Xixax Film Forum

The Director's Chair => David Lynch => Topic started by: ShanghaiOrange on June 02, 2003, 04:07:20 PM

Title: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: ShanghaiOrange on June 02, 2003, 04:07:20 PM
It was boring. :(

I'm still gonna watch the rest of his stuff though. :(
Title: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: Cecil on June 02, 2003, 04:24:11 PM
is blue velvet the only lynch film youve seen?

its good that youre not writing him off so easily
Title: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: modage on June 02, 2003, 05:14:18 PM
wow. i thought blue velvet was probably my favorite lynch film, although im not a big fan.
Title: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: godardian on June 03, 2003, 06:11:01 PM
It's hard for me to imagine finding it boring. I think it's rich, strange, and riveting.
Title: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: Gold Trumpet on June 03, 2003, 07:15:21 PM
I'm one of the few people here who really doesn't like this film. I wouldn't call it boring, but I would say it was rather too tidy ala movie land for my own satisfaction. It took quite a devastating topic and dragged it along a plot that only brings it to a element for another story, and an element that does no justice to the severity of the topic. I kept feeling I was watching another Hitchcock movie where some sort of disorder or situation was rounded up into a typical genre with typical results and not really searched anything of interest at all. I wish Lynch would have made this film around the time of Mulholland Dr. because I believe he has grown immensely since Blue Velvet and the results would have been much different.

~rougerum
Title: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: SHAFTR on June 04, 2003, 02:15:10 AM
I also didn't like this movie.  I've seen it twice, once before I had much of an interest in film and once a few weeks ago.  I tend to agree with Roger Ebert with this film.

//http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/ebert_reviews/1986/09/108789.html
Title: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: ono on June 04, 2003, 11:24:15 AM
Ditto.  I really hated Blue Velvet, to be blunt.  I mean, it sounded promising at the beginning, but like the other Lynch movie I've seen (Mulholland Drive), it fell apart at the end.

However, I can admire Lynch as a great filmmaker.  But when it comes to narrative talent, Lynch is severely lacking.

While I agree wholeheartedly with Ebert's review of Blue Velvet (posted by SHAFTR), I disagree with his take on Mulholland Drive.  I can appreciate its craft, but totally hate what Lynch did with his characters, and with the third act of the film.  See James Berardinelli's Mulholland Drive review (http://movie-reviews.colossus.net/movies/m/mulholland_drive.html), which sums up how I felt about that (which is odd, because Berardinelli is one critic who I don't normally agree with).  Ebert is one I normally think is brilliant, sans his thoughts on a few films that come to mind in particular: Mulholland Drive, Boys Don't Cry, Fight Club, Donnie Darko, Russian Ark, Saving Private Ryan, and Titanic (not to go off on a tangent or anything :-P).
Title: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: SoNowThen on June 04, 2003, 11:39:32 AM
Yes, I'd tend to agree. I really disliked Blue Velvet. But I liked Hopper in it, he was great. Lynch's stuff (particularily his endings) doesn't really work for me. But I still have to admit there is a lot of brilliance. I enjoyed Lost Highway for the most part, and I'd like to see it again. I loved Elephant Man. I was gonna write off Mulholland Drive, but due to so much good exposure here, I might give it another chance.

But yeah, like you guys, I pretty much agreed with Ebert.
Title: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: godardian on June 04, 2003, 01:01:55 PM
Ebert's assessment of Blue Velvet is one of the reasons I don't like him. It seemed totally baseless to me. Was he trying to be chivalrous, or something? The video clip from Siskel & Ebert is included on the Blue Velvet special-edition disc, and I think he just comes off like an ass with a fifth-rate intellect.
Title: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: SoNowThen on June 04, 2003, 01:08:21 PM
Haha, you really don't like that guy, hey?

I've never seen the video, I just read his review on his website, right after I watched the movie. All I could think of was that the Scooby-Doo cheesy mystery bits just didn't gel with the hardcore psycho-sexual stuff. Could have been a good juxtaposition, but for me, just didn't work. And that's kinda what Ebert said.
Title: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: godardian on June 04, 2003, 01:23:28 PM
Quote from: SoNowThenHaha, you really don't like that guy, hey?

I've never seen the video, I just read his review on his website, right after I watched the movie. All I could think of was that the Scooby-Doo cheesy mystery bits just didn't gel with the hardcore psycho-sexual stuff. Could have been a good juxtaposition, but for me, just didn't work. And that's kinda what Ebert said.

I think Lynch is using bits and pieces of old movie convention to explore ideas of consciousness and dreams. Blue Velvet is to, say, Shadow of a Doubt what Wild at Heart is to The Wizard of Oz. He's really, really not a narrative filmmaker in the least. He may abuse/exploit/subvert "narrative" conventions for his own ends, but if a narrative that gels in the usual way is what you go in looking for, you're not going to find it. His films make a different kind of sense, and they do so perfectly.

Edit:  Ebert's televised review of the film made it clear that his response was based on prudish pseudo-chivalry. He felt bad for Isabella Rosselini/her character for being naked. It was completely arbitrary. Really poor reviewing, even for television.
Title: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: ono on June 04, 2003, 01:36:03 PM
I really want to see Ebert's televised interview before commenting on that further, but for me, I don't think the treatment of Rossellini was the primary issue Ebert took with the film.  That was just one of many things wrong with it.  What it all comes down to is narrative, really.  If a film is advertised as such, it should be.  Not that I have anything against more abstract films, it's just that Lynch's style in the two films I've seen is really annoying.

Mulholland Drive and Blue Velvet were both hypnotic and mesmorizing for the first two acts, but they fell apart, because Lynch draws on his own experiences and dreams, throws them into his films, and expects that to be a sufficient way to tie things up, when really, we're wanting not so much a valid explanation or justification, or even a closure, but simply something that gels.

Some writers say stories should have a beginning, middle, and an end, not necessarily in that order.  That may or not be sufficient, depending on who you ask.  I think something can be accomplished in film even eschewing that.  But Lynch was just careless, and that's what I believe Ebert is getting at.  And if not, I know at least I sure am.

EDIT: Lynch's dreams and experiences don't mean anything to us, and he shouldn't expect them to.  Perhaps he should save those for his paintings, or at least gather his thoughts to make the images he's found in his subconscious more relevant to what he's discussing.  Lynch's films (again, the two I've seen) don't really have a point other than to provoke you.  And that, too, is careless.
Title: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: SoNowThen on June 04, 2003, 01:41:59 PM
Yeah, I've always had some issues with a certain kind of narrative breaking. I guess surrealism, in a way. Yet I like what Bunuel I've seen. But with Lynch (and I'm certainly not getting down on him, it's just not my kinda cinema), I feel like it's such an easy way out to say "I break trad narrative, I show dream states". Because really, dreams have no rules, so you can jack off for 2 hours and do whatever you want story-wise, then say "well, it's a dream, so it doesn't have to make sense". It's just not something I value all that highly. But it's quite possible that I will one day get into it, and just love it.
Title: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: SHAFTR on June 04, 2003, 02:02:27 PM
I think the difference between Blue Velvet and Mulholland Dr to me is the viewings of the films.

I've seen Blue Velvet twice and I didn't enjoy either viewing.

Mulholland Dr, I've seen 2 or 3 times and I've enjoyed each viewing.  I didn't "get it" but I enjoyed it.

I've seen Wild at Heart and I cannot understand how it won the Palme d'Or.  I was entertained by the film but I didn't think it was very good.  It is like if Starship Troopers (a film I love) won  the Palme d'Or.

Anyways, I don't hate Lynch (haven't seen enough of his films to really comment) but I'm not much of a fan.

