ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the formal, affective, and political dimensions of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, a weirder and far more horrifying prequel to the Twin Peaks network television series of 1990–1991. The chapter illustrates how this notoriously challenging film, which has undergone a favorable critical reevaluation over the past decade, needs to be understood as an atmospheric experience. Lynch’s distinctive command of atmosphere is central to his status as a legendary American independent director. Commentators have often remarked on his atmospheric wizardry but rarely do they pay close attention to the atmospheric qualities of his work. How exactly might we define “atmosphere” in the context of the virtual medium of cinema? What formal devices generate a palpable atmosphere, and how does this atmosphere impact the spectator? How do the sonic and visual elements of Lynch’s atmospheric worlds conspire (or compete) with one another? To what end? This chapter is designed to acquaint a first-time spectator with the ways in which Lynch’s audiovisual practice makes atmosphere primary. It attends to the film’s controversial additions to and deviations from the TV series and explains how the film’s atmospheric workings are crucially bound up with social, psychological, and metaphysical themes.
