2009 Hugo Awards

The results for the 2009 Hugo awards can be found here. Here are some comments on a few of the winners:

Best Novel went to The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. (I guess when you win the Newberry Medal, you better win the Hugo!) I can't offer much comment on the winning novel since I didn't read it or any of the other nominees. (Which is unusual since I typically have read 2-3 of them.) Much has been made of this year's list of mediocre nominees. Again, I can't comment specifically; but I can say that the best genre books of 2008 that I read were: The Dragons of Babel by Michael Swanwick, The Hidden World by Paul Park, Pump Six and Other Stories by Paulo Bacigalupi, Implied Spaces by Walter Jon Williams, Matter by Iain M. Banks and Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan. Surely one of these books at least deserved nomination! (Tender Morsels has been nominated for World Fantasy Award, though. So good news there.)

Best Short Story went to "Exhalation" by Ted Chiang. The best choice, absolutely. A stunning story.

Best Novelette went to "Shoggoths in Bloom" by Elizabeth Bear. A good story but this award should have gone to “The Gambler” by Paolo Bacigalupi.

Best Novella went to "The Erdmann Nexus", Nancy Kress. I haven't read it. I thought "The Tear” by Ian McDonald would have grabbed this award.

Wall-E won for best dramatic presentation, long form. I think this easily the best choice. The Dark Knight was also nominated. Another classic, yes. The best super-hero film of all time, yes. But Wall-E was superb science fiction. And that's where the Hugo should go.

Dramatic Presentation: Short Form went to Dr Horrible's Singalong Blog by Joss Whedon. A fine choice and an excellent DVD (the audio commentary, alone, is worth it). But I would have given the Hugo to "The Constant" from LOST-- the first great science fiction episode from the series.

Best Professional Artist went to Donato Giancola. Wow, I would have given this to Shaun Tan in a heartbeat.

Best Editor: Short Form went to Ellen Datlow. I would have given the Hugo to Jonathan Strahan for all the great work he did last year. I'll be rooting for him next year.

Best Semiprozine went to Weird Tales. Really? No Locus? Or Interzone? Or how about New York Review of Science Fiction? Hmmm.

So that's it. Not that exciting, really.

Review: The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Vol. 3

I've got to say that I'm pretty pleased with Jonathan Strahan's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Volume 3. At least two-thirds of the book contains excellent short fiction. And the rest of the stories are very good, too. In fact, there are really only one or two entries that might qualify as clunkers. That's an amazing percentage, one you don't often see in "Best of the Year" anthologies.

I usually pick up Gardner Dozois' hefty Year's Best Science Fiction and dutifully make my way through it. In the end I'm amazed at how many stories strike me as mediocre. I always think, "If Dozois eliminated half the stories in the collection he'd really have the 'best of the year.'" Sure, the book would be smaller, but it would also be stronger. As it is, the mediocre (and downright bad) stories detract from the good ones.

Strahan gets it, though. And he's hit upon a great formula. Combine the year's best Science Fiction stories with the best Fantasy stories. Put it all under one cover you get a doubly strong book.

I think fans of good writing appreciate the rewards of both Fantasy and Science Fiction, especially as the line between the genres has been blurring of late. The effects of both SF and Fantasy are the same: a sense of wonder, the thrill of fully-realized worlds, the insightful perspectives on our own, everyday life. It really doesn't matter if a story fits some rigid genre definition as long as it's told well and has fully realized characters.

So Strahan's latest anthology is a good--no, a great--one. I won't review every single story here (I'm satisfied with commenting on the book as a whole). But I will point out a few stories that I think are particularly good: The best story in the book is "Exhalation" by Ted Chiang, a story of impending environmental doom in a closed universe. It is wonderfully written, from its science-fictional "problem-solving" approach, to its moving contemplation on the meaning of life. Bravo! Other outstanding stories include: “The Dust Assassin” by Ian McDonald, “The Gambler” by Paulo Bacigalupi, “Machine Maid” by Margo Lanagan, and “26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss" by Kij Johnson. But there are so many other good stories here, including contributions by Robert Reed, Ted Kosmatka, Peter S. Beagle, Garth Nix, Michael Swanwick, John Kessel, and Kelly Link. (And, really, I could go on and list just about every author included but I'll stop here and let you to look at the table of contents for yourself.) This is very strong book.

