To quote Film Threat’s founder Chris Gore, Twin Peaks, when it first appeared on our small screens back in the early 1990s, was “appointment viewing.” What the late great David Lynch and Mark Frost created was a show, an experience, like no other. So is director Richard Green’s I Know Catherine, The Log Lady.
25 years later, Lynch and his creative team looked to do the impossible: bring Twin Peaks back to life. Though it rested upon shaky ground there for a while, Twin Peaks: The Return soon emerged. With it all, the sublime strangeness and atmosphere were reborn, and we were delighted to see where the story would take us this time. Suddenly, there they were agent Dale Cooper, Deputy Hawk, Andy, Lucy, Shelly, Bobby, Dr. Lawrence Jacoby, Audrey Horne, and Big Ed Hurley again. The Log Lady, portrayed at the end of her life by an actor at the end of her life, the irrepressible Catherine Coulson, of course, also returns.
I Know Catherine, The Log Lady takes us into the final days, even hours, of Coulson’s life as she struggles to prepare for the end and her return to Lynch’s weird television world. As with most portraits of an exploratory nature, audiences come to discover that there is so much more to the log lady than meets the eye. Having grown up as the child of a father who worked in the publicity department at Disney, Coulson was exposed to the land of dreams at an impressionable age. Thus, it would be that combination of caring for family and friends, combined with the highs and lows of the entertainer’s life, that would mark her journey to its climax.
“…takes us into the final days, even hours, of Coulson’s life…”
Coulson met and worked with Lynch due to the cult classic Eraserhead. Heck, for a time she was married to Lynch regular Jack Nance. Coulson would prove herself a formidable presence both in front and behind the camera. Ranging from Twin Peaks to Shakespeare, she was also known as a consummate camera assistant working on a variety of features, with the distinction of being one of the first female focus-pullers, having worked on Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
The narrative is composed of archival footage of Coulson’s adventures, blended with testimonies from lifelong friends and collaborators such as Lynch, Frost, and Kyle MacLachlan, along with other Twin Peaks luminaries, to those who shared her private times. The wide-ranging stories shared by participants mean I Know Catherine, The Log Lady jumps backward and forward in time, showing everywhere Coulson went and where she was headed. It all culminates in a Hail Mary pass into the end zone, as Coulson battles the constraints of a body failing as she bravely attempts to perform, going line for line, fed to her by Lynch over Skype, as she goes into the great hereafter doing that which she loved the most.
“We’ll meet again,” is Lynch’s final word on the last discussion he had with the actor who strutted and fretted her hour upon the stage, and then was heard no more. But Coulson is still around, for we are left with her fabulous performances captured for all time. Those are the extraordinary stories of an extraordinary woman who couldn’t help but touch and enrich every life and character she was a part of.
While the conclusion of I Know Catherine, The Log Lady is no surprise, what makes this documentary hit hard is the fact that we recently lost Lynch himself under similar circumstances. You’ll need a hefty supply of tissues as the moment approaches, as Coulson completes her circle and spends the moments after chatting with the director she admired and loved wholeheartedly.
"…hit[s] hard..."
