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Movement in the Box: The Production of Surreal Social Space and the Alienated Body

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Critical Essays on Twin Peaks: The Return

Abstract

This chapter examines the glass box presented in the opening episode of Twin Peaks: The Return as a central metaphor for American society and its inhabitants: a physical and cultural space that has become ever more surreal as inhabitants’ lives are increasingly mediated through the screen (the box). The chapter explores Lynch’s mapping of modern America as a confusing space, with residents who have become, like the creature that manifests in the box, dehumanized figures, isolated, and alienated from each other and from themselves, trapped behind a screen and within a society where life and art blur. The box is a portal through which we access the show and our own lives.

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Correspondence to Joel Hawkes .

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Hawkes, J. (2019). Movement in the Box: The Production of Surreal Social Space and the Alienated Body. In: Sanna, A. (eds) Critical Essays on Twin Peaks: The Return. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04798-6_10

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