David Bowie

A young artist with telepathic abilities searches for connection and meaning in a world of her own eccentric design.

Behind the Storm: The Making of The Scent of Rain and Lightning is a documentary that takes a candid look behind the scenes of how some of the biggest names in Hollywood came together to make a powerful indie film in rural Oklahoma.

A body wrapped in plastic floats down a river in Washington State. It is 17-year-old Teresa Banks (Pamela Gidley). FBI Regional Bureau Chief Gordon Cole (David Lynch) calls Agent Chester Desmond (Chris Isaak) about the mysterious murder of Teresa Banks in the town of Deer Meadow. At a small airport, Cole introduces Chester to his new partner, Sam Stanley (Kiefer Sutherland), and they receive clues from Lil the dancer. During the drive to Deer Meadow, Chet explains to Sam most of the clues Lil provided, but he does not explain the blue rose pinned to Lil's red dress. After difficulty with the local sheriff's department, namely Sheriff Cable and his Deputy Howard, Desmond and Stanley eventually view Teresa's body at a morgue. They verify that her skull was crushed, note a spot on her finger where she must have worn a ring that is not logged among the items found on her person at the time of death and discover a tiny square of paper stuck under her fingernail, upon which is typed the letter "T." Late that night after completing the autopsy, Desmond and Stanley travel to Hap's Diner where Teresa worked the late shift and question the middle-aged chain-smoking owner Irene (Sandra Kinder) about Teresa. Irene tells the two agents that Teresa only worked at the diner for a month but may have had a drug problem. Irene refers to Teresa's murder as a "freak accident." Irene also tells Desmond and Stanley that Teresa's left arm went completly numb three days before her death. In the morning, the agents travel to the Fat Trout Trailer Park where Teresa lived. The cranky owner Carl Rodd (Harry Dean Stanton) gives them access to her trailer. Carl serves them coffee, but he is not very helpfull in telling them much about Teresa. They notice a photo of Teresa wearing a large gold ring with a green stone on the forefinger of her left hand. This was likely the ring she was wearing when she died that is now missing. Stanley leaves Deer Meadow after finishing his part in the investigation, while Desmond remains behind. Desmond returns to the trailer park to ask Carl about Deputy Howard's trailer. While wandering around alone, Desmond discovers Teresa's missing ring under a trailer, but when he touches it he disappears. The following day at FBI headquarters in Philadelphia, Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) tells Gordon about a strange dream he had the night before. Long-lost Agent Phillip Jeffries (David Bowie) suddenly re-appears. He questions Dale Cooper's identity before telling Cole about a meeting he witnessed in a dream. As he explains, we see images of the Man from Another Place (Michael J. Anderson), BOB (Frank Silva), Mrs. Chalfont (Frances Bay), and her grandson. Jeffries begins to scream and disappears as we see shots of electrical lines. Desmond is reported missing and Agent Dale Cooper is sent to Deer Meadow to investigate his disappearance. After Cooper talks with Carl Rodd at the trailer park about a lot on the property, now vacant, where two successive families named Chalfont both kept trailers, he sees the words "Let's Rock" written in lipstick on the windshield of Desmond's abandoned car. The clues to Teresa Banks' murder lead to a dead end. One year later in Twin Peaks, 17-year-old high school homecoming queen Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) and her best friend Donna Hayward (Moira Kelly) return to school. Laura snorts cocaine and secretly meets with James Hurley (James Marshall). After school, Laura talks with Donna about the difference between Hurley and Laura's actual boyfriend, the dopey Bobby Briggs (Dana Ashbrook). Later that day, Laura realizes pages are missing from her secret diary and tells her friend, an agoraphobe she met through her volunteer work with Meals on Wheels named Harold Smith (Lenny von Dohlen), about it. She claims BOB took the pages. Harold tells Laura that BOB is not real. Laura argues that BOB is real and says that he told her if she does not let him be her, he will kill her. When Harold argues, Laura appears to become possessed-- her face changes color and she growls, "Fire walk with me!" Returning to normal and visibly shaken, Laura gives Harold her diary to keep. She leaves, stating she does not know when, or if, she will return. In Philadelphia, Cooper tells fellow agent Albert Rosenfeld (Miguel Ferrer) that he believes the killer will strike again and describes the appearance of the person he believes the victim will be. It is clear that Cooper practices unorthodox, most likely