The Images of Twin Peaks
The television series "Twin Peaks," created by David Lynch is one of the strangest and most complex efforts to make a run at entertaining the prime time viewing audience. An important aspect of the series is the imagery used to connect the various elements in the story. In this paper I am concerned, not with the story itself or an interpretation of it, but rather, these images. There is a good case to be made for the argument that these images are symbolic and have meaning beyond their obvious aesthetic import. While it is possible to argue for this proposition, I do not intend to do so here. My only concern is to enumerate the important images and draw connections between them.
The most potent image, and in the end perhaps one of the most symbolic, is fire. Ironically, we see very little of this image throughout the series. While we do not see very many instances of fire there are many references to it, and the appearances of it are rendered more important because of their scarcity. The first time we see fire is at the Great Northern Hotel. It recurs several times as part of the ambient setting at the Hotel. Fire becomes more important when F.B.I. agent Dale Cooper finds a note in the abandoned train car where Laura Palmer was killed. The note reads "fire walk with me." This is also a line in the poem recited by Mike: "Through the darkness of futures past the magician longs to see/one chance hops between two worlds/fire walk with me.'
The Log Lady, whose husband was killed in a fire, reminds us of the power of fire which "is the devil hiding like a coward in the smoke." Later she warns Agent Cooper: "Shut your eyes and you'll burst into flames." Fire radically affects the course of events in Twin Peaks when Leo Johnson sets fire to the Packard Sawmill. After Maior Briggs returns from his disappearance we see the fire image and become aware for the first time that perhaps fire is not simply a recurring image but a powerful symbol as well. We see this same image of fire in the Black Lodge when Bob appears. This, like many appearances of fire, is a particularly sinister image. This sinister aspect is uniquely exhibited in an appearance of fire in the reflection of Thomas Ekhardt's sunglasses in the Great Northern Hotel.
Reflections provide us with a clue to another recurring image in the series; mirrors. The series begins and ends with reflections of characters in mirrors. The first person we see in Twin Peaks is Josie Packard. But we do not first see her, rather we see her reflection. The last person we see is Dale Cooper looking into a mirror. The reflection however is not his own but Bob's. This is another important clue to the image. For a large part of the series the only image we have of the killer Bob is in mirrors. The connection between Cooper, Josie Packard, and the killer Bob is emphasized in the scenes surrounding Josie's death. Again, as in the beginning of the series, we see her reflection in a mirror. After she dies Cooper has a vision in which Bob asks him "what happened to Josie?"
Clearly one of the purposes of the images throughout the series is to show connections between various story elements. This is obviously the case with the image of the red drapes. We first see the drapes in Cooper's dream. Later we learn that this place is actually the Black Lodge. The red drapes connect this central location in the series with other important places. There are red drapes in the Roadhouse bar on stage where Cooper has several visions and finally brings all the pieces together to solve the murder of Laura Palmer. Cooper sees the importance of the red drapes in his dream when he connects them to Jacques Renault's cabin in the woods; an important location on the night of the murder. Finally, we see the red drapes at One Eyed Jack's; a casino across the border in Canada which figures prominently in the series.
A rather unusual visual image in the series is the television soap opera "Invitation to Love." We see, or sometimes simply hear, this television show several times in the first few episodes. There is a curious parallel between this soap opera and the story of Twin Peaks. One is tempted to speculate on the possibility that this image represents a parody of soap operas in general and "Twin Peaks" in particular.
There is clearly a comic element in Twin Peaks and one cannot help think that part of the purpose of this particular image is to acknowledge this. Soap operas are infinitely complex with large casts of characters and many interrelationships between them. While the soap opera plots themselves are notoriously serious, their often grave tone and immense complexity often render them more comedy than melodrama. Not unlike the mood many times in Twin Peaks.
Lastly, two images need to be mentioned if only for their recurrence throughout the series. The first is the stoplight. We see this at several different places in the series and in different colors. Sometimes it is simply red and at other times it is changing from green to yellow to red. Visually, it seems to serve as an interlude between scenes. Metaphorically, it serves as an indication of the intensity of the story.
Its strategic location and variations in color suggest this role. It does play a significant part in the series as the place where James Hurley last saw Laura Palmer. She jumped off his bike and disappeared at the stoplight at Sparkwood and 21.
The image of the waterfall at the Great Northern Hotel is less easy to interpret. We see it whenever the story takes us to this particular location and it also serves as the introduction to each episode. However, it also seems to play a role as an interlude image. It is at times such as these that it seems more important as an image than as a reference point for a specific location. One is tempted to contrast this image with the fire image and draw particularly meaningful conclusions from this comparison though the evidence which would lead us to these formulations is mostly circumstantial. It seems best to leave such a task to the imagination.
Because of the compactness of the series (there are only 29 episodes) Twin Peaks invites a great deal of analysis and interpretation. I have left this task largely untouched preferring instead to examine the visual imagery of the series. I think there is something instructional in this inquiry quite apart from the imputation of meaning. The viewer needs as many clues as possible regarding exactly how to watch the series and what connections lie just below the surface. Twin Peaks works on many levels and it is this fact which makes watching this television show uniquely difficult, but no less entertaining because of this. Like any good work in mass media this series lends itself to repeated exposure. This is true both because it is entertaining to watch more than once and it is necessary to watch more than once to begin to get a clear sense of all the subtleties of the story. The visual imagery is what unites many of the disparate elements in the series into a coherent unity I am confident that watching Twin Peaks with this in mind will make it a more enjoyable place to visit.