opening credit sequence
the opening credit sequence for part one** varies slightly from later parts as it has the
i'll see you again in 25 years intro (see images one through seven) which is accompanied by a drone undercurrent. the intro begins in the black lodge with a rather psychedelic filming of the floor's "chevron pattern" and the red velvet curtains. it then shows agent cooper and laura palmer with her message of
i'll see you again in 25 years, a backwards finger snap, and the
meanwhile hand gesture. there is some
conjecture on the meaning of the
meanwhile hand gesture. the intro then shows a montage of the saw mill, the twin peaks school, and a young female student running and crying in slow motion seen through school windows. there are some subtle yet hair-raising orchestral flair ups in the soundtrack during the running, not unlike something you would hear in
the shining, then back to laura palmer's picture prominently featured in the school's trophies display window.
in addition, the opening credit sequence for the first part (or episode) does not have
laura palmer's face multi-exposed over the waterfall as it does in later parts, as it would have been redundant to her face seen at the end of the intro.
the remainder of the title sequence is consistent with the rest of the series***. it begins with a dazzling aerial shot of the twin peaks waterfalls, or snoqualmie falls, then a very slow dissolve to the red curtains, followed by a very slow dissolve to the chevron floor. the floors and curtains dissolving and shifting is quite mesmerizing. the sequence ends with a dissolve to black.
to my ear****, the badalementi track twin peaks theme is a shortened version from the first and second season (and the ost) of twin peaks. it sounds to me to be a new recording which is very close to the original, but it might just be a goosed up version of the original.
variations from the original are the beautiful drone introduction, reverberant cymbals which begin around the time the camera starts tracking the falls, distant water sounds which are heard as the falls descend, and lastly a doom-laden drone that fades up around the time the chevron pattern appears.
all these variations from the original have something of a dramatic effect on the viewer, and warn of what is to come in the next 18 hours.... less soap opera business that dominated much of the first two seasons (especially the second), and more abstractions and mysteries that will dominate this season.
the beauty that is this title sequence has much to do with, i assume, the editing brilliance of duwayne dunham. the slow dissolves are so unlike much of what one sees in narrative film or television, and are more commonplace in avant-garde and european film. dunham also edited blue velvet, wild at heart, and parts of season one and two of twin peaks. his work throughout this 18 hour work is groundbreaking and has much to do with the effect this work has.
*this series on twin peaks aims to mainly look at visual and sonic mysteries happening in the series.
**in an
interview with dean hurley, music supervisor for lynch, he stated lynch saw the new twin peaks as a single movie with sections or "parts", rather than episodes: "the whole thing - remember - was one giant script shot as one long movie. that’s why he is calling these “parts” and not “episodes” - because they weren’t designed to have arcs between each bit like a normal television show. he (lynch) was interested in the giant story and slicing the pie up."
***up to part nine when i did this post
***if anyone has more information, or hears it differently, i would be interested in more info.