paranormal, methods of acquiring this information. Back in Twin Peaks on her Meals on Wheels rounds, Laura sees Mrs. Chalfont and her grandson in the diner parking lot. Chalfont gives Laura a painting of an empty room with a door, and her grandson informs Laura that the "man behind the mask" is in Laura's room. Laura runs home and peeks into her bedroom. She sees BOB, who leers at her as he looks up from behind her dresser where she used to keep her diary. Laura rushes outside in terror and hides near a hedge. Moments later, her father, Leland (Ray Wise), emerges from the house. Laura realizes that her father could be BOB. Later that evening, at the Palmer family dinner table, Leland, upon seeing the half-heart necklace James gave her, menaces Laura and questions her about her "lovers." Looking at her finger, Leland insinuates there is dirt underneath the nail. Sarah Palmer (Grace Zabriskie) pleads with her husband to leave Laura alone and Laura appears speechless with horror. Later, Leland sits on the edge of his bed rocking back and forth until he suddenly begins to weep (his original personality having re-emerged). He goes into his daughter's bedroom and tells her he loves her. After he is gone, Laura looks at a picture of an angel on her wall and asks if Leland is really BOB. Remembering the picture she received from Mrs. Chalfont that she left near the hedge, Laura goes outside to get it. After hanging it on her wall, she falls asleep. She dreams about entering the Black Lodge and about a ring. Suddenly, Cooper enters the room and we see the Man from Another Place. He tells Cooper that the Man from Another Place is "the arm", and he utters an Indian whooping sound. The Man from Another Place offers the ring to Laura, but Cooper warns her not to take it. Laura finds Annie Blackburn (Heather Graham) next to her in bed, covered in blood. Annie tells Laura to write in her diary that "the good Dale" (Cooper) is trapped in the Black Lodge and can't leave. Laura sees the ring in her hand and is frightened. Hearing the muffled cry of her mother, Laura goes to her bedroom door. She is suddenly in the painting. When she turns she sees herself sleeping peacefully in her bed. Laura awakens in the morning, and the ring is gone from her hand. Disturbed, she removes the painting from her wall. Meanwhile, Bobby, Leo Johnson (Eric DaRe), and Jacques Renault (Walter Olkewicz) discuss drug scores. Bobby first phones Leo asking to score more drugs, but Leo hangs up on him. Bobby then calls Jacques at the Roadhouse, who agrees to send someone to meet with him in "two days midnight at the sound of sawing wood." That evening, Laura is alone at home, dressed for a night out. Donna drops by, announcing that she wishes to accompany her, but Laura, annoyed, says she is not invited. Laura heads off alone to the Bang Bang Bar. As she is about to enter the bar, she encounters the Log Lady (Catherine E. Coulson), who compares the evil influences in Laura's life to a forest fire. Inside the bar, Jacques introduces Laura to two men. The group is about to leave for the Pink Room to have sex, but Donna shows up and the men in the group, impressed by her "audition" kiss, figure she's ready to party and invite her along. In the Pink Room, Laura discusses Teresa Banks' murder with Ronette Pulaski (Phoebe Augustine) while they both receive oral sex under the table. Ronette says that Teresa was blackmailing someone and planned to become rich that way. Laura sees one of Jacques' friends kissing Donna, who is sprawled on a table with her breasts exposed-- something snaps in Laura. She leaps to her feet in outrage, screaming at Donna not to wear her stuff, then yanks her jacket off of her drunken, oblivious friend, calling an end to the evening. The next morning, Donna awakens at home with no memory of the latter portion of the night due to the rufies their dates slipped into her beer. Laura tells Donna that she does not want Donna to become like her. Leland arrives to collect Laura and the sight of Laura and Donna talking triggers a memory of Ronette and Laura laughing on a bed together during their days turning tricks. Leland takes Laura to breakfast. On the way there, MIKE (Al Strobel), the one-armed man, shouts madly at Leland from his pick up truck during a traffic jam at the stoplight in town. Mike accuses Leland of stealing corn. He tells Laura: "The look on her face when it was opened. . . There was a stillness like the formica table top." He shouts at Leland: "the thread will be torn!" Showing Laura the ring, Mike attempts to tell her that her father is BOB, but both Leland and Laura scream, preventing her from hearing. Leland pulls into a gas station parking lot to gather his wits and recalls his affair with Teresa (in a long flashback sequence). After having set up a foursome with Teresa's friends, Leland fled in fear when he discovered Laura was