Lynchadelphia
4 Mondays, March 23 to April 13, 6:30 pm to 10:00 pm
Instructor: Paul Wright, Ph.D., Main Line Classical Academy
Slice of cherry pie. Damn fine cup of coffee. The owls are not what they seem.
Whether these phrases are unfamiliar or etched into memory, we welcome you to the surreal, charming, and unsettling world of Twin Peaks (1990-2017). In the era of “prestige TV,” Twin Peaks looms large as the key influence on a sea-change in television that began in the ’90s. Created by luminary director David Lynch and co-writer Mark Frost, Twin Peaks broke new ground in television narrative with dreamlike storytelling that transmuted melodrama, soap opera, police procedurals, noir, and horror. A puzzle box that eludes any cut-and-dry “solution,” Twin Peaks remains a defining example of how great television can be unapologetically “cinematic.”
We begin with the first season that captivated audiences in 1990, then turn to the creatively conflicted second season, which saw its creators’ vision compromised by the network and the two defiantly choosing to end the series on a cliffhanger. We explore how Lynch brought that vision to the big screen in the 1992 prequel Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, which divided audiences and critics. We conclude with Showtime’s Twin Peaks: The Return (2017), which saw Lynch directing all eighteen episodes. As proof of how far things had come, Cahiers du Cinéma controversially ranked the final television season of Twin Peaks as the finest “film” of 2017.
$120 for members, $160 for non-members
Schedule