Whether your taste tends toward one genre or the other you will find plenty to satisfy in The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Volume 3. And if you're a genre purist and only want to read SF or Fantasy (but not both), well, I still doubt you'll find a better collection anywhere else. Plus, who knows? You might discover good stories aren't limited to only one genre. Go ahead! Get the book and then select something different from the menu! You'll thank me later.

Out of the Dark and Dusted Off: Codex Seraphinianus

I've collected lots of stuff over the years. Books, comics, toys, movie memorabilia . . . stuff. Much of it is buried in boxes, deep inside dark closets. Most of it I see only when I stumble across it by accident.

So what's the point of having all this stuff? I like to look at it, sure. But I also like to share it.

Used to be, you shared your cool stuff with friends when they dropped by to visit. You'd say, "Hey, look at this amazing thing!" Or, "Do you remember this?" And you'd pull a book off a shelf or a toy out of a box and let your conversation cascade into nostalgia and shared passions.

So time to do some sharing. I think I'll pull a few things off the shelves and out of the boxes and show them to you.

Today I've got one of the most fascinating books I've ever seen. It's called the Codex Seraphinianus by Italian artist Luigi Serafini and it is really hard to describe with just words. You have to see it to appreciate it. Yes, it's an art book; but it is so much more. It appears to be an encyclopedia from an alien/alternate world, a book--an artifact--that landed on earth through some transdimensional rift. It seems complete, hermetic, and yet it teases with glimpses into something vast and strange and taunts with the promise of decipherability. The jacket copy on the Abbeville Press edition describes it as: "the accumulated wisdom of an imaginary, parallel world that is at once bizarre and at the same time strangely familiar and recognizable." I like to think of it as the kind of book Dr. Seuss would write if he lived in China Mieville's New Crobuzon.

Whatever. It's weird, compelling and unforgettable.

Here are some interior pages:

(These pictures really don't do the book justice--check out the links below for great images from the book and pictures of its various covers.)

You can find out more about this strange book on its Wikipedia page.

Also, check out this great article from The Believer Magazine.

Beautiful Dark: Chapters 9-12

I'm ending my review of Greg Olson's Beautiful Dark the way I began, by reviewing four chapters at once. Nice symmetry that.

To be honest I felt I was becoming a bit dependent on Olson's work to provide content for my blog. And I was afraid of becoming repetitive (if you've read my earlier reviews of Olson, you sort of know what to expect). So it's time to finish it up.

Here's a brief summary of the last four chapters:

Chapter 9: LOST HIGHWAY

Olson begins with a look at the long five years between Fire Walk With Me and Lost Highway. He discusses Lynch's often overlooked television work on On The Air and Hotel Room. And he digs deeper to talk about a few rare Lynch projects—the four Twin Peaks-themed Georgia Coffee commercials which aired in Japan, the Log Lady introductions Lynch shot for the Bravo TV re-airing of Twin Peaks, Lynch's superb book of photography, Images, and the short film, Premonitions Following and Evil Deed (which Lynch shot for Lumiere and Company, a compilation of short films by famous directors using the original hand-cranked film camera of film pioneers, Auguste and Louis Lumiere). These projects deserve discussion and Olson makes sure to give each project its due.

Olson moves on to an excellent, albeit too-short, analysis of Lost Highway. Olson's take is straightforward: Fred Madison, in despair over killing his wife and being sentenced to death, creates the imaginary persona of Pete Dayton in order to escape from his (Fred's) real world hell. Olson does a great job of taking the seemingly perplexing and contradictory Lost Highway, with its multiple personas and interlocking worlds, and clarifying it into one simple tale about a man whose fractured mind cannot provide enough escape from his torment. "The reading of Lost Highway that answers most of its mysteries locates the film's base reality with Fred lying on his prison bed, living in mental worlds of desire and anger, love and revenge" (p. 450). The idea of escape into a mental world is a concept that has always been a feature of Lynch's work. One finds the idea as early as Eraserhead and as late as Mulholland Drive. (I also believe that the idea of mental landscapes—or living inside dreams—is the key aspect of the first thirty minutes of Fire Walk With Me.) In Lost Highway, Lynch explores the mental escape (or retreat) of his main character and how such escape is temporary at best. You can't trick your own mind for very long. Olson's keen analysis provides satisfying answers to the many puzzles of Lost Highway.

