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Season 3 Twin Peaks fans know what I'm talking about.

A Clue For Sarah Palmer's Current State

***Spoilers ahead for Twin Peaks S3E14 or earlier***

What's the deal with Sarah Palmer? It's a question that's been brewing since the first trailer for season 3 aired, showing her shopping the liquor aisle of a store. Viewers logically assumed this meant she's an alcoholic now. Who wouldn't be after what she's been through?

But after fourteen new episodes of Twin Peaks, we know for sure that Sarah isn't just an alcoholic who's gone off the deep end. We all saw her sit quietly and drink at home in one of Lynch's many drawn-out meditative scenes, and that seemed to reaffirm our idea that she had a drinking problem and now leads a sad, lonely life.

Then in S3E12 we finally see the full scene from which our sad alcoholic vision of Sarah was born from.

"Jerky freak-out" has become one of my favorite fan-made phrases to come out of the show.

We can tell that Sarah might have some kind of dementia mixed with a bit of paranoia and maybe ptsd. Or she's possessed and barely holding onto her sense of self. How did she become possessed?

In S3E13 she's doing the same drinking in front of the TV shtick.

I noticed that both times we see Sarah watching TV at home she is:
a) drinking
b) watching violence (first it was lions attacking a water buffalo, then it was an old-timey boxing match)
c) the movies are in black & white. The animal documentary was probably in night vision, not black & white film, but it still had no color either.

Twin Peaks S3E2

Twin Peaks S3E13

It's all very symbolic of her new self. We can see it come together in the now infamous scene from S3E14, where she takes off her face to reveal a black & white nightmare. Then she bites the throat out of a dude.



The vision of a hand in her face is symbolic of what Gordon Cole once said about "the spiritual mound." He identifies it as the ring finger. In this case that finger is decidedly black. She is rotten to the core. Sarah Palmer is a full-blown demon now. How did it come to this? Did we miss something? It could all be events that occurred off screen before Season 3 begins, but I believe there was proof of her direct link to the spirit world in the last episode of Season 2.

This is the last scene in the Twin Peaks universe timeline before we see Sarah Palmer in season 3:
(skip to 1:18)



Under the care of Dr. Jacoby, Sarah is lead to Major Briggs to give him a message. In a distorted and deepened voice she says "I'm in the black lodge with Dale Cooper." At this point in the episode there are a few people in the Black Lodge with Dale Cooper. BOB, Windom Earle, Annie Blackburn, The Arm, Mike, Leland, Laura Palmer - and all their doppelgangers! Who's to say which one was using Sarah as a mouthpiece?

Sarah's burden on Twin Peaks was that she could see BOB. It always seemed to happen right when she was about to get some peace for once, and then bam! Sarah was in a tizzy again. Since she had such an ability, Leland would drug her while he was under BOB's control so he could commit his horrid acts. Before each drugging kicked in she would see a white horse, which is a symbol that has come up numerous times.

from the original run of Twin Peaks

from Fire Walk With Me

from Twin Peaks: The Return

In Season 3 one of the woodsmen says "the horse is the white of eyes." I haven't completely figured this one out, but it's all linked for sure.

The scene from the last episode of season 2 is of course after Leland's death. There is no one left to drug her. Because of this she might be more susceptible to spirits using her as a conduit, and it's gotten out of hand at this point. Even Phillip Gerard can use drugs to stave off his alter ego, Mike. As the Giant once said, "Without chemicals, he points."

Considering this is the absolute last scene with Sarah Palmer before Season 3, with no indication that Sarah went back to normal per se, we can assume that whatever was inside her in that moment didn't leave.

Putting a Sound Through the Black Lodge Machine

What is that noise? And why aren't more people talking about it? This strange creaking sound can be heard through out Fire Walk With Me and can also be heard in the new season of Twin Peaks. We can tell that it signifies mischief from the Black Lodge, but how did Lynch and Badalamenti create the sound themselves?

Watch below to find out:




Also this is my first YouTube video ever! I hope to make more in the future in conjunction with this blog. Please like and subscribe!

Top 5 Most Unsettling Moments from the Twin Peaks Universe

Spoiler alert for the entire Twin Peaks Universe up until episode 8 of the 3rd season.

