Review: “I Know Catherine, the Log Lady”

You don’t have Twin Peaks without David Lynch. You don’t have Twin Peaks without Mark Frost. You don’t have Twin Peaks without Kyle MacLachlan’s Dale Cooper. And you certainly don’t have Twin Peaks without the Log Lady. The enigmatic resident of the small Pacific Northwest town of the iconic series’ title, played by Catherine Coulson, is as much a fixture in its success as anyone, accentuating the show’s offbeat color.

But when Showtime announced in 2014 that they had greenlit a continuation of the series— nearly 25 years after its premiere— from creators Lynch and Frost, that joyous news coincided with Coulson receiving a somber diagnosis: she had stage four lung cancer. Director Richard Green’s documentary, I Know Catherine, The Log Lady, uses the miraculous behind-the-scenes story of how the Twin Peaks crew got Coulson’s final performance as the Log Lady mere days before she passed away as a gateway to also examine her life and career— which was so much more far-reaching than her most recognizable on-screen role— as a whole.

There’s nothing revolutionary about I Know Catherine’s style or structure; this a strictly a talking heads doc, with new and archival interviews accented by archival clips and film footage. What is nice, for fans of Lynch and his circle in particular, is hearing so many intimate, heartfelt stories about Coulson, from the Twin Peaks cast and crew. Some of these verge on therapy for the interviewee more than they provide enlightenment about Coulson herself; this is particularly true of Coulson’s former partner, filmmaker Bill Haugse, who takes the opportunity to unload a lot of his guilt about how he treated Coulson during tough times in their relationship. Others are distressing, like Lynch recounting in detail an emergency situation in which Coulson nearly died. But the respect and admiration for Coulson, both as a person and a performer, shine through in their words, even if the absence of some voices, like Coulson’s oft-mentioned daughter Zoey, is glaring.

I Know Catherine hits its stride in its final stretch, when it focuses more wholly on the machinations involved in getting Coulson’s performance as the Log Lady for The Return as soon as possible, which involved a film crew coming to her and Lynch directing her remotely. Prior to that, the film’s greatest service lies in informing the viewer of her other myriad accomplishments: her extensive work as a camera operator, which included close collaborations with her friend, director John Cassavetes, and Lynch’s frequent DP Fred Elmes, who calls her his key focus puller and further illuminates how well she knew how and where to place the camera; and her theater work (it’s reiterated often throughout the film what a serious actor she was, and her colleagues at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and her work with that company figure prominently here). Most of this is told not through Coulson’s own words— although some archival interviews with her are occasionally used, and the film opens with the moving audio from a telephone call Coulson made to the mortuary to set her affairs in order that showcases in seconds her strong-willed personality— but through the words of others, and while the lack of her own voice is glaring (if understandable), hearing from those who loved and knew her most is a beautiful way to celebrate her life and memory. And Green, with his long history with Lynch and his associates— including playing the Magician in Lynch’s Mulholland Drive and producing I Don’t Know Jack, a documentary about Eraserhead star (and Coulson’s first husband) Jack Nance— is certainly the right person to pull them all together, and he does so without allowing some of the bigger personalities to overtake the narrative.

The snags are more in the assembly, unfortunately. The documentary’s style is pedestrian; there are brief creative accents, like a time-traveling montage of Coulson’s life and career that segways into the movie’s title card, but the visual aesthetic of the other title cards that segment the film are bland. The editing and pacing occasionally feels slapdash in a way that minimizes the story’s emotional impact. Once the film gets to the point of mounting and capturing Coulson’s final performance, it hits a stride that possesses a clearer narrative arc, but prior to that it jumps around rather haphazardly between her life after her cancer diagnosis and her early life and career. Other choices are just tonally confusing, as at the start of the film when it cuts back and forth between an interview segment with Coulson promoting a production of Into the Woods for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, discussing the show’s themes and production values backed up upbeat music, and an interview with Miriam Laube, another actor from the company, tearfully talking in the present about Coulson’s diagnosis. There’s some good footage and good information here, but with some rearranging in the edit, they may result in a punchier film. Regardless, coming at the heels of Lynch’s own passing, I Know Catherine is a healing experience for fans, one that, even if it stumbles to get there, tactfully grapples with concepts of mortality and the legacies we leave behind.

I Know Catherine, The Log Lady is playing in select theaters. Runtime: 115 minutes.