EDIT:  I've seen the clip from the show on the DVD.  I can say that I didn't become an Ebert fan until I heard him lecture/met him and I started reading this reviews.  I don't think the show does his reviews justice.
Title: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: Gold Trumpet on June 04, 2003, 03:16:10 PM
Godardian, since I trust your reasoning and are the main defender of Blue Velvet here, I will aim discussion to you. I was kinda confused by your reasoning of how what I pointed out as conventions attributed to the film are something of excellence for you. I don't mind if you think it is excellence, but I fully didn't get the reasoning to connect the dots on why you think such.

If Blue Velvet is to Shadow of a Doubt (which I accept as a comparison) then since I didn't see much breakage from one to the other, then how it is an accomplished work? And in exploring a subject, one of the things I always felt about Hitchock's work is that it exists for the time of filmmaking in that it always skates on the outside of a subject and with the indepedent films of the 70s and such, there was an ability to explore more in not just a  more realistic way, but a more effective way. Thus with Blue Velvet, I feel the same restraints Hitchcock had in looking at his subject to really get it effective to survive to this day as any work made today. Blue Velvet distinctinely feels like homage while bringing in Lynch's own aethestics where Lynch isn't doing a jump off instead into new areas and structures.

~rougerum
Title: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: godardian on June 04, 2003, 04:56:14 PM
Quote from: OnomatopoeiaI really want to see Ebert's televised interview before commenting on that further, but for me, I don't think the treatment of Rossellini was the primary issue Ebert took with the film.  That was just one of many things wrong with it.  What it all comes down to is narrative, really.  If a film is advertised as such, it should be.  Not that I have anything against more abstract films, it's just that Lynch's style in the two films I've seen is really annoying.

Mulholland Drive and Blue Velvet were both hypnotic and mesmorizing for the first two acts, but they fell apart, because Lynch draws on his own experiences and dreams, throws them into his films, and expects that to be a sufficient way to tie things up, when really, we're wanting not so much a valid explanation or justification, or even a closure, but simply something that gels.

Some writers say stories should have a beginning, middle, and an end, not necessarily in that order.  That may or not be sufficient, depending on who you ask.  I think something can be accomplished in film even eschewing that.  But Lynch was just careless, and that's what I believe Ebert is getting at.  And if not, I know at least I sure am.

EDIT: Lynch's dreams and experiences don't mean anything to us, and he shouldn't expect them to.  Perhaps he should save those for his paintings, or at least gather his thoughts to make the images he's found in his subconscious more relevant to what he's discussing.  Lynch's films (again, the two I've seen) don't really have a point other than to provoke you.  And that, too, is careless.

I think it's wrong to say that Lynch is putting anything "personal" into his films, or that what he puts there doesn't mean anything to "us" (speak for yourself).

I found both Blue Velvet and Mulholland Dr. to be very moving, especially the latter. I think Lynch uses archetypes- both cinematic and cultural (which boils down to Jungian, I guess, though I hate to use that word) to get at emotions, and to explore themes of innocence and corruption.

I think a lot of these complaints have to do with frustration at not being able to approach Lynch's films in a terribly literal way and come up with anything satisfactory. You really need to be able to associate in symbolic ways, to "read" the hermetic semiotic structure of them. It's not that difficult, but it's something I guess people are averse to, for some reason. Mulholland Dr. and Blue Velvet both make perfect sense to me. I personally don't think Lynch goes for provocation, in either form or content. Not nearly to the extent that, say, Scorsese does. I think his goal is to move you. He has a beautifully intricate and complex way of doing that, which I really appreciate.

Oddly, though, I don't like Lost Highway, for reasons that have more to do with its slickness and easiness (it has the look and feel of a Marilyn Manson video, which is NOT to my liking) than with any of the other things we're talking about here.
Title: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: Gold Trumpet on June 04, 2003, 09:45:36 PM
I never really considered Blue Velvet of the mesmerizing kind of work like Muholland Dr. simply because the structure of Blue Velvet feels so typical, typical that Godardian is able to give a very famous movie that Blue Velvet is in relation to. And in the typical structure, the film only goes so far into the subject. Muholland Dr. on the other hand, has no major identifiable structure at all that can categorize it and it simply acts as a dream of sorts, where things come in and out of curiosity that may lead the viewer to think he can complete the puzzle, but really can't. Blue Velvet feels like it operating on a typical level and is able to show a controversial subject in that light even if it is not the most fufilling or mature considering how thought out and wonderful Muholland Dr. is.

~rougerum
Title: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: godardian on June 04, 2003, 10:09:14 PM
Quote from: The Gold TrumpetMuholland Dr. on the other hand, has no major identifiable structure at all that can categorize it and it simply acts as a dream of sorts, where things come in and out of curiosity that may lead the viewer to think he can complete the puzzle, but really can't.

~rougerum

I'm not sure the structure you describe accurately sums up Mulholland Dr., but it does The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. I don't think saying one film reminds you in ways of others means that the first film isn't original or unique. I prefer the word "unique" because, in my opinion, no story is unique. There are, in fact, a very limited number of human stories. In fact, all stories we listen to and tell each other can probably be found in Greek literature and the bible. I think Lynch has his very own distinctive style and sensibility, and that's all storytelling is: The screening of some already-existing narrative through a distinct, specific sensibility/style.

Read what my avatar depicts for further insights into the idea of the author as, in the end, the shaper rather than the creator of any given text. This includes any text- in music, in painting, in literature, in cinema- that can be  shaped.
Title: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: ono on June 05, 2003, 11:33:24 AM
Quote from: godardianI think it's wrong to say that Lynch is putting anything "personal" into his films, or that what he puts there doesn't mean anything to "us"
Quote from: Roger EbertHe (Lynch) told me, for example, that the scene of Rossellini naked in the night was inspired by his childhood: "When I was little, my brother and I were outdoors late one night, and we saw a naked woman come walking down the street toward us in a dazed state, crying. I have never forgotten that moment." What about the scenes in which a woman finds she loves sadomasochistic abuse more than her own family?
I should also go on to say that somewhere (I forget where) Lynch was quoted as saying he had this fantasy as a boy about cracking a murder mystery while hiding in a closet.  Hence, the all-too-neat plot tie-up where he (oh, EXCUSE ME, Jeffrey) guns down Frank after hiding in Dorothy's apartment one last time.

But what does that mean to the audience?  Nothing.  Here is one place where we expect Lynch's creativity to shine, but instead he opts for the conventional only to satisfy his boyhood fantasy.

Quote from: Roger Ebert, in his review of 8½ Women,At two times in the film, father and son watch Fellini's "8 1/2," particularly the scene where the hero gathers all of the women in his life into the same room and tries to tame and placate them. After the second viewing, the father asks the son, "How many film directors make films to satisfy their sexual fantasies?" "Most of them," his son replies. This one for sure.
And Lynch, too, I'm sure.

Quote from: godardian(speak for yourself).
I did.  ;)

Quote from: godardianI found both Blue Velvet and Mulholland Dr. to be very moving, especially the latter.
How?

Quote from: godardianI think Lynch uses archetypes- both cinematic and cultural (which boils down to Jungian, I guess, though I hate to use that word) to get at emotions, and to explore themes of innocence and corruption.
Ah, but using archetypes is easy; anyone can do it.  One thing I can concede to is that Lynch did it exceptionally well in Mulholland Drive.  No examples are needed for anyone whose seen the film, and if I recount them, it will just give me a false sense of respect for the film.  Because as Ebert said in his review of Blue Velvet:

Quote from: Roger EbertAs an experienced and clever film critic, I even know how to write fashionable praise about the film - how to interpret the director's message, how to show I am bright enough to understand his subtleties. I can even rationalize his extremes and explain how only philistines will dislike the work.