1. Season 2 Episode 7: "Lonely Souls": Maddy's Death Scene

This happens to be the episode that was my introduction to Twin Peaks. I came upon this episode airing on Bravo during the summer of 2000. I had only heard about Twin Peaks from my parents after asking them about a parody scene from an episode of The Simpsons titled "Lisa's Sax" which has a segment about what life was like in 1990. It showed Homer drinking Crystal Pepsi and watching Twin Peaks, in which The Giant is dancing with a white horse under a stoplight hanging from a tree (sounds about right). I asked my parents what that was, and what they described to me gave me chills. It wasn't until a year or two later that I actually got to see it for myself.

The Norwegians bouncing balls in the lobby of the Great Northern while Phillip Gerard has a total meltdown is what kept me from changing the channel. I had no clue what was going on, but it was captivating. What I saw towards the end of the episode was truly chilling, and to this day fills my body with such an emotion that is hard to describe. It makes me want to cry but not out of sadness.

Below is the video clip of the scene. The episode has the white horse I was promised on The Simpsons, appearing to Sarah Palmer before she passes out. It also has The Giant, creepily repeating to Agent Cooper, "It is happening again." referring to Maddy being killed by Bob. In retrospect it's a crazy episode to begin Twin Peaks because it reveals who Laura's killing is. I wouldn't say it ruined it for me, though.

The sound editing is beyond compare for this episode. There's the sound of the needle at the end of the spinning record, and the way the screams of Maddy are slowed down and deepened to this roar that mimics Bob's deep laugh. The slow motion also creates dread like in a dream when you are running from someone and you feel like you can barely move. It was the most horrifying thing I had seen on TV. It's still up there on my list to this day.

2. Season 2 Episode 22 : "Beyond Life and Death" : The Sycamore Trees

The final two episodes of Twin Peaks were directed by David Lynch, as apposed to many of the previous episodes of season two. You can really tell. From the bank vault scene that creeps along in real time as the elderly banker shuffles, to Sarah Palmer giving a message to Agent Briggs in her demonic possessed voice, Lynch took over for a last hurrah.

The scene that really kept me from sleeping, was Agent Cooper's introduction to the Black Lodge (or Waiting Room depending on your view). Cooper has entered the red room from his dream. Then the room dims and the dreadful strobe light comes on. A singer begins to croon into an old style microphone. That singer is played by Jimmy Scott who has an unusual voice due to a condition that prevented his body to go through puberty, making his voice higher than one would expect.

At the time I saw this I was unsure of why his voice was high. I thought maybe it was actually an elderly woman dressed in a suit singing (why not?). Never the less the sound of his voice and the sorrow and foreboding in the song chilled me to the bone. Especially the line "I'll see you, and you'll see me." It's unsettling to me because it doesn't say "we'll meet" or give any other direct action of what they will do when they are together again. It leaves it ambiguous. It implies that these people will see each other and then they will both just know what's going to happen. They will just look at each other - maybe for a long and creepy amount of time, doing and saying nothing. It just makes me want to cry out of fear again.

3. Fire Walk With Me: Fat Trout Trailer Park Scene

Sometimes I feel silly with what scares me in Lynch's work. For instance, in Mulholland Drive I cannot watch the Winky's Diner scene without closing my eyes. I could go on about why that scares me to pieces, but that's for a different post all together. When I describe it to people it sounds so trivial being afraid to look at the gross homeless person behind the wall, and he/she doesn't even come around the corner fast. It's really the sound editing and the shock that something actually was there. So it shouldn't even be a shock to me in subsequent viewings since I know the outcome, but I still can't bare to see it.

Anyway, in similar fashion, in FWWM when Chester Desmond and Sam Stanley are talking with Carl Rodd, owner of the Fat Trout Trailer Park, you see the camera outside the trailer almost running toward the door. You hear that unsettling whooshing sucking sound. Then from inside the trailer you see a short, hunched over, filthy old woman with a water bottle/ice pack over her right eye. She peeks around the door frame. Chester Desmond acknowledges her, as if she's a typical person - and not a demon like I would think. Meanwhile Carl Rodd is staring at her blankly, and goes into a trance. After she leaves, backing out of the doorway and not answering Desmond's question, Carl goes on about how he's "already gone places" and doesn't want to go anywhere. No one even suggested that to him, but the presence of this woman seems to set him off. It has always upset me to see this. It's a perfect representation of the horror within the random and unknown.




