I Know Catherine, The Log Lady Is an Affectionate Portrait of a Twin Peaks Icon

When Twin Peaks: The Return deed Showtime successful 2017, determination was 1 precise poignant beingness tucked amid each the signature David Lynch benignant and weirdness. It wouldn’t beryllium a existent Twin Peaks revival without the Log Lady, and Catherine E. Coulson—whose portrayal of the enigmatic quality made her a cult-beloved icon—got to play her 1 past clip earlier her decease from crab successful 2015.

Richard Green’s caller documentary, I Know Catherine, The Log Lady, reveals conscionable what went into creating that last show portion besides celebrating the beingness and vocation of a pistillate David Lynch called “one of my dearest, closest friends.”

With Lynch himself present having departed, there’s an other furniture of melancholy woven into the documentary, though helium looks successful cleanable wellness present arsenic helium looks backmost connected his longstanding narration with Coulson. Lynch met her successful the 1970s—she was past joined to Jack Nance, prima of Lynch’s archetypal feature, Eraserhead.

Coulson, who’d met Nance erstwhile they were some portion of the late-1960s theatre country successful San Francisco, changeable a relation that didn’t marque it into the last film, but she mostly worked down the scenes, gathering skills that led to a vocation arsenic a camera adjunct connected films similar Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

Though she was a talented behind-the-scenes craftsperson, performing was intelligibly Coulson’s archetypal love, and I Know Catherine follows her vocation trajectory to the relation she became astir celebrated for, arsenic good arsenic beyond that arsenic she continued acting, mostly connected stage. Instead of simply pursuing a consecutive line, the documentary makes precise wide that her decease volition beryllium a large portion of its narrative, opening with a telephone telephone she herself made to a mortuary to “set things up a small bit” up of the inevitable.

Throughout, it incorporates stories from her friends and colleagues arsenic Coulson’s wellness began to get worse; they each marvel astatine the magnitude of thrust and vigor she managed to clasp onto until the precise end.

Catherine E. Coulson and David Lynch with different Eraserhead unit members. © History of Cool and Next Step Studios

Though I Know Catherine makes wide that determination was a batch much to her than the Log Lady, Twin Peaks is inactive a large portion of Coulson’s story, and formed mates including Kyle MacLachlan look to reminisce astir the tone she brought to the production. “She loved the joyousness it brought to people,” 1 subordinate remembers, and she was pleased erstwhile Lynch’s offbeat ABC soap opera became a TV sensation.

Twin Peaks co-creator Mark Frost besides pops up to speech much astir what Coulson brought to the character—who everyone agrees was thing similar Coulson successful existent life—and wherefore the Log Lady resonated truthful powerfully with fans. Frost recalls a immense laughter astatine the Twin Peaks aviator screening erstwhile the Log Lady is seen flicking the lights connected and disconnected astatine the municipality meeting. When MacLachlan’s Agent Cooper asks what’s up with the woman with the log, he’s matter-of-factly informed “we telephone her the Log Lady.” It’s each you request to know!

A premix of wit and seriousness, the Log Lady (real name: Margaret Lanterman; she was a quality Lynch had been pondering since the Eraserhead era) was a idiosyncratic everyone successful Twin Peaks took precise earnestly contempt her oddities. As Frost explains, she was respected, a small spot feared, and if her log had thing to accidental to you, it was understood that you would listen.

Coulson conveyed each of that successful her measured performance, and arsenic a effect the Log Lady made a large interaction each clip she was onscreen. That includes her fistful of scenes successful Twin Peaks: The Return, which were captured conscionable days earlier her decease astatine a set-up that came unneurotic precise rapidly successful her home. (Lynch, who was connected determination filming the series, directed her implicit Skype.)

David Lynch fans—Twin Peaks fans successful particular—won’t privation to miss this heartfelt doc, an exceptionally intimate representation of Coulson’s beingness communicative constructed by immoderate of the radical who knew and loved her best.

I Know Catherine, The Log Lady opens successful NYC May 1 and successful Los Angeles May 9; you tin find a database of screenings astatine assorted theaters nationwide here.

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