Sunset Boulevard as TWIN PEAKS CINEMA #8 (podcast)

"Get Gordon Cole." With that line, Sunset Boulevard solidifies its place not just as one of those films indirectly referenced by Twin Peaks, but as a direct presence inside the work itself. This is the perfect subject to wrap my "What's in a name?" trilogy with Laura and Vertigo. An FBI director named Gordon Cole is played by Lynch himself for three seasons, and Norma Desmond, like Laura's Waldo Lydecker, lends her name to two characters (at least one of whom I'm not sure I even mention in the podcast, given the density of other connections). Initially just a cheeky, trivial nod in early seasons, season three makes this throwaway line a critical onscreen plot point by using it as a trigger for Cooper to awaken from his "Dougie" state. In the process he nearly ends up like Sunset Boulevard's protagonist Joe Gillis (William Holden), a screenwriter who introduces himself to us when he's already dead - although given Joe's watery resting place he may have a closer link to Laura Palmer. Billy Wilder's 1950 classic, the ultimate Hollywood self-portrait, is in many ways quite far from Twin Peaks' texture and locale...if not so much that of certain other Lynch films. However, its central conceit - silent star Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) locked away on her overgrown estate, refusing to believe the world has moved on without her - ripples out into many corners of Twin Peaks both onscreen and off, embracing the older Audrey's domestic entrapment, Cooper's quasi-quixotic self-conception(s), and even David Lynch himself as the auteur lost in his own dream world, frequently forced to pay a price for this immersion.

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Vertigo as TWIN PEAKS CINEMA #7 (podcast)

Continuing the "What's in a name?" theme, Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo shares at least three names with Twin Peaks, two intentional, one possibly coincidental yet the most intriguing of all: Madeleine, Ferguson, and Judy. However, names are the least of the connections here - Vertigo's links to the original series, Fire Walk With Me, and especially season three are so rich, deep, and compelling that this is probably the longest Twin Peaks Cinema episode I'll ever release (at least outside of comparisons to David Lynch's own films). In fact Vertigo resembles a prism that you can hold up to Twin Peaks - and vice versa - at different angles to produce different results. The dogged, obsessive detective attempting to dominate a young woman; the haunting presence of a beautiful, mistreated beauty whose influence extends beyond the grave; the loyal, neglected ally whose admiration eventually shades into exasperation; the hallucinatory spirals; the looming trees; the enigmatic portrait; the long drives into the night...even as I write out these motifs out I'm realizing there are others I may have missed in an episode two or three times longer than usual. I'm particularly struck by how enmeshed this film already seemed to be with Twin Peaks prior to 2017...and yet the new season goes so much further with these allusions that at times - particularly in the final episode - it seems almost like an abstracted remake.

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Laura as TWIN PEAKS CINEMA #6 (podcast)

The forties Hollywood classic Laura - in which Otto Preminger wraps the legacy of high society urban melodrama in the emerging form of the moody film noir - is one of the most notable cinematic influences on Twin Peaks. Namely...well, that's just it: it's right there in the name! The central mystery figure of Laura Hunt (Gene Tierney) is reflected in Twin Peaks' Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee), complete with her very own theme music, haunting portrait, and ambiguous "I am dead yet I live" persona. Not only that; the unforgettable columnist Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb) would influence both Waldo the bird and Dr. Lydecker the offscreen veterinarian in the nineties series - and the film even features its own Jacoby to boot. In fact, my coverage of Laura initiates a three-month series (the first of many) which groups several Twin Peaks Cinema topics together based on a common theme - in this case, "What's in a name?": films whose character names are adopted in Twin Peaks (see also Madelaine Ferguson and Gordon Cole, if you're wondering what's next). But if nomenclature was all Laura shared with Twin Peaks, I could leave the discussion to this single paragraph. The connections go much deeper, linking wealthy, jealous patrons; detectives falling under the spell of women whose deaths they are investigating; and of course, victims who prove more complex and human than the mythic memories that survive them. This episode kicks off my monthly standalone podcast feed for Twin Peaks Cinema in earnest (the previous public episodes - all on films written or directed by Peaks creators - were released on my main podcast feed, in addition to monthly patron exclusives stretching back two years). And I couldn't think of a more perfect way to dive in than with Laura herself.

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