Bigger Than Life as Twin Peaks Cinema #17 - Ray's Haunted Fifties (podcast)

The conclusion to my three-month "Ray's Haunted Fifties" season, Bigger Than Life may have encouraged more Twin Peaks comparisons than any other Nicholas Ray film (except perhaps last month's entry, Rebel Without a Cause - whose direct influences are more on the surfaces and whose indirect connections are more subtle). Like the title that kicked off this season, On Dangerous Ground, Bigger Than Life centers an angry, violent father, but in this case the father's wrath is directed at his family rather than on its behalf; or rather, he convinces himself that his patriarchal rage is meant for the benefit of his wife and son...even it costs them their lives. As a mild-mannered schoolteacher turned by addiction to Cortisone into a psychopathic abuser, James Mason's Ed Avery runs a similar gamut to Leland Palmer in Fire Walk With Me (or, for that matter, to Walter White in Breaking Bad, which also comes up in this discussion). Tackling one of the most common fifties motifs, familial domesticity in suburbia, Bigger Than Life offers an early subversion of its tropes in ways both obvious - Avery's controlling mania undercutting the idea that "father knows best" - and more subtle (there's even a cameo from the star of Leave It to Beaver himself in a bit of black comedy). The film's portrayal of the family's financial precarity and spiritual ennui, even before Avery goes mad, evokes a broader societal malaise behind his own personal drama.

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LINKS FOR EPISODE 17

Rebel Without a Cause as Twin Peaks Cinema #16 - Ray's Haunted Fifties (podcast)

The title of this summer season, "Ray's Haunted Fifties," evokes Rebel Without a Cause probably more than any other film. This is by far Nicholas Ray's most famous work, so famous indeed that it transcends his own reputation as a director to become an indelible piece of American pop culture mythology. If all of the director's films are haunted, Rebel feels particularly so given not just its own wounded characters but the tragically young deaths of all three leads, most famously James Dean himself (the star died, still in his twenties, before the movie was even released). And if you were to select a handful of Hollywood classics to represent the fifties, Rebel would be up there; it defines our image of that decade to the present day as surely as Elvis Presley records on the jukebox, Leave it to Beaver episodes on the black-and-white living room set, or posters of Marilyn Monroe below movie theater marquees. That aspect of Rebel - the almost intuitively iconographic - is what first leaps to mind when connecting it to Twin Peaks, which calls back several decades (to Lynch's own childhood) for its touchstones of teen culture. James Hurley is obviously derivative, as is Bobby Briggs in his own way, and the way the adolescent characters congregate with one another to take refuge from and figure out the adult world is quite reminiscent of Rebel's second half in particular. All of that occurs in the pilot and much of it is lost as the series progresses and loses touch with its high school roots. But Fire Walk With Me indicates deeper, richer thematic connections to Rebel Without a Cause, linking Laura Palmer to James Dean and Natalie Wood alike - both the characters they play, and the actors themselves.

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On Dangerous Ground as Twin Peaks Cinema #15 - Ray's Haunted Fifties (podcast)

Just as my Lost in the Movies podcast recently kicked off a six-month season devoted to Hollywood classics, Twin Peaks Cinema is going to explore a similar terrain through an auteurist lens in a more focused period - I'm calling this miniseries of three podcasts "Ray's Haunted Fifties." I'm not sure I've ever heard David Lynch speak about Nicholas Ray as a particular aesthetic or thematic touchstones although Rebel Without a Cause is all over the Twin Peaks pilot and many have observed the connections between Fire Walk With Me and Bigger Than Life. On Dangerous Ground emerges from earlier in the decade, its gritty black-and-white noir milieu closer to our popular cinematic conception of the forties than the fifties, with its gritty black-and-white noir milieu. Indeed, much of the movie unfolds in an urban landscape quite far from Peaks but when the cynical police officer Jim Wilson (Robert Ryan) is dispatched to a rural crime scene, connections begin to reveal themselves. Before exploring those links, I read a full review of the film that I wrote over ten years ago to establish the story and flesh out the mood. In the discussion which follows, we tease out Jungian concepts that relate as much to Mark Frost's vision of Peaks as Lynch's, while observing the dynamic between Wilson and the blind hermit Mary Malden (Ida Lupino) in light of Cooper and Laura. I also discovered a fascinating dispersion of Leland Palmer's personal qualities between the young, mentally ill perpetrator of the crime (Sumner Williams) and the ferocious patriarch (Ward Bond) who seeks vengeance against his daughter's killer. In the heat of July, the new season of Twin Peaks Cinema finds its footing on a thick blanket of snow...

