After watching part 8 10 times or so, I am increasingly convinced that the Giant/the Fireman/??????? is breaking the fourth wall, and looking from the screen at US during the scene in what may be the white lodge. The alarm on the "bell" goes off, he comes into the shot, looks at the woman, and then turns towards us, perfectly framed in the center of the shot. Looking out. Then we get a close-up of him. He seems to be looking around the room I am sitting in, looking for something.
There is one precident for fourth-wall-breaking in TP. In the final episode of S2, as the doppelganger is chasing Dale to the exit, the doppelganger stops briefly, just before going through a set of curtains. And looks at us. And smiles. In what, for me, is the most chilling moment of the series.
I think of all the ways DL is figuratively looking out at us in TPTR- the moments it seems he is trying to get a rise out of us (floor-sweeping, anyone?). I think of the glass box, and Sam and Tracy on the couch, watching, and the experiment, in the ultimate fourth-wall-break.
What do you think? Does the giant, in that moment, know we are here, watching? Are we in the story?
Agreed to the extent that Lynch is cuing us to (i) be more aware of our active involvement/engagement in the viewing (knowing and understanding, rational and intuitive) experience, and (ii) to appreciate the his work isn't so much a comment on the everyday world but a (sometimes condensed, hyperbolic, bizarre, ideologically-loaded, simplified, exposition-heavy, obscure, subjective, inter-subjective) reminder of overlooked, repressed, mysterious aspects of our day-to-day existence.
Other ways in which Lynch/Frost break the fourth: excessive stylisation (Laura's appearance in Cole's door), Lynch's onscreen presence as the "puppeteer" (deputy chief, drawing the flame-horned-dog, talking about code (Tammy's fingers)), roadhouse band endings, extreme slow sequences (Candie and the fly/sustaining low-electricity-Cooper for so long). Sure we can list a few more?
Don't forget the The Search for the Zone website.
Fire walk with