Medium awareness, David Lynch and Flann O’Brien.

I’ll be honest, this is going to be a bit of a ramble. It’s a meandering trail rather than a coherent essay. But hopefully it takes in some interesting sights on the way, so if you’re in the mood, let’s wander together.

We can start in Twin Peaks.

A couple of weeks ago, when Deputy Hawk came knocking on her door, Sarah Palmer delivered a line that made me sit up and take notice. Referring to the murder of her daughter by her husband and all the subsequent years of pain and anguish she has endured, she said: “It's a goddamn bad story, isn't it, Hawk?”

And it is. It’s a terrible, heart-breaking story. It is the story of Twin Peaks, the TV show that we love. What’s odd is that, in that moment, it was almost as though Sarah Palmer knew she was a character in that story. The line gave a hint of ‘medium awareness’. The idea that a character might know they are in a story, and the implications of that awareness are fascinating to me.

I know, I know! It’s quite likely that Sarah referring to her life as a “goddamn bad story” is a colourful turn of phrase and initially I dismissed it as such. But then something else happened. The following week, in Audrey Horne’s second enigmatic appearance on the show, she and Charlie began to discuss stories too.

Charlie: “Now, are you going to stop playing games, or do I have to end your story, too?”

Audrey: “What story is that, Charlie? Is that the story of the little girl who lived down the lane?”

It is perhaps worth noting that the episode title for Part 13 was taken from this exchange: “What Story is That Charlie?”

Audrey’s line about the “little girl who lived down the lane” reminded me of something else. It brought to mind a line from ‘Inland Empire’, in which Visitor #1 tells Nikki about a “little girl” who “went out to play”.

 “An old tale. And a variation: A little girl went out to play. Lost in the marketplace as if half born. Then, not through the marketplace, you see that, don't you? But through the alley behind the marketplace. This is the way to the palace.”

This reference to an “old tale” is interesting, especially given what follows. The visitor goes on to question Nikki about the film she is making – asking if is contains a murder. Nikki replies “No, that’s not part of the story”, but the visitor immediately shows she know more about the story than her host – telling her she is wrong, that it does contain “brutal fucking murder”.

It is a beautiful piece of synchronicity that the part of Visitor #1 is played by Grace Zabriskie, who also portrays Sarah Palmer. Like Sarah Palmer, Nikki’s visitor is hinting at an awareness of the narrative in which she exists – in fact an awareness of the multiple narratives at play in ‘Inland Empire’. The film is a complex collage of stories, realities and fictions – all of them blurring into one another, vying for attention. The layers of stories within stories are immediately obvious from the outset. The film is primarily concerned with people making a film. There are several references to a long-running radio play. Nikki’s life begins to mirror the film she is making, and vice versa. We also discover Nikki’s film is a remake of a previous film which was, in turn, based on a gypsy folk-tale. Later we see a character watching Nikki/Sue on a television.

Phew! As if that’s not already enough to contend with, the characters in the film are constantly making reference to “stories” and “tales”, while telling one another about incidents that have happened – incidents that frequently share names, situations and events with one another, but vary in setting and time.

As the film progresses, these narratives begin to bleed into each other. The boundaries become fluid and confused. After an initial period of narrative stability, the realities start to collapse in on themselves. As this disintegration begins, Nikki/Sue delivers a speech that may or may not be part of a scene she is acting in, revealing her confusion about what is real and what is just ‘a story’: “Remember I told you, about this thing, this thing that happened. It's a story that happened yesterday. But I know that it's tomorrow. It was that scene...that we did yesterday.”

It’s a beautiful and bewildering film. The multiple layers of reality interact with one another in fascinating ways as Lynch deftly blends images and scenes, juxtaposing and inter-cutting here with there and now with then – deliberately wrong-footing the audience at every turn. The fact that the leading character starts to become confused along with the viewers only elevates the experience. Nikki’s slow dawning awareness of the blurring at the boundaries of her reality allows us to consider the power of stories and the integral part they play in our ability to make sense of reality.

Another example of fiction bleeding into reality occurs in 'Twin Peaks: The Return' after the emotional final scene with Margaret Lanterman, the Log Lady. This character, who was so integral to the mythology and so many key events of the show was played by Catherine Coulson, who was a life-long friend of David Lynch and had collaborated with him since his first feature film, Eraserhead. Coulson was terminally ill when filming for The Return began, but managed to record several sequences before she died, which feature prominently and poignantly in the series. Lanterman's scenes, in which the beloved character is obviously very ill, are coloured by the real-life tragedy of Coulson's death. This intermingling of reality and fiction peaked in Part 15. After a scene in which she told her friend Deputy Hawk that she was dying and characters reacted with deep sadness to her loss, the end credits revealed that the episode was dedicated "In Memory of Margaret Lanterman". Earlier episodes had been dedicated to the memories of actors including Frank Silva, David Bowie and even Catherine Coulson herself. But this dedication to a fictional character signalled a profound crossing-over from the dream of the show into the waking world of real life.

All of this reminds me of a novel called ‘At Swim-Two-Birds’ by the brilliant Irish author, Flann O’Brien. The book is about a young man writing a novel. The novel he writes contains several parallel narratives – including one about a man writing a book. As the story progresses, various characters start to become aware they are in a story. They resent being subjected to the whims of their author, who they see meddling in their existence, causing them nothing but pain and trouble. The layers break down and the stories begin to overlap and interact in impossible ways, very much like ‘Inland Empire’.

As an aside, there are other hints of Lynch in O’Brien’s writings. Or should that be hints of O’Brien in Lynch? Either way, the plot of O’Brien’s brilliant comic novel ‘The Third Policeman’ forms a strange narrative Möbius strip, very similar to Lynch’s ‘Lost Highway’. I have no idea whether Lynch is familiar with Flann O'Brien, but there are definitely interesting parallels in their work. If you like Lynch, you should definitely check out both of these books. I’d recommend ‘The Third Policeman’ as a starting point.

So, that’s it. I told you this was a ramble. I’ve not got any startling conclusions to share. We haven’t ended up anywhere in particular, but hopefully the views along the way have made the walk worthwhile. Personally, I love these gentle hints that the residents of Twin Peaks might be starting to sense their own stories. I find it very exciting indeed.

Last updated 24.08.2017