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January 2022 Patreon podcasts: LOST IN THE MOVIES #87 - Twin Peaks Cinema: On Dangerous Ground (+ Twin Peaks Reflections: Pete, Doc, Spirits, Glastonbury Grove, Bank, Mystery box/Mulholland Drive & more) plus TWIN PEAKS CONVERSATIONS

As I plan to focus on a handful of major projects in 2022, I will probably be scaling back my main Patreon podcast somewhat. February will be the last month (at least for a little while) for the "Twin Peaks Cinema" approach as well as the "Twin Peaks Reflections" on characters, locations, and storyline connections. However, January also represents something of a milestone for me. Since I actually pre-recorded the February film a long time ago, my choice for January - Nicholas Ray's fifties noir On Dangerous Ground - was the last new "Twin Peaks Cinema" I recorded, wrapping up a project begun in mid-2019. (The public Twin Peaks Cinema podcast will of course continue every month, pulling from the Patreon archive.) On Dangerous Ground completes a trilogy of Ray/Peaks connections and its city vs. country theme also reflects the book I discussed in this month's Twin Peaks Conversations podcast, about the murder of Hazel Drew who was caught between (and perhaps killed by) her own urban/rural divide. Meanwhile, my penultimate Reflections topics are inspired by the season two finale, which I just opened up to the $1/month tier - another benchmark has been reached for Lost in Twin Peaks with all of seasons two and three available to all patrons (and all of season one available to the public). February will be very Fire Walk With Me-themed all around.

August 2021 Patreon podcasts: LOST IN TWIN PEAKS #31 - Fire Walk With Me and LOST IN THE MOVIES #82 - Twin Peaks Cinema: Bigger Than Life (+ Twin Peaks Reflections: Randy, Jones, Great Northern Hotel, Fat Trout Trailer Park, Windom Earle's scheme/My Life My Tapes, Afghanistan withdrawal, Nina Turner loss, other recent political developments & more)

As promised, my main patron podcast quickly got back on schedule after weeks of delay for the July episode. However, the biggest August event on Patreon was the grand conclusion of my Lost in Twin Peaks podcast, with a nine-part Fire Walk With Me episode which stretched into September (the daily uploads are still wrapping up in the next couple days, but I'm including all nine entries here in this August round-up for clarity's sake - evening update: there are now twelve, not nine, parts planned). In a month I will begin publicly unveiling my entire Twin Peaks series breakdown, from the pilot through the season three finale, but this film will not be available on a public feed until the thirtieth anniversary of its Cannes premiere in May. So if you want to hear these hours of commentary, now is the time to become a $5/month patron - plus you'll be able to listen to extended conversations with other Peaks commentators every month going forward as this tier switches to a new format.

The main episode tackles another Nicholas Ray film after casting a Peaks spotlight on Rebel Without a Cause in January. In this case, Bigger Than Life's dark portrait of a "possessed" patriarch makes a fascinating companion piece with Fire Walk With Me in particular, which is why it was chosen for this month. The film's grim social portrait also suits other aspects of this podcast, like my political reflections section in which I delve into the disappointments and frustrations (if not yet full-on despair) facing the left and the country as a whole this summer...and that's without even getting into the Delta variant or Covid vaccine culture wars! The episode ends with a reading from Greil Marcus' The Shape of Things to Come, a gorgeous sketch of American exhaustion that seemed apropos, not least because it describes a single frame from the Fat Trout Trailer Park sequence in Fire Walk With Me - a location that is also part of my "Twin Peaks Reflections" this month.

Lost in the Movies patron edition #82: Twin Peaks Cinema - Bigger Than Life (+ Twin Peaks Reflections: Randy, Jones, Great Northern Hotel, Fat Trout Trailer Park, Windom Earle's scheme/My Life My Tapes, Afghanistan withdrawal, Nina Turner loss, other recent political developments & more)

My coverage of Fire Walk With Me was split into many parts because it was so long (dwarfing even my finale episode) but this also serves as a preview of how I'll be repackaging the previous episodes when the show goes public, presenting sections like "historical context" or "my archives" as standalones for listeners particularly interested in a deep dive. Here, the heart of the episode(s) are numbers seven and nine: called "Laura Palmer" and "The Mysteries," they dive deeply into the rich subject of her onscreen journey and what this means in the larger context of Twin Peaks, expanding on ideas I've previously touched upon in video essays and other media. (Initially, these two episodes were intended to be one and described as one in this passage, which I've now revised.) The entries consisting almost entirely of readings from work (my own or others') previously published or quoted on this site are free to all listeners.