A close runner-up in that segment would be when Chester Desmond returns to the trailer park to inspect the Chalfont trailer. It's crazy creepy how the lights are on in the trailer, some of the curtains are drawn so we could see someone in there if we wanted to, but no one answers the door. I kept waiting for someone to pop their head in the window when he wasn't looking. It doesn't happen but the tension is so strong. Lynch does a great job of making empty rooms sinister and charged with dread.

4. Season 3 Episode 2: "The stars turn and a time presents itself": Bill Hastings's Cell Mate

The new season has not disappointed. It may not be in the same style as the original series but I am ok with that, as I thought a lot of Twin Peaks (especially season 2) was hokey anyway. This season is Lynch full throttle, and I need him to do whatever he wants.

The first thing that truly made me go "Oh hell no" happened in episode 2 titled "The stars turn and a time presents itself." In the jail where Bill Hastings is being held after he's charged with murder, the camera pans right to view the other cell. As Bill is crying, lamenting his situation, it is brought to our attention that he is not alone. In the other cell is a man dressed in black and painted black, sitting sideways and a little tilted, his face looking up. His eyes are very wide and the white of his eyes is jarring compared to his black body. He is so still, frozen, petrified. What is he doing? He fades away - which is never fun to see. Jimmy Scott faded away at the end of his song, and The Giant faded away when he was done telling Cooper "It's happening again." So obviously it's terrible.

I'm gonna delete this image from my computer as soon as I post this.

Then we see a second later, his head fly away like a poorly rendered ghost. That shot sort of cuts the tension of seeing this gravely disturbing figure. It's one of the first scenes that reminds us this is a Lynch production so things are gonna get weird. Until then the scene that played out was more of the soap opera Lynch, filled with intentionally bad acting (just Phyllis Hastings, not Bill. Mathew Lillard was very good). Then we get that seemingly unwarranted, otherworldly visage.

5. Season 3 Episode 8: "Gotta Light": All of it, but mostly Evil Cooper's helpful woodsmen

Episode 8 blew everyone's minds. The atomic bomb scene was breathtaking. It was an obvious homage to Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey between the sound track and the visuals. This moment was so monumental because it made me suspend my disbelief for a moment, and I was in awe, thinking that I bared witness to the inside of an atomic bomb blast. Of course no one can really know what that looks like, and this was just an artistic representation, but it was so well done that it sucked me in and moved me.

What really terrified me though, was the introduction to my worst nightmare from Episode 2, times eight. The man painted black, which viewers began referring to as "the woodsman" became "the woodsmen" as several of them creep out of the woods when Evil Cooper is shot by Ray. They amble about, and spread Cooper's own blood from the wound all over his face. The sounds and music are creepy. Ray has been rendered helpless and slow-mo - just like Maddy when she encounters Bob.

Then during the atomic bomb sequence we see them milling about in sped up motion (both slow motion and fast motion are scary, trust me). They're inside and outside the convenience store which seems to be in New Mexico (we see the same one later when the teens are walking in 1956 also in NM). If this is the Black Lodge I'm unsure about how it ties into what Phillip Jeffries said in FWWM, since he implies that the convenience store/Black Lodge was in Seattle, WA. I don't know the answer to this, but we are dealing with some time travel and other dimensions, so... All I know is that movements and appearance of these woodsmen is the worst thing I've seen in a while.

When the Woodsmen come down from the sky and one of them goes around town asking for "a light" and crushing heads, it's still not as scary as when they sit way too still, move too slow, or move too fast. When their movements and motions are odd, their intentions are ambiguous and therefore terrifying.

 
There's ten more episodes of season 3, so I might have to make another list later!

Who Are The Tremonds?

