I Know Catherine, the Log Lady
“I am known as the Log Lady; there is a story behind that. There are many stories in Twin Peaks. Some of them are sad, some funny, some are stories of madness, of violence, some are ordinary, yet they all have about them a sense of mystery, the mystery of life.” With these words, Margaret Lanterman, the “Log Lady” of Twin Peaks, a Washington State logging town a few miles from the Canadian border, introduced the opening episode of David Lynch’s iconic and influential television show in 1990.
Played by Catherine Elizabeth Coulson, her character appeared in several episodes across the original two seasons and the subsequent prequel film, Fire Walk With Me, released in 1992, a solitary woman who lived alone in a cabin on the mountainside, she would impart the wisdom given to her by the log she always carried with her, offering insight, kindness, consolation, a compass pointing towards truth in a town torn apart by the murder of teenager Laura Palmer.
Coulson’s life and achievements recounted in the documentary I Know Catherine, the Log Lady by director Richard Green, himself an associate of Lynch’s who appeared in a supporting role in Mulholland Drive, she is remembered and celebrated by many of her associates from the cast, among them Kyle MacLachlan, Michael Horse, Kimmy Robertson, Dana Ashbrook, Charlotte Stewart, Grace Zabriskie and Lynch himself, often enigmatic but devoted in his friendship.
The professional relationship of Lynch and Coulson dating to Eraserhead which starred her then-husband Jack Nance where she served in various capacities during the extended shoot, it was on that production that the Log Lady was conceived, but as well as being an actor with extensive stage credits, working with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, she had a parallel career as a camera assistant, her resume including The Killing of a Chinese Bookie and The Wrath of Khan.
Her cancer diagnosis simultaneous with the 2014 announcement that Twin Peaks would return, I Know Catherine is the story of her decline as the production gathers pace and her determination that she should reprise her role regardless, her reticence to disclose her illness to Lynch followed by evasion as to its severity, her friends eventually stepping in and a satellite production unit set up in her home to allow her to film her scenes in relative comfort only four days before her death.
A woman unbound by convention determined to seize opportunity wherever it arose, as singular and eccentric as her most famous creation, I Know Catherine is as much about the phenomenon of Twin Peaks as about Coulson, the two tied together, another of her many complicated personal and professional relationships, her final scenes “the performance of a lifetime” of a person who was in the process of arranging her own funeral: “One day, the sadness will end.”
I Know Catherine, the Log Lady had its UK premiere at the Gathering of Angels and is available to stream now at iknowcatherine.com