one of them. This led to Teresa's discovering who her "John" really was. Leland is the man she was blackmailing. Back in the present, sensing a change in her father's behavior, Laura questions him about seeing him on the day she found BOB looking for the diary. Later that night, Laura realizes the ring she saw on the hand of the one-armed man was the same one from her dream. At the same time, Leland remembers killing Teresa. The next night, Laura and Bobby take cocaine in the woods, and Jacques sends a drug messenger (the Sherriff's deputy Howard) from Deer Meadow, carrying an enormous amount of cocaine. Howard takes out a gun intending to kill him, but Bobby's quicker on the draw-- he shoots the Deputy dead and futilely tries to bury him as Laura laughs, high as a kite. She keeps telling Bobby "You killed Mike!" until this appears to make some kind of sense to Bobby for reasons never fully explained. The following morning, James arrives at Laura's house on his motorcycle and expresses worry about Laura taking drugs. But she tells him off, and he rides away while Leland watches them from the living room window. That evening, Leland gives his wife valium to sedate her. She falls into a stuporous sleep (after seeing a white horse in her bedroom). Leland walks into the hallway to turn on the fan. BOB comes through Laura's window and begins to rape her. She realizes BOB has taken over her father. The next morning, distraught, Laura quietly warns Leland to stay away from her. Leland finally realizes that Laura knows. Upset over the realization her father is actually his alter ego BOB, Laura cannot concentrate at school. Laura later refuses sex with Bobby, and he finally realizes that Laura was using him to get cocaine, causing him to hand over his own stash, seemingly cutting their ties. Laura arrives home and goes to her bedroom where she sees that the angel in the painting on her wall has disappeared. High on coke, Laura is preparing to meet Leo and Jacques when she receives a phone call from James, who demands to meet with her. At 9:30 pm, James picks up Laura outside her house and rides away with her while Leland watches nearby. In the woods, Laura tells James "his Laura" is gone. Laura also blurts out that Bobby "killed a guy" two nights ago. James and Laura continue to ride around on his motorcycle, but Laura jumps off the bike while it is stopped at the red traffic light at the corner of Sparkwood and 21st Street. Screaming that she loves him, Laura runs away from James, and travels deeper into the woods. Laura meets Ronette, Jacques, and Leo, and they all drive in Leo's red Corvette to Jacques' cabin where they engage in an orgy as Leland watches from outside. Jacques wants to have hard sex and ties Laura up. Leland attacks Jacques outside, sneaking up behind him and knocking him out with a liquor bottle. Leo sees Jacques laying on the ground outside and flees in panic. Leland takes Laura and Ronette, both bound, to the train car. Meanwhile, the one-rmed man, Mike, realizes that BOB / Leland is about to kill again and chases after him. As Leland is tying Laura up a second time, she asks Leland if he is going to kill her. He does not answer. Leland places a mirror in front of her. She screams after seeing her reflection turn into BOB. BOB is real. He tells Laura that he wants her. Ronette prays. She breaks down, stating that she is not ready to die because she is "dirty". Suddenly an angel appears in the train car as all actions stop. The angel causes both Ronette and Laura's hands to become unbound. Hearing Mike outside begging to be let in, Ronette, now free, is able to help him open the door. When Leland sees Ronette trying to let him in, he knocks her unconscious and kicks her out of the train car. Mike is able to use this moment to throw in his ring. Laura, whose hands are also free now, dons the ring, preventing BOB from becoming her. Angered that he can't be her, BOB kills her as he promised by stabbing her repeatedly. Laura dies. Mike slips away. Leland, ignoring Ronette's unconcious body, drags Laura's body away from the train car. BOB/Leland places Laura's body in the lake. As her corpse drifts away, BOB / Leland enters the Black Lodge in the circle of small trees, where he encounters Mike and the Man from Another Place (who is seated at Mike's left side as the aforementioned "arm"). They tell BOB they want all their garmonbozia ("pain and sorrow"). BOB heals Leland's wound. Laura's body washes up on the lakeshore, where it is found by the Sheriff's department the following morning (in the very first scene of the TV series). In the final scene, Laura's well-dressed spirit later sits in the Black Lodge and notices Agent Cooper at her side; he has a hand on her shoulder. Laura looks deeply saddened until her own angel appears, and she begins to cry and then laugh. The film ends with Laura's face in white.