I know how to write that kind of review, but damn it all, I would be reviewing the movie's style and ignoring its lost soul.
Did I mention how much I love Ebert?  No?  Well, I love Ebert.  ;)

His subtleties, being in this case, in Mulholland Drive where Lynch uses archetypes UP THE YIN YANG, but they don't add up to anything.  And anyone can throw in a bunch of archetypes, elevate their frequencies, and execute parodies of them that ring so true they could be substituted for the real thing.  But still, all you're left with is this empty feeling because there is a lost soul here that is apparent in both of these movies, just like Ebert said (of the former, but not the latter, sadly).

To me, it's almost like after hating Lynch for all his career, Ebert finally gave up, and said "alright, you win, I concede, you can have your loosely structured mess of a movie, and finally I'll analyze it positively for once.  Now, how many stars did you want?"

Quote from: godardianI think a lot of these complaints have to do with frustration at not being able to approach Lynch's films in a terribly literal way and come up with anything satisfactory. You really need to be able to associate in symbolic ways, to "read" the hermetic semiotic structure of them.
hermetic: impervious or sealed off against outside influences
semiotic: of or relating to semantics

Do you just like using big words to make yourself sound smart?  And I'm not saying this to be rude, or facetious, or anything.  That just seemed really unnecessarily condescending.

No film lives in a vacuum.  For Lynch to expect us to allow his work to exist in a vacuum is unrealistic and disrespectful to his audience.

Quote from: godardianIt's not that difficult, but it's something I guess people are averse to, for some reason. Mulholland Dr. and Blue Velvet both make perfect sense to me.
I think we all have to draw the line somewhere.  Consider this potential conversation:

Me: It's not normal.
You: Well, that's good!
Me: Why?
You: Because it makes sense, and you have to understand that to get it, and if you don't get it, you're not in tune to his channel, his wavelength, of thought.  And therefore you're just stupid.

That conversation is just silly.  There is another argument: David Lynch is insane.  There is a fucking hilarious web site floating around IMDb.com that gets posted whenever Lynch comes up.  The guy seems relatively anti-social and somewhat crazy himself, but his rant on Lynch had some truly valid points on that.  "I liked the movie but I didn't get it" seems to be the #1 comment on Lynch.

It's like some of the pictures I've read about that Andy Warhol made primarily in the 60s (haven't seen any yet, as they, too, are rare).  They made no sense, but were deemed cool by countercultures on that merit alone.

Quote from: godardianI personally don't think Lynch goes for provocation, in either form or content.
How can you watch Mulholland Drive and say Lynch didn't try to provoke you?  All it was was one provocation after another.

He sets up this mystery narrative where he gets you to identify with the "heroine" (and I use that term loosely), and then two-thirds of the way through when things just start to get interesting, and you feel as if it's going to be wrapped up ingeniously (I loved the Silencio! scene), Lynch takes his little Snow Globe of a movie, turns it over, shakes it up, and throws it up against the wall, smashing it to bits.  It turns into this simple, simmering, jaded lover's quarrel with the two heroines dancing around topless.

And there's all this amazing, spooky, archetypal imagery in the story (the old woman hobo, the midget exec, the cowboy, the detectives) that never gets tied in with any explanation other than "it's all part of this grand death dream").  And then, to make matters worse, we're subjected to her suicide, her decaying corpse, and one of the freakiest images I've ever seen in film, the image of those cockroach-sized elderly people - and what they had to do with the film, other than them being this girl's grandparents, perhaps, no one except Lynch will know for sure.

All Lynch succeeded in doing was pissing me off and freaking me out.  Hence, provoking me to hate his film for pulling the rug out from under it.

The thing that really bugs me about this, is I can see Lynch's genius just waiting to get out, yet he still hasn't done it, because hasn't matured yet, and he still enjoys playing tricks on the audience instead of connecting with them.

Quote from: godardianNot nearly to the extent that, say, Scorsese does. I think his goal is to move you. He has a beautifully intricate and complex way of doing that, which I really appreciate.
I never thought I'd hear Lynch compared to Scorsese.  Although, they both seem rather one-note oriented.

Quote from: godardianOddly, though, I don't like Lost Highway, for reasons that have more to do with its slickness and easiness (it has the look and feel of a Marilyn Manson video, which is NOT to my liking) than with any of the other things we're talking about here.
Haven't seen Lost Highway.  I will when I can.  The draw is always there for Lynch films, because no matter how much I may despise what he does with his characters, and his narrative, I know I will always get something unique.
Title: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: SoNowThen on June 05, 2003, 11:54:28 AM
I agree with pretty much everything you brought up there because those are the same problems I have with Lynch.

But one thing: Godardian talking about the hermetic semiotic structure is right on the money. That phrase makes perfect sense. To like Lynch you must read the film on his own terms, and not based on the traditional narrative of regular Hollywood films. Hence, a closed-in reading based on those symbols/themes/techniques that he wishes to express in a completely unique way for this particular film, and his body of work as a whole. I don't get his body of work, but I can respect it.
Title: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: ShanghaiOrange on June 05, 2003, 03:50:02 PM
The problem with Blue Velvet: it didn't have a hook.

The only thing I liked was the Double Ed character, but he only had two scenes. :(
Title: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: Gold Trumpet on June 05, 2003, 05:35:18 PM
Godardian, I understand what you mean that we are limited by stories to tell and such, but I'm not talking about that really. The stories we are limited by are just the general ones and in movies, two different movies with different structures can be telling the same story really under it all. The coloring in of the text is where you can find ambiguilty and such that can not be seen as a reduction to where you took it from and such. I don't mind that Lynch takes a particular style, but I really don't believe Lynch's own purposes for his film really can be achieved well in just taking Hitchcock's style to his own. I feel Lynch is trying to show a subject and transform it into the one of dream like film where the movement and mood of the film over take the viewer. Instead, I felt the movie confined to the specifically bare searching of a subject that Hitchcock's structure had because at the end of the day, Hitchcock was making thrillers only. I wanted Lynch to open up more in the film and provide a story that could explore the subject more in a story with more freedom. I have nothing against using Hitchcock's classic structure for your own play in ways, if you can keep it some creationism of your own, but Blue Velvet feels like a missplaced attempt because it is a film that in its subject, it must move more freely than just work in one of the most common and basic structures in all of film.

~rougerum
Title: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: godardian on June 05, 2003, 08:56:55 PM
Quote from: Onomatopoeia
Quote from: godardianI think it's wrong to say that Lynch is putting anything "personal" into his films, or that what he puts there doesn't mean anything to "us"
Quote from: Roger EbertHe (Lynch) told me, for example, that the scene of Rossellini naked in the night was inspired by his childhood: "When I was little, my brother and I were outdoors late one night, and we saw a naked woman come walking down the street toward us in a dazed state, crying. I have never forgotten that moment." What about the scenes in which a woman finds she loves sadomasochistic abuse more than her own family?
I should also go on to say that somewhere (I forget where) Lynch was quoted as saying he had this fantasy as a boy about cracking a murder mystery while hiding in a closet.  Hence, the all-too-neat plot tie-up where he (oh, EXCUSE ME, Jeffrey) guns down Frank after hiding in Dorothy's apartment one last time.

But what does that mean to the audience?  Nothing.  Here is one place where we expect Lynch's creativity to shine, but instead he opts for the conventional only to satisfy his boyhood fantasy.

That doesn't mean anything to me. I think the scene works on its own. The only way it would be detrimental is if you needed to know that it was supposedly based on Lynch to tell what it was. It could be out of anyone's nightmares; it's a scene of tension. To boil it down semiotically: "The innocent protagonist is trapped and in danger of being immersed in an element not his own." And then there's the voyeuristic aspect of looking out from your covert vantage point.

Quote from: Onomatopoeia
Quote from: godardian(speak for yourself).
I did.  ;)

No. You said "us," as if you were speaking for some imaginary, incomprehending audience.