Chapter 10: THE STRAIGHT STORY

Olson's discussion of The Straight Story focuses on Lynch's interest in family and small-town values (Olson notes that these ideas have been present in other Lynch works, but often overlooked or misunderstood by critics). He discusses much of the film's story and well-drawn characters but rarely ventures into any deeper analysis, content to let the surface narrative of The Straight Story stand for itself. This is a fair and fine reading of the film. But I suspect that there may be much more to The Straight Story for the diligent analyst to uncover. I've always been fascinated with Lynch's aerial shots in the film (particularly the one which shows Alvin Straight crossing the Mississippi River); they imply a watching, perhaps angelic, presence. There is also the prevalent theme of death in the film (one could argue that Alvin dies in the first few minutes of the film; the rest of his story is a post-death journey in search of his brother "in heaven"). I'm very interested in Alvin as an unreliable narrator (he claims to have given up drinking but orders a single beer late in the film). And I'm most interested in Alvin's encounter with the kindly farmer on the big tractor who guides Alvin to Lyle's home at the end of the film. This farmer (seen only in a long shot) acts almost like a supernatural being whose presence somehow reignites Alvin's stalled tractor (hence, the farmer potentially functions as another "angelic presence"). I find The Straight Story a fascinating and rich film and was perhaps unfairly expecting more from Olson. I accept that not every film requires a deep reading but because Olson succeeded so well at unwrapping Lost Highway I thought he might apply similar analytical focus to The Straight Story.

Chapter 11: MULHOLLAND DRIVE

There is just so much to say about Mulholland Drive. Perhaps this is why (rightly) Olson devotes a large portion of his book to discuss the film. Mulholland Drive has plenty to offer—superb performances, a complex and challenging narrative, rich and unsettling thematic content, and valuable commentary on the nature of Hollywood filmmaking. But on top of all this, Mulholland Drive also has a long and startling production history. Originally created by Lynch as a pilot for a weekly hour-long drama for ABC television, Mulholland Drive was rejected by the network and left abandoned for over a year before Lynch found the funding to continue filming and turn the TV pilot into a stand-alone theatrical film.

Olson bravely discusses the 88-minute TV pilot as he compares it to the final theatrical version. (I say bravely because David Lynch was furious that copies of the pilot were illegally produced and covertly distributed to anyone curious enough to obtain one.) But Olson forgets (or is unaware) that there were two versions of the TV pilot, the short version (at 88-minutes) and the long version (at 125 minutes). Lynch has called the short pilot the "butchered version" for it was a cut he was forced to make in order to appease executives at ABC television: "I whacked away to make this fat man fit in a real little phone booth, trying to answer their concerns about pace," Lynch told reporter Tad Friend ("Creative Differences," The New Yorker, 9/6/99, p. 67.)

It is the long version, with minor edits, that Lynch expanded to make the theatrical cut of Mulholland Drive. When Olson compares the short pilot with the film "to see how Lynch solved the creative problem of melding the year-and-a-half old pilot with the news scenes," (p 524) he is looking at what Lynch called "a garbage compactor thing . . . a nightmare." (Lynch On Lynch, revised edition, p. 280) Lynch's short version was never intended as a final product and was certainly not the version he "extended from pilot to feature." There is little value, then, in comparing the two; but Olson does so anyway. This seems like a significant misstep. Surely Olson must have known that the 88-minute pilot was produced under protest and never reflected Lynch's true vision. What could be learned from comparing it to the theatrical cut? Doing so provides little or no insight into Lynch's creative process. Olson's readers would have been better served had he compared the full pilot with the theatrical version. There, at least, we would have seen how Lynch took his complete, but open-ended, pilot and found ways to close the narrative into a satisfactory whole.

