The Birth of Auteurist Television – David Lynch’s Twin Peaks

Gábor Bagladi

The Birth of Auteurist Television –

David Lynch’s Twin Peaks

After a decade of cult TV shows appearing in every television season, quality drama series are undoubtedly in their heyday. Oz, The Sopranos, The Wire, Lost, Mad Men, Breaking Bad – only a few names from an endless list of top-ranking shows of the 21st century. Each and every one of these success series is strongly associated with its creative mastermind, the producer. Some of these creators, due to the cult status of their progenies, are in fact considered auteurs in the classical sense. That is, that their distinctive creative genius is instantly recognisable in all of their work. This, however,  has not always been the case. The concept of the television producer as an auteur was first introduced by David Lynch and his illustrious 1989 series, Twin Peaks.

In order to examine how this happened, one needs to go back a few decades in time. European Modernism and the Auteur Theory (born along with The French New Wave in the late 1950’s) first found their way to the Unites States in the late 1960’s, mainly coinciding with the appearance of the New Hollywood movement. André Bazin’s ”camera-pen” approach had an immense impact on young directors such as Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg or Martin Scorsese, who considered mise-en-scéne and individual directorial style the most important elements of filmmaking: Modern American Film was born, shortly followed by a vast network of independent film. Throughout the 1970’s more and more directors became the centre of attention, some of them gained both domestic and international fame - auteur-directors emerged by dozens.

David Lynch began his career as an independent filmmaker in the late 1970’s. His directorial debut, Eraserhead (1977) was an instant professional success (celebrated director Stanley Kubrick regarded it as one of his favourite films), which opened the doors of the great Hollywood studios for Lynch. His second picture, Elephant Man (1980) was nominated for an Academy Award in multiple  categories. In spite of his admittedly failed attempt to adapt Frank Herbert’s sci-fi classic, Dune in 1984, David Lynch reached critical acclaim as an auteur director by the end of the 1980’s; largely as a result of his first essentially ”Lynch” film, Blue Velvet (1986). A unique sense of sarcasm, unorthodox perspectives, reality fading into dreams and vice versa, mixing seemingly completely distant genres: it only takes a couple of scenes to recognise David Lynch’s directorial signature. As a renowned filmmaker at the time, Lynch decided to open his horizons towards television.

American television at the time was mainly characterised by soap operas and crime series. Film and television were distinct industries and it was highly unusual for a film director to get involved in the latter. Still, Lynch had an idea and working with his creative partner Mark Frost, he wrote a screenplay for the pilot of a TV show. Although the pilot turned to be a moderate success, ABC commissioned the first season of what is now known as one of the most popular series of all time: Twin Peaks.