Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me is a 1992 psychological horror film directed by David Lynch, and co-written by Lynch and Robert Engels. It serves as a prequel to seasons one and two of the television series Twin Peaks, created and produced by Mark Frost and Lynch. It begins with the FBI's investigation into the murder of Teresa Banks before shifting to the last seven days of the life of Laura Palmer, a popular-but-troubled high school student in the fictional town of Twin Peaks, Washington. Palmer's murder was the primary plot thread of the original TV series.
Greenlit shortly after the TV series was cancelled, Fire Walk with Me has a much darker tone than the TV series and does not address many of season two's unfinished narratives, including its cliffhanger ending. Although most of the television cast reprised their roles for the film, many comparatively lighthearted scenes featuring town residents were cut. In addition, the series' main star, Kyle MacLachlan, asked for his role to be downsized, and Lara Flynn Boyle's character Donna Hayward was recast with Moira Kelly. In 2014, several deleted scenes were recut and released as Twin Peaks: The Missing Pieces.
Fire Walk with Me premiered at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival in competition for the Palme d'Or. The film was notoriously polarizing: Lynch said that the film was booed at Cannes, and the American press generally panned the film. The film was controversial for its frank and vivid depiction of sexual abuse, its relative absence of fan-favorite characters, and its surrealistic style. It was a box-office bomb in North America, but fared better in Japan and France. Due to the poor reception, plans for a sequel were abandoned.
The film has been positively re-evaluated in the 21st century, and is now widely regarded as one of Lynch's major works. Lynch and Frost eventually received funding to produce a third season of the TV series in 2017, which revisited several plot threads from the film. In 2019, the British Film Institute ranked Fire Walk with Me the fourth-best film of the 1990s.
Plot
Deer Meadow Prologue
A man smashes a television as a woman screams. In Deer Meadow, Washington, police discover the body of Teresa Banks.The FBI's Gordon Cole sends Agents Chester Desmond and Sam Stanley to investigate. Unlike the town of Twin Peaks, the locals are cold and unhelpful and the police are hostile. While searching Teresa's home, the agents see a photo of her wearing a strange ring, which has disappeared. Desmond finds the ring, but he himself disappears.
At FBI regional headquarters in Philadelphia, Cole and Agents Dale Cooper and Albert Rosenfield are interrupted by the long-disappeared Agent Phillip Jeffries, who recounts a vision of mysterious spirits before vanishing. Cooper searches for Desmond, but learns nothing.
The Last Seven Days of Laura Palmer
One year later, Laura Palmer juggles her double life. Popular and beautiful, she is Twin Peaks High School's homecoming queen. However, she is traumatized by Bob, a malevolent spirit who has been "having" her since she was twelve. To fuel her cocaine addiction, she dates her drug dealer Bobby Briggs and moonlights as a prostitute. She also cheats on Bobby with James Hurley.Laura finds that someone has ripped out her diary entries about Bob. She entrusts the diary to Harold Smith. At the Philadelphia headquarters, Cooper appears to have a premonition, offering a description of the next victim to a skeptical Albert that matches Laura. After two spirits from Jeffries' vision warn her that the "man behind the mask" is in her bedroom, Laura witnesses Bob searching her diary's usual hiding place. When she runs outside, she sees her father Leland instead of Bob, but does not want to believe Bob is her father. At dinner, Leland seems free of Bob's influence, but badgers Laura to tears. After dinner, he tearfully apologizes to Laura.
In a dream, Laura visits the Red Room and meets a future version of Cooper and The Man from Another Place, who cryptically calls himself "the arm". The Man offers her Teresa's ring, but Cooper tells her to reject it. Annie Blackburn appears in her room and instructs her to write down that "the good Dale is in the Lodge and cannot leave."
Laura travels to Canada with her pimp Jacques Renault and two clients. Her best friend, Donna Hayward, naively follows her to support her. Despite Laura's misgivings, she lets Donna come along. After a client spikes Donna's drink and takes her top off, Laura drags her away. She begs Donna not to become like her.
Bob's rival MIKE confronts Leland in front of Laura. After MIKE brandishes Teresa's ring, Leland recalls killing Teresa, an underage prostitute who resembles Laura. Teresa once recruited Laura to have sex with Leland, but he backed out after seeing Laura. MIKE tries to tell Laura that Leland is Bob, but Leland causes a din that mostly drowns out MIKE's words. That night, Jacques dispatches Bobby and Laura to pick up some cocaine. In the woods they meet a man, Deputy Cliff Howard from Deer Meadow. The deputy takes out a gun and Bobby shoots him.
At night, Leland hands his wife Sarah a spiked drink. She hesitates, but finishes the drink at Leland's urging. While Sarah dreams of a pale horse, Bob rapes Laura, and his face turns into Leland's.
The next day, a distressed Laura can barely think. She has a vision in which an angel disappears. She breaks up with James, and Bobby realizes she only dated him for cocaine.
