Page 3 January, 1991 TWIN PEAKS GAZETTE

BEHIND THE FOURTH WALL

In Deep with Richard Beymer

Richard Beymer

Richard Beymer as Ben Horne as a young law student
Interview by Martha Knight

I imagined him at first with his feet on the desk in his office at the Great Northern, smoking a cigar. Instead a warm engaging voice on the phone revealed another character altogether -- a man who expresses himself with great thoughtfulness, eloquence and modesty. After some friendly banter about electronic recording equipment and a film he made in Mississippi, Richard led the conversation away from himself to describe what it's like to work with David Lynch as a director on the set of Twin Peaks,

MK: I understand you used to make documentaries?

RB: Stylistically, you might say that a lot of the work I do is of a documentary nature. In other words, it's more of a spontaneous kind of film making where you let whatever's happening in front of the camera sort of evolve naturally without directing it. When you are making a documentary you can't say, will you please do that battle scene again?

MK: Would you say David Lynch is more spontaneous in his directing than most directors?

RB: David's a rare duck in that regard... We've never talked about it, so these are just my observations about how David seems to work. Very spontaneous... if he has an idea about a scene, it doesn't seem to be in concrete... He comes to the set and allows a lot of things happening around him to be integrated into it. Something
that someone might say, or has done... He seems to listen a lot. Not just to others, but to some inner voice. There seems to be a quality of meditation where one listens, and somehow the universe is constantly giving you information if you can just listen, giving you your next direction.

MK: Letting the scene describe itself in the moment...

RB: Well, I'm talking about even apart from the scene. Things happening on the scene, in life, whatever might be going down in his day, in his universe, somehow I think he's open to using parts of that in his art. Something not in the script or even near it, something in the day he notices, oh yeah, let's take that and integrate it into the scene because it's happening now in the universe.

"There seems to be a quality of meditation where one listens, and somehow the universe is constantly giving you information if you can just listen, giving you your next direction."

Also, a quality that David has is that he trusts. He seems to trust his vision. He trusts what comes to him. Again, this is just my observation of watching someone work. To tell you the truth, I don't know... he doesn't really explain it, I don't know if he can explain it to himself you know? Maybe he could...

Continued on page 7

Citizen of the Month: Peter Howell

This month we've chosen Peter Howell, news reporter for the Toronto Star, for our Citizen of the Month. Howell is referred to as the "Toronto Peaksologist Journalist" by the London Free Press in a November 20 article, which reports his theories as stated in his October 13 Toronto Star article, some which we will reprint for you here in the Gazette. Perhaps we have come full circle, indeed.

Mr. Howell puts forth many theories regarding the dark side of Twin Peaks in his article "In Twin Peaks, Satan Is a Hometown Boy." Here's a sample.

There is a coven of witches in



Peter Howell

Peter Howell, Twin Peaksologist



lives in a house with evil No. 2 on it, also has a wooden stump in front in the shape of a circle with a large bite out of it."

It's not difficult to find circles in Twin Peaks and broken ones, too, once you put your mind to it. Mr. Howell points out that the C's in Cream Corn are broken circles, in case I hadn't noticed.

Thanks, Peter, for your thought provoking theories and congratulations for being named Citizen of the Month.

TWIN PEAKS NOTES

DAVID LYNCH will be showing a new series of paintings in Tokyo in January, 1991.

KYLE MACLAUGLIN received the Golden Apple Award for "Best Male Discovery." He will be appearing in The Doors, playing the part ot the Doors' drummer, Ray Mancerak, who stated that Kyle really got the part down right.

DIANE KEATON directed the fifteenth episode ot Twin Peaks, to be aired February 9, 1991.
Twin Peaks led by Satan himself; the witches, who are causing all the mayhem, worship owls, which are symbols of darkness; the owl cultists like to dress up in owl costumes ("Owls are sometimes big," the Log Lady said); there are 13 owl coven members, including Leland Palmer, Ben and Jerry Horne, Hank Jennings, Catherine Martell, Josie Packard, Leo Johnson, and Jacques Renault.

But it's his theory of donuts and why all the good guys in Twin Peaks eat them that snagged him the title of 'Citizen': The donut represents the symbol of heaven, and the donut hole significs the path of transcendence. This is documented in a A Dictionary of Symbols by J.E. Cirlot. Regarding the symbology in Twin Peaks, Mr. Howell has a great deal to say.

"Most Twin Peaks Fans have by now figured out that this is a story of a titantic struggle between good and evil, or God vs. Satan. The twin motif is represented by the number 2, which in symbolic terms stands for conflict,
shadow, bisexuality and a warning of evil.

"But the two things on the show that best illustrate this conflict are among the most subtle clues provided by Lynch and Frost.

"They are the frequently seen symbols of a circle, and its opposite, the broken circle.

"The circle, oftcn represented by a wheel, stands for infinity, the universe, the All. It is the 'face of God' referred to in Cooper's dream, which also includes a circle of 12 candles, representing the cycle of life. Cooper wears a circle on his lapel.

"The flipside of the circle is the broken circle symbol, or corruption of the All."

"There's a 'Broken Circle' stable in Twin Peaks, where Laura gets her horse, Troy. Devilish Mr. Smith, who
Chinese symbol

Chinese symbol of heaven: the hole In this circular image of space signifies the path of transcendence. Taken from: A Dictionary ot Symbols by J.E. Cirlot.


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