Films by Twin Peaks episode directors - The Wizard, Frances, Pay the Ghost, Heaven (TWIN PEAKS CINEMA podcast #4/LOST IN THE MOVIES podcast #21)

As a follow-up to my first "Twin Peaks Cinema" podcast, exploring four films by directors of Twin Peaks episode (I also discussed co-creator Mark Frost's Storyville and director Tim Hunter's River's Edge in standalone podcasts) I am gathering another four such titles. This time all the filmmakers debuted on Twin Peaks during its second season and they provide a wide range of genres and approaches. Todd Holland's The Wizard (1989) is a Nintendo advertisement disguised as a family film (or maybe vice versa) with a wacky, bombastic flair akin to his own Twin Peaks episodes 11 and 20; Graeme Clifford's moving Frances (1982) tells the story of troubled Hollywood star Frances Farmer in a fashion that anticipates both the tragedy of Laura Palmer and some of the climactic moments in his episode 12; Uli Edel's horror film Pay the Ghost (2015) uses similar horror/thriller techniques he utilized when Leo woke up in episode 21; and Diane Keaton's Heaven (1987 - not 1986 as I kept saying for some reason) is unmistakably in the same style she employed in her off-the-wall episode 22.

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ADDITIONAL LINKS FOR EPISODE 21

Journey Through Twin Peaks - Chapter 34 (seasons 1 & 2 collaborators): A Candle in Every Window (my video essay with clips from all of these films in juxtaposition to the directors' Twin Peaks episodes)

Listen to the rest of my Twin Peaks director coverage on the earlier public episode: 

Halloweentown, Zelly & Me, Now and Then, The Escape Artist - Twin Peaks Cinema #1

Mark Frost's Storyville - Twin Peaks Cinema #2

River's Edge - Twin Peaks Cinema #3

& on Patreon:

Episode 63B: Twin Peaks Cinema - What Did Jack Do?/Wiseguy's Lynchboro arc & Twin Peaks directors' films (After Dark My Sweet, Code Name: Emerald, Losing Isaiah, Matthew Blackheart: Monster Smasher & more)

MY RECENT WORK

New on the site

Mad Men - "Waldorf Stories" (season 4, episode 6)

Mad Men - "The Suitcase" (season 4, episode 7)

New on Patreon

(for $1/month)

Episode 78: The Straight Story in Twin Peaks Cinema, Opening the Archive & Twin Peaks Reflections (w/ Ben's Civil War breakdown + Jean, Dick, Briggs throne, orphanage & more)

 

Episode 79 bonus - Reader/Viewer Feedback: Art Spiegelman & An American Tail, Q2 Fire Walk With Me fanedit, the Piper at the Gates of Dawn, Mark Frost's narratives, East German "ostalgie", Lynchian identity loss & more

Episode 79 bonus - Viewer Feedback: "Judy's nightmare", shared dreams, the Lodge as test vs. failure & more

Episode 79 bonus - Film Capsules (1 of 2): Office Space (& Dougie in Twin Peaks' Las Vegas & 80s/90s office media including Dilbert), Toni Morrison documentary, the Spanish Civil War in The Angel Wore Red, And She Could Be Next, Rick Steves on fascism, Terminator 2, Independence Day: Resurgence & more

Episode 79 bonus - Film Capsules (2 of 2): Irma Vep, Children of a Lesser God, Trumbo, The Fugitive, JFK, Alien, Back to the Future, Great Expectations, Buck and the Preacher, Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project & more

Major Garland Briggs, USAF (TWIN PEAKS Character Series #22)

*A revised entry will be published separately in 2024 or 2025 for an updated character series (which will be collected here). This is the original entry written before The Return.

The TWIN PEAKS Character Series surveys eighty-two characters from the series Twin Peaks (1990-91) and the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992) as well as The Missing Pieces (2014), a collection of deleted scenes from that film. A new character study will appear every weekday morning until the premiere of Showtime's new season of Twin Peaks on May 21, 2017. There will be spoilers for the original series and film.

Major Briggs explores the depth of the woods and the distance of the stars, yet he keeps his feet on solid ground.

Windom Earle (TWIN PEAKS Character Series #34)

The TWIN PEAKS Character Series surveys one hundred ten characters from the series Twin Peaks (1990-91 on ABC and 2017 on Showtime as The Return), the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992), and The Missing Pieces (2014), a collection of deleted scenes from that film. The series will be rebooted in 2023 to reflect the third season (and patrons will have immediate access to each entry a month before it goes public), but this entry will remain intact. There will be spoilers.

+ Read the new Windom intro composed in 2023

Ostensibly mad but immersed in hyperrationalism, Windom attacks Twin Peaks in ways both blunt and subtle, betting his life that he can harness its dark shadow.