Quote from: Onomatopoeia
Quote from: godardianI found both Blue Velvet and Mulholland Dr. to be very moving, especially the latter.
How?

Naomi Watts as both Diane Selwyn and Betty Elms (obviously an idealized rendition of Diane) was so beautifully fragile and crushed. To me, it was a very sad movie about dreams and the disappointment of reality, which ties in so wonderfully, perfectly with the very core of cinema.

Quote from: Onomatopoeia
Quote from: godardianI think Lynch uses archetypes- both cinematic and cultural (which boils down to Jungian, I guess, though I hate to use that word) to get at emotions, and to explore themes of innocence and corruption.
Ah, but using archetypes is easy; anyone can do it.  

I thoroughly disagree. It takes a great deal of skill to arrange archetypes in a way that promotes tension, interest, and empathy. That is, in fact, my definition of storytelling itself, in any medium; that's exactly what each and every storyteller does. Not "anyone" has that skill. I think Lynch has it an in extraordinarly unique and effective way.


Quote from: godardianI think a lot of these complaints have to do with frustration at not being able to approach Lynch's films in a terribly literal way and come up with anything satisfactory. You really need to be able to associate in symbolic ways, to "read" the hermetic semiotic structure of them.

Quote from: Onomatopoeiahermetic: impervious or sealed off against outside influences
semiotic: of or relating to semantics

Do you just like using big words to make yourself sound smart?  And I'm not saying this to be rude, or facetious, or anything.  That just seemed really unnecessarily condescending.

That's special-rich coming from Onomatopoeia[/i][/u].

Quote from: OnomatopoeiaFor Lynch to expect us to allow his work to exist in a vacuum is unrealistic and disrespectful to his audience.

Translation: "For Lynch to expect any effort from the audience, or any use of their imaginations, is just too much to ask. The movie should do the thinking for us."

Quote from: Onomatopoeia
Quote from: godardianI personally don't think Lynch goes for provocation, in either form or content.
How can you watch Mulholland Drive and say Lynch didn't try to provoke you?  All it was was one provocation after another.

Just because you felt provoked doesn't mean that was the filmmaker's intention.


Quote from: OnomatopoeiaAll Lynch succeeded in doing was pissing me off and freaking me out.  Hence, provoking me to hate his film for pulling the rug out from under it.

I thought it came together beautifully, myself. Not in any literal-minded way, of course, but in its themes, which are emotional and subconscious. I was very, very satifsied. I love the ending. I can't believe anyone thinks he was being mean and trying to destroy narrative. He was subverting/exploiting narrative to give a greater, more resonant kind of pleasure.

You and Ebert- who can try to ride Pauline Kael's coattails all he wants but will never be 1/10 the writer she was, much as I disagree with many of her opinions- can try to cover for your doggedly literal minds all you want. I still say Lynch is a genius and it's just lack of imagination that causes people not to "get" it. [/b]
Title: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: ono on June 06, 2003, 12:03:58 AM
Quote from: godardianThat doesn't mean anything to me. I think the scene works on its own. The only way it would be detrimental is if you needed to know that it was supposedly based on Lynch to tell what it was. It could be out of anyone's nightmares; it's a scene of tension. To boil it down semiotically: "The innocent protagonist is trapped and in danger of being immersed in an element not his own." And then there's the voyeuristic aspect of looking out from your covert vantage point.
Translation: Lynch is living vicariously through Kyle MacLachlan's character because of something he thought up as a little boy, and instead of being imaginative like we know he's capable of being, he chooses to save it for moments where imagination is of no great benefit.

Quote from: godardian
Quote from: Onomatopoeia
Quote from: godardian(speak for yourself).
I did.  ;)

No. You said "us," as if you were speaking for some imaginary, incomprehending audience.
No, I said "us," meaning the open-minded audience who refuses to succumb to Lynch's trickery.  You added yourself to that group.

Quote from: godardianNaomi Watts as both Diane Selwyn and Betty Elms (obviously an idealized rendition of Diane) was so beautifully fragile and crushed. To me, it was a very sad movie about dreams and the disappointment of reality, which ties in so wonderfully, perfectly with the very core of cinema.
Can't argue with you there...

Quote from: godardian
Quote from: Onomatopoeia
Quote from: godardianI think Lynch uses archetypes- both cinematic and cultural (which boils down to Jungian, I guess, though I hate to use that word) to get at emotions, and to explore themes of innocence and corruption.
Ah, but using archetypes is easy; anyone can do it.  
I thoroughly disagree. It takes a great deal of skill to arrange archetypes in a way that promotes tension, interest, and empathy. That is, in fact, my definition of storytelling itself, in any medium; that's exactly what each and every storyteller does. Not "anyone" has that skill. I think Lynch has it an in extraordinarly unique and effective way.
Storytelling is not just arranging and defining archetypes.  It's introducing concepts that haven't even been though of before, and molding them into elements that gel into a coherent narrative.  Lynch either can't or simply refuses to do this, as if he's the "cool kid" for rebelling.

Quote from: godardian
Quote from: Onomatopoeiahermetic: impervious or sealed off against outside influences
semiotic: of or relating to semantics

Do you just like using big words to make yourself sound smart?  And I'm not saying this to be rude, or facetious, or anything.  That just seemed really unnecessarily condescending.

That's special-rich coming from Onomatopoeia[/i][/u].
Umm... OK, you can't think of anything to actually address what I said, so you insult my screenname?  Real mature.  For one, "onomatopoeia" is hardly a complex word.  It may be long, but elementary school children learn what it is really fast, once they're able to comprehend it.  I chose it because I love the word, it's fun, fun-sounding and conjures images of ping-pong's whizzing by (for one), or maybe those campy old 60s Batman episodes where the fights happen and the punches are superimposed with POW! or WHAM! or THUD!  Don't get me started on your screenname.  People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.  ;)

Quote from: godardian
Quote from: OnomatopoeiaFor Lynch to expect us to allow his work to exist in a vacuum is unrealistic and disrespectful to his audience.
Translation: "For Lynch to expect any effort from the audience, or any use of their imaginations, is just too much to ask. The movie should do the thinking for us."
This is exactly what all Lynch supporters fall back on when confronted about Lynch's laziness.  I love using my imagination and thinking about films, trying to dissect them to find hidden "stuff" (for lack of a better word).  But you miss one thing: in Mulholland Drive, there's nothing to think about.  At least in a film such as Fight Club or Magnolia there are a lot of things to think about, subtle moments that make the films stand out, and puzzle that can be put together.  But with Mulholland Drive, you can't do that because there is no solution.

It's like pop art; like a Jackson Pollock from his later years, where he just spattered shit on a canvas and called it art, but anyone could have done it, and therefore it's not art.  Art takes skill.  Jackson Pollock had skill, which was evident in his early works.  Lynch has skill, and most intelligent people can see that.  But instead of using it, he eschews that skill for silly tricks that again, alienate the audience and allows other film snobs to condescend to the ones who refuse to bow to the trick.

Quote from: godardianJust because you felt provoked doesn't mean that was the filmmaker's intention.
And it doesn't mean it wasn't.  Next...

Quote from: godardian
Quote from: OnomatopoeiaAll Lynch succeeded in doing was pissing me off and freaking me out.  Hence, provoking me to hate his film for pulling the rug out from under it.
I thought it came together beautifully, myself. Not in any literal-minded way, of course, but in its themes, which are emotional and subconscious. I was very, very satifsied. I love the ending. I can't believe anyone thinks he was being mean and trying to destroy narrative. He was subverting/exploiting narrative to give a greater, more resonant kind of pleasure.
Call it what you want, but I call a spade a spade, myself.  You can attach any label you want to it because Lynch left it open-ended in a bad, sloppy way which allows you to do so, not in a way that involves a few intelligent interpretations, but one that involves way too numerous messy ones for any of them to fit perfectly.  Note how anyone and everyone who talks about the film has an interpretation of their own.  They all make sense in their own way, but they always leave out or don't account for some element (usually the role the key and blue box play in the movie).  It is because it's a broken puzzle, a jigsaw puzzle where some of the pieces are missing, broken, or deformed.  I myself will try to revisit Mulholland Drive on my own and see what I can make of it.  But I know I won't be too successful, not because of my mind -- it's as good as the majority of other film-minded people -- but because of the structure of the film itself.

