‘I Know Catherine, the Log Lady’ captures essence of Catherine E. Coulson

One aspect of “Twin Peaks” actor Catherine E. Coulson’s personality in particular breaks through in the new 117-minute documentary “I Know Catherine, The Log Lady,” playing at 7 p.m. May 10 at Seattle’s The Beacon. The film shows how Coulson connected people and productions, how she organized and got things done — to the point of producing her own death.

On Sept. 24, 2015, four days before her death from lung cancer, Coulson called an Ashland, Ore., mortuary.

“I’m in hospice,” she says in a voicemail recording that plays near the beginning of “I Know Catherine.” “I’m not sure anybody’s gotten ahold of you, so I’m just double-checking. I think I probably don’t have a whole lot longer so I’m trying to set things up a little bit.”

Death wasn’t the only production on Coulson’s mind in her final four days of life. She also produced her final performance, filming scenes in her living room as Margaret Lanterman (aka the Log Lady) for Showtime’s 2017 third and final season of “Twin Peaks.”

For “I Know Catherine” director Richard Green, there were multiple reasons to make a film about Coulson, whom he’d known since the early 1970s when both worked in San Francisco and Los Angeles theater productions.

In addition to her mysterious, ethereal and slightly kooky “Twin Peaks” role, Coulson starred on stage in a play written for her by “The Kentucky Cycle” Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Robert Schenkkan.

Green also sees Coulson as a trailblazer behind the scenes in Hollywood. In addition to working as an actor, including in 80 productions (over 22 seasons) at Ashland’s Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Coulson was one of the first women to work as a first assistant camera operator on a sci-fi spectacle, the 1982 film “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.”

“I Know Catherine” toggles between Coulson’s final days and historical, biographical details, including her ‘70s-era marriage to future “Twin Peaks” co-star Jack Nance, whose life Green chronicled in the 2002 documentary “I Don’t Know Jack.” Coulson was later married to an Ashland rabbi, and she had a daughter.

Green’s first interview for the documentary was a 90-minute conversation with “Twin Peaks” co-creator David Lynch in 2017. (Lynch died of emphysema in January.)

“He loved her, and he knows what it’s like when people really admire your work, when they know who you are,” Green says. “He experienced that, not that he craved it, but I think he enjoyed it, and he wanted that for Catherine.”

“I Know Catherine” includes interviews with “Twin Peaks” cast members Kyle MacLachlan, Grace Zabriskie, Kimmy Robertson, Dana Ashbrook and Michael Horse.

The last act of the film proves the most fascinating and intimate, the part of Coulson’s story that made Green want to make the film.

“She dies four days after playing a character dying of the same disease,” Green says. “To stay with something beyond your physical health, has this ever happened before?”

Green wanted to tell the story of those final days, Coulson’s final production, not just for himself but also so he could share the story with Lynch, who wasn’t present in Coulson’s home for filming. Lynch directed the scenes remotely from Los Angeles, appearing on a laptop after Coulson led her friends in a scramble to hire a crew to come to Ashland to film Log Lady scenes on Lynch’s behalf.

“That’s what’s all so extraordinary: From her room, sick with cancer, heavy on drugs, she was able to pull all these elements together, not because it was David Lynch and we’re going to do this funny thing and there’s a lot of money here, but because she had built these relationships in Oregon for 22 years (with people who helped make it happen),” Green says. “It’s the relationships, it’s the caring, it’s the commitment to being there for each other, which, again, is a very theatrical thing. You can’t do the play until everybody’s there. Somebody doesn’t show up with a prop, it can ruin the whole second act. You really need each other.”

Born in Illinois, Coulson grew up in Anaheim, Calif., but ultimately settled in Ashland.

“I just spent four days there, and I couldn’t walk down the street without someone coming up to me and thanking me for this documentary, and it’s because they loved Catherine so much. She was such an important part of this community,” Green says. “She was the rabbi’s wife, so she had (to do) community outreach constantly.”

Coulson’s presence in a community got reflected in her “Twin Peaks” role, too.

“Kyle MacLachlan talks about the Log Lady being a shaman. (‘Twin Peaks’ co-creator) Mark Frost talks about her being like the Oracle of Delphi,” Green says. “We all know people who are different, who see the world differently, the town weirdo who you don’t really know that much about. David and Mark recognized the power of that, and they brought us into that person’s life so that we’re fascinated. She’s that aunt who’s strange but warm and wonderful and can be interesting and who you don’t want to speak to in the wrong way or you might get your head bit off. Once people saw that character, there was an instantaneous recognition of that part of us, of that part of our community.”