When watching a David Lynch film one often has to let go and accept the strangeness that will unfold. Why was there a creepy elderly woman and young boy popping up from time to time in the Twin Peaks universe? In the series they appear one time. The grandmother and grandson are identified as the Tremonds. They live next door to Harold Smith - a man who Laura Palmer shared dark secrets with. The Tremonds advised Donna Hayward to speak with him, and then mysteriously disappeared as if they were a hallucination.

In Fire Walk With Me, the so called Tremonds are seen again in the Black Lodge.  Now it is certain that these characters are agents or prisoners of BOB, The Man From Another Place, and other beings of the Black Lodge. The pair are other-worldly spirits.

Maybe I originally assumed that the Grandmother and child were a Lynchian archetype from his short film The Grandmother. Both young boys wear suits, which represent adult burdens on children. The suit could also imply death in that a young boy would wear such a formal outfit at a funeral or in a casket.

Still from The Grandmother.

A video I saw by selphiealmasy8 opened my eyes to another possibility in the role of the "Tremonds". They are Leland Palmer's childhood self and his grandmother. 



Leland Palmer explains in Episode 2.10 that he knew BOB as a neighbor at his grandfather's lake house, though he referred him as Mr. Robertson. Leland is one of the few characters who speaks of himself as a child. Benjamin and Jerry Horne discuss their childhood, but their likenesses are seen in a flashback, we never actually see photo or flashback of Leland; all the more likely we can identify Leland as the child. Sometimes it's what isn't said, or isn't shown that reveals the truth.

"He used to shoot matches at me. He'd
say, 'Do you want to play with fire, little boy?'"

The video explains the fact that Leland only mentions his grandfather, and does not mention a grandmother or says, "my grandparent's lake house," which proves that his grandmother was dead at the time.  It also points out that Lynch has a history of conveying a familial relationship through omitting and replacing certain pronouns in FWWM: "My mother's sister's girl." Lynch may be sending a message by not mentioning the grandmother, implying that she is gone, though she had to have existed.

I don't completely agree with the video's explanation that the boy represents a side of Leland that is aware of BOB's possession of him, and the Grandmother represents death to Leland. It doesn't completely explain how they exist. I just can't believe that these two beings inhabit the Black Lodge because Leland is somehow conjuring them up. 

The grandmother was likely a victim of BOB as well. It's quite probable that she lived at the lake house with the grandfather and Leland at one point, and was aware of BOB. Maybe BOB has been collecting members of this family for years. If she is Leland's grandmother, she could have become part of the Black Lodge as a wondering spirit protecting the soul of her grandson. She could have also died a more natural death, and her spirit works to protect Leland's childhood soul in the beyond.  

It is clear that the last names given to the Grandmother and Grandson characters are that of the homes they invade, and not an undisclosed family name of the Palmer's. We learn that the Tremond household Donna visits in Episode 2.2 of Twin Peaks is owned by a Mrs. Tremond. However, she is not the same woman when Donna goes back to show Agent Cooper.

Fake Tremond

Real Tremond

The name of the grandson is left ambiguous. I was pretty sure of this until I read the Twin Peaks Wiki entry that refers to him as Pierre. Then I began to question myself. How do we know that this boy is named Pierre? We don't. He isn't.

He is listed as "Mrs. Tremond's Grandson" on the IMDB page of FWWM and "Little Boy"in the Twin Peaks IMDB. Only the Twin Peaks Wiki calls him as such, and they apparently got it from a set of Twin Peaks trading cards produced by Star Pics.

If he looks like a mini David Lynch that's because he's played by Austin Jack Lynch in the series.

Pierre's card has some pretty bogus facts on it. A commenter named geoffr11 warns in The Black Lodge Encyclopedia, of an article about The Jumping Man, that the Star Pics cards were not cannon to the Twin Peaks universe. It's clear the people who made this card didn't really get what The Little Boy was, and chose to portray him as a real boy who they imagined went to Twin Peaks Elementary and likes magic tricks. It states he was born in 1983, but I think we can all agree he is immortal. And they named him Pierre - out of their butts. So now that we know for sure that the Grandson's name is unknown, his identity as Leland's childhood soul is still viable.