Ebert did a shot-by-shot study of the film with a bunch of film geeks and wrote about it in his 2003 Move Yearbook.  It, along with his interview with David Lynch were both riveting and illuminating.  Lynch even talked about the film, had a chance to clarify some things, but didn't.  And the ten clues given on the DVD don't help worth shit.  Read: they tried to pound Mulholland Drive into submission, but finally found a film that they couldn't do that to.  Why?  The incoherent images.  You take any set of images, you can tie them to a story in some way.  But that's because the threads are already there.  With Mulholland Drive, no threads are there, because Lynch didn't even bother to put them there.  He compares films to music, or to a duck, and while I respect greatly those analogies, because, yes, I can see how it'd work, Mulholland Drive is ONE FUCKED UP DUCK.

Quote from: godardianYou and Ebert- who can try to ride Pauline Kael's coattails all he wants but will never be 1/10 the writer she was, much as I disagree with many of her opinions- can try to cover for your doggedly literal minds all you want. I still say Lynch is a genius and it's just lack of imagination that causes people not to "get" it.
Oh, COME ON!  That's one of the most immature things I've ever read.  You insulted (with faulty logic, mind you) me, Ebert, and Kael all in one blow. Congrats.

I've been reading a lot of Kael lately.  The woman was brilliant, but her ego was massive, and she was in need of a good editor.  Her prose, while conversational in nature, was bloated.  She wrote with a "love of movies" and had "great insights," but it's very hard stuff to read.  I'm reading "For Keeps" right now, actually.  It's great, great stuff.  I flipped right to her "revolutionary" Last Tango in Paris review right when I got the book, and wasn't let down.  But Kael does have her faults.  I still love the woman.  But for you to try to insult me and Ebert by saying we're trying to be like Kael is just rude, immature, childish, and not even the issue.

My mind, thank you sir, isn't "doggedly literal" at all.  Don't jump to conclusions about people based on a few posts you've read.  Lynch is not a litmus test for those who are to be lumped into either the literal or figurative bunch.  Life isn't that simple.  Films especially aren't.

Ebert doesn't pretend to be something he isn't.  He's a very intelligent man who can connect with all sorts of people.  His reviews, even for the most understated of movies, are always a joy to read, because the writing itself is brilliant.  He has such a unique way of putting things, because he can latch on to subconscious elements of the human experience and put those images into words.  Kael never rarely (if ever) does this.  Ebert is the best of both worlds; everything Kael wasn't, and more.  I admire Kael greatly, but it is very rude of you to jump to conclusions, thinking I'm trying to be Kael, or Ebert is, or anyone is for that matter, just because they criticize some movie.

Ebert loves some movies that are way out there.  I do too, for that matter.  But just because Kael was the first to do so doesn't mean she was the best, or we're trying to copy her.  We all have our own voices.

Finally, I noticed you basically ignored the strongest points of my argument.  Are you going to debate, or are you going to continue to insult the people who disagree with you?  It'd be much appreciated if you continue this discussion, you'd do so without insulting the people involved just because they disagree with you.  Thanks.  :)
Title: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: picolas on June 06, 2003, 12:46:27 AM
Quote from: Onomatopoeiathe biggest post ever
Title: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: godardian on June 06, 2003, 01:06:31 AM
I think:

-Jackson Pollock is brilliant, and not just anyone could do what he did.

-Pauline Kael is not difficult to read at all; I absolutely devour her books. She, along with Susan Sontag, Andrew Sarris, and the Cahiers du Cinema crowd, put our present high-profile "critics" (cheap reviewers, really) to utter shame; they wrote prose about film, really felt it, and had the frame of reference and insouciance to make it all soar. Unfortunately, I feel much like I'm arguing with a Bosley Crowther, here.

-Feeling insulted could only be the result of defensiveness; my tone is no different from that of the person arguing with me. I was not the first one to be petty about "big words," so... glass houses be damned, maybe that's a stone that shouldn't have been thrown by someone other than myself in the first place.

-This conversation could go around and around in the same circle for ever and ever, but both sides are out there now. I think my argument trumps, but that's obviously subjective. As subjective as what the "strong points" of one's own argument are...
Title: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: AlguienEstolamiPantalones on June 06, 2003, 01:20:07 AM
my god these posts are war and peace esc in their length and yet no one could find the time to bring up the fact that lynch has one snazzy hairdo

where are your fucking prioritys, I am so like disgusted by the generation that came before me

you gen x bastards with your conjunction junctions :: grabs his crotch:: I got your function right Here

:: goes on like this for another 2 hours and 36 minutes about how disgusted he is with the world::
Title: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: AlguienEstolamiPantalones on June 06, 2003, 01:36:43 AM
:: two hours and 36 minutes later::

and like fucking marla gibbs, is grossly under apreciated and continues to be the most under rated actor of her generation,  her off broadway one woman play "the Carlo Emilio Gadda story" is as good as theater gets

and and ........
Title: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: Ghostboy on June 06, 2003, 02:24:22 AM
Phew...not much point in jumping in here, is there? Lynch connects with some people really well, and not so well with others. I can't really say why Mulholland Drive makes me feel like crying in some scenes...it just does.

What I'm really interested in is his writing process. His films are so rich and visual, and I almost never think of him as a writer. And yet his dialogue has a definite writers' edge to it. Are any of his screenplays, aside from the ones he's co-written with Barry Gifford, available in print? I know he said the Eraserhead screenplay was only twenty pages long...I wonder how much of the visual element he puts down on the page.

That Ebert clip on the Blue Velvet DVD is funny. That and his Raising Arizona review are just goofy, but I still love him.
Title: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: SHAFTR on June 06, 2003, 03:28:31 AM
Onomatopoeia wrote:
QuoteAnd the ten clues given on the DVD don't help worth shit.

This is true, I sat down once and watched the movie with a notebook, disecting each clue...it didn't help.  I still contend that I do not like Blue Velvet, b/c it isn't an enjoyable watch especially the latter half.  Mulholland Dr I am able to sit back and let the images and scenes wash over me, and in that I find great comfort.

I love Ebert

PS> I don't understand how to use quotes on this board.
Title: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: phil marlowe on June 06, 2003, 04:26:49 AM
try clicking on the ´quote´button in the post you'd like to quote.
Title: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: Royal Tenenbaum on June 06, 2003, 10:44:56 AM
Blue Velvet may very well be the best film ever made. There is something wrong with people that don't like it.  :twisted:
Title: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: godardian on June 06, 2003, 11:31:07 AM
Quote from: GhostboyPhew...not much point in jumping in here, is there? Lynch connects with some people really well, and not so well with others. I can't really say why Mulholland Drive makes me feel like crying in some scenes...it just does.

Me, too.

I'm certain at least some of Lynch's screenplays are available in Farber and Farber paperback... they have a great Lynch on Lynch book, too.
Title: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: ShanghaiOrange on July 30, 2004, 11:25:03 PM
Update!

I just saw the Elephant Man and it was awesome and I saw Mulholland Drive awhile ago and it was awesome.

And I also remember that I liked in Blue Velvet when the guy was like "that's a human ear alright!"

