Skip to content
SIMULACRA

Twin Peaks: The Return

David Lynch + Mark Frost2017Production based outside Seattle, WashingtonTELEVISION

The 2017 continuation treats sound, silence and long held time as the material of the story, and lets plot arrive late or not at all.

Twin Peaks: The Return (2017). Kyle MacLachlan as Dale Cooper against the red curtains.

PHOTOGRAPH Production still as published by American Cinematographer; no photographer credited / theasc.comReferenced from its source. Rights not established by SIMULACRA.

Plates 2

Overview

The 18-part continuation of Twin Peaks, written by David Lynch and Mark Frost and directed entirely by Lynch for Showtime. It picks up 25 years after the murder of Laura Palmer. Kyle MacLachlan plays three versions of Agent Dale Cooper, one of them a slow-moving man called Dougie Jones in Las Vegas.

Lynch described it as a feature film in 18 parts. Many parts close on a band playing at the town's Bang Bang Bar instead of a cliffhanger. Part 8 leaves the present almost entirely for a 1945 atomic test in New Mexico.

Credits

Creators and writers
David Lynch + Mark Frost
Director
David Lynch
Cinematography
Peter Deming
Production design
Ruth De Jong
Music
Angelo Badalamenti
Sound design
David Lynch
Sound supervisors and re-recording mixers
Dean Hurley + Ron Eng
Music editor
Dean Hurley

What to notice

  1. 01Music inside the sceneCompared with the 1990s series, there is little score laid over scenes. Bands play on screen at the bar and the scenes are left to hold themselves. Hurley calls it a more 1970s approach.
  2. 02Charged airListen for a sizzling crackle, like standing under power lines. The team called it charged air, and it usually comes before the heavier electricity sound. Hurley says that sound is a real power-line recording made in Poland during Inland Empire.
  3. 03Quiet before loudLynch set the rhythm of loud and quiet himself. Hurley and Eng would prepare sound for a passage and then remove all of it on his note, so that the next loud moment hit relaxed ears.
  4. 04Dougie's tempoDeming says the Las Vegas scenes are bright and sunny and the pacing slows to match Dougie's manner. The cinematography follows the character's speed, not the plot's.
  5. 05Penderecki over the bomb
    Contains a spoiler. Show itPart 8's journey into the 1945 test is driven by a licensed recording of Penderecki's Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima. Hurley says the sound team added very little to it.

Historical context

Dean Hurley and Ron Eng were the sound supervisors and re-recording mixers, and the team cut and mixed 18 hours in six months. Hurley, who was also music editor, says Lynch takes the sound designer title because he treats it as "the director of the soundtrack". Hurley also recalls Lynch rewatching the last episode of the original run and deciding he had used too much music, so music in The Return mostly sits inside scenes. Angelo Badalamenti wrote the score, as he had for the original series, and Rhino released two albums on 8 September 2017.

Peter Deming shot it on the Arri Amira from a script of more than 500 pages, working as on a single long feature with one director and one crew. He treats the black-and-white passages as a third reality beside the old town and the new material. Ruth De Jong was production designer.

Connections

Shared context

Formal resemblance

  • sound as material, time as form ↔ with

    Ryoji Ikeda, Ryoji Ikeda

    Both use frequency, threshold and held duration as the substance of the work rather than as support for images. Resemblance only.

  • electricity and noise ↔ with

    Einstürzende Neubauten, Einstürzende Neubauten

    Electrical hum and industrial sound are treated as physical material in both. No source connects them.

Sources and further exploration

Read next

Nine Inch Nails, Trent Reznor / Nine Inch Nails

played the Bang Bang Bar