Maybe Little Boy was affectionately named Pierre because in Episode 2.9 he said a phrase in French, which translates to “I am a lonely soul”. Oooh Frenchy knows French, what's this kid's name - Pierre? “I am a lonely soul" is the same message that would later be found written on Harold Smith's suicide note. This shows that the Grandmother and Grandson know facts about the deaths they hover around. It can also imply that they reside in a space (the Black Lodge) that transcends time, so from their perspective everything in the future is clear. The phrase could also be self reflective of the little boy. If he is Leland's sole - the sole that Leland gave up to BOB when he was "just a little boy," - then this character would be a lost soul indeed.

As characters the Grandmother and Grandson are neutral in almost every way. The Twin Peaks Wiki states that Mrs. Tremond/Chalfont "has an unclear link to the Lodges and her intentions are unclear." They have interactions with people, but are not antagonizing. One might argue that if the Grandmother is Laura Palmer's great grandmother, wouldn't she be a bit more loving in her presence, or try harder to keep Laura away from harm? Instead she and her grandson treat Laura as a stranger they have to relay cryptic messages to. I don't have a concrete answer to this, but it could be that since the Grandmother was not alive when Laura was born, she has no emotional attachment to her as a spirit. The little boy wouldn't know Laura as his daughter either, since he embodies only that of Leland's past self. While they seem to be wherever death is, it may be that the Tremonds prepare BOB's victims for the inevitable.

Nothing they do explicitly helps anyone, or harms anyone directly. When Laura sees the couple outside the diner in FWWM, the Grandmother hands Laura a framed picture of a room. The picture later leads Laura through a dream that makes her aware of the green ring and the Black Lodge. The Grandson whispers about BOB/Leland taking Laura's diary:

 "The man behind the mask is looking for the book with the pages torn out. He is going towards the hiding place."

He doesn't use any names, and doesn't imply any urgency. The Grandson just makes the statement, and Laura takes it as she will. Laura is disturbed by this knowledge and it causes her to go home and see that the "man behind the mask" is BOB, and Leland is his mask. The Tremond's information is informative, but Laura still is set on a path towards destruction.

The mask warn by the Grandson in this scene represents Leland's ignorance to his own possession. It also acts as a disguise from Leland himself and Laura. In the Black Lodge Encyclopedia of The Twin peaks Gazette user Sourdust says of the mask, "Significantly then, his true face is never seen by any of the Palmers, who would otherwise be able to identify him."

The Grandson is unmasked in front of Donna, but she wouldn't recognize him as Leland anyway. In the other scenes where he appears outside the Black Lodge in FWWM, the boy is masked in front of Laura, who would recognize him from photos and just generally being familiar with her own father. When Leland is walking away from the motel where Laura is waiting with Teresa and Ronnette for their John (well, Leland actually), he catches a glimpse of the Grandson jumping in the parking lot. Leland may have recognized himself if the mask weren't there.

The only other instance we see the Tremonds interacting with someone in the real world is in Twin Peaks during the scene where Donna Hayward makes her Meals on Wheels delivery. Mrs. Tremond emphatically says that she does not like creamed corn. We learn in FWWM that creamed corn is the physical embodiment of "garmonbozia" which means pain and sorrow. The Man From Another Place and BOB horde garmonbozia, so if anyone says they don't like it, then they must be one of the good guys.

The Grandmother and Grandson's only suspicion comes from being close to death and destruction. In FWWM we don't actually see them at the Fat Trout Trailer Park where Teresa Banks lived. This is the only time they are referred to as the Chalfonts. The land lord of the trailer park tells Agent Cooper that the empty space used to have a trailer in it owned by the Chalfonts, who were an old woman and her grandson.

This explains their other last name. They could have simply possessed the Chalfont residence for a time, as they did with Mrs. Tremond's home. However in this case, the real Chalfonts never return once the Grandma and Grandson disappear. The trailer is gone and the landlord doesn't know where they went. It can only be assumed that this is the same grandmother/grandson pair that we know of, and they split town once Teresa was done for - or after Agent Chester Desmond picks up the green ring under their trailer and inexplicably disappears himself.

Somehow Lynch can always make empty lit rooms seem sinister.

Did they lay the bait, or did BOB?