The film opens in a New York night club. The gothic rock band Bauhaus is onstage performing the song "Bela Lugosi's Dead." In the crowd are John and Miriam Blaylock (David Bowie, Catherine Deneuve). Stylishly dressed and predatory, they stalk the crowd and connect with a young couple (John Stephen Hill, Ann Magnuson). The couple takes them back to their home, where John and Miriam seduce them before viciously slashing their throats. John and Miriam are vampires, although not in any traditional sense; lacking fangs, they use ancient Egyptian pendants to cut open the jugulars of their victims. The center of their strange existence is Miriam. She is an immortal being, able to pass along her supernatural qualities to selected human beings that she chooses to be her lovers. However, her progeny are not truly immortal as she is, and sooner or later, usually after 300 years or so, they find themselves suddenly and rapidly getting old. However, the progeny are unable to die, but continue to live forever withered, in a fully conscious, vegetative state. Miriam packs their decaying, aging bodies in caskets that she keeps in the attic of her residence. In the 18th century, Miriam offered this gift of immortality to John, who eagerly accepted, as had all her previous lovers through the ages. Suddenly, John develops trouble sleeping, and starts aging at a rapid rate. Miriam is aware of the significance of this happening, and she goes looking for a famous gerontologist, Dr. Sarah Roberts (Susan Sarandon), desperately seeking her help for a cure for John's fast deterioration. She makes contact with Dr. Roberts, and through her psychic powers, finds out that the doctor is just guessing, and that her research is inconclusive. Therefore, John, as all her lovers before him, is doomed to extinction. John also attempts to meet with Dr. Roberts at her clinic, but she dismisses his claims as delusional and leaves him to sit in the waiting room, hoping that he will grow bored and leave. John ages decades within a few short hours, and when Sarah sees him later, she begs John to stay so she can examine him. But John refuses to speak to her, his hunger for blood nearly overpowering him and forcing him to leave in search of a victim. Driven by his bloodlust and desperation to reverse the aging process, John makes a kill out of young Alice (Beth Ehlers), a music student that he and Miriam are tutoring. Her blood does nothing to help John, and he eventually falls down a flight of stairs at the townhouse, his legs no longer able to support his own weight. Miriam carries John's withering body up to the attic and puts him in a casket, next to several other caskets containing her earlier lovers. Later on, when Dr. Roberts shows up at Miriam's door looking for John, Miriam sees in the doctor a replacement for John in her life; it is love at first sight for Miriam, and she immediately proceeds to seduce Sarah. Sarah is a willing participant in Miriam's seduction, but she doesn't know that Miriam has now transformed her into a vampire, just as she did to John and her other lovers. Lieutenant Allegrezza (Dan Hedaya) shows up at Miriam's house looking for Alice, and is immediately suspicious of Miriam, although he has no real proof of any wrongdoing. Meanwhile, Sarah begins to manifest symptoms of vampirism. She is ravenously hungry, but eating normal food makes her vomit. She also starts seeing Miriam everywhere she looks. Finally she confronts Miriam about what happened between them on that day, and Miriam vaguely states that she has given Sarah eternal life, and that they belong to one another now. Sarah rejects what Miriam has told her, but she does understand that something terrible has happened to her. Sarah and her partners at the clinic, including Sarah's boyfriend, Tom Haver (Cliff De Young), cannot find a cure for the change that is occurring in Sarah's blood, and in desperation Sarah returns to Miriam. Miriam arranges for Sarah to make her first kill, bringing back a male prostitute, but Sarah is unwilling to take a human life. Finally, Tom arrives at the townhouse looking for Sarah following her disappearance, and is surprised to find that Sarah is there. Miriam knows that Sarah's hunger is now beyond reason, and when she takes Tom to Sarah, Sarah kills him for his blood. Miriam is now convinced that she has found her new lover, and she tells Sarah that they will now share an eternity together. Sarah, however, is wracked with guilt over taking Tom's life, and she attempts suicide by cutting her own throat with Miriam's ankh as they kiss. Sarah's blood pours into Miriam's throat and then Sarah collapses. Miriam is horrified at what Sarah has done, but she dutifully carries Sarah's limp body into the attic to place her among her other desiccated lovers. This time, however, she finds her crumbling lovers now out of their coffins, waiting for her. The sudden intake of Sarah's blood has caused a change in Miriam. Suddenly released from Miriam's spell, the lovers crumble into dust as Miriam herself begins to wither. The film's conclusion shows Lieutenant Allegrezza returning to question Miriam, only to find that the townhouse is now mysteriously empty and up for sale, all of the luxurious furnishings in the home gone and the money funneled to the sleep clinic where Sarah, presumably missing, used to work. In the final shot, Sarah herself is seen living in a high-rise luxury apartment with a couple lovers, while Miriam, imprisoned in a coffin just as she did to her own lovers, screams for her release.

