘s little masterpiece!

And, please, forget your dreams of fairytale endings. In essence, it is all about the samsara of life, the illlusionary character of everything we are striving for with blindness (to only offer you the polite version). We learn these things with a devastating sense of hopelessness. David Lynch wanted us to feel utterly lost. It’s one of the most powerful emotions there is. What a paradox that in the end you are left speechless, but with a strangely knowing smile.

And the humans here, coming back from the glorious past of early Twin Peaks – some of them have had to face their deaths in fucking real life, after the curtain‘s call. The last one to leave was Julee Cruise. Her singing – the stuff dreams  are made of. The old lucid dreamer‘s training question about being in a dream or in waking life – well, you can ask this the whole way through. Never even try to see this third season without getting lost in the first two ones, seriously.

Trivia: 

• Speaking of film music, in 35 years of doing my „Klanghorizonte“ radio nights, the two „soundtrack-related“ albums on highest rotation were Brian Eno‘s „Music For Films“ – and Angelo Badalamenti‘s „Soundtrack from Twin Peaks“! Number 3: „Apollo“. Number 4: „Music for Films“ by Eleni Karaindrou (the title was chosen by Manfred Eicher im regards to Eno‘s classic). Number 5: „Paris, Texas O.S.T.“. Number 6: „The Wicker Man“. Number 7: Gato Barbieri‘s „Last Tango in Paris“. 
  
• You want to test your long-term memory on Twin Peaks? Go HERE, with Martina‘s awesome Twin Peaks Quiz!

• “Excalibur Sound war der dunkelste, schäbigste Ort, den man sich vorstellen kann“. Das sagte Angelo Badalamenti einmal in seiner Erinnerung an das Studio in Manhattan, in dem er mit David Lynch einen Großteil der Musik für Twin Peaks produzierte. „Die Lichter flackerten, der Strom ging ein und aus, wie in einem David-Lynch-Film. Als wir uns den Film ansahen, roch es in dem Raum fürchterlich. Es war winzig, die Mäuse liefen sogar bucklig herum. Aber David liebte es – er sagte: ‚Dieser Ort schafft eine so schöne Stimmung für uns, Angelo, nicht wahr?‘ Ich sagte: ‚Nun, ich denke schon…“

• an interview with David from 2011 (quote: „I always say that cinema is sound and picture moving together through time. It is so critical. And it can give so much. It’s an abstract language, you could say, but it speaks so importantly. But it’s a tricky thing. There’s the sound and the picture moving together in time, and it’s gotta be the right sound with the picture, and that’s where experimenting and an intuitive kind of thing comes in there. It’s a tricky business!“)