Introduction to Lost in Twin Peaks #31: Fire Walk With Me

Lost in Twin Peaks #31A: Fire Walk With Me, Part 1 - Production Context

Lost in Twin Peaks #31B: Fire Walk With Me, Part 2 - Historical Context

Lost in Twin Peaks #31C: Fire Walk With Me, Part 3 - Critical Reception (PUBLIC)

Lost in Twin Peaks #31D: Fire Walk With Me, Part 4 - Fan Reactions (PUBLIC)

Lost in Twin Peaks #31E: Fire Walk With Me, Part 5 - My Reactions, Fans Today & the Feel of the Film

Lost in Twin Peaks #31F: Fire Walk With Me, Part 6 - Structure, Subplots & the Periphery

Lost in Twin Peaks #31G: Fire Walk With Me, Part 7 - Laura Palmer

Lost in Twin Peaks #31H: Fire Walk With Me, Part 8 - The Mythology

Lost in Twin Peaks #31I: Fire Walk With Me, Part 9 - The Mysteries

Lost in Twin Peaks #31J: Fire Walk With Me, Part 10 - My First Archive (PUBLIC)

Lost in Twin Peaks #31K: Fire Walk With Me, Part 11 - My Second Archive (PUBLIC)

Lost in Twin Peaks #31L: Fire Walk With Me, Part 12 (Bonus) - Season 3 spoiler discussion

Finally, for $1/month patrons, I've opened up my discussion of "episode 24" which I consider one of the series' more underrated, in which the world of Twin Peaks is saturated with a fresh springtime feeling before we are swept toward the dark finale and, ultimately, the film.

NOW AVAILABLE: Lost in Twin Peaks #25 open to all patrons

Podcast Line-Ups for...

January 2021 Patreon podcasts: LOST IN TWIN PEAKS #24 - Season 2 Episode 16 and LOST IN THE MOVIES #75 - Twin Peaks Cinema: Rebel Without a Cause (+ Twin Peaks Reflections: Hardy, Mountie, Harry's cabin, high school, Super Nadine/Dune & more)

My main podcast episode this month kicks off with an update on Journey Through Twin Peaks explaining why, yet again, I'm offering a more pared-down episode (since the Mark Frost video is taking up most of my time) but also why I can reasonably expect the long-delayed chapter to finally go up soon. In fact, today is the sixth anniversary of when I finished presenting the first Journey series in 2015, and it seems likely that I'll finish my work right on that mark (the exporting will probably take so long that I'm not expecting to upload until tomorrow; still, keep your eyes on my YouTube channel or Twitter feed...).

In another surprise last-minute pick, "Twin Peaks Cinema" focuses on the iconic James Dean classic, whose most obvious influence on Twin Peaks is the moody motorcyclist James Hurley, although its impact can be felt in more subtle ways too. My archive reading highlights another Nicholas Ray-directed fifties film set in Los Angeles and starring a soon-to-be-deceased mythic legend, while "Twin Peaks Reflections" settles on some minor characters, brief but evocative locations, and the pairing of one of the wackiest comic subplots with one of Lynch's more humorless films.

My newest Lost in Twin Peaks episode this month (between $1 and $5/month patrons, I'm bracketing the midseason) is an unexpected two-parter. There's a lot of plot to digest before Josie ends up in that drawer pull, but I also dig deep into the C.O.O.P. campaign to bring the show back (as well as the subsequent political career of one of its founders) and contemporaneous events like the release of The Silence of the Lambs and the breakthrough of Tonya Harding. There is a mini-history podcast inside every Twin Peaks episode recap!

Lost in Twin Peaks #24A - S2E16, Part 1 (The Condemned Woman/"Episode 23")

Lost in Twin Peaks #24B - S2E16, Part 2 (The Condemned Woman/"Episode 23")

NOW AVAILABLE: Lost in Twin Peaks #18 ("Dispute Between Brothers") open to all patrons

Lost in the Movies patron edition #75: Twin Peaks Cinema - Rebel Without a Cause (+ Twin Peaks Reflections: Hardy, Mountie, Harry's cabin, high school, Super Nadine/Dune, In a Lonely Place & more)

Podcast Line-Ups for...

On Dangerous Ground

This is an entry in the Cinema Viewfinder Nicholas Ray blogathon - it contains spoilers

Sometimes a man must go to Siberia to find his soul. In 1849 Fyodor Dostoevsky, a young man already accomplished and acclaimed as a writer, was sentenced to death. He and his co-conspirators prepared to die, to become martyrs for the cause of liberalism, crushed in the reactionary repression following the failed revolutions of the previous year. It was to be a brutal end, but a noble one. However, the czar had something else in mind.