Jacques summons Laura to his cabin for a sex party with Leo Johnson and another underage prostitute, Ronette Pulaski. Jacques rapes Laura. Leland arrives and knocks Jacques unconscious while Leo flees the cabin, then drags the girls to an abandoned train car.
Laura watches her captor's face flicker between Leland and Bob. Bob says that he wants to possess her. Leland shows her the diary pages he tore out and says, "I always thought you knew it was me." A guardian angel helps Ronette escape, while MIKE tosses Laura Teresa's ring. Laura puts on Teresa's ring, distressing Leland. Leland/Bob kills her and throws her body into the river.
In the Red Room, Bob and Leland meet MIKE and the Arm, who demand "garmonbozia" from Bob. In response, Bob draws blood from Leland and spatters it on the floor.
Laura's body floats down the river, where it will be found in the morning. Cooper comforts Laura's spirit in the Red Room. An angel appears before them and Laura cries tears of joy.
Cast
The following actors and characters appear only in deleted scenes, later released as Twin Peaks: The Missing Pieces:Production
Development
canceled the Twin Peaks TV series after its second season. The series' production company, Aaron Spelling Productions, considered footing the bill for a third season and distributing the episodes by itself, but balked at the $500,000-an-episode cost. In February 1991, shortly before Twin Peaks was canceled, David Lynch signed a three-picture deal with French distributor CIBY 2000. Lynch asked CIBY to make a Twin Peaks film, saying that he was "not yet finished with the material". He also called the film "my cherry-pie present to the fans of the show – however, one that's wrapped in barbed wire". Fire Walk with Me was announced just a month after the series was cancelled, and Lynch finished the film less than a year after it was greenlit.The film was beset by behind-the-scenes production drama, with CIBY and Spelling fighting over the film rights. Ultimately, Spelling retained most of the international distribution rights, and CIBY acquired distribution rights in France and North America. Although the Los Angeles Times initially reported that Fire Walk with Me would be the first phase of Lynch's three-film deal with CIBY, the film was removed from the deal and produced separately. The film had a budget of either $10 or $12 million. By contrast, Lynch's original CIBY deal called for an outlay of $70 million for three films.
Although Twin Peaks co-creator Mark Frost received an executive producer credit on the film, he was not involved with the film, as he and Lynch disagreed on whether to make a prequel or sequel. Lynch wanted a prequel because "I was in love with the character of Laura Palmer and her contradictions: radiant on the surface but dying inside". Frost wanted a sequel because he "felt very strongly that our audience wanted to see the story go forward". He proposed starting the film right where the final episode left off. Lynch's vision won out, as CIBY wanted Lynch to be involved. Frost had already grown tense with Lynch during the troubled production of the second season of the TV series. He left the production team, and Lynch hired Robert Engels, who had previously written several episodes of the TV series, to co-write the script. Frost later said that he was impressed by how the film's non-linear narrative managed to combine elements of both prequels and sequels.
Casting
Lynch planned to start filming in August 1991, but Kyle MacLachlan prompted a delay by threatening to pull out. MacLachlan provided various reasons for his reluctance to participate. He was worried about being typecast as a Cooper-esque figure in future productions. In 2000, he added that he "felt a little abandoned" by Lynch and Frost during the second season of the TV series, as the two were simultaneously working on their own projects. He said that he blamed himself for souring his relationship with Lynch. After a month, MacLachlan agreed to return, on condition that he would only appear for five days of shooting. This forced Lynch and Engels to rewrite the first act, which originally had Cooper investigating Teresa Banks' murder. MacLachlan later explained that he reduced his involvement because Lynch did not agree to "have a meaningful discussion about some of those scenes", without providing specifics. Lynch filled in the gap with Chris Isaak, a singer whose songs he had previously used in Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart. He also cast Pamela Gidley to play Teresa Banks, the young woman whose murder starts the film's narrative; she had previously auditioned for the role of Shelly Johnson that eventually went to Mädchen Amick.The film was made without Twin Peaks series regulars Lara Flynn Boyle, Sherilyn Fenn, and Richard Beymer. The character of Donna was recast with Moira Kelly, who had worked with Sheryl Lee on Love, Lies, and Murder. Boyle and Fenn's absences were initially attributed to scheduling conflicts, which Fenn repeated in 2014. However, Fenn added in 1995 that she did not want to return because she "was extremely disappointed in the way the second season got off track". A 1997 biography of Lynch said that according to rumor, Boyle declined to return because she felt Lynch's treatment of female characters was misogynistic. Beymer declined to appear, remarking that he was dismayed by a scene in which Ben Horne offers Laura Palmer cocaine for a kiss, which he said reduced Ben to "just a coke dealer". He added that he expected Lynch to cut his "token" appearance from the final edit anyway. Fenn and Beymer eventually returned to the franchise for Twin Peaks: The Return.