| Title | : | Critical Essays on Twin Peaks: The Return |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 3030047970 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9783030047979 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 302 |
| Publication | : | First published January 4, 2019 |
This edited collection offers an interdisciplinary study of Twin Peaks: The Return, the third season of a TV program that has attracted the attention (and appreciation) of spectators, fans, and critics for over two decades. The book takes readers into several distinct areas and addresses the different approaches and the range of topics invited by the multidimensionality of the subject itself: the philosophical, the artistic, the socio-cultural, and the personal. The eighteen chapters constituting the volume are academic in their approach to the subject and in their methodology, whether they apply a historical, psychoanalytical, film studies, or gender studies perspective to the text under examination.
The variety and range of perspectives in these aforementioned chapters reflect the belief that a study of the full complexity of Twin Peaks: The Return, as well as a timely assessment of the critical importance of the program, requires both an interdisciplinary perspective and the fusion of different intellectual approaches across genres. The chapters demonstrate a collective awareness of the TV series as a fundamental milestone in contemporary culture.
Critical Essays on Twin Peaks: The Return Reviews
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'I’ll point you to a better time /A safer place to be'
David Lynch fans are rejoicing, as lockdown self-isolation has inspired the auteur to not only revive his daily weather reports, but his weekly craft series as well, helpfully entitled ‘What is David Working on Today?’ (The answer may surprise you.)
While self-quarantining in his LA home, Lynch (74) has been commenting on the weather outside his workshop window in delightfully droll and deadpan 30-second clips. These truly remind us not only how much of a treasure Lynch is, and how much we love his eccentricity and vision, but how much we miss his craziness in our lives, dammit.
Can you believe it is three years now since Twin Peaks: The Return aired on Showtime? On 21 May 2017, we were confronted with what seemed to be the most disjointed pilot to a hit show in television history. Not only that, it seemed supremely disinterested in approaching any kind of resolution to that confounding season two finale, let alone explain just why the heck Fire Walk With Me had to be so darn depressing and confounding.
Most notably with the introduction of Dougie Jones, it quickly became apparent that Lynch and Frost were trolling Twin Peaks fans, drip-feeding signature characters and moments over the 18-hour course of the show (which Lynch still insists is best described as a long movie chopped up or fractured into 18 segments.)
Just take the eventual appearance of Audrey in episode 12 … only for her to appear totally deranged and married to a midget. And having an affair with the eponymous Billy (a character frequently referenced in the Roadhouse, but about whom absolutely nothing is known. Oh, Lynch!)
When I began reading Critical Essays, edited by Antonio Sanna, I immediately had one of those *doh* Homer Simpson moments: That glass box in the pilot watched over by Sam Colby is an in-joke on us viewers sitting in front of our television screens waiting for answers after 25 years.
I think The Return also marks the end of an era in terms of episodic prestige television, especially now that streaming services like Netflix dump seasons in their entirety for viewers to glut on. Back in 2017, I breathlessly awaited each new instalment of The Return, pondering the mysteries (and vexations) of the previous week’s episode, and wracking my brain as to where the hell it was all going (everywhere, actually, including inside an atomic bomb test in 1945.)
What all this means, and is implicitly acknowledged by Critical Essays, is that The Return is one of those shows just begging to be watched again. Indeed, birthmoviesdeath.com is staging just such a weekly rewatch, aptly entitled Twin Peaks: The Return: The Return, with new reviews reflecting on the experience of watching these 18 episodes originally, their subsequent impact, and the latest theories and reminiscing.
Actually, I am enjoying The Return much more this time around. No longer desperate for a resolution, I can now sit back and enjoy the glacial pacing and general weirdness for its own sake. Add to this the offbeat humour and outré horror, and The Return still remains one of the most singular events in television history.
So Critical Essays is a gift from the Fireman if you enjoyed the show and are also a fan of Lynch. Twin Peaks single-handedly gave birth to online fandom (not to mention BOB and garmonbozia), so it is fitting that there is a wonderful chapter tracing the evolution of Twin Peaks memes.
For the more academically inclined, there is quite a graspable chapter using Lacanian analysis to probe the epiphanies and terrors of Twin Peaks (given that Lacan is probably as obscure as Lynch himself), as well as chapters on Lynch’s fondness of 50s-style retro-pop music and sound design, to the role of Franz Kafka in his work, how The Return fits into Lynch’s larger oeuvre (especially with regard to tulpas and doppelgangers), and the role that the two final book-end Frost novels (The Secret History of Twin Peaks and The Final Dossier) play in both setting-up The Return and resolving many of its dangling plot strands.
There is virtually no repetition between the chapters, with each taking their own slant on their specialist area of interest, which is not only a terrific job of editing on the part of Sanna, but makes for one of the most compulsively readable ‘academic’ tomes I have encountered in ages. See you at the Roadhouse! -
Solid collection – a little heavy on the psychoanalysis at times, and kind of repetitive toward the end. But a recommended set of takes on one of the greatest television productions ever made.
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Insightful and well written in the best chapters; half-baked youtube essay level research in the worst parts. Also - there are only so many times you can reread people retell the last season of twin peaks before getting tired of it.
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I really like the variety of approaches in this volume and the diversity of audiences aimed at by different essays. While there's a damn fine essay by Anthony Ballas that's written for academics engaged in critical theory, there are other essays that speak to a broader category of general readers who don't share a specific technical frame of conversations.
