Pulling Back The Rock On Twin Peaks: In Conversation With Co-Creator Mark Frost
- Roxy-Moon Dahal Hodson
- 51 minutes ago
- 6 min read
MUBI Podcast launched their ninth season on the 11th of September titled ‘LADIES OF LYNCH’ which dissects and explores the intriguing female characters from David Lynch’s filmography, along with the remarkable women at his side who helped bring them to life.
The ninth season is hosted by Simran Hans, previously a film critic for The Observer, who has been published in The Guardian, Sight and Sound, Dazed & Confused and more.
The second guest featured in ‘LADIES OF LYNCH’ is the remarkable co-creator of Twin Peaks (1990), Mark Frost. The New York-born producer, novelist, and filmmaker met fellow co-creator of Twin Peaks, David Lynch, in 1985 when both were represented by the Creative Artists Agency and commissioned to write a script about the life of Marilyn Monroe, with Warner Bros at the helm. Unfortunately, the film was pronounced too risky to make. However, Lynch and Frost developed a camaraderie and began developing an idea about a young girl who was mysteriously murdered in the Pacific Northwest of America.
Set as the background of Mark Frost’s Zoom video was the iconic opening credits landscape of Twin Peaks - the falls were looking particularly tremendous, framing the silhouette of his face, his shoulders buried in the river and the Great Northern Hotel sweeping above his right ear. He joined me on a quick call to pore over the creative decisions behind the critically-acclaimed show, not long after his episode on ‘LADIES OF LYNCH’ premiered.
A female character who was more of a lady of Frost than of Lynch was FBI Agent Denise Bryson, played by The X-Files (1993) actor David Duchovny. Whilst Lynch was making Wild At Heart (1990) during the second season of Twin Peaks, Frost had the impulse “to represent a trans woman on screen which hadn’t really happened in American television up to that point.”
Counteracting portrayals of transgender people in film at the time, Denise Bryson was the antithesis of stereotype, exuding wit, intelligence, and charm - Frost thought, “what better way to do it than to make her a person who is actually quite professional and advanced, who just happens to feel this is who she truly is [...] I felt it was the right way to bring a character like this with some humour, with some intensity and to show that she was skilled.”
Denise was David Duchovny’s first ever breakout role; although he had graduated from Yale Drama, “he had auditioned [for other roles] something like a hundred times and hadn't booked a part yet. It often happens in Hollywood that it doesn't happen for everybody.” Frost knew Duchovny was exceptional, and he offered the part in the room immediately: “he was a delight to work with.”
During the production of Twin Peaks: The Return (2017), Mark Frost discussed bringing Denise back with David Lynch, certain about her promotion to the head of the FBI: “It was groundbreaking. Nothing pleases me more [than] to realise that it became a kind of touchstone for trans people, who could see themselves represented in ways that they hadn't before. We could use a little more of that, definitely.”
The principal mystery of Twin Peaks focused on one complex character, cemented in the hearts of those who watched her story unfold - Laura Palmer, played by Sheryl Lee. To Frost, Laura needed to be embodied by a teenage girl, “It gets into the whole issue of social violence in this country. If Laura was everything on the surface [that she appeared to be], you would think she's the best this town has to offer. But [we showed that] there are forces at work in this culture, in this society, that make it very difficult to be that person, much harder than it is for a boy given all the social advantages.”
We do not see a lot of Laura in the show; we catch glimpses in snapshots from flashbacks, or fragments of anecdotes shared by family and friends. As viewers follow the breadcrumbs tracing us to Laura, the more she emerges as a complex and fully formed human being. Frost believes it was because he and Lynch “depicted her honestly. We depicted the horrible nature of the crime that she fell victim to, and the kind of senseless, mad violence that stalks women to this day that comes from men.”
He admits that this was not something that was said out loud when it was being made, but “something you can look back on and reflect about.” The experience of Laura Palmer’s character is truly hard to digest because violence against women has always been prevalent. Mark Frost argues, “This is something we have to address not just as a society, or a culture, but as a world. Laura has been seen as a kind of exemplar of someone whom we can all feel empathy for, and maybe we can do better as a consequence.”
One of the reasons Twin Peaks remains such an enduring part of our culture is Frost and Lynch’s ability to create a world around Palmer that goes deeper than taking a one-note approach and following murder mystery protocol. Frost knew Laura Palmer offered a story bigger than that, “It wasn't just the body of the week that just sends you on a procedural kind of tick tock, mechanical tracking down of a killer; it was a way to get into the guts and the soul of the town. Her relationship with the lives she touched was the skeleton key to understanding who these people were and what the town was all about.”
“What are the conditions that led up to this happening?” Frost asks - and fundamentally, that is what Twin Peaks is trying to figure out. Part of this discovery is something terrifying, “the lingering question about the persistence of evil in human history. What is the root cause of it? I think we touched a nerve with this.”
This led us swiftly to Twin Peaks’ villainous presence - Bob. Frost claims evil is “the consequence of a fundamental lack of empathy. That if once people start to objectify other human beings and not see them with any kind of sense of fellow feeling, that ‘Oh, here's someone else, and we're all in this boat together,’ but instead as a person to exploit or use or destroy or manipulate.”
Evil exists in the periphery, the burgeoning shadow inching closer in the mirror until it eventually leaps right out in front of you. Then, you realise it is the so-called leader of the free world, “There's a particular kind of gloom hanging over this country right now around that central issue.” He interrogated, “Where is your empathy? How can you purport to say you’re ruling a country when you have no feeling for the people that you're professing to lead? This is a recipe for disaster, and I'm sad to say, it's a disaster that we're seeing unfurling before our eyes on a daily basis.”
Twin Peaks: The Return premiered a year into Trump’s first presidency, where both Lynch and Frost unflinchingly commented on the state of America, “A lot of The Return was written from a kind of canary in the coal mine feeling that I had and that David shared about where we were going as a country. You can see it in almost every aspect of it.”
What Frost is afraid of right now is not being able to see the light out of the tunnel, something Twin Peaks often portrayed, no matter how dark the show seemed to become: “My family has been here since 1629, I'm American to my core, and I've had generations of people who fought in every war we've ever had, and they've fought. I’d like to think almost always on the right side of things, but not always. America is not without its faults and has always been plagued by them. But there was always the hope that maybe we'll get better. That question is kind of in the balance right now, so it's a concern for everyone.”
It is not an easy task to create a fictional world that tackles violence and also steers away from glorifying it. Mark Frost believes “intention has a lot to do with it”, yet highlights that glorification can always be possible; he claimed, “The movies in particular have probably murdered more people than humanity has. It's something that many films depend on and people are kind of hooked on the glamour - if you can use that word of violence.”
When everyone cheered as the star of Taken (2008) said, “I will find you, and I will kill you”, Mark Frost was likely shaking his head, “I love Liam [Neeson] - but think about those revenge movies that he did. It's a staple of human entertainment. It's at the heart of Shakespeare. It's in all the Greeks. Violence is an ever-present threat in our lives. So it's very hard to depict it without glamourising it. The movies really have to take a look in the mirror, because it's way too easy, particularly with the weapons of war that are so readily available on the streets of this country right now.”
Towards the end of our chat, Mark Frost kept steering back to the question of America’s future. His inquisitiveness about the world and how it is shaped has not dulled, but his worries do not subside either. “It hasn't always been like this, and there's something very dark behind it. As an artist, you're just trying to kind of pull back the rock and see what's underneath it, and that's what we were trying to do.”
Listen to the MUBI Podcast ‘LADIES OF LYNCH’ episode with Mark Frost here
Edited by Oisín McGilloway
