898 Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me

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Big Ben
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Re: 898 Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me

#276 Post by Big Ben » Fri May 24, 2019 4:12 pm

I had real issues with Trainspotting when I first saw it because the accents were so thick.

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Roger Ryan
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Re: 898 Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me

#277 Post by Roger Ryan » Fri May 24, 2019 4:14 pm

AquaNarc wrote:
Fri May 24, 2019 1:54 pm
Bit of a random thought: is this the only movie that features a scene in English that is also subtitled in English? I'm sure there are documentaries that do this but are there any other fiction films?
English-language subtitles are used on the reconstructed roadshow version for the Criterion release of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World to fill in when the dialogue track is missing. Similarly, subtitles were used for some of the poorly-recorded lines of dialogue in the workprint version of Alien 3 when released on DVD (in preparation for the re-release on Blu-ray, the unintelligible lines were looped to make the soundtrack more consistent).

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The Fanciful Norwegian
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Re: 898 Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me

#278 Post by The Fanciful Norwegian » Fri May 24, 2019 4:19 pm

Finch wrote:
Fri May 24, 2019 4:05 pm
I remember Trainspotting was partially subtitled when I saw it in Dublin in 1995 but I don't recall forced subs on those scenes on any subsequent Blu-Ray, US or otherwise.
Trainspotting did the same thing FWWM did with its club scene: it mixed the characters' speech under the music and subtitled the dialogue to make it more comprehensible. (The U.S. version redubbed some dialogue in other scenes, but used no additional subtitles.) I haven't seen any of the Blu-ray editions, but it sounds like somebody screwed up and assumed those subtitles weren't supposed to be there.

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Shrew
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Re: 898 Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me

#279 Post by Shrew » Fri May 24, 2019 4:42 pm

A lot of Scottish/northern England movies have subtitles added in US theatrical release; I believe I saw Arnold's Wuthering Heights in the theater with subtitles, and definitely Loach's The Angels Share. I think even Criterion's Ratcatcher DVD automatically displays the subs (though you can turn them off).

There's also Wes Anderson's Jules and Jim gag subtitle in The Life Aquatic.

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Re: 898 Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me

#280 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Sun May 26, 2019 7:39 pm

Tony Scott did it in Man On Fire and Domino

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therewillbeblus
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Re: 898 Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me

#281 Post by therewillbeblus » Sun Sep 29, 2019 9:22 pm

I realize I’m late to the party on noticing this detail, but rewatching FWWM with subtitles on I finally saw that the black lodge monkey at the end says, “Judy” though barely audible with the volume on max it makes sense how I missed it every other watch. I’m wondering if anyone knows whether this was inserted for the newer releases once Lynch had formulated ideas for The Return, or if it played in the original theatrical version? Neither option would surprise me.

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PfR73
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Re: 898 Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me

#282 Post by PfR73 » Mon Sep 30, 2019 1:18 pm

I never saw the film in the theatre, but the "Judy" whisper has been present in all DVD/Blu-Ray releases.

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Re: 898 Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me

#283 Post by J M Powell » Tue Oct 01, 2019 10:11 am

I too missed the original theatrical run, but discussion of the "Judy" whisper in fan publications predates the film's first DVD release. So it must have been present in VHS releases, and it seems very likely it was in the theatrical audio.

Like many other elements of the film -- and of almost all Lynch's later work -- it seems to have been deliberately obscured (in this case, by being mixed so low as to be barely audible), so that only very attentive and/or repeat viewings could hope to discern it. See also, in FWWM, the static obscuring the action in the Convenience Store scene, the engine-revving as Mike accuses Bob of stealing the canned corn, etc.

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Reverend Drewcifer
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Re: 898 Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me

#284 Post by Reverend Drewcifer » Tue Oct 01, 2019 10:28 am

Can confirm that the New Line VHS included Judy, which also appeared in the closed captioning.

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mfunk9786
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Re: 898 Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me

#285 Post by mfunk9786 » Tue Oct 01, 2019 11:07 am

The above is a more effective argument for physical media than most!

