CONTEXUAL STUDIES: TWIN PEAKS

With this session, we finished off the final genre discussion which is postmodern TV. We started this by watching the first 15 minutes of an episode of the American TV Series 'Twin Peak'. By watching this I found the camera work and editing really impressive considering it was all shot on film. However, I personally found that I didn't enjoy the programme that much because of the acting from the actors. 

Twin Peaks was broadcasted from 1990-1991 having 2 seasons. It is commonly said that it was created by David Lynch but it was also created by TV crime genre writer mark Frost for ABC Network. 

How can we define experimental?

- Challenges and/or subverts genre codes and conventions

- Innovations in stylistic presentation (mise en scene, editing, etc.)

- Innovations in narrative (how the story is told: structure and time) 

Conventional:

- Linear narrative 

- Episodic series or continuous serial 

- Genre-specific codes and conventions (crime, sci-fi, medical, etc.)

- Formal 'Holywood' style (mise en scene, continuity, editing, etc.)

- Classic stereotypical or archetypal 

Experimental 

- Non-linear or fractured 

- Hybrid format

- Hybrid or multi-genre

- Innovative or unusual visual and audio techniques (breaking the forth wall)

- Unconventional characters or do not relate to specific genre expectations of behaviour 

Conventional narrative formats

- Episodic series - usually long-running (13 or more series), primetime, self-contained storylines and closed resolutions within each show (doctor who)

- Continuous serial (soap opera) - traditionally daytime, open-ended storylines with cliffhangers

- Episodic serial (miniseries) - short running drama (more than six hours or in two parts or more parts) which combine the closed resolution of the episodic series with the ongoing multi-arc strands of the soap opera)

- Sequential series (hill street blues, miami vice) - development of the episodic series format which run narrative arcs throughout the series and end season with cliffhangers

Twin Peaks narrative format

- First series was short eight hour run, similar to episodic serial or miniseries

- Episodically threaded narrative and cliffhanger final of the sequential series 

- Open ended multi character/multi-plotlines of the continuous serial or soap opera 

Genre hybridity

crime genre:

- Episodic

- Forensic rationality

- Central detective character

- Crime resolution and narrative closure

Soap genre

- Continuing 

- Emotional melodrama

- Multiple character arcs

- Crime may take weeks, months or years to be resolved 

Postmodernism

- Ideologically disruptive

- Deconstructs form, often in playful way

- May use elements of high and low culture (usually through homage or pastiche)

- Meta-references or self- reflexivity (intersexuality, self- referentiality)

 

Mise en Scene Twin Peaks

- Pacific North-west smalltown setting

- costume, make-up and set design evoke 1950

- Unconventional lighting and staging

Camerawork and Editing

- Scenes filmed in wide and/or long shots

- Action held longer in the frame than usual 

Sound and music

- Heavy use of both original soundtrack music and surreal ambient sounds

- Music is used for heightened emotional effect

- Use of dialogue and non-diegetic leitmotifs associated with specific characters 

Extra-diegetic dramatic elements

- The Red Room - extra - dimensional location first seen in agent coopers dream

- BOB - Demonic entity

- 'Invitation to Love' - fake soap opera seen briefly in every episode of the first season

Influence on other TV Dramas

- Northern Exposure

- The X Files

- Lost and Fringe

- The Sopranos

- The Killing (US Remake)