Lost in the Movies: Early thoughts on Twin Peaks season 3: a conversation w/ Lindsay Stamhuis on 25 Years Later

Early thoughts on Twin Peaks season 3: a conversation w/ Lindsay Stamhuis on 25 Years Later


A month ago, when the finale was only a week old, I took a few hours to chat with Lindsay Stamhuis (of the Bickering Peaks podcast) about the new season of Twin Peaks. Both parts of the discussion have now been published on 25 Years Later in print form (thanks to Lindsay for transcribing them!) and you can read them for yourselves. These were initial reflections so in some cases I'm asking more questions than teasing out answers - not that I'm necessarily much closer to final conclusions about most of this stuff now! What do you think?

(Samples of the conversations are featured below, followed by links to the complete conversation)

On The Return as David Lynch’s magnum opus: Yeah, that’s how it felt to me. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a work by a director where they’ve drawn on all of their work up to that point, just touched on all of it. Even though he has a specific style, Lynch actually has a pretty diverse body of work. You’ve got everything from Straight Story to Elephant Man, to Inland Empire, Wild at Heart, all of these very different modes or genres of filmmaking…he referred back to all of it. I mean, there were parts that I thought really gelled really well with every single one of his movies. And all the actors that were in it! I mean, there’s all these obvious motifs that he’s drawing on, so in that sense, yeah, I think it’s definitely a magnum opus.
“I think Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive were really key to the finale. I think if somebody hadn’t seen that, it would feel even more left field to them.”
Continue reading Part 1: Learn Lynch

On critical and fan reaction to The Return: With this series, it’s been great in a way: the critics just raved about this. I was shocked. It got the best reviews of probably anything I’ve seen in years, just non-stop gushing. The fan reaction has been a little more divided, but I would say—in my view—mostly positive. Maybe I just haven’t looked in the right or wrong places. But then at the end, there was that explosion of frustration: “No, what’s happening?” Maybe it’s sadistic of me but I kinda like that that happened. And it did happen to me a little bit too, maybe less because I was pretty happy with the finale or enjoyed it or whatever but like, you know, I felt a little of that feeling too, that: ”Oh no, is this gonna end? Oh my god, this is where we are?! Are we even gonna hear what she’s saying to him?!” Thank god Lynch can still do that to us! Even after he’s finally gotten to this point in his career where everybody accepts him and is willing to go along for the ride, he can still upset us.


With the release of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me on Criterion Collection this week, I'm planning something special. I had hoped to maybe do a full week of posts - a "5 Days of Fire Walk With Me" line-up covering various aspects and perspectives on the film, but it's Sunday afternoon and I haven't done anything to prepare for that so it seems unlikely. However, there is a podcast appearance already recorded, and I'll probably write at least one new piece, so stay tuned.

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