Dr. Lawrence Jacoby (TWIN PEAKS Character Series #29)

*A revised entry will be published separately in 2024 or 2025 for an updated character series (which will be collected here). This is the original entry written before The Return.

The TWIN PEAKS Character Series surveys eighty-two characters from the series Twin Peaks (1990-91) and the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992) as well as The Missing Pieces (2014), a collection of deleted scenes from that film. A new character study will appear every weekday morning until the premiere of Showtime's new season of Twin Peaks on May 21, 2017. There will be spoilers for the original series and film.

Jacoby is ambiguously caught between secretly lost soul, confident but offputting eccentric, and wise guide for Twin Peaks' psyche.

Jerry Horne (TWIN PEAKS Character Series #30)

*A revised entry will be published separately in 2023 for an updated character series (which will be collected here). This is the original entry written before The Return.

The TWIN PEAKS Character Series surveys eighty-two characters from the series Twin Peaks (1990-91) and the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992) as well as The Missing Pieces (2014), a collection of deleted scenes from that film. A new character study will appear every weekday morning until the premiere of Showtime's new season of Twin Peaks on May 21, 2017. There will be spoilers for the original series and film.

Jerry is defined by his appetites and enthusiasms, which is a good thing since his legal skills are more questionable.

Dick Tremayne (TWIN PEAKS Character Series #38)

The TWIN PEAKS Character Series surveys one hundred ten characters from the series Twin Peaks (1990-91 on ABC and 2017 on Showtime as The Return), the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992), and The Missing Pieces (2014), a collection of deleted scenes from that film. The series will be rebooted in 2023 to reflect the third season (and patrons will have immediate access to each entry a month before it goes public), but this entry will remain intact. There will be spoilers.

+ Read the new Dick intro composed in 2023

Dick aspires toward the role of small-town sophisticate, but his absurdity keeps his pretension in check.

Evelyn Marsh (TWIN PEAKS Character Series #46)

The TWIN PEAKS Character Series surveys one hundred ten characters from the series Twin Peaks (1990-91 on ABC and 2017 on Showtime as The Return), the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992), and The Missing Pieces (2014), a collection of deleted scenes from that film. The series will be rebooted in 2023 to reflect the third season (and patrons will have immediate access to each entry a month before it goes public), but this entry will remain intact. There will be spoilers.

+ Read the new Evelyn intro composed in 2023

Evelyn deceives and conspires with so many different lovers that eventually she begins to question her own aims.

Lana Budding Milford (TWIN PEAKS Character Series #56)

The TWIN PEAKS Character Series surveys one hundred ten characters from the series Twin Peaks (1990-91 on ABC and 2017 on Showtime as The Return), the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992), and The Missing Pieces (2014), a collection of deleted scenes from that film. The series will be rebooted in 2023 to reflect the third season (and patrons will have immediate access to each entry a month before it goes public), but this entry will remain intact. There will be spoilers.

+ Read the new Lana intro composed in 2023

Lana's "curse" attracts and haunts the men she meets in Twin Peaks, but this naive bewitchment eventually gives way to more down-to-earth calculation.

Mayor Dwayne Milford (TWIN PEAKS Character Series #57)

The TWIN PEAKS Character Series surveys one hundred ten characters from the series Twin Peaks (1990-91 on ABC and 2017 on Showtime as The Return), the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992), and The Missing Pieces (2014), a collection of deleted scenes from that film. The series will be rebooted in 2023 to reflect the third season (and patrons will have immediate access to each entry a month before it goes public), but this entry will remain intact. There will be spoilers.

+ Read the new Mayor intro composed in 2023

The Mayor of Twin Peaks is less interested in governing the town than partaking in a petty family feud and a peculiar romance.

Andrew Packard (TWIN PEAKS Character Series #69)

The TWIN PEAKS Character Series surveys one hundred ten characters from the series Twin Peaks (1990-91 on ABC and 2017 on Showtime as The Return), the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992), and The Missing Pieces (2014), a collection of deleted scenes from that film. The series will be rebooted in 2023 to reflect the third season (and patrons will have immediate access to each entry a month before it goes public), but this entry will remain intact. There will be spoilers.

+ Read the new Andrew intro composed in 2023

Andrew, far from presiding over the town he helped build, hides from the world to conduct a private revenge scheme and unlock a puzzle box.

Thomas Eckhardt (TWIN PEAKS Character Series Bonus #13)

The TWIN PEAKS Character Series surveys one hundred ten characters from the series Twin Peaks (1990-91 on ABC and 2017 on Showtime as The Return), the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992), and The Missing Pieces (2014), a collection of deleted scenes from that film. The series will be rebooted in 2023 to reflect the third season (and patrons will have immediate access to each entry a month before it goes public), but this entry will remain intact. There will be spoilers.

