BEHIND THE FOURTH WALL
In Deep with Richard Beymer
Richard Beymer as Ben Horne as a young law student
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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
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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
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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
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Peter Howell, Twin Peaksologist
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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.
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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.
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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,
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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
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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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