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Roger Ryan
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Re: 898 Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me

#286 Post by Roger Ryan » Tue Oct 01, 2019 11:27 am

As cool as this is, one shouldn't mistake the black lodge monkey uttering "Judy" as an indication that Lynch had a master plan all along...at least in his conscious mind. So many incidental moments that occur in Lynch films are there because of on-set inspiration; an image or word enters Lynch's mind and he adds it to a scene because, to him, if it came from his subconscious, it must have some relation to the material at hand. I suspect Lynch and Frost went through the first two seasons of Twin Peaks and FWWM in particular searching for moments like this to expand into something more concrete in The Return.

Then again, I'm still astounded by the seemingly clairvoyant "I'll see you in twenty-five years" line!

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zedz
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Re: 898 Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me

#287 Post by zedz » Tue Oct 01, 2019 6:02 pm

I expect "Judy" was just a non sequitur / red herring at the time of Fire Walk With Me, but the monkey's line would have been a conscious reference back to Bowie's "We're not going to talk about Judy" comment earlier in the film (even if nobody, not even David Lynch, had any idea what or who "Judy" was in 1992).

cdobbs
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Re: 898 Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me

#288 Post by cdobbs » Tue Oct 01, 2019 8:21 pm

Judy was originally going to be a twin sister of Josie who was connected to the Black Lodge. Joan Chen referenced her in the open letter she wrote to Lynch asking to come back for season 3.

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Roger Ryan
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Re: 898 Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me

#289 Post by Roger Ryan » Wed Oct 02, 2019 8:28 am

cdobbs wrote:
Tue Oct 01, 2019 8:21 pm
Judy was originally going to be a twin sister of Josie who was connected to the Black Lodge. Joan Chen referenced her in the open letter she wrote to Lynch asking to come back for season 3.
Right. I forgot about that. So, Lynch and Frost took the "Judy/Phillip Jeffries" connection in a different direction for The Return.

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Adam X
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Re: 898 Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me

#290 Post by Adam X » Wed Oct 02, 2019 10:05 am

I’m sure I read/heard somewhere (probably in one of the Entire Mystery/season 3 extras) that the intention was to use Judy as originally intended for s3, but when David Bowie was unable to be involved, the idea was reworked.

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whaleallright
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Re: 898 Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me

#291 Post by whaleallright » Fri Oct 04, 2019 3:09 pm

The whole of Twin Peaks is really Lynch and Frost cobbling together and then revising a mythopoetics by the seat of their pants, dragging up and repurposing stray bits of dialogue and plot points from earlier versions to furnish new motifs, which in turn become fodder for further revisison/retcons/etc. Frost seems much more invested (in his books most obviously) in providing some overarching coherence to it all, but that seems to me a doomed project.

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Re: 898 Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me

#292 Post by ford » Fri Oct 04, 2019 11:55 pm

whaleallright wrote:
Fri Oct 04, 2019 3:09 pm
The whole of Twin Peaks is really Lynch and Frost cobbling together and then revising a mythopoetics by the seat of their pants, dragging up and repurposing stray bits of dialogue and plot points from earlier versions to furnish new motifs, which in turn become fodder for further revisison/retcons/etc. Frost seems much more invested (in his books most obviously) in providing some overarching coherence to it all, but that seems to me a doomed project.
Yeah.

It’s wonderful ain’t it?

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hearthesilence
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Re: 898 Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me

#293 Post by hearthesilence » Fri Nov 27, 2020 1:49 am

The Narrator Returns wrote:
Tue Sep 19, 2017 3:34 pm
There's comparable caps on the Twin Peaks: The Entire Mystery review, but I dunno why he didn't just port those over. Comparing the caps, I actually think the Criterion appears to be better-encoded than the box set Blu-Ray.
I have to agree with this, the caps look like a slightly better encode on the Criterion disc because the complete set seems to have more artifacting or noise going on in the corresponding caps.