How The Elephant Man is Stylistically Similar to Eraserhead: with Twin Peaks Bonus

A black and white David Lynch directed film with a deformed individual and a nightmarish setting. That quick description can sum up both The Elephant Man or Eraserhead quite easily. The Elephant Man, David Lynch's first mainstream film from 1980, still holds many stylistic values from Lynch's 1977 art house debut, Eraserhead. Below are visual examples of nearly identical themes and mise en scene, and also SPOILERS abound!

Right off the bat, both films have cool double exposures.

But those cool double exposures have deeper meanings behind them concerning creating life, and the fragility of that life. Both films discuss the theme of giving birth to something deformed and irregular. In Eraserhead Henry, the main protagonist, has dinner at his girlfriend Mary X's parent's house. Mrs. X grills Henry about his sexual relationship with Mary and breaks the news that Mary gave birth to... something. 

"Mother, they don't even know if it is a baby!"

In this scenario the product of sex is more than the responsibility of a child, it's an abomination against humanity. It's a punishment and a shame.

Beautiful mothers.

In The Elephant Man, John Merrick (the Elephant Man) is known to have a beautiful mother and no known father. The opening shots imply that his mother was raped by elephants, causing his deformity, but that is obviously highly improbable, and more of a fantasy origin story. Though the thought of bestial rape is horrible, it is maybe somehow less horrible than the hard truth of raping a fellow human being, or that diseases like neurofibromatosis exist.

This is a frame from the beginning of The Elephant Man, showing Dr. Treves (Anthony Hopkins) walking through the freak show, and it sums up the film in a matter of a second.

I noticed that the sign here says "The Fruit of the Original Sin" and it shows only Eve, the tempting snake, and a fetus in a jar. It's hard to see the fetus, but one can assume that it was deformed by the mere fact it's featured in a freak show. The symbolism is huge here, showing only the mother, no father, and the animal this poor soul is associated with, very much like John Merrick's story. It's obvious that the "original sin" here is copulation, and the "fruit" is the deformed child.

The two main protagonists of The Elephant Man are Dr. Frederick Treves and John Merrick. The two main characters of Eraserhead are Henry and "the baby." It can be argued which characters are the lead or supporting. Connections between John Merrick and the baby can be bridged by the superficial idea that they are deformed.

The baby

The baby, regardless of it's deformities, is still a baby, and therefore cannot do much more than cry and exist. John Merrick is an individual who's initial worth was only to exist for a freak show, but despite his difficulties communicating, is found to be a man capable of higher thought and appreciation of the arts.

John Merrick

Both individuals have handicaps, and must be looked after. The baby is never moved from it's pillow bed. It is always swaddled, but when Henry decides to cut off the wrapping all Hell breaks loose, and it is clear (well maybe not clear) that the baby needed the swaddling.

John Merrick must sleep very awkwardly hunched forward with his head between his knees. If he were to sleep flat on his back like a regular person, he would suffocate and die.

He also has a covering; the hood and cloak he wears in public.

In viewing the visual similarities between these films, the use of men's suits struck me as well. Of course John Merrick wore a suit like any other man from his time period. Having him wear a suit was not a stylistic choice of Lynch as much as a necessity to properly tell this true story.

The nightmare scene in Eraserhead, (or is it all a nightmare? -  no one can really know, but this was the most surreal part of the film, so let's refer to it as "the nightmare") when the baby's head replaces Henry's, is a visual precursor to the deformed John Merrick wearing the gentleman's suit. This scene in is obviously symbolic of Henry's paternity to the infant, and the horror of this truth. The Elephant Man becomes a functioning member of British high society, because he is a man - not an animal - and he is someones child, despite the horror that may bring some people.

The sets in The Elephant Man are stylistically similar to Eraserhead. Lynch made Eraserhead's setting an industrial fever dream based on his experience living in Philadelphia. Therefore the sets are filthy, metallic, and treeless.

Eraserhead

They are filled with pipes and barrels and valves. The sound of trains, machines and steam fill the soundtrack. Steam is it's own character in Eraserhead. In the industrial wasteland Lynch places his characters, it hangs in the air around buildings, and hisses out of radiators in homes.

