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Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me is a 1992 movie directed by David Lynch and starring Sheryl Lee, Moira Kelly, Ray Wise, Chris Isaak, Kyle MacLachlan and Kiefer Sutherland, as well as an appearance from David Bowie. The movie title is sometimes given as Fire Walk With Me. In some countries, it was released as Twin Peaks: The Movie. The film can be viewed as both prologue and epilogue to the cult television series Twin Peaks (1990–91), created by Lynch and Mark Frost. It tells of the investigation into the murder of Teresa Banks and the last seven days in the life of Laura Palmer (Lee), a popular high school student in the small Washington town of Twin Peaks. These two connected murders were the central mysteries of the television series. Thus the film is often called a prequel, but it is not intended to be viewed before the series and also has sequel qualities. This is particuarly apparent in the scenes in which Dale Cooper is seen to be physically present in the Black Lodge, somewhere he does not arrive until the TV series final episode. These parts of the film, at least, must take place after the series.
SynopsisSpoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
The film is divided into two sections. The first (about half an hour) follows FBI agents Chester Desmond and Sam Stanley (Chris Isaak and Kiefer Sutherland, respectively) as they investigate the death of a young drifter named Teresa Banks in northern Washington and deal with uncooperative local police. Agent Desmond suddenly disappears just as mysterious, long-gone agent Phillip Jeffries (played by rock star David Bowie) reappears at the FBI’s Philadelphia office. The second part, set a year later and considerably longer than the first, presents the last week of Laura Palmer’s life. Laura (Sheryl Lee), a homecoming queen at Twin Peaks high school leads a dual life, using cocaine and working as a prostitute at a local sex club. This is partially due to the trauma and confusion of being chronically molested by a mysterious figure called “Bob” (Frank Silva) — a figure who has another identity which Laura discovers. Laura’s best friend Donna (Moira Kelly) tries to follow her into her secret life. Laura and Teresa were killed by the same person and the pilot of the TV series begins with the discovery of Laura’s body. Laura appeared in the TV series only in flashbacks and as a corpse, but Lee also played Laura’s identical cousin, Maddy Ferguson. ProductionOrigins
Lynch decided to make a Twin Peaks movie because, as he said in an interview, "I couldn’t get myself to leave the world of Twin Peaks. I was in love with the character of Laura Palmer and her contradictions: radiant on the surface but dying inside. I wanted to see her live, move and talk."[3] Actress Sheryl Lee also echoed these sentiments. "I never got to be Laura alive, just in flashbacks, it allowed me to come full circle with the character."[1] According to the Lynch, the movie was about, "the loneliness, shame, guilt, confusion and devastation of the victim of incest. It also dealt with the torment of the father – the war in him."[3] Filming began on September 5, 1991 in Snoqualmie, Washington and lasted three months. Critical and fan reactionFire Walk With Me was greeted at the Cannes Film Festival with booing from the audience and met with almost unanimously negative reviews. Even the CIBY-2000 party at Cannes did not go well. According to Lynch, Francis Bouygues (then head of CIBY) was not well liked in France[3] and this only added to the film’s demise at the festival. The film flopped in the United States, partially because it was released almost a year after the television series was canceled (due to a sharp ratings decline in the second season) and partially due to its incomprehensibility to the uninitiated. Many people, especially critics, found the film stylish but bewildering. Janet Maslin in her review for the New York Times wrote, "Mr. Lynch’s taste for brain-dead grotesque has lost its novelty."[1] Fellow Times film critic Vincent Canby concurred, "It's not the worst movie ever made; it just seems to be."[4] In his review for Variety magazine, Todd McCarthy said, "that Laura Palmer, after all the talk, is not a very interesting or compelling character and long before the climax has become a tiresome teenager."[5] The film also disappointed many devotees of the TV series due to its darker tone, lack of humor and absence of resolution to the series’ cliff-hanger ending. U.S. distributor New Line Cinema released the film in America on August 28, 1992 with no advanced press screenings which did not endear it with critics. However, Kim Newman gave the film one of its rare positive reviews in Sight & Sound magazine. "The film’s many moments of horror...demonstrate just how tidy, conventional and domesticated the generic horror movie of the 1980s and 1990s has become."[6] In its opening weekend, Fire Walk With Me grossed a total of $1,813,559 in 691 theaters. As of April 3 2007, the film has grossed a total of $4,160,851 in North America.[7] According to the film’s cinematographer, Ron Garcia, the film was very popular in Japan -- in particular, with women, as Martha Nochimson wrote in her book on Lynch's movies, "He surmises that the enthusiasm of the Japanese women comes from a gratification of seeing in Laura some acknowledgment of their suffering in a repressive society."[8] In retrospect, Lynch felt bad that the film "did no business and that a lot of people hate the film. I really like the film. But it had a lot of baggage with it."[3] The film’s editor Mary Sweeney said, "They so badly wanted it to be like the T.V. show, and it wasn’t. It was a David Lynch feature. And people were very angry about it. They felt betrayed."[1] Lee is very proud of the film, saying, "I have had many people, victims of incest, approach me since the film was released, so glad that it had been made because it helped them to release a lot."[1] However, in recent years, the film has experienced a resurgence in popularity among Lynch’s fans, some of whom see it as the director at his best[citation needed]. After Fire Walk with Me was released, Lynch reportedly planned a second prequel, possibly utilizing footage edited out of the first movie. However, in a 2001 interview he said that the Twin Peaks franchise is “dead as a doornail.” [1] Fire Walk With Me holds a 59 percent "fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes and a 6.6 rating at the Internet Movie Database with 10,674 votes. DVDDirector David Lynch originaly shot about five hours of footage that was subsequently cut down to two hours and fifteen minutes. This missing footage remains the "Holy Grail" for many Twin Peaks fans. The footage nearly appeared on New Line’s Special Edition DVD in 2002 but was nixed over budget and running time concerns. In 2002, a French company called MK2 began negotiations with Lynch to include the missing scenes, properly edited and scored, in an upcoming Special Edition DVD. This has yet to appear. Most of the deleted scenes feature additional characters from the television series who ultimately did not appear in the finished film. Recently, Dvdrama.com reported that French distributor company MK2 is in final negotiations with Lynch about a new two-disc Special Edition that would include 17 deleted scenes hand-picked by the director himself. The DVD has a tentative release date of late 2007. Trivia
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