We Live Inside A Dream

With Twin Peaks it seems everything—every line, every action—has at least two different, often contradictory, interpretations. It’s this quality of bothness that novelist David Foster Wallace writes about in his essay on David Lynch, citing this steadfast refusal of Lynch’s art to provide easy answers to desperate questions (or often any answers at all) as one of the reasons his work—specifically Fire Walk With Me— garners such polarizing responses.

The finale of Twin Peaks: The Return was certainly no different. It had bothness in spades, & accordingly, the responses have been varied. Some fans feel Lynch had actual contempt for the Twin Peaks audience, & wanted to leave them feeling psychically defeated by denying them answers to pretty much every single one of the many questions built up by the end. Others saw the ending as a poetic, if depressing, comment on this very bothness that Wallace pointed out: the story never resolves. Cooper can’t save Laura; the cycle of abuse is inescapable.

There is reason to believe in a third option.

Here is Alex Fulton’s unique reading of Twin Peaks: The Return grand finale.

_______

Image: screenshot from Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, directed by David Lynch (1992).

Comentarii

comentarii

Scroll to top