Twin Peaks Publicity – Portrait of Laura Palmer and Dale Cooper in the Red Room

The ending to David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me is incredibly beautiful. Laura Palmer weeps for joy upon seeing her angel as the stalwart Special Agent Dale Cooper stands by offering comfort. On-set photographer Lorey Sebastian captured moments from this ending in a series of publicity photos. This time, I’m looking at photo slide #5343 with a portrait of Laura Palmer and Dale Cooper in the Red Room.

PORTRAIT OF LAURA PALMER AND DALE COOPER IN THE RED ROOM

Using my Epson Perfection V600 Photo scanner, I created a high-resolution image of this scene in the Red Room. I left the black border on the image as I liked how it framed the pair (plus there was a slight image bleed along the sides).

The photo slide was numbered #5343 with credits to the late Lorey Sebastian who spent years as an on-set photographer for several feature films. The copyright has a date of 1992 from New Line Cinema. The image is presented sideways so I had to turn the slide to get a scan.

The photo slide is a slightly different shot than this black and white 8-inch by 10-inch publicity photo also taken by Sebastian. This image would appear after the shot seen in the photo slide. Laura’s face is full of joy whereas the slide has her staring intently at Cooper before the angel arrives.

THE ENDING TO TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME

Interestingly, we don’t see the shot found in the photo slide in the film and it’s different than what was scripted by Bob Engles and David Lynch on Aug. 8, 1991.

238. BLACK LODGE/RED ROOM
Laura is sitting in a chair. As the end credits begin…
We move back to see that Laura is siting in Cooper’s lap in the same chair.

In the theatrical cut, the scene fades to Laura Palmer looking up at Special Agent Dale Cooper.

Cooper is seen looking down at Laura, offering a gentle smile of reassurance. But we never see a portrait of them both like presented in the photo slide.

Following a series of close-up shots of Laura and her angel, the camera slowly pulls out while looking down at the pair. My assumption is the crew could have filmed from an angle similar to the photo slide portrait but Mary Sweeney opted to use the close-ups. How I would love to see the missing, missing pieces.

OTHER VERSIONS OF THE PHOTO SLIDE #5343

The Mavue Zone offered this version of the same publicity photo of Laura and Cooper. It’s a less grainy image compared to the photo slide.

The Twin Peaks – The Entire Mystery set from 2014 includes this publicity photo in the Blu-ray packaging, found on page 25 for the Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me section.

Every time I see this shot, I can hear the voice of love.

Download high-resolution photos of slide #5343 on my Flickr account: https://www.flickr.com/photos/aloha75/albums/72177720325607231