Mary X's house, Eraserhead

Grim, industrial, smoking, steamy, with virtually no natural beauty; nineteenth century life in Europe was the perfect palate for Lynch following Eraserhead.

French circus camp, The Elephant Man

Grimy windows are a given in this atmosphere. Both films feature a "looking through a dirty window" scene.

I think Henry is here.

Mr. Treves looking for John Merrick.

Sad studio apartments are also something Henry and John Merrick have in common.

At least I have that paper church I'm building.

At least I have my mound of dirt.

Unbelievably grim realities aside, it wouldn't be a David Lynch film without a creepy dream sequence.

A hole from Eraserhead.

Lynch used rings and holes in Eraserhead as portals to apparent dream sequences and/or and changes in time. Twin Peaks also uses the symbol of the ring throughout the series, ultimately as a reference to the opening of The Black Lodge. In The Elephant Man, Lynch used the hole/ring symbol again to introduce John Merrick's dream sequence.

Sucking the viewer through the one eye hole in John Merrick's modesty hood, we are drawn into his insecurities, his fears, and general view of life. This shot below from the dream sequence is of men working in a factory.  

This could be an actual  machine and factory process for all I know, but since it's David Lynch, and a dream sequence, I won't rule out that it's just a completely made up surreal action.

It reminded me of the "Man in the Planet" (as he is referred to on IMDB). Shirtless, men of industry. Just replace the steam with sparks.

Throughout Lynch's works gross close-ups can be found in almost any film project. It is still worth noting that Lynch took that instinct from his first film, Eraserhead, and included it in The Elephant Man.

The baby's eye in Eraserhead.

The elephant mouth is nearly unrecognizable, but it visually calls back to John Merrick's lumpy disfigurement; a closer match to his ailment than the external view of the creature he is named after.

Inside the elephant's mouth in The Elephant Man.

Both films have concluding scenes with angelic figures presumably taking the protagonist to Heaven.

"In Heaven everything is fine."

In Eraserhead the Lady in the Radiator makes several appearances in Henry's fantasies, and she once again meets him in a blinding white light. She embraces him in the white light and resounding humming sounds after the sequence of his apparent beheading.

After John Merrick lays down for his first and last peaceful slumber, his mother's face appears in a halo in the stars making this comforting statement: "Never. Oh, never. Nothing will die. The stream flows, the wind blows, the cloud fleets, the heart beats. Nothing will die."

When I first watched the The Elephant Man, I heard that familiar Lynchian roar. It's when he takes the sound of a woman screaming and slows it down so the voice deepens and distorts. The Elephant Man must have been one of the first instances of this. John Merrick's mother is felled by a group of elephants and her screams sound like the elephant's roar.

Cut to 1:15 to hear the GIF above.



One of the best examples of this sound effect in Lynch's work is in episode 14 of Twin Peaks. When cousin Madeline is attacked by Bob, the scene toggles back and forth between regular speed and slow-mo. Her voice is deepened as she screams, sounding like an animal, a roaring fire, or Bob's own maniacal laugh.

Cut to 2:25 to hear the slow-mo scream.



In Fire Walk With Me, Laura Palmer has a painting in her room of an angel sitting at a table with children. It looks like an illustration that would be in a child's room.

Laura, having lost her innocence long ago, sees the angel disappear, symbolizing her lost innocence, lost hope, and the idea that the angel is no longer looking after her.

This painting is referenced to several times in Fire Walk With Me, while a similar framed illustration in John Merrick's room is only seen at the very end of The Elephant Man.

This illustration of a sleeping child represents the peace and a normalcy that John wished he had. As mentioned earlier, due to his condition, John Merrick had to sleep sitting up with his head between his knees. After being honored at the theater, and having one of the best nights of his life, John studies this illustration and seems to decide he wants to sleep that way. John is well aware of the danger.

Going to sleep like a regular peaceful child was just the cap to his wonderful day in his life, and he did not believe it could get any better. The act was apparent suicide, and definitely not a naive action. He sees this illustration soon before his death much like Laura Palmer sees the angel disappear soon before hers.

Also, Laura Palmer went to Heaven too.

Sweet dreams!