Despite this blunder, Olson provides an in-depth, thorough analysis of the Mulholland Drive feature. He expertly unpacks the various narratives of Betty, Rita and Adam Kesher, and clearly and precisely explains how these storylines are, in fact, strands of a single dream being experienced by despairing actress Diane Selwyn. "The narrative seems to be happening to a number of people, but . . . is actually the interior psychodrama of the Naomi Watts character's consciousness." (p. 527). Olson is clearly a great admirer of the film and he provides thought-provoking analysis. For example, he gives compelling evidence that the film's "narrator" is, in fact, the dead Diane. Despite my criticisms, this is still a highly rewarding chapter.

Chapter 12: INLAND EMPIRE

The last chapter of Beautiful Dark is a long and mixed one. Olson spends a great number of pages discussing various works that may have influenced David Lynch. He also includes a curious interview with Julee Cruise in which she recounts her artistic conflicts with Lynch. Cruise's remarks are sometimes bitter and read like gossip. Why did Olson include these comments so late in the book? Did he see a need to balance his glowing praise of Lynch with some differing views? If so, Cruise's opinions don't add much to our understanding of Lynch's collaborative processes and function as surrogate criticism. Olson moves on to discuss Lynch's online work at www.davidlynch.com and the chapter drags as he provides tedious descriptions of Lynch's visit to France (did we really need to read a transcript of Lynch and Mary Sweeney conversing in French?). It is not until the last few pages that Olson provides a brief review of INLAND EMPIRE. Though short, what Olson gives us is quite good. He suggests (and I am liberally paraphrasing here) that Laura Dern's "Battered Woman" character has fractured into various selves who seek to be reunited. What's more, there is a "reincarnation-karmic justice" (p. 673) element to the film. All of this analysis is teasingly brief but Olson has opened some interesting interpretive possibilities. One hopes that he will soon return to writing about INLAND EMPIRE to flesh out his ideas.

As I've mentioned many times, Beautiful Dark is a significant and rewarding book and I think Greg Olson has done a magnificent job analyzing and interpreting David Lynch's many unique works. No Lynch library should be without it. But Greg Olson's esteem for Lynch may have occasionally handicapped him. Yes, I agree that David Lynch is a great director; perhaps one of the greatest in the history of film. But if one is going to explore the personal life of David Lynch one must be as objective as possible. For example, recently Lynch has been quite open about his view of Transcendental Meditation. Arguably, his public endorsement of the ideology invites debate. But here Olson seems hesitant to engage. (To be fair, Olson asks Lynch some pointed questions about his New Age worldview but never pursues these inquiries directly with Lynch or in his analysis of the man and his work.) This, and the fact that Olson never penetrates Lynch's emotional core to discover his views on love, marriage, and other life issues makes the biographical aspect of Beautiful Dark wanting. (Too often, Olson relies on the opinions of others—Isabella Rosselini, Mary Sweeney, Jennifer Lynch, etc., to round out his emotional profile of Lynch.)

Reading Beautiful Dark made me wonder about the ways we view artists and their work. Art inspires, provokes, and stimulates our minds. It can pump us up, make us want to share our passions with anyone who will listen. But should that passion extend to the artist? Can we—or should we—separate the work from the creator? And if their works have moved us—shaped our lives and careers—can we ever view the artist with objectivity?

I don't claim to have answers to these questions. But I do know that Greg Olson has written a passionate book about David Lynch's films. I also know that he has written with passion about David Lynch, the man. In the end he seems to have gotten half of it exactly right. As good as Beautiful Dark is, I feel I it gave me more insight about the art than it did about the artist.

Seriously Batman

I've had a fascination with Batman all my life. As a little kid Batman was my favorite superhero, due mainly to the syndicated re-runs of the campy Adam West TV series. Once I started reading comics, however, my tastes moved toward the Marvel universe. I rarely bought a Batman comic (the Batman comics of the time seemed dull compared to the exciting world of Marvel). Still, I had an interest in Batman. The "idea" of Batman--the ultimate detective and perfect vigilante--always seemed bigger and more promising than anything the comics or movies could offer.

