I agree 100%.  In terms of Laura being the phantom that holds them all together, links everyone's inner workings.  the death of Laura, the ghost of Laura is the framework.  She is a mystery in a picture frame, an eternal mystery.

To me, I was shocked when Lynch of all people wanted to flesh her out and in a way make things more definitive.  It's kind of ironic (not sure that's the right word) that he too falls under her spell.

But (again, in my point of view and personal taste) Laura loses her power as a mystery and a character once she is humanized in FWWM.  I feel she is never as interesting as she was in our imagination of going over those last days through the suspects retelling her details to Cooper from their point of view.  It loses its power, and made it definitive.

Seeing the film back in 1992 and with no internet to bounce ideas off of, I agreed with many of the critics who thought she was more interesting as a corpse.  It wasn't until I started tracking down Wrapped in Plastic issues that I kept finding so many issues devoted to Laura (live Laura) and was surprised she was so championed (compared to obvious fan faves Cooper, Audrey, BOB etc.)

Not a criticism, just surprised.

@ giospurs- I don't mean to speak for Cooped at all, art or not (I would say TV in an artistic medium just like film is), keeping a discussion on anything going raises awareness of it and therefore keeps it alive.

@ wizardofxenia- Relying on "authorities" for guidance never killed art. Art classes never killed art. They might have killed your ability to appreciate it in your own unique way. David Lynch might even say that. At a certain point, though, enjoying art (hell, enjoying the world) in the vacuum of your own mind is incredibly limiting.

@ Audrey Horne- This is why FWWM is so polarizing! If you are watching the show for the hundredth time, how can you not wonder why people care so much about Laura, even moreso if you thought she was uninteresting in FWWM? What she went through, what she thought, her split identity, her psychic connection to Cooper are still a mystery.

I like discussing this with you because it's deeper than the "Mary Ann or Ginger" argument.

Why do so many people care about Marilyn Monroe, the ur-Laura, if many more thought she was a bland screen persona or not especially attractive or a mess in real life? (I have read dozens of essays and books about this subject.) No matter how many biographies one reads about Marilyn, or interviews one reads, or how much lurid detail is hinted at or "revealed" in them, you still don't know her.

I guess at a certain level, you have to be a necrophiliac. If Audrey fans like the courtly Lancelot/Guinevere romance between Cooper and Audrey, then Laura devotees like dark fairy tales like Snow White.

I have heard the attraction to Marilyn described the same way: We can read her story over and over and trying to solve every last mystery is like digging her up, having sex with her, and killing her vicariously over and over again.

i'm not even gonna comment on the 'art' discussion

But i agree 12, it's a strange sensation, this almost misogyinistc obsessision with the idolization of dead girls (both real and fictive)     It goes way back; Orpheus, Dante and Beatrice, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his wife (burying his poetry notebook with her, then exhuming the book)

Butttt...and this is a tricky road to go down, but let's throw in the race thing (pandora's box? Nah, it's open) If M Munroe was a black girl, or Laura Palmer was a latino girl working in the diner, interest would probably not be as strong; the fixation with the 'beautiful murdered young white girl' has a great hold over the middle populace. Now this is not something that i really 100percent back, and it's always murky when you throw race into the mix; I mean, i'm forcing race into the mix, on a flimsy vague thread to begin with, but still, it;s another angle that critics tend to take, and one i'm very surprised has never been held against Lynch...all of his films have a fixation upon these white women. Now, I don;t agree like i said...I don't think Lynch's focus of women of this type is racist in the sense that he is deliberately exlcuding nonwhite women from being the focus of his work (i detest 'positive discrimination') But i think he is more of a misogynist, though not in a strictly sinister way: There is little doubt that most of the women in Lynch filmed are (consciously) designed as Concepts, as opposed to fully formed women. This is a trope of art, and not neccessarily a vile, sexist thing, and since Lynch's work is far from realist, he does get away from this lack of 'full' character in his works.

hehe, this pointless thread has derailed, crashed and risen again, and is slightly more interesting now...

Right, art...

Well, reasons for claiming that an elitism preserves art:

In terms of funding, support,   art is expensive to develop, maintain and display. Thus, philantropists of some ammount of wealth tend to fund art. In councils/local government bodies, art is a very low priority in budgeting, being put far behind more 'practical' pusuits. Thus, art suffers greatly .

ALL artists are pretentious and elitist. This is without exception, and this is not a criticism. All art needs intentionallity, and an artist needs to have a serious commitment to 'being an artist'   They put aside more conventional modes of living/careers in order to pursue this. Now, this must include a slight arrogance, a slight elitism - not a negative arrogance, we need artists in order to have art- you must consider yourself as having somethin worth saying, something worth experiencing (be it painting, music whatever), that both you and others would appreciated. YOU NEED this drive, this self belief, this pomposity to truly feel that what you have to express is worth expressing above all else.

Take Nabokov. An unashamed elitist with his commitment to his art (writing in this case) and full of loathing toward those who cannot appreciate poetic, artistic qualities.

All 'artists' I have ever met, every one, even the 'socialist, artists of the people' are pretntentious, pompous...they believe themselves to be 'better' and talk nonstop about what 'they are working on'  Most of them are terrible bores. And most as full of sh*t. Totally full of it. Because they wish to be true artists, but lack the sheer sincerity and talent. True artists can spout this nonsense, and get away with it, because their work is brilliant. Like Lynch, highly inarticulate when it comes to his work, but brilliant nonetheless.

Art is strangluated by the masses, because at the moment, 'culture' is being diluted and watered down, into petty nonsensical crap that is focused on irrelevant people who have done irrelevant things. In order to move forward, we need to appreciate the esteem of our 'elitist' artists, thinkers etc. Because the ability to THINK, and to FEEL is vanishing under tsunami's of disastrous moronic ideas and modes of thinking. We are mentally self destructing, and we need our Artists, Thinkers, Poets etc,   so we need to protect it, by treating it with a certain degree of seriousness and respect. If this is elitism, then so be it. 

However, I am aware, like i said, that artists are full of crap. Look at Wordsworth's Preface to Lyrical Ballads for instance.

There was a fiish..iinn the percolatrr!