Mary Sweeney's Baraboo as Twin Peaks Cinema #26 - Long Road Home (podcast)

UPDATE (2:50pm): Links have now been fixed.

Following her divorce and the end of her creative partnership with David Lynch, the only director she'd ever edited, produced, and written for, Mary Sweeney decided to direct a feature film. In certain ways, Baraboo - chronicling the mellow daily life of a single mom running a campground in Wisconsin - is far from the Lynchverse that Sweeney had been immersed in. There are no double identities, surreal setpieces, or absurdist hijinks, just a quiet communal character study shot on a shoestring. Nonetheless, the film's interest in small town life, positive and negative across generations, is reminiscent of Twin Peaks. Perhaps most surprisingly, the film has more in common with the not-yet-produced, post-Sweeney season three than the original series on which she cut her teeth. In contrast to seasons one and two, both Baraboo and The Return are more rural than suburban, both hint at broader social issues like war, both skirt closer to precarity than middle-class comfort, and both linger longer over middle-aged regret than youthful restlessness. Of course, Baraboo also overlaps significantly with Sweeney's involvement in The Straight Story (which she authored and Lynch directed, covered as last month's entry), which brings us to the theme of the past three episodes including this one.

This last - for now, but probably for good - miniseries/season of the public Twin Peaks Cinema feed, "Long Road Home" has a literal as well as figurative meaning. Starting with Lost Highway, we've observed Sweeney's growing role in the filmmaking process, from editor/producer to editor/producer/writer to editor/producer/writer/director. But the road itself is also a visual touchstone. Lost Highway raced back and forth across its double yellow line into the desert night. The Straight Story slowed its travel to a crawl while still advancing on a journey across the heartland. And Baraboo grinds to a halt along a country highway which characters gaze across while planting their feet firmly in the home that Fred could never root himself in, Alvin wanted to re-establish with his brother, and Jane - for better or worse - is surrounded and supported by.

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This podcast goes on hiatus for now and, as already mentioned, I don't have plans for its revival (though I will publish further teasers, round-ups, and announcements on the feed over the summer and fall). In general, I'm slowing down and shifting my output near the end of this year, concluding a number of projects that have been many years in the making and probably reserving most new work for patrons from now on - although the next few months should be among the busiest this site has ever seen. Thanks for accompanying me on this journey, and I hope you've enjoyed the experience. Feel free to return and re-listen whenever you want; despite what they say, you can - sometimes - go home again.

LINKS FOR EPISODE 26

The Straight Story as Twin Peaks Cinema #25 - Long Road Home (podcast)

The first connection that leaps to mind between the bizarre Twin Peaks and the down-to-earth The Straight Story is their mutual roots in small town Americana. The early nineties series is set in the Pacific Northwest while the late nineties feature unfolds across a couple Midwestern states but they share a sense of communal warmth and sadness, of old men moving slowly about their daily business and neighbors wondering what's going on in the house next door. Both works use this comforting familiarity as a springboard, in Peaks' case for an increasingly supernatural murder mystery, in Straight's case as a more literal point of departure for a character's odyssey. In some ways, The Straight Story bares even more resemblance to the third season which came afterwards, given its road trip nature and even some of its images and dramatic moments (the storytelling surrounding Agent Dale Cooper and Alvin Straight harbors some striking similarities). The Straight Story was David Lynch's closest collaboration with editor/producer Mary Sweeney, since she actually originated the project herself: purchasing the rights, co-writing the screenplay with John Roach, and shopping the script to Lynch who was initially uninterested. This is one reason the film is included after last month's Lost Highway and before Sweeney's own directorial debut under "Long Road Home" banner for this season/miniseries of Twin Peaks Cinema. Another reason is, of course, the centrality of a literal road to this story - it feels like the in-between journey from the previous episode to our next, and last.

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LINKS FOR EPISODE 25

Lost Highway as Twin Peaks Cinema #24 - Long Road Home (podcast)

This month I'm launching a new three-month theme, "Long Road Home", but this season's subject obviously ties directly into the previous one's. Like Mulholland Drive, Eraserhead, and Blue Velvet, Lost Highway is part of "The Lynchverse" that includes Twin Peaks. In this case, Highway was Peaks' direct successor in David Lynch's filmography, and it shares many obvious and subtle connections, some birthed directly from the experience of making a TV show and prequel feature (while others crystallized in the film and were echoed twenty years later when Peaks returned). However, I'm linking Lost Highway to upcoming films on this podcast, rather than the prior trilogy, for a couple reasons. A road (or several) runs through all of the spring's topics, routes which the characters either take from one place to another, travel in a circuit, or sit by to watch the world go past. These films are all concerned with the question of going home (or staying there), asking who belongs where and with whom. And finally, most explicitly, all three films are crucial to the career of longtime Lynch collaborator Mary Sweeney (whose work with Lynch I covered in a video essay, sampled on this podcast alongside a bonus discussion of Peaks' Evelyn Marsh storyline and its ties to Highway). In all three of the movies we'll be covering, Sweeney is editor and producer, in two of these she is writer, and in one she is director. That journey begins here, with Lynch very much in the driver's seat but Sweeney's unique sensibilities already transforming our impressions of their cinema.

UPDATE: I initially forgot to include listener feedback from patrons on this subject before adding this section to the episode five days later.

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LINKS FOR EPISODE 24