Batman may be the most serious comic book "hero" of all time (a fact searingly proven to the masses by Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight). He is a character with a complex and troubled psyche. He is brilliant and he is driven. He embraces both the technological and the mystical. He is distinctly not "super." He is perhaps the one comicbook character who I--as an adult--still find compelling.

And, as an adult, I have been drawn to the occasional Batman comic. Such was the case a few months ago when I walked into my local comic shop and saw that Neil Gaiman had scripted a two-part Batman story, "Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?" Ignorant of the current state of the Batman universe I quickly learned that Batman (i.e., Bruce Wayne) had died and this was Gaiman's brief contribution in a plethora of new story concepts surrounding the death. (Batman/Bruce Wayne will not stay dead, of course. He is as dead as Superman was. As dead as Captain America. Registered trademarks do not die. . . . At least not for very long.)

A fan of Gaiman's comic work, I picked up his two issues of Batman (Batman 686 and Detective Comics 853, both drawn by Andy Kubert). Then I noticed the new Batman and Robin series by writer Grant Morrison and artist Frank Quitely. And who could miss the new Batwoman story in Detective Comics by writer Greg Rucka and artist Stephen Williams III? Before I knew it I was home eagerly reading five new Bat-comics.

The Gaiman story was excellent. A disembodied Batman watches his own funeral as each person who eulogizes him claims to have killed Batman or been the cause of his death. In effect, we are seeing a number of alternate possibilities as to what Batman means to people. Perhaps the most fascinating "possibility" is Alfred's story in which the loyal butler claims to be the Joker (he dressed up as the arch villain to provide an adversary for Batman and thereby mitigate Bruce Wayne's mental instability). Gaiman two-issue story was a very nice, self contained tale. Highly recommended.

The new Batman and Robin was also quite good. I love Frank Quitely's art and his work on this series is gorgeous. Morrison tells a good tale and manages to create a genuinely disturbing character in Pyg. I can't remember the last time I encountered such a gruesome and unsettling villain in a "mainstream" comic. This certainly isn't kid stuff. The other characters are also handled well though the Batman and Robin dynamic seems uninspired (Robin is rather boring as a compulsive brat whom Batman has to keep "teaching lessons"). Still, it's too soon to pass judgment; the book has just started and there are plenty of directions this relationship could go.

The Batwoman story in Detective Comics 854 is also just getting started but from what I've seen so far this may be something special. The art by J.H. Williams III is stunning. His sharp, forceful panels are mesmerizing (to say the least) and the way Batwoman is rendered in black, white and red by colorist Dave Stewart is beautiful. Usually I don't find the female versions of established characters that interesting; Batgirl, Supergirl, She-Hulk, Spiderwoman--they always seem like afterthoughts, just another way to take advantage of the Bat-, Super-, Spider- prefixes. (Or -Hulk suffix--you couldn't have a Hulkwoman, could you?) I'll admit I know next-to-nothing about the new Batwoman's backstory (she's been kicking around the DC universe for some time) but Rucka and Williams have obviously put some effort into making the character intriguing and unique. Her brief interaction with Batman provided an effective contrast between newcomer and legendary counterpart, a point further emphasized by the issue's memorable final panel. Batwoman has a lot of potential and I eagerly await the next issue.

So I'm reading Bat- stories again. I'm seriously psyched. Enough to dig out Frank Miller's first Dark Knight series (please, let's forget the second one) and Batman: Year One and Alan Moore's The Killing Joke and some Matt Wagner stories. Oh, and I just bought Batman: The Long Halloween. I feel like a kid again. It's great!

The Subject of Laura Palmer

(Note: the following post is a revised excerpt from a much longer essay that was originally published in Wrapped In Plastic #71)

In Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, the depiction of Laura Palmer as a dramatic subject is crucial for the success of the film. Fire Walk With Me works only if the audience believes Laura's behavior and perceives her as actively charting the arc of her own story. To be a fully complex character, she must be able to change and to experience revelation. Perhaps more importantly, she must be different by story's end than she was at the beginning.

