You probably DO know Catherine, the Log Lady. She was an actress for stage and screen, a camera operator for John Cassavetes, and a frequent collaborator with a little auteur you may have heard of called David Lynch. She also played a signature character in Lynch’s seminal TV show, Twin Peaks. The final performance of her career is beautifully captured in the third season of the show, filmed 25 years after season two ended on one of the most infamous cliffhangers of all time. She get shte documentary treatment in Richard Green’s I Know Catherine, the Log Lady.
Sometimes, things fall together so perfectly that it feels pre-ordained. Catherine Coulson got her start in 1960s San Francisco, when she co-founded an acting troupe called The Circus. She met David Lynch working for him behind the camera on his nascent films. Lynch was an audio-visual magician, who assembled an indelible crew to birth what is arguably the most dynamic body of work to grace the large and small screens. Richard Green, who directed this documentary about Catherine’s life, played a character called The Magician in David Lynch’s 2001 masterpiece, Mulholland Dr.
Most know Catherine Coulson as Margaret Lanterman aka “The Log Lady”; a prescient oddball who traversed the cursed town of Twin Peaks, delivering cosmic messages transmitted through an ever-present log that only she could hear. But Coulson was also a very talented stage actor and camera operator, as well as a reliable caretaker for those she loved. Several people interviewed in I Know Catherine mention her penchant for taking in “wounded birds” and “stray dogs.” These birds and dogs were people, and some of them, sadly, were her romantic partners.
Richard Green knew Catherine, and, as a result, became a tertiary figure in Lynch’s social circle. He got the idea for his 2002 documentary, I Don’t Know Jack, at the 1996 memorial for the film’s subject: Eraserhead star Jack Nance. Nance was Catherine Coulson’s first husband, and Catherine was instrumental in corralling David for I Don’t Know Jack. How fitting, then, that Green could bookend the story with I Know Catherine, the Log Lady…
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