Review: I Know Catherine, the Log Lady – “an emotional and rather lovely piece.”

Directed by Richard Green

Catherine Coulson had a long career, both in front of and behind the scenes, from stage to television and film. Catherine worked as a camera assistant on films as diverse as Eraserhead, Night on Earth, and Star Trek II: the Wrath of Khan, as well as being a moving force in and for the Ashland’s Oregon Shakespeare Festival. But of course, many fans, especially those of us who love the works of David Lynch, will always remember her as “The Log Lady” in Lynch and Mark Frost’s remarkable and unusual Twin Peaks series.

The various talking heads here are drawn from the people that Catherine came to know through that wide body of work, across her career; family, friends, lovers, colleagues, including some very familiar faces, such a Kyle MacLachlan and David Lynch himself, the two having been good friends since Eraserhead (where the initial seeds of what would become the Log Lady character were first sown). This array of people who knew and loved Catherine gives the documentary a deeply personal, and very emotional depth – this is not like some documentaries where people speak in platitudes about a departed great performer, these are heartfelt reminiscences of someone they miss, and you can often hear the emotion in their voices as they talk.

Any of us who have spent time sharing memories with others of someone we loved and lost will identify right away with the nature of those emotions, that peculiar mixture of melancholy at the thought we now have to talk of that person in the past tense, that you will not see them, hear them again, but mixed with a strange joy at talking about memories of times shared with them, that make us smile even when crying. In many places this felt almost like a cathartic chance for some of those who knew Catherine to let some of those feelings and memories out, and anyone who has been through a loss (and sadly that is most of us) will empathise with the emotion on display here.

Structurally the film starts with the new of Twin Peaks returning after twenty fives years, with Lynch happily telling the actors that he was getting the old band together again. Followed closely by Catherine, who though perhaps he had been suffering pneumonia or an infection, finding out she actually had stage four lung cancer, and very little time remaining on the mortal coil, but determined to live long enough to play the Log Lady one more time.

We then move more chronologically through her life, from a very middle-class, 1950s American upbringing which is later traded for acting and living in California and embracing the more open, experimental lifestyles of 1960s San Franciso, then sharing a Hollywood apartment with Lynch and Eraserhead’s Jack Nance. We see her marriage, the tragedy of illness and how this affects both her body and marriage, the friends she made, the stage and behind the scenes work she loved so much, eventually reaching Twin Peaks itself in the 80s, her frequent appearances at conventions that helped keep the fan interest in the show going, then to those final months, with Twin Peaks: the Return, and her diagnosis.

With interviews shot over several years, Green, who previously worked with Lynch on Mulholland Drive, assembled dozens of people from Catherine’s life, taking in the acting and backstage craft, but also the everyday things that make our lives tick (many commented on the way she looked after others, all the little things that someone does for you that just makes life better), and, as I said, the emotion many feel talking about her is palpable, while the fact that in the intervening time we have also lost Lynch himself adds another layer of poignancy to the film. It’s an emotional and rather lovely piece, and of special interest to all of us who enjoyed Lynch’s work, but mostly it’s just a personal little story about a life well-lived and a woman who faced the end, as much as she could, on her own terms.

I Knew Catherine, the Log Lady is enjoying screenings in several US cities over coming weeks and will then be available to stream – check the official website for full details.