Yes I know this thread is a year old. :(
Title: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: Finn on July 31, 2004, 12:01:54 AM
They're all great movies
Title: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: NEON MERCURY on August 01, 2004, 08:12:10 PM
Quote from: ShanghaiOrange
And I also remember that I liked in Blue Velvet when the guy was like "that's a human ear alright!" :(

(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lynchnet.com%2Fbv%2Fpics%2Fbv013.jpg&hash=8c4242c20dfb477a04cb845e1c5e197cec9197e6)
Title: Re: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: modage on February 26, 2006, 10:55:52 AM
ISABELLA ROSSELLINI IN PERSON!
At the 7:00 show of BLUE VELVET on Monday, March 6.
Film Forum NYC
http://filmforum.org/films/bluevelvet.html
Title: Re: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: hedwig on February 28, 2006, 08:22:59 PM
David Lynch, Still Disturbing After 20 Years
By TERRENCE RAFFERTY
feb 26, 06
NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/26/movies/26raff.html)

ONE of the very, very few rules about art you can take to the bank is that shock ages badly. But David Lynch's "Blue Velvet," unleashed on a largely unsuspecting public 20 years ago, is, I'm happy to say, breaking that rule as blithely and as decisively as, once upon a time, it broke most of the others. Even after two more decades of Lynchian eccentricity and sensual derangement — years, besides, in which the bar for serious outrage in popular culture has risen to a nearly unreachable height — "Blue Velvet" looks as odd and as beautiful as ever, and it's still a shock.

Film Forum in Manhattan is marking the movie's anniversary with a two-week run that starts Friday. This is a new print but the same old "Blue Velvet," because Mr. Lynch never revises past work; for him, that process would be as senseless as trying to fill in the gaps of a dream once it's been dreamed. What audiences will see, then, is exactly the nightmare that moviegoers of 1986 saw, in all its lurid and lyrical and stubbornly irrational glory, and context makes as little difference to the experience as it does to the experience of any powerful dream: when you wake up, it might take a minute to remember where you are anyway.

The signature line in "Blue Velvet," first spoken by its amateur-detective hero, Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan), is "It's a strange world" — a sentence that 80's viewers greeted with a you-can-say-that-again laugh, and that critics seized on gratefully, as perhaps the lone unimpeachably true statement that could be made about this movie. "Blue Velvet" is a mystery story — Mr. Lynch loves mysteries — but not precisely a whodunit: finding the single, inevitable thread of connection that makes sense of a baffling set of clues is pretty emphatically not the point here. For all the dense portent of the film's hushed, avidly watchful atmosphere, the plot is in fact extremely simple, as brutally functional as the lines in a child's drawing.

Jeffrey has come home from college to his native Lumberton, a small city where his father runs a hardware store; Mr. Beaumont, after collapsing on the lawn, is in the hospital, hooked up to ominous equipment, and Jeffrey takes over the family business. One day, walking through a field, he finds a severed human ear, moldy and crawling with insects, and dutifully informs the police, who thank him but then won't disclose anything about their investigation. The detective's daughter, Sandy (Laura Dern), however, takes it upon herself to tell Jeffrey what she's overheard her father say about the case, and before long this clean-cut college boy is hiding in the closet of a weary-looking local chanteuse named Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini). There, he watches in fascination — and in maybe a shade less horror that you might expect — as Dorothy is insulted, beaten and finally raped by a vicious thug she calls Frank (Dennis Hopper), a drug dealer who has apparently kidnapped her husband and her son.

That's about it, as far as conventional mystery plotting goes: the solution, such as it is, is more or less nailed down in the first third of the picture. As "Blue Velvet" moves forward, though, deeper into the nighttime murk and daylit unease of Lumberton, it becomes clear (if anything is) that the movie's detective-story trappings were always just a means to an end — the director's scheme to lure a couple of appealing, normal young folks like Sandy and Jeffrey into the sick, strange world of the man called Frank. Mr. Lynch's idea, that is to say, is not to make new connections, as detectives do, but to sever as many of the old ones as possible.

That's what surrealists do. And one of the reasons, I think, that "Blue Velvet" seemed so startlingly fresh at the time is that there was not, to put it mildly, a vigorous tradition of surrealism in commercial American film.

About the only precedents for the deliberately disorienting method of this picture can be found in some of the later works of Alfred Hitchcock: in "Vertigo" (1958), "The Birds" (1963) and especially "Marnie" (1964), which shares with "Blue Velvet" a peculiar, awkward formality of tone and a raging undercurrent of psychosexual abnormality, and which was not embraced warmly by Hitchcock's usually loyal audience. Mr. Lynch had himself made just three previous feature films, only one of which — his brilliant debut, the low-budget black-and-white domestic horror fantasy "Eraserhead" (1977) — delivered Lynchian surrealism in its pure state. In the others, the delicately grotesque "Elephant Man" (1980) and the ungainly science fiction epic "Dune" (1984), his wilder fancies were held at least partly in check.

So for most members of the audience, "Blue Velvet" was a completely new kind of movie experience. Its sordid matter unnerved people less, I think, than its unfamiliar — hence vaguely threatening — manner. After all, most moviegoers had seen much more graphic violence than anything in "Blue Velvet," had heard a greater quantity of foul language in prestigious pictures like "Raging Bull" and had probably gazed, with some interest and maybe even some pleasure, on a naked body or two. (Though rarely, it should be said, on one quite so rawly and unglamorously exposed as Ms. Rossellini's is here.) What's tough to handle, particularly if you aren't used to it, is the volatility of the film's tone — the abrupt, unsignaled alternations between teen-movie sweetness and splatter-movie depravity, between brazenly sophomoric humor and abject horror, between innocence and the direst kind of experience.

And it's the innocence, finally, that makes "Blue Velvet" genuinely and uniquely shocking. Mel Brooks, whose company produced "The Elephant Man," once famously described Mr. Lynch as "Jimmy Stewart from Mars"; and there is something wide-eyed and wholesome and all-American about Mr. Lynch, which is real and is, it seems to me, the ultimate, improbable source of his work's power to disturb and appall.

The central question of "Blue Velvet," voiced with winning bluntness by Jeffrey, is "Why are there people like Frank?" Frank, played with insane gusto by Mr. Hopper, is such a one-of-a-kind monster of obscenity that the line might make you laugh: Are there people like Frank? But it's a sincere question, because in Mr. Lynch's imagination there are. Frank is, when you come down to it, a child's vision of adulthood, the cartoon embodiment of all the things a curious kid might picture grown-ups doing when they're on their own and out of sight: they do drugs, they curse a lot, they have parties with incomprehensible friends (like this movie's indelibly weird Ben, played by Dean Stockwell as the epitome of suavity), and, when the opportunity presents itself, they have fast, loud, ugly sex.

It takes a mighty innocent eye to see the world that way: a way that, although it generates monsters, also keeps everyday life interesting, surprising and perpetually strange. That's what all Mr. Lynch's movies are about, and why they have, in their demented fashion, a kind of Peter Pan quality: they're made by someone who has willed himself not to outgrow the immediacy and berserk randomness of a child's perceptions, and to take the really scary stuff along with the really neat stuff, just as it comes.

Mr. Lynch's Neverland, whether it's called Lumberton or Twin Peaks or Mulholland Drive, is by design timeless, fundamentally impervious to the grown-up perspective that lets most of us assimilate our experiences into something like a traditional detective story: a narrative that explains the past and allows us to move (however dully) on. The world "Blue Velvet" creates is static, an imaginative city of simultaneity in which everything, good and bad, is present all at once.