Looking at the disc included in The Entire Mystery, instances where the macroblocking is really bad involve shots that are processed with dissolves or fades. For example, check out David Bowie's scene as Agent Phillip Jeffries, when he first steps into Cole's office - he's seen speaking on screen for just one shot, and it's got a ton of artifacts before it dissolves into something else. The last shot of the scene where Laura goes to Donna's is pretty bad (especially when preceding shots with the same set-up look relatively clean), and then it fades out and fades into a shot in Laura's home that's also loaded with artifacts. If one has the Criterion disc, it may be worth paying attention to these shots to see if their encode handles them better.

I'm not a huge fan of this film - it's not without merit but it feels like the weakest and most uneven part of the series outside of the second season - so I'm not sure I'd want to double-dip on this. FWIW, bonuses aside, anyone who owns this and is looking to economize while collecting the best-looking HD version of every part and episode of this series should get The Television Collection - it'll have every episode of seasons 1 & 2 and Showtime's The Return while omitting Fire Walk with Me. The packaging sucks as it stacks all the discs together, but it can be found for really good prices.

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hearthesilence
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Re: 898 Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me

#294 Post by hearthesilence » Thu Dec 17, 2020 12:32 am

hearthesilence wrote:
Fri Nov 27, 2020 1:49 am
The Narrator Returns wrote:
Tue Sep 19, 2017 3:34 pm
There's comparable caps on the Twin Peaks: The Entire Mystery review, but I dunno why he didn't just port those over. Comparing the caps, I actually think the Criterion appears to be better-encoded than the box set Blu-Ray.
I have to agree with this, the caps look like a slightly better encode on the Criterion disc because the complete set seems to have more artifacting or noise going on in the corresponding caps.

Looking at the disc included in The Entire Mystery, instances where the macroblocking is really bad involve shots that are processed with dissolves or fades. For example, check out David Bowie's scene as Agent Phillip Jeffries, when he first steps into Cole's office - he's seen speaking on screen for just one shot, and it's got a ton of artifacts before it dissolves into something else. The last shot of the scene where Laura goes to Donna's is pretty bad (especially when preceding shots with the same set-up look relatively clean), and then it fades out and fades into a shot in Laura's home that's also loaded with artifacts. If one has the Criterion disc, it may be worth paying attention to these shots to see if their encode handles them better.
As luck would have it, I was able to borrow the Criterion disc. Unfortunately when Bowie/Jeffries enters Lynch/Cole's office (specifically the shot where Bowie begins talking), the macroblocking is still pretty bad. To be fair, it is a slight improvement over the disc found on The Entire Mystery, but it's bad enough that it's impossible to miss, especially when you see the artifacting around Bowie's head. Not surprising given the low bitrate, but regardless, it's definitely not worth double-dipping.

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hearthesilence
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Re: 898 Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me

#295 Post by hearthesilence » Wed Dec 23, 2020 2:17 pm

I revisited some of the Fire Walk with Me extras, specifically the one where they scrambled together interview bits from all the actors involved. It's sobering to watch now because it doesn't feel that long ago (SD digital may be very obsolete, but it doesn't feel that old to me) and yet so many of the participants are now dead even though they look healthy and fairly youthful.

Beyond that, it feels very thin for a 30+ minute bonus feature, but the highlight is Miguel Ferrer on how they liked to mess with Dana Ashbrook. He and MacLachlan approached him and said "hey, we figured you out! We finally get your acting style!" They then explain to a bewildered Ashbrook that "you're trying to be the Captain Kirk of your generation" and Ferrer does a bad Shatner imitation with one of his lines, 'I....LOVED....HER!' and adds "keep it up man!" before mimicking Ashbrook's horrified look.