To make Laura a dramatic subject, director David Lynch needed to take the "idea" of Laura Palmer from the series and bring her to life as a complex, autonomous character. But, because Fire Walk With Me was a prequel, Lynch ran up against the barriers of the already-existing story from the TV series and was therefore committed to following Laura's story to its pre-defined end—the one in which Laura is killed. How could Lynch make Laura an active character in this scenario? How could she become a person who journeys through an experience and is changed by it? Lynch knew that in a successful story Laura had to discover something about herself. Her discovery had to lead to action, and her action had to transform Laura. It was not enough for her to be simply a self-destructive teenager whose poor behavior and bad luck results in a grisly death. Laura had to be more than a victim. She had to take part in her own inevitable murder.

David Lynch knew all this but the circumstances of Laura pre-existing story gave him little room to maneuver.

Making Laura a Complex Character

Lynch and co-writer Robert Engels originally conceived the story of Fire Walk With Me to be one in which Laura Palmer sought escape from the oppressive and pervasive presence of Bob. There were few, if any, choices for Laura to make, no real change for Laura to undergo. Bob was the antagonist and Laura had to find a way to elude his growing power. This story was more in keeping with the facts and backstory established in the series.

At some point between completing the script and shooting the film Lynch realized that he and Engels had failed to make Laura Palmer a fully-realized character. She had no flaws—there was nothing for her to learn, no personal burden for her to overcome. The script still depicted Laura as a helpless victim whose despairing behavior and tragic death resulted from outside forces.

Clearly, the film needed a dramatic ingredient that would strengthen her character.

Lynch found that in the angels—a story element that does not appear anywhere in the shooting script for the film. (In the script, Laura does not mention angels to Donna; she does not see one disappear from her bedroom painting; Ronette Pulaski does not see one in the train car; and Laura does not see one in the Red Room at the end of the film.) But in Lynch's filmed version, Laura introduces the topic of angels, telling Donna that the angels will not help her, that they've "all gone away." This crucial line (the most important one in the film) establishes Laura's state of mind and shows that she has imposed boundaries on herself.

The added angel line shows that Laura has resigned herself to (and, in fact, expects) a tragic fate. She has given up on herself, asserting that the angels have gone because she cannot—will not—believe she has any value. She is unworthy of salvation.

But Laura is wrong, and Lynch cleverly constructs the Laura-Donna scene to signal her mistake. Lynch shoots the scene using a dramatic camera angle to show that angels do, indeed, watch over Laura. The girls are viewed from high above as they talk--a shot that reflects "an angelic presence," according to Fire Walk With Me cinematographer, Ron Garcia ("Laura Palmer's Phantasmagoric Fall from Grace" by Stephen Pizzello, American Cinematographer, Vol. 73 #9, p. 60). Cinematically, Lynch informs us that the angels have not left. Laura may believe the angels are gone, but it is she who is "gone . . . long gone" (as she explained to James in an earlier scene). Like most Lynch protagonists, Laura has "trapped" herself.

The introduction of the angels in Fire Walk With Me (and Laura's belief they have abandoned her) makes Laura a far more interesting person. She becomes someone with her own flaws and misperceptions. She is someone who must has much to learn and who must come to recognize her own mistakes before she can grow and change—before she can escape the trap in which she has placed herself.

During the murder scene in the train car Laura sees Ronette Pulaski's angel and suddenly she realizes she has been wrong about herself all along. Laura knows that salvation is possible. Having blamed herself for her horrific misfortunes Laura felt she didn't deserve angels. She turned away from them, convincing herself that is was they who had abandoned her. But Ronette's angel proves to Laura that she, too, is a good person and the angels have never left. In this moment her strength returns and her ability to resist Bob is assured. It is also at this moment that Laura undergoes believable and meaningful change.

Laura Takes Action

But—again—once Laura undergoes change she must take some sort of definitive action. The original script to Fire Walk With Me provided no such action. There, Laura is brought to the train car, realizes Bob is about to possess her and accepts that the only escape is death. (This harks back to the series where Laura explicitly states she "had to die because it was the only way to keep Bob away from me.") She takes her only option: She turns to Leland and says, "You have to kill me." She looks at Bob in the mirror and says, "No! You can't have me." Then, again, to Leland she commands, "Kill me." And Leland does.

