The Heavily Edited Train Car Murder Scene

 WARNING : THIS POST CONTAINS GRAPHIC CONTENT.

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me forces us to face moments from Laura Palmer's life that are difficult to endure. We see her abuse and exploitation at the hands of predatory adult men and her tortuous existence at home. We see Laura pushed to the edge in the train car, but we don't actually see Sheryl Lee as Laura in the triumph of Laura's death. We don't see her face as she conquers BOB and wins the battle she fought for so much of her life.

We hear the emotional music, Leland's voice, Laura screaming. There are flashes of images, two of which show Laura's entire face; one in torment and one where she is trying on the ring. We do not see her face in whole again until her life has been taken from her, eyes open in death. BOB/Leland's face is shown in full in one frame. BOB and The Man From Another Place's faces are also briefly shown in full. However, throughout rest of the scene, Laura and Leland/BOB's faces are entirely obscured or seen only partially, which seems odd for such a pivotal moment in the film. 

In Fire Walk with Me: Your Laura Disappeared, author Scott Ryan interviewed Cinematographer Ron Garcia who described his worry for actress Sheryl Lee during the filming of Laura's murder. It seems wrong that Sheryl Lee went to such a dark place, suffering for her art, only for the scene to never be viewed by the public. Mr. Ryan believes Lee still experiences PSTD from the role. I believe him. That she went through all that she did essentially for no reason - as the sequence is cropped and heavily edited - feels unjust. 

This post is made to highlight how little we see of the scene in the theatrical cut. 

 

There is evidence to support the idea that Lynch filmed a different murder scene. What I have found on the subject is collected here. What we see in the finished cut may be a combination of the original scene and scenes filmed post-production. Scenes may have been cropped for symbolic reasons, to change their meaning, or to mute their violence, as an early screening gave cause for Lynch to alter the film. More on this topic can be found at the end of this post.

Images from the sequence in the final cut of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me

In order. 

Here I have omitted at least five stills of an extreme close-up of Laura's open, blood covered mouth and two stills of her face after she has passed away.