A humanoid space alien (David Bowie) plummets to planet Earth, landing in a lake in New Mexico. He drinks the water from the lake and thinks about his barren planet, where his wife and two children are dying of thirst. Frequent flashbacks by the alien show of his dying planet. Using the name Thomas Jerome Newton, the alien travels to New York City to speak to lawyer Oliver Farnsworth (Buck Henry). Farnsworth is amazed that Newton has nine basic patents. He will be able to earn $300 million within three years, but Newton tells Farnsworth that he needs more money, not explaining why. He enlists Farnsworth's help to build a great corporation, named World Enterprises. Newton explains that with World Enterprises playing fairly, the corporation would make some other corporation obsolete. Nathan Bryce (Rip Torn), a divorced Chicago chemistry professor, spends his free time seducing his young female students. He becomes fascinated with World Color's self-developing film, which can be purchased very inexpensively (free cameras are thrown in). He wonders who the reclusive owner Newton is and begins making inquiries. Using the alias 'Mr. Sussex', Newton travels to New Mexico. He checks into a local hotel where he meets Mary-Lou (Candy Clark) a maid who helps him when he becomes sick from a fast elevator ride. She becomes his constant companion and lover. She brings him a TV set and influences him to drink alcoholic beverages, partially gin. Eventually, Newton watches many television sets at once having become addicted and begins to drink gin incessantly. Still missing his family, he initiates a space program with all the money he has made in order to return to his home planet and to bring water to help his wife and children. Meanwhile, Farnsworth hires Bryce to come to New Mexico and work on the secret project space program that World Enterprises is funding. Bryce sets up his residence in a small cabin on the other side of the lake from Newton and Mary-Lou. He secretly takes X-rays of Newton and discovers that Newton's form is totally alien. Newton, who can see X-rays, confides in Bryce that he really is an alien. He says he has no intention of causing harm to Earthlings and only wants to help his dying world by sending some of Earth's water back to his planet for it to survive. Over the next year or so, the space project is taking too long. All Newton begins to do to drink and watch television. It is revealed that he has watched American TV for years on his home planet, but never guessed that it revealed nothing about the human condition. As he becomes more human, he feels his life and mission is futile. Newton's relationship with Mary-Lou begins to deteriorate when she demands more attention. He strips off his earthling guise, and she is terrified by his alien form. She can't make love to him anymore, although she continues to admit that she does love him. When Farnsworth bribes Mary-Lou to get away from Newton, she turns him down for she doesn't want money, she only wants "Tommy" as he is. Capitalist companies pressure Farnsworth to sell World Enterprises, but Farnsworth refuses. A little later, Farnsworth and his gay lover Trevor (Rick RIccardo) are killed when corporate hit-men throw them both from the window of Farnsworth's New York apartment. Newton completes the spaceship and attempts to take it on its maiden voyage amid intense press exposure. However, just before his scheduled take-off, he is seized and detained. The US government, which has apparently been told by Bryce that Newton is an alien, holds him captive in a locked luxury apartment, constructed deep within a hotel. During his stay, they keep him sedated with alcohol (to which he has become addicted) and continuously subject him to rigorous medical tests - notably one involving X-rays which causes the contact lenses he wears as part of his human disguise to permanently affix themselves to his eyes. Within that time, World Enterprises goes bankrupt. Bryce begins to work for Peters (Bernie Casey) the government agent who masterminded Newton's kidnapping. Toward the end of his years of captivity, he is visited again by Mary-Lou, who is now much older and whose looks have been ravaged by alcohol and time. They have mock-violent, playful sex that involves firing a gun with blanks, and afterwards occupy their time drinking and playing table tennis. Mary-Lou declares that she no longer loves him, while he says that he doesn't love her either. She leaves him. Eventually Newton discovers that his "prison," now derelict, is unlocked, and he leaves. Unable to return home to his planet, a broken and alcoholic Newton creates an album recording with alien messages, titled 'The Visitor', which he hopes will be broadcast via radio to his home planet (which his wife and the entire population may have already died from thirst). Bryce, who has since married Mary-Lou, buys a copy of the album and meets Newton at an outside restaurant in town. Newton is still rich and young looking despite the passage of many years. However, Newton has also fallen into depression and alcoholism and the film ends with an inebriated Newton passing out in his cafe chair.