Lynch probably shot the scene the way it was scripted, assuming that Laura's explicit decision to end her life was a sufficient conclusion to her story. Once it was shot, however, Lynch recognized that such an ending was weak and ultimately unsatisfactory.

As scripted, Laura Palmer—despite her strength of character and her conviction to die—is still incapable of effecting her own fate. Arms bound, she can only order Leland to kill her. The decision may be hers but the crucial act is Leland's. She is dependent on what he does. Leland takes center stage as he performs the ugly but necessary act of murder to free Laura from Bob's possession. Scripted, the scene (and story) is essentially about Leland, not Laura. This was unacceptable to Lynch. The story could only succeed with Laura taking action. He was now faced with a hard reality—he had to re-edit the murder scene and find some way to restore Laura as an active protagonist.

Lynch looked closely at what the existing material allowed: The One Armed Man was outside the train car. His character was connected to the Owl Cave ring. The ring could therefore make its way to Laura and she could put it on. This would allow Laura to perform a decisive action.

The problem was Lynch and Engels had carefully established the ring as a dangerous object earlier in the film. The Little Man boasts of its power to Bob. Teresa Banks once owned the ring and suffered a gruesome death. And Dale Cooper, a clever, intuitive, and above all, reliable character explicitly warns Laura not to take the ring when the Little Man offers it. All this prior evidence clearly points to a dangerous, evil Owl Cave ring.

The ring, however, offered the only possible option for Lynch when he sought to re-work the murder scene.

Remarkably, Lynch saw beyond the narrative constraints imposed by wearing the ring and envisioned a scene of liberation rather than doom. He realized the ring could be viewed as an object of power rather than an object solely of evil. In fact, Laura could be perceived to be stealing the ring from the malevolent beings who wielded it. To accomplish this revision, Lynch would need some new, minor footage to insert into the train car murder scene. Three shots were required: 1) a shot of the ring rolling across a straw-strewn floor; 2) a shot of a woman's hand placing the ring on her other hand; 3) a shot of the hand with the ring held up before a bright white light. These three simple inserts were likely produced after the initial filming of the train car scene. (It is significant that we do not see Al Strobel [who played the one-armed man] throw the ring, nor do we see Sheryl Lee [who played Laura Palmer] put the ring on.) Lynch did not have the luxury or opportunity to reassemble his cast and shoot new material with the actors. So Lynch dramatically altered the murder scene in the editing room.

The final scene was powerful and effective:

Laura sees Ronette's angel sever Ronette's bonds. The ring appears soon after the appearance of the angel and Laura's hands, too, are suddenly free. Laura must know that the ring and angels are connected and that if the ring, itself, is not an angel it serves as a conduit to angels. Realizing all this with sudden clarity Laura embraces the potential of the ring and puts it on. The result is a Lynchian moment of power unleashed, a moment akin to when Henry stabs the baby in Eraserhead, which (according to Lynch scholar Martha Nochimson) sets "in motion a flow of forces." Leland screams, the Little Man shudders, static electricity floods the screen.

Importantly, Laura has taken the ring of her own choice; it has not been imposed upon her. This is why the Little Man is suddenly so afraid; Laura has turned the tables—she has wrested power away from him and Bob. What's more, Laura's choice does more than save her; it gives her victory over Bob and his associates. Laura has stolen their greatest weapon.

A Stronger Film

Despite the restraints of the Fire Walk With Me narrative, David Lynch opened himself to those "valuable opportunities and ideas" that come to him during filming. The "idea" of angels and the "opportunity" of the ring presented themselves and Lynch intuitively knew they were right for Fire Walk With Me and that they made the film "as free and experimental as it could be within the dictates it had to follow." (Lynch on Lynch, edited by Chris Rodley, Faber and Faber, 1997, p. 190.)