+ Read the new Eckhardt intro composed in 2023

Eckhardt’s sinister vibe and polished presentation do him little good when dealing with desire and betrayal.

Jones (TWIN PEAKS Character Series Bonus #11)

The TWIN PEAKS Character Series surveys one hundred ten characters from the series Twin Peaks (1990-91 on ABC and 2017 on Showtime as The Return), the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992), and The Missing Pieces (2014), a collection of deleted scenes from that film. The series will be rebooted in 2023 to reflect the third season (and patrons will have immediate access to each entry a month before it goes public), but this entry will remain intact. There will be spoilers.

+ Read the new Jones intro composed in 2023

Jones’ presence is regal and unsettling; her diplomatic air cloaks a perverse sense of duty.

Randy St. Croix (TWIN PEAKS Character Series Bonus #4)

The TWIN PEAKS Character Series surveys one hundred ten characters from the series Twin Peaks (1990-91 on ABC and 2017 on Showtime as The Return), the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992), and The Missing Pieces (2014), a collection of deleted scenes from that film. The series will be rebooted in 2023 to reflect the third season (and patrons will have immediate access to each entry a month before it goes public), but this entry will remain intact. There will be spoilers.

+ Read the new Randy intro composed in 2023

Randy is courteous with guests (even strange ones), but his temper flares up when he suspects the boss’ daughter is trying to take his job.

Top 30 "Hidden" Characters of the Original TWIN PEAKS (3rd Preface to TWIN PEAKS Character Series)

The TWIN PEAKS Character Series surveys one hundred ten characters from the series Twin Peaks (1990-91 on ABC and 2017 on Showtime as The Return), the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992), and The Missing Pieces (2014), a collection of deleted scenes from that film. The series will be rebooted in 2023 to reflect the third season (and patrons will have immediate access to each entry a month before it goes public), but this entry will remain intact. There will be spoilers.

+ Read the new "Hidden" Characters intro composed in 2023

This was published before the new series premiered to cover characters who didn't have enough screentime for a standalone entry. Due to the new material, however, some of these characters will indeed reappear higher on the list.

In a show as rich with character as Twin Peaks, many people (and some who aren't people at all) fly under Col. Riley's radar. These are characters you might not really notice till a second or third viewing, or whom you forget about until you rewatch years later. Yet once you do pick up on their presence, they become some of the most memorable figures on the show, however fleeting. Some actually are immediately recognizable from your very first visit to Twin Peaks, but don't quite fit in with other characters for a variety of reasons.

Ok, maybe "hidden" isn't exactly the right word - but I wasn't sure what else to go with (despite several interesting suggestions when I posed the question on Twitter). These aren't all "minor" characters, especially compared to some who get their own standalone entries. Nor are their appearances necessarily "brief" - some "appear" in loads of episodes. So "hidden" it is. Some are literally so, cloaked in background appearances or, at least in one case, never actually appearing at all. Others are "hidden" in a more figurative sense, cast in the shadow of more famous characters yet doing their part to fill out their little corners of the universe.

In truth, there is a quite simple criterion for who appears in this and yesterday's entry: these are characters who didn't speak in at least three scenes in the original Twin Peaks (and Fire Walk With Me/The Missing Pieces) and therefore didn't qualify for their own individual character study. I had to draw the line somewhere. The other day, I very quickly covered sixty, but today I want to spend a little more time on the next thirty names. This is a subjective list: simply the ones I personally find most memorable and/or interesting, ranked according to my own whim.

Time for these thirty to come out of hiding.

The Baader-Meinhof Complex

“Shooting and f*cking are the same thing.” – Member of the Red Army Faction, a German left-wing terrorist group, in response to a Jordanian guerrilla who tells them to stop sunbathing nude at the training camp.

Of such surreal juxtapositions is 1960s radicalism made, at least in the Western world. Behind the Iron Curtain, the revolutionaries were trying to breathe the fresh air of the Prague Spring – and though the response was an incursion of Soviet tanks, few fired back. In the Third World, on the other hand, guns and bombs were not in short supply, while libertine sexuality and pop cultural acumen were regarded as bourgeois conveniences: serious revolutionaries had no time for the counterculture. Yet in relatively liberal democracies like France, West Germany, and the United States the New Left was drawn mostly from student ranks, from young people who had grown up for the most part in comfort, in the paradoxical postwar atmosphere of hope and fear. They dreamed of fusing the libertarian ethos of the hippie counterculture, the badass attitude of urban outlaw culture, and the heady exuberance of Marxism (sans the dead weight of the USSR) into a Molotov cocktail of youth revolution. Their credo was, in Jim Morrison’s words, “We want the world and we want it now.”