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Re: 898 Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me

#296 Post by willoneill » Thu Dec 24, 2020 9:30 am

hearthesilence wrote:
Wed Dec 23, 2020 2:17 pm
Beyond that, it feels very thin for a 30+ minute bonus feature, but the highlight is Miguel Ferrer on how they liked to mess with Dana Ashbrook. He and MacLachlan approached him and said "hey, we figured you out! We finally get your acting style!" They then explain to a bewildered Ashbrook that "you're trying to be the Captain Kirk of your generation" and Ferrer does a bad Shatner imitation with one of his lines, 'I....LOVED....HER!' and adds "keep it up man!" before mimicking Ashbrook's horrified look.
Interestingly enough, I just watched all of the Robocop special features, which includes an interview with Miguel Ferrer where he talks about messing with Peter Weller's acting process (Weller was trying to go method and requested that everyone address him as Robocop or Robo on set - Ferrer was having none of that). So maybe the guy's just a dick ... RIP of course.

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hearthesilence
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Re: 898 Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me

#297 Post by hearthesilence » Thu Dec 24, 2020 3:58 pm

willoneill wrote:
Thu Dec 24, 2020 9:30 am
hearthesilence wrote:
Wed Dec 23, 2020 2:17 pm
Beyond that, it feels very thin for a 30+ minute bonus feature, but the highlight is Miguel Ferrer on how they liked to mess with Dana Ashbrook. He and MacLachlan approached him and said "hey, we figured you out! We finally get your acting style!" They then explain to a bewildered Ashbrook that "you're trying to be the Captain Kirk of your generation" and Ferrer does a bad Shatner imitation with one of his lines, 'I....LOVED....HER!' and adds "keep it up man!" before mimicking Ashbrook's horrified look.
Interestingly enough, I just watched all of the Robocop special features, which includes an interview with Miguel Ferrer where he talks about messing with Peter Weller's acting process (Weller was trying to go method and requested that everyone address him as Robocop or Robo on set - Ferrer was having none of that). So maybe the guy's just a dick ... RIP of course.
LOL, yeah, I figured he probably was. I thought it was a big no-no for an actor to openly mock another actor rather than, say, advise or even more or less direct them if they're doing something off with their performance. Usually when I hear about it, it's an actor with enough clout to get away with it, and usually one who's already engaged in a feud with their co-star (eg. Sinatra who was bitter about Brando getting the role he wanted in Guys and Dolls).

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Re: 898 Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me

#298 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Thu Dec 24, 2020 6:37 pm

I love the Sheryl Lee interview on this disc. Both the wisdom of age, and having revisited the character again for The Return gave her some really interesting perspective on how she approached the role. I honestly wasn't as over the moon for this as I was other aspects of TP or indeed some of Lynch's other movies, but she gives an incredible performance that completely transcends any deficiencies.

I actually prefer the assembly of deleted scenes over the feature.

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Big Ben
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Re: 898 Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me

#299 Post by Big Ben » Thu Dec 24, 2020 11:59 pm

It's interesting to see how people react to Fire Walk With Me in retrospect to everything that has gone on since it was released. I wasn't even alive when Twin Peaks started and was still a baby when Fire Walk With Me came out and boy howdy was it fascinating to go back and see how toxic initial response to FWWM was. People at Cannes went absolutely mental over the tonal shifts and just about everything else. There is hardly any levity in the film at all and by the time you reach the last twenty minutes it just descends into some of the most unpleasant things Lynch has, in my opinion, ever filmed. That being said I really like FWWM but I think it's more appropriate to designate it as a horror film rather than the mixture of things the original series was.
flyonthewall2983 wrote:
Thu Dec 24, 2020 6:37 pm
I actually prefer the assembly of deleted scenes over the feature.
Do you see them as deleted scenes? I'm under the impression that Lynch sees them as canonical but simply couldn't fit them into the feature at the time. Thinking on them myself they felt more like extra bits of clarification/context. I'm unsure how I feel about them outside of that.

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Re: 898 Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me

#300 Post by mfunk9786 » Fri Dec 25, 2020 12:33 am

I've only seen them fan-edited back into the film and they were surprisingly excellent.

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