Cherry Pie Wrapped In Barbed Wire: “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me”
It Came From The Wayback Machine Vol. 8 (orig. published in FilmBar, 2017…. prior to the conclusion of Twin Peaks: The Return)
It can be hard to imagine, but there was a time when a David Lynch film was more likely to draw jeers than cheers. Revered these days as one of America’s greatest Surrealists, a master of transferring dreams and nightmares onto celluloid, he’s become the sort of filmmaker who’s earned a degree of faith and trust from his audience & critics. It wasn’t always like this — consider the initial critical reception in 1992 to Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me.
When the film was screened at the Cannes Film Festival, not only was the film itself booed, but Lynch himself became the target of booing and hissing at a press conference held at Cannes. It wasn’t the first time he’d been booed at Cannes: festival critics and audience members alike brought their knives out for Wild at Heart in 1990, booing the film when it won the Palme d’Or.
The boos and hisses were nothing compared to the critical vitriol unleashed in the press when the film hit theaters in the U.S. Vincent Canby, writing for the New York Times, declared: “It’s not the worst movie ever made; it just seems to be.” Entertainment Weekly’s Owen Gleiberman said that the film was “like A Nightmare on Elm…
