Twin Peaks was far different from the traditional mystery. The unexpected ABC smash and great American TV show, starring Kyle MacLachlan as the pivotal Special Agent Dale Cooper, had been no stranger to subverting expectations and testing the limits of viewers’ patience. But without the grounding influence of co-creator and seasoned TV veteran Mark Frost, writer-director David Lynch enlisted staff writer Robert Engels to embark on an even riskier experiment: a cinematic treatment of the televisual source material. The project, famously, was titled Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, and it just turned 30 years old this past Sunday.
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The film was critically panned and misunderstood from the jump, booed at Cannes as so many other things are; worst of all, it was hated by fans of the original TV show, as it refused to resolve the devastating cliffhanger that ended the show’s second and (at the time) final season. Instead, it journeyed back in time to tell a story for which we already had all the answers: the last seven days in the life of Laura Palmer.
A Very Different Twin Peaks
New Line Cinema
It was, in part, 2017’s incomparable, nearly perfect Twin Peaks: The Return which brought a new sense of credibility to Fire Walk With Me. One gets the sense that the film is the aesthetic, formalist precursor to the revival series, and that without FWWM, The Return would have looked very different. The film, like the reboot, was challenging for viewers in a way that superseded the original series.
Gone was the lightness and warm color palette of the former Twin Peaks. The iconic, highly composed 4:3 frame was expanded to a more realistic, comparatively haphazard 1.85:1. And beyond Fire Walk With Me’s dry, darkly comic prologue, the world of Twin Peaks was drained of most of its gentle humor. Angelo Badalamenti’s lush, romantic score mutated into something that was more sinister, almost unhinged. And, lest we forget, Moira Kelly replaced Lara Flynn Boyle in the role of Donna.
It is evident in the viewing and re-viewing that Lynch sought to distance himself and his story from the more conventional, fast-paced, corporate oversight of ABC. The original show was one of the least conventional things ever made for a mass audience, but through the exploitation of the indie-film market and the assistance of European financiers, Lynch showed that he could push his vision even further into the stratosphere, as he was no longer beholden to corporate interests and the TV-viewing public.
Fire Walks With Me Smashes the TV Niceties
There is a lot of debate as to which of Twin Peaks’ three iterations – the television-changing original series, the masterfully haunting and disruptive movie, or the artistically breathtaking and epic 2017 revival – is the best. But what is inarguable is that Fire Walk With Me strips away the sheen of its predecessor; it sledgehammers open the drywall and exposes the electrical wiring (just as it smashes the TV in the opening).
Even the best moments of the show – the deepest, most honest, most transcendent moments – were still coated in riddle and obfuscation. The show’s most intense scene (the horrifying, brutal murder of Madeline Ferguson) was proof-of-concept for the waking nightmare that would later come to engulf the entirety of Fire Walk With Me.
Beyond surface-level modifications, and beyond Lynch’s impressionistic formalist style, the movie rises above its source material in one meaningful way: the inimitable Sheryl Lee in the role of Laura Palmer, who was once a mere idea of a girl in the TV series, and has now become human beyond our wildest imaginations. The film lives or dies on the shoulders of its lead character, and in Lee, Lynch has found his lynchpin.
Fire Walk With Me is Possessed By Sheryl Lee
The critical reappraisal of the film is ultimately down to this lead performance – sure, the movie is all sorts of singular, its existential horror-tragedy reminiscent of Lars Von Trier, and its exciting and unusual structure absolute catnip for today’s film obsessives. And, of course, there is the film’s influence on The Return, which cannot be understated. The fact remains that Sheryl Lee doesn’t just pull you in, but traps you in her gaze. The horror takes up residence in Lee’s body like a parasite and consumes the surrounding film. Without her, the experience of the 1992 film is more akin to David Lynch’s last movie, Inland Empire – a brilliant, but sometimes cold and confounding epic. Fire Walk With Me works not just because of its strangeness, but because of its bittersweet potency.
Fire Walk With Me, however, is more than just a great tragedy; the film has a perverse sense of fun and carnivalesque intrigue, and it is heavy yet playful. Laura Palmer is so many things: vulnerable, resilient, riotous, sad, and terrified. It is because of Lee’s unparalleled, multi-faceted performance that the character can occupy so many contradictions. Laura Palmer is so much more than tragic hero; she is an immortal rock star, and Fire Walk With Me is her symphony.
