Tagline: In a town like Twin Peaks, no one is innocent.
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me movie storyline. Essentially a prequel to David Lynch and Mark Frost’s earlier TV series “Twin Peaks”. The first half-hour or so concerns the investigation by FBI Agent Chet Desmond (Chris Isaak) and his partner Sam Stanley (Kiefer Sutherland) into the murder of night-shift waitress Teresa Banks in the small Washington state town of Deer Meadow. When Desmond finds a mysterious clue to the murder, he inexplicably disappears.
The film then cuts to one year later in the nearby town of Twin Peaks and follows the events during the last week in the life of Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) a troubled teenage girl with two boyfriends; the hot-tempered rebel Bobby Briggs (Dana Ashbrook) and quiet biker James Hurley (James Marshall), her drug addiction, and her relationship with her difficult (and possible schizophrenic) father Leland (Ray Wise), a story in which her violent murder was later to motivate much of the TV series. Contains a considerable amount of sex, drugs, violence, very loud music and inexplicable imagery.
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me is a 1992 psychological horror film directed by David Lynch and written by Lynch and Robert Engels. It is a prequel to the television series Twin Peaks (1990–1991), created by Mark Frost and Lynch, who were also executive producers. The film revolves around the investigation into the murder of Teresa Banks (Pamela Gidley) and the last seven days in the life of Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee), a popular high school student in the fictional Washington town of Twin Peaks.
Most of the television cast returned for the film; notable exceptions include Lara Flynn Boyle and Sherilyn Fenn, due to scheduling conflicts. Boyle’s character Donna Hayward was instead portrayed by Moira Kelly. Kyle MacLachlan, who starred as Special Agent Dale Cooper in the series, was reluctant to return out of fear of getting typecast, which resulted in a smaller presence in the film than originally planned.
The film initially received negative reviews in the United States but has been met with a more positive reception in subsequent years, with some critics viewing it as one of Lynch’s major works. Although it has long been reported that Fire Walk with Me was greeted at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival with booing and jeers from the audience, co-writer Robert Engels denies that this event ever happened. The film fared poorly in the United States at the box office, although it was a commercial hit in Japan.
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me received a reaction quite the contrary to the television series. The film was entered into the 1992 Cannes Film Festival, where it was met with almost unanimous negative reviews. There is a persistent story that the film was met with boos and hisses from the Cannes audience, though co-writer Robert Engels denies that this event ever happened and a contemporary news report only says there were some “hoots and whistles” during a screening for critics and journalists.
According to Roger Ebert from the Chicago Sun-Times, the film was met with two extremes, one side being overall positive, while the other side being the exact opposite. Filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, who was also in attendance, said in a 1992 interview, “After I saw Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me at Cannes, David Lynch had disappeared so far up his own ass that I have no desire to see another David Lynch movie until I hear something different. And you know, I loved him. I loved him.”
Even the CIBY-2000 party at Cannes did not go well. According to Lynch, Francis Bouygues (then head of CIBY) was not well liked in France and this only added to the film’s demise at the festival.[23] After the Cannes showing, Lynch said “It was a little bit of a sadness, […] You’d like to have everybody there, but their characters didn’t have a bearing on the life of her [Laura Palmer]”.
U.S. distributor New Line Cinema released the film in America on August 28, 1992. It grossed a total of US$1.8 million in 691 theaters in its opening weekend and went on to gross a total of $4.2 million in North America.
Despite its mixed critical and poor commercial response, Fire Walk with Me gained attention at awards time. The film was nominated for five Saturn Awards and two Independent Spirit Awards, including Sheryl Lee being nominated for Best Actress. The only awards won by the film were for Angelo Badalamenti’s musical score, which won a Spirit Award, a Saturn Award and a Brit Award.
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992)
Directed by: David Lynch
Starring: Sheryl Lee, Moira Kelly, David Bowie, Chris Isaak, Harry Dean Stanton, Ray Wise, Kyle MacLachlan, Pamela Gidley, Heather Graham, Moira Kelly, Peggy Lipton, James Marshall, David Lynch
Screenplay by: David Lynch, Robert Engels
Production Design by: Patricia Norris
Cinematography by: Ronald Víctor García
Film Editing by: Mary Sweeney
Costume Design by: Patricia Norris
Set Decoration by: Leslie Morales
Music by: Angelo Badalamenti
MPAA Rating: R for strong violence, sex, and drug content, and for language.
Distributed by: New Line Cinema
Release Date: July 3, 1992 (France), August 28, 1992 (United States)
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