Yes, it’s true that Lynch’s new edits introduce ambiguity to the film, and yes, it appears as if Fire Walk With Me abandoned narrative continuity, and yes—multiple valid readings of the film were suddenly made possible. But the new version of the murder scene—the one after Lynch’s edits—becomes more complex, more daring, and more rewarding. The Laura Palmer of the film suddenly becomes different that the Laura Palmer of the series. On the show, Laura reportedly “allowed herself to die;” she submitted to death because it offered the only possible escape from Bob. In the film, however, Laura escapes from Bob before she dies. Her realization of her own goodness—her acceptance of the angels—makes her untouchable. In Fire Walk With Me death is not the means of escape—the means of escape comes from within Laura, herself. And once it does, Laura is decisively and explicitly transformed from dramatic object to dramatic subject. She at last succeeds at becoming what the late, great David Foster Wallace called, a “living and integrated whole.”

A Few Thoughts on True Blood

I'm back from vacation and just in time to catch the season premiere of HBO's True Blood, a series based on the Sookie Stackhouse books by Charlaine Harris. I read the first book in the series, Dead Until Dark, and thought it was OK (the book slumped mightily in the middle, where, chapter after chapter, Sookie pined for Bill and constantly thought about how much she loved him . . . *yawn*) The first season of the series was an improvement over the book but still flawed. I have a hard time buying the premise: Artificial blood (a substance known as True Blood) allows vampires to "come out of the closet" so that they can live openly with humans. And yet throughout the series only Bill seems to have any desire to live peacefully with mankind. All other vampires are portrayed as bloodthirsty monsters that flaunt their superiority and treat humans as playthings. And still the premise of the show hinges on the idea that vampires want to be accepted into society.

Clearly the show is trying to have their vampires both friendly and malevolent. Most vampires are an obvious threat--a dark force holding their power in check, perhaps only temporarily. (This way, Bill is a sympathetic outcast from his own kind and both he and his mortal friends have much to fear from Bill's kin.) But at the same time there is an apparent vampire movement regularly depicted on TV debate shows (with a heavy dose of satire) actively trying to secure vampire rights in society. Their opponents, of course, are stereotypical Christian fundamentalists who see the vampires as the spawn of Satan. Here, then, is one of my main disappointments with True Blood. It is easy to make religious zealots villains. And it's equally easy to draw an analogy between vampires "coming out" and gay rights. It so easy, in fact, that the show takes a potentially serious subtext and makes it rather silly. (I know, I know--True Blood plays for dark laughs much of the time; the humor is part its charm and leavens the violence and brutality on the show. Still, I have a hard time caring about vampire rights when said vampires are killing innocent people left and right.)

It seems to me that the show is ignoring a far more interesting and rich conflict: the probable internal debate inside the vampire community. Surely (if the premise of the show is to be believed) the vampires must fall into opposing camps--those who want live with humans (like Bill) and those who prefer their traditional role as predator (like Eric and the other vampire "officials" we've seen). I'd like to see more of the struggle between these two groups.

Unfortunately the focus of the show is on the somewhat-boring character of Sookie and her love affair with Bill. Like the novel, the show is clearly a mix of genres, most notably horror and mystery but with an equal part romance in there as well. And that's where I lose interest. The Sookie/Bill relationship seems like it's already played itself out and I don't know how much more drama can be found in it. The producers of True Blood seem to know this and have smartly altered and expanded the universe of the Harris books; but as long as the Sookie/Bill relationship is the core of the show I'm afraid True Blood will never be more than a middling HBO series.

True Blood is something of a hit for HBO. I'm happy to see genre TV on the cable network and True Blood is better (so far) than Carnivale (which had the potential to be great before it wandered off into the dreaded wasteland of "make-it-up-as-you-go-along") and I'm glad HBO is looking at genre books for series ideas (they just showed the wonderful No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency based on the mysteries by Alexander McCall Smith and are planning a series based on the high fantasy Song of Ice and Fire books by George R. R. Martin). This is a good thing. But I also want to see some new original programming back on the network. As good as the shows based on books are, nothing so far has been as good as The Sopranos or The Wire or Deadwood.

True Blood will get me through the summer. But I can hardly wait for Mad Men to return to AMC.