Of course that's shocking. "Blue Velvet," which delighted many and repelled many others in 1986, is likely to evoke roughly the same mixture of reactions today, and 20 years from now, and on and on. There's no assimilating its dark-and-light vision, no explaining its real mysteries, and no handy term to categorize it: not "hip" (as might have been said back in the day), and certainly not "edgy" (as canny marketers have trained us to say since). Why are there movies like "Blue Velvet"? Because the world is strange, and the strangeness never goes away.
Title: Re: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: grand theft sparrow on March 02, 2006, 07:32:44 AM
Guy Maddin on Blue Velvet (http://www.villagevoice.com/film/0609,maddin,72351,20.html)


Velvet Underworld
David Lynch's traumatizing neo-noir masterpiece turns 20

by Guy Maddin
February 28th, 2006 12:47 PM


The last real earthquake to hit cinema was David Lynch's Blue Velvet —I'm sure directors throughout the film world felt the earth move beneath their feet and couldn't sleep the night of their first encounter with it back in 1986—and screens trembled again and again with diminishing aftershocks over the next decade as these picture makers attempted to mount their own exhilarating psychic cataclysms. But no one could quite match the traumatizing combination of horrific, comedic, aural, and subliminal effects Lynch rumbled out in this masterpiece—not even Lynch himself in the fun-filled years that followed before he recombined with himself to invent The Straight Story and Mulholland Drive.

Lynch was born in 1946, part of that first litter of boomers sired by the paranoia of unmedicated war vets jittering and fisting their way through the sudden proliferation of film noir product. In spite of Lynch presenting his tale in the comforting saturated Kodachromes his generation associates with the "innocence" of their childhood years, there is much of what noir does best in Blue Velvet: Kyle MacLachlan's Jeffrey Beaumont slips past the safety rails and hops right into a raging maelstrom of guilt and evil as blithely as any noir protagonist ever did; and Dennis Hopper's Frank Booth is just the necessary incarnation of nightmare that Steve Cochrane's Eddie Roman was in Arthur Ripley's The Chase (1946), the most surrealism-propelled crime film ever to sleepwalk out of the Dark City.

But perhaps it is Isabella Rossellini's femme fatale Dorothy Vallens that is Blue Velvet's greatest gift to posterity. Director and neophyte actress collaborated to retool the old genre's often stock figure, to deglamorize and humiliate the supermodel, to knead her pulpy nakedness into a bruise-colored odalisque of inseminated sensualities and untrusting ferocity. There is something sharply porno-entomological, something of the implacable godless terror with which insects mate and devour, and something terrifyingly true, in the bearing of this bravely performed character. Nuns at Rossellini's old high school in Rome held a series of special masses for her redemption after the release of this film—still a hilarious, red-hot poker to the brain after 20 years. A new print has been struck for the special anniversary two-week run at Film Forum.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Guy Maddin's My Dad Is 100 Years Old—a short made to commemorate the centenary of Roberto Rossellini, starring and written by Isabella Rossellini—will premiere in U.S. theaters this year.

Title: Re: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: colbent on March 07, 2006, 04:31:24 PM
Another one of those recut parody trailersss

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Qf-Gn0bXPCc
Title: Re: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: The Red Vine on March 07, 2006, 05:03:36 PM
ok that one made me laugh. but I'm also easily amused.
Title: Re: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: SiliasRuby on March 09, 2006, 06:38:26 PM
Oh I'll definitely see that one.
Title: Re: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: Pubrick on March 10, 2006, 05:01:19 AM
Quote from: RedVines on March 07, 2006, 05:03:36 PM
ok that one made me laugh. but I'm also easily amused.
really? this is an example of how NOT to do these fake trailers. it lacked subtlety, creativity, or any sort of redeeming quality. the one joke it had was drilled so deep into the ground it had to rely on two uses of the word "fuck" to barely seem interesting.
Title: Re: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: The Red Vine on March 10, 2006, 11:34:33 AM
Quote from: Pubrick on March 10, 2006, 05:01:19 AM
Quote from: RedVines on March 07, 2006, 05:03:36 PM
ok that one made me laugh. but I'm also easily amused.
really? this is an example of how NOT to do these fake trailers. it lacked subtlety, creativity, or any sort of redeeming quality. the one joke it had was drilled so deep into the ground it had to rely on two uses of the word "fuck" to barely seem interesting.

worked for me, although it's not as great as the Toy Story or Shining ones. the trailers love to make these movies look like the opposite of what they are, that's the point. so here they try to make "Blue Velvet" look like an outrageous romantic comedy. I can't tell you how many trailers I've seen like this. particularly with that "Under Pressure" song. personally I hate those kinds of movies (Something New, Hitch, Meet the Parents, Meet the Fockers) so it was nice to see a trailer that criticizes the formula.
Title: Re: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: SiliasRuby on April 19, 2006, 01:53:22 PM
Saw this again recently, It was my first Lynch film and still my fav.
Title: Re: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: Pubrick on April 20, 2006, 09:54:17 AM
Quote from: SiliasRuby on April 19, 2006, 01:53:22 PM
Saw this again recently, It was my first Lynch film and still my fav.
thanks for the update.

it wasn't my first lynch and still not my fav.
Title: Re: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: MacGuffin on June 06, 2006, 08:24:58 PM
Residents of So. Cal:

Lynch In Person for the 20th Anniversary Blue Velvet Screening in Los Angeles on Thursday, June 29th

They will be screening a brand new print for this event. Tickets are only $10. Check out the Lafilmfest.com (http://www.lafilmfest.com/tixSYS/2006/filmguide/event.php?EventNumber=4511) for more details.
Title: Re: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: SiliasRuby on June 06, 2006, 10:57:20 PM
I'm going. Already bought my tickets. So ready for it.
Title: Re: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: modage on June 06, 2006, 11:19:07 PM
Thursday, June 29
7:30    BLUE VELVET with Virginia Madsen
(David Lynch will not be able to appear in person.)
Los Angeles

hope everyone with tix is a big virginia madsen fan...
Title: Re: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: MacGuffin on June 09, 2007, 12:51:09 PM
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fgraphics8.nytimes.com%2Fimages%2F2007%2F06%2F08%2Farts%2F08scul.large1.jpg&hash=fdb1ab95b1defea232e201f5c1e416ca3aa756c5)


Strolling Within the Strange World of 'Blue Velvet'
Source: New York Times

Filmmakers have often penetrated the "fourth wall," that imaginary divide separating the audience from the action, by having characters break the narrative spell and address moviegoers directly. Woody Allen extended the device in "The Purple Rose of Cairo," when a character in the film-within-the-film leaves the screen and enters "real" life.

In his installation "On Chapels, Caves and Erotic Misery" the Polish-born New York artist Christian Tomaszewski reverses this logic and invites viewers to enter David Lynch's 1986 art-house thriller, "Blue Velvet."

At the darkened entrance to the basement of the SculptureCenter visitors are greeted with illuminated text etched onto a black mirror: "This film has been modified from its original version. It has been formatted to fit your limits." Conflating the standard video warning with psychedelic, psychological posturing ("are you experienced?") invokes a momentary cringe, but its effects aren't irremediable.

To the right and left are closed doors; the visitor chooses her entrance into the installation. The left door leads into a hallway with gray walls, white wainscoting and illuminated sconces, a skillful re-creation of the hallway in the Deep River apartment building where Dorothy Vallens, the kinky chanteuse played by Isabella Rossellini in the film, lives. The hallway winds around the basement and is lined by doors, most of which are locked and lighted from behind.

Take the door on the right and enter a slightly wider corridor lined on one side with dollhouse-size models of locations in the movie: the booth in Arlene's diner where Sandy (Laura Dern) and Jeffrey (Kyle MacLachlan) discuss what to do after he finds a severed human ear in a vacant lot and delivers it to her detective father; a craftily conceived view through louvered doors into Dorothy's kitchen and living room; three versions of Jeffrey's parents' home surrounded by a white picket fence; and a vitrine with a re-creation of the infamous severed ear resting on a mirrored base.