Almost the entire year passed before Fyodor and his co-conspirators were marched out on a raw, brutally freezing December morning. A cutting wind howled through the site of the execution, obscuring the officer's orders and perhaps making it seem as if God himself was cutting down these youthful rebels. The orders were given. The masks dropped over the prisoners' faces, the guns lowered. And then, nothing. The entire execution had been a cosmic joke - and the prisoners were to be sent east to toil in hard labor for several years.

Some praised their deliverance, others resented their chains, a few went mad. Dostoevsky, already a talented artist, became a genius and a deeply spiritual man. In a sense, he had died and was born again, discovering the bedrock of his self in the wilderness, like Jesus emerging from the desert after 40 days.

Nick Ray on Cinema Viewfinder

Now that my blog is reactived, I'll put up a new post every Monday, usually in the morning although today I'm a little late. I'll also post during other days of the week, so stay tuned. This brings me to today's entry: the kickoff of Tony Dayoub's "Nicholas Ray Blogathon" on Cinema Viewfinder, which I will be contributing to at some point over the next few days.

This will be the third of Tony's filmmaker blogathons I've participated in, following last year's analysis of the two versions of The Fly, and 2009's video piece on Brian De Palma (which is still my personal favorite online work).

For now I'm keeping the subject of the forthcoming Ray entry up my sleeve (very far up my sleeve, but that's another story). In the mean time, you can check out the submissions appearing on Tony's blog, as well as links he'll provide to Ray pieces across the blogosphere (including, I believe, two of my own, linked here as well: In a Lonely Place and Bigger Than Life, both from 2008).

Additionally I've included some brief reflections on the filmmaker below:

Bigger Than Life

The first dragon blocking the path to my personal Holy Grail has been slain. Nearly a month ago, I made a list. Featuring the dozen films unavailable on Netflix that I most wanted to see, I encouraged others to follow suit (and so they did). Eventually I'm hoping to post the collected master list, compiled of all the unseen and hard-to-find movies that people picked. Anyway, one of the titles on my list was Nicholas Ray's 1956 widescreen classic Bigger Than Life; now, thanks to the wonders of cable and TV recording, I'm finally able to catch it.

By this point I've seen the majority of Ray's acknowledged classics: They Live By Night, On Dangerous Ground, In a Lonely Place, Johnny Guitar, and of course Rebel Without a Cause. In The Dreamers, Bernardo Bertolucci's tribute to cinephilia, one character - the naive American - says he really likes Nick Ray. Louis Garrel (the only one of the trio who looks and acts like he actually stepped out of the sixties), playing the French revolutionary dilettante, levels a penetrating gaze in his new friend's direction and sallies forth with a joust. "They Live By Night?" "No-o," the American answers, hesitatingly, defensively. "More like Johnny Guitar and Rebel Without a Cause." Though Garrel nods approvingly (if somewhat condescendingly), I agree with his natural instinct to highlight the earlier work. Not so much They Live By Night, but On Dangerous Ground and In a Lonely Place won me over to Ray more than Rebel. Where does Bigger Than Life fit into this spectrum?

Hooray for (Hating) Hollywood: In a Lonely Place

[Hooray for (Hating) Hollywood is a series revisiting those classics of the early 1950s which turned a withering gaze on the American film industry. Whether due to the blacklist, the decline of Hollywood's Golden Age, or America's more generalized postwar anxiety, Hollywood's screenwriters and directors were suddenly driven to lift the curtain from the dream factory and take a closer look at what went on behind the silver screen. Be warned: these reviews will contain spoilers.]

And here we reach a turning point in the series. No longer will our films concoct excuses for Hollywood's abuse, no longer will the cynicism be paired with an aw-shucks wonder at the glitz of it all. Yet at the same time, Nicholas Ray's 1950 film In a Lonely Place exists on the periphery of Hollywood, just as Hollywood itself exists on the periphery of its story. After nearly decking a fellow driver, Humphrey Bogart's Dixon Steele arrives at a nightclub and is confronted by junior autograph hounds. "Know who I am?" he asks, bemused, as the kid shakes his head. Steele is a screenwriter who hasn't had a hit in years, and if being in Hollywood rubs off a little glamor on him (the kid still wants him to sign the book) it also casts a shadow on his existence. Steele's director pal, when confronted with the fact of his hackery, merely shrugs and tells the so-noble-he's-broke screenwriter that he doesn't try to fight it. In a Lonely Place may not be a film "about" Hollywood, but that only makes it a more stinging film about Hollywood.