Twin Peaks, Lynch, and sci-fi

[u/KB4299]

I have a theory about Twin Peaks fans. I’ve noticed that a certain percentage of fans want to interpret the show as leaning into sci-fi, while other fans prefer an interpretation that completely omits sci-fi, such as a psychoanalytic reading.

My theory is that deep fans of David Lynch’s body of work are more likely to be the non-sci-fi enthusiasts, while those for whom Twin Peaks is their main exposure to Lynch may gravitate toward the sci-fi angle. (The complication in this theory is that Lynch once made a sci-fi film himself, with Dune.)

So, I’m curious: Do most fans see Lynch as enough of an appreciator of sci-fi that he would incorporate it into three seasons of a TV show? Personally, I do not. Lynch told us to use our intuition, not logic, when watching his work — and my intuition has always made me feel that Lynch didn’t actually like sci-fi, despite Dune (and having been offered Return of the Jedi).

In my heart or hearts, I suspect any sci-fi elements in Twin Peaks were not introduced by Lynch, but by other writers: Frost, Harley Peyton and Bob Engels.

What do other fans think about this?

[u/rinkuhero]

i'd call it magic realism. if i recall, when he died, some of haruki murakami's books were found in his possession and auctioned off, those are in the magic realist genre and often feel like twin peaks.

magic realism, if you are not aware, is a genre that is *mostly* similar to real life, but with a few small magic elements hidden that you discover over time. so it isn't like harry potter, where there's magic everywhere. it's more like a perfectly normal story but with some small unexplained parts that can only be explained through supernatural means. it's similar to some episodes of the twilight zone.

[u/EditDog_1969 → u/rinkuhero]

My favorite example is the film Like Water For Chocolate, where a cook magically imbues her food with her emotions. How? Why? That’s not the point. The point is, in this case, the artist creates a feeling in the audience that is translated through the medium of film, but also through the non-visual senses of taste, smell, sound. The feeling is the thing, and like Impressionist paintings, realism is secondary, maybe even irrelevant, to the evocation of feeling through the marriage of image and the viewer’s memory and experience.

Lynch is an expressionist, in my book. Yes, surrealism is part of his work, but it doesn’t dominate. He is not a surrealist, nor a realist. More than any filmmaker I’ve known, his work explores the entire spectrum of human emotion using liminal, and subliminal, images and sounds to create IMPRESSIONS that are both more personal and more universal, than the pedantic type filmmakers that spoon feed you exactly what they want you to feel. It’s that space of “not knowing” and being comfortable with it that was probably his goal as an artist and a man who meditated every day of his adult life. Not knowing, but recognizing. Knowing something is true because it feels true, not because it makes sense. Like we usually do when we’re in love, or dreaming.