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A possible clue that WISTERIA, David Lynch’s new project, may well be set in L.A.:
In a 1999 New Yorker piece about ‘Mulholland Drive,’ Mary Sweeney described him as nostalgic for (in her words) “Los Angeles... the bygone smells, and the wisteria, and the dreaminess.” [cont.]
In a 1999 New Yorker piece about ‘Mulholland Drive,’ Mary Sweeney described him as nostalgic for (in her words) “Los Angeles... the bygone smells, and the wisteria, and the dreaminess.” [cont.]
In context, it seems clear that Sweeney (his editor & eventual ex-wife) is relaying Lynch’s own feelings about Los Angeles - i.e., that he has discussed wisteria specifically in connection with his love for L.A....
While this is far from dispositive, it seemingly increases the likelihood that WISTERIA, like three out of his four previous feature films—and, notably, like his never-produced 2010 script ANTELOPE DON’T RUN NO MORE—will be primarily set in Los Angeles. https://twitter.com/fatecolossal/status/1004836114186821634
Indeed, given the rumors of Laura Dern & Naomi Watts’ involvement in WISTERIA—as well as the fact that ANTELOPE DON’T RUN NO MORE [‘ADRNM’] was known to ‘braid threads from MULHOLLAND DRIVE and INLAND EMPIRE’—it seems possible WISTERIA is a much-expanded later draft of ADRNM.
While I tend to doubt the project will expressly be billed as a TWIN PEAKS work, it very well may still incorporate (or ‘braid threads from’) enough ingredients from TP to instigate a million fan theories about the links between the two...
For example, consider Lynch’s affinity for using actors to play characters in later films strikingly evocative of earlier characters they played for him - think Grace Zabriskie in INLAND EMPIRE (vs Sarah in TWIN PEAKS), or Naomi Watts in TP:TR (vs Betty in MULHOLLAND DRIVE)...
Now imagine WISTERIA potentially having many more (20+??) longtime Lynch actors quasi-echoing roles like that, including many from Twin Peaks. Such a work might not explicitly be TWIN PEAKS, but it also would not exactly NOT be Twin Peaks.
(This arguable linkage would be even more well-supported if you think that MULHOLLAND DRIVE, INLAND EMPIRE, and TWIN PEAKS share in common very similar central narrative conceits... itself perhaps worthy of dissertation-length analysis!—which it has at times received.)
At any rate, it’s still obviously too early to know much of anything about the new project with confidence; it’s all just mostly idle speculation for now, though that can be fun.
One last pt:
Sweeney’s quote, connecting ‘wisteria’ to Lynch’s nostalgia, made me notice that the word can be seen as a portmanteau of the words ‘wistfulness’ and ‘hysteria’ - as if ‘wisteria’ were a type of mania of nostalgia. Probably meaningless, but w/ Lynch one never knows.
Sweeney’s quote, connecting ‘wisteria’ to Lynch’s nostalgia, made me notice that the word can be seen as a portmanteau of the words ‘wistfulness’ and ‘hysteria’ - as if ‘wisteria’ were a type of mania of nostalgia. Probably meaningless, but w/ Lynch one never knows.
Oh hey - here’s a picture of the relevant New Yorker passage for the Sweeney quote. I meant to include it with the first tweet in the thread...
