Lenair's - Twin Peaks essay

The “thing” is Twin Peaks, and its secrets are multiple. Few television programs have ever garnered the kind of serious critical attention it has. People have examined its cryptic text in search of symbolism, archetypes, and intertextual references, because in Twin Peaks, much lies below the surface.

Where other narratives have gaps, Twin Peaks has large, gaping holes. It begins with an ending, a death; the narrative movement is a backward one, a return to the past in an attempt to explain this end, to quell the desire to know.

Though it is not quite like anything else on commercial television, Twin Peaks is an interesting study in how obsession might be created from lack. People either regularly watch this program, or they do not at all - the text does not allow any middle ground.

Produced by movie director David Lynch and television writer Mark Frost, it combines elements of both media, engaging the gaze as films do yet not offering narrative immersion. “L'errement consiste en cette idée de parler pour que des idiots me comprennent... Je parle à ceux qui s'y connaissent, aux non-idiots, à des analystes supposés” (Jacques Lacan, Télévision).

As with Lacanian theory, Twin Peaks refuses to allow itself to be easily mastered. It is the closest thing to “writerly” television text; much of it seems familiar, but expectations are aroused only to have them subverted. It speaks to supposed analysts who are expected to break the code.

What is it?

The first difficulty with the Twin Peaks text lies in trying to categorize it. It is most likely to first be mistaken for a murder mystery, because it starts with the discovery of a body, and then a detective (actually an FBI Special Agent) comes into town to solve the crime and punish the guilty. This genre's conventions call for neat resolution in one or two hours: the murderer revealed, the method of killing outlined, the motive explained.

Of course, none of this happens in the Twin Peaks pilot; instead, it ends with puzzling crosscuts between Sheila Palmer screaming and a gloved hand removing Laura's necklace. The third episode concludes with Cooper claiming to know who killed Laura Palmer. He forgets by morning. In fact, the first season ends with the murderer still not identified, some details of the killing unexplained — the “R” under the fingernail? Fire walk with me? — and motive not even conjectural. Once aroused, however, the desire for narrative resolution does not dissipate.

Then other mysteries add themselves to the murder: Cooper and Leo get shot; Catherine, Shelley, and Pete are in a burning mill; Dr. Jacoby is attacked and lies in hospital... The Twin Peaks text also recalls the soap opera genre in that it features numerous subplots and multiple characters related in various ways.

However, apart from its unusual central mystery, Twin Peaks also lacks the soap's “universal use of redundancy” (Robert C. Allen, "On Reading Soaps"), the repetition of the same information among many characters, which allows casual viewers to keep up (John Ellis, Visible Fictions), and regular ones to only “half watch” the program.

At the technical level, daytime soaps are characterized by numerous moving shots and constantly changing camera angles and distances. They are never still because they are made for distracted viewers with short attention spans (Sandy Flitterman-Lewis, “Psychoanalysis, Film, and Television”).

By contrast, Twin Peaks features many slow, lingering shots, including uncomfortable close-ups of fingernails being probed and thumbs cut. In the first episode, camerawork is foregrounded in long, sustained panning shots and disorienting, oddly angled ones, both rare in television texts (Ellis). The dream sequence is even more startling, with quick, confusing images and sounds followed by very long, special effects shots of Laura, Cooper, and a dwarf.

Twin Peaks is made to be looked at, because viewers need to see all of its traces to understand its whole. There is no question of starting to watch the series midseason or missing several episodes, for even with regular viewing, the metonymic subplots leave much concealed. For example, just who is backstabbing who in the Josie/Ben/Catherine mill takeover? Not only what is going to happen but what is happening now is unclear.

Desire and the Twin Peaks Spectator-Subject

What is it?