On the other side of this space is an arrangement of vintage lamps combining Haim Steinbach's shelf-sculpture aesthetic with Mr. Lynch's revivalist kitsch (as well as a version of Brion Gysin's 1960s "Dreamachine," a spinning, perforated cylinder with a light bulb inside). Also in this room is a flashing orange neon sign with the image of a gun and an arrangement of cardboard triangles on the ceiling, which are easy to miss.

Access to two other parts of the installation can be gained through the hallway that winds around the basement. One is a bright, narrow corridor painted white, with Dan Flavin-style fluorescent tubes lining the ceiling. The other is a pitch black hallway with illuminated texts on the wall, including directions from the "Blue Velvet" screenplay.

Mr. Tomaszewski has done a skillful job recreating "Blue Velvet" objects and locales (most in miniature). This isn't his first crack at the project; it is the fifth and final version. Others have been installed in galleries in New York and Poland and in museums in Germany.

In a catalog interview Mr. Tomaszewski describes Mr. Lynch as an "enigma of Postmodernism," while admitting that Mr. Tomaszewski is "more interested in Modernism and its utopias." The play between Postmodernism and Modernism enters here in both the title of the work — which comes from the original name for Kurt Schwitters's "Merzbau," the famous proto-installation Mr. Schwitters erected in his house in Hanover, Germany, featuring found and created objects and called "The Cathedral of Erotic Misery" — and those easily missed cardboard prisms on the ceiling in the basement, which mimic some of the interior architectural configurations in "Merzbau."

You sense, in paging through the catalog, that Mr. Tomaszewski made a deeper connection between these disparate sources — "Blue Velvet" and "Merzbau"; Modernism and Postmodernism — in earlier versions of the piece. (The installation was enclosed in a prismatic, cavelike structure in Chemnitz, Germany; here it is remade into a subterranean labyrinth.)

Mr. Tomaszewski offers plenty else to chew on. There is the notion of trying to recreate the fictive, dream space of film in three concrete dimensions; the juxtaposition of different forms of representation, from film and still images to text and objects; the play between memory (assuming you've seen the film) and actuality; and the idea of a Polish-born artist reading America through David Lynch. Mr. Lynch's films, Mr. Tomaszewski says, are "quintessentially American and by and large confirm my own observations," which makes you wonder just what and how much he has seen of these United States.

Despite these rich veins of inquiry, however, the installation feels sterile and flat. "Blue Velvet" is a rich, visceral film full of deep, saturated color and moody music, and it becomes a tough act to follow, particularly when the characters are exiled and what remains is a silent conceptual shell that merely grazes rather than gets under your skin.

Yet "On Chapels, Caves and Erotic Misery" encouraged me to go back and watch a film I hadn't seen in more than a decade and rediscover not only a slice of Postmodern noir but Mr. Lynch's absurdist, neosurrealist sense of humor. This was expressed in everything from Jeffrey breaking unexpectedly into the "chicken walk" on his first date with Sandy, to Dean Stockwell lip-syncing Roy Orbison's "In Dreams."

In his effort to address serious issues of art history, theory and film, Mr. Tomaszewski overlooks the humor. He might also be accused of overreaching, of trying to pack too much into a work not built to carry it. But when art leads you to chase down its sources and remember or discover something new, it must on some level be considered a success.
Title: Re: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: Sleepless on August 16, 2008, 11:56:38 AM
So I was browsing an antique store yesterday and came across a first edition of 'On Cherry Street,' the book which Lynch has cited for inspiring those images of idealized small towns in the 50s. It's all there; the fire engines, the white picket fences.

I bought it and am going to use it to teach my future kids to read someday :)
Title: Re: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: Just Withnail on August 16, 2008, 04:13:44 PM
I'm going to show my future kids Blue Velvet to teach them how to see.
Title: Re: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: hedwig on August 17, 2008, 01:54:15 AM
i'm gonna show my future kids Blue Velvet to teach them how to talk because i want their first words to be "MOMMMYY.... MOMMY... BABY WANTS TO FUUUCK."
Title: Re: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: MacGuffin on November 04, 2011, 08:56:51 AM
'I've got to find the flaming nipple!': the hunt for Blue Velvet's lost footage
For years Lynch-heads and film historians have speculated about deleted scenes from Blue Velvet. Now they've been found – and they're quite something
Source: The Guardian

"I've got to find the flaming nipple!" No, it's not a line from a David Lynch script. That's the man himself, reacting to the news last year that missing footage from Blue Velvet had been rediscovered. For years, Lynch-heads and film historians had speculated about the whereabouts of the deleted scenes: footage left on the cutting room floor after Lynch snipped his three-and-a-half-hour rough cut into a two-hour movie. Time passed and everyone – director included – figured it was lost for ever. As for the flaming nipple (nipples, in fact), they belong to a dropped scene. "That's one of my favourite scenes," Lynch said in an interview for the book Lynch on Lynch. Why cut it and (metaphorically speaking) kill his baby? "It was too much of a good thing."

The man who found the deleted scenes is movie sleuth and champion of lost causes, Darren Gross, who works in MGM's technical services department (which archives, preserves, restores and remasters the studio's movies). The detective work is a labour of love, "a side-project", says Gross on the phone from his office in LA. For a couple of years he chased down Blue Velvet leads, trawling inventories of companies that had owned the film before MGM. He was close to abandoning the mission when, last September, he located all the missing material (including "pretty much pristine" negatives) gathering dust in a warehouse in Seattle. "For an independent producer, it's unusual that all of this stuff has survived," he explains. "Why keep hundreds of boxes and pay the storage? So, often they just throw them away. That happens a lot."

Perhaps producer Dino de Laurentiis had an idea someone would come looking for Blue Velvet. It was the most talked-about, most polarising movie of 1986. Some critics were appalled by Dennis Hopper's freakishly sadistic nitrous-oxide huffing psychopath Frank and his relationship with Isabella Rossellini's masochistic sex slave. JG Ballard considered it the best movie of the 80s – "without a doubt". There's a clip on YouTube of a TV interview with Lynch at the time, the presenter trying to engage him on the controversy: "Do you think you are a genius or a really sick person?" That really tickles him. "Well Valerie I don't know," he answers, all wholesome aw-shucks-ness.

Altogether, 50 minutes of never-before-seen footage have been re-edited – supervised by Lynch – into an extra on a new DVD celebrating the film's 25th anniversary (available early next year in the UK).

The flaming nipple scene will open the new footage on the DVD, giving audiences more of Hopper in what is possibly his scariest performance – in a career of scary performances. (He phoned Lynch, not long out of rehab: "David, I love this script. I am Frank.") The action unfolds in a bar where Frank threatens a man who has been hanging out with a posse of naked women. On set, one of the actresses happened to show Lynch a trick she had for setting her nipples on fire with a match. He liked it so much he filmed it and gave her the closing line: "Motherfucker, you're really going up in flames this time!" Clearly it's Blue Velvet: The Director's Cut that the diehards want to see. But Lynch never revises his work. What's more, unlike, say, Ridley Scott on Blade Runner, he had the final cut on Blue Velvet (in return for halving his salary and the budget). So Lynch politely declined the opportunity re-edit the movie with the new footage: "I think he thinks of it like sculpture," explains Gross. "You have to chisel away at it. And it's heartbreaking to see some of the little pieces go. But the final form is ultimately what he wants to express." Nor should we expect Blue Velvet: The (Even) Bluer Bits. Flaming nipples aside, the deleted scenes mostly expand on the characters. What surprised Gross were the inclusion of a few bloopers: "There are a couple of really funny outtakes. Only a couple of minutes, but I never thought I'd see a David Lynch outtakes reel."

As for Lynch, he couldn't be happier: "It's like the song Amazing Grace. The footage was lost but now it's found."
Title: Re: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: Pubrick on November 06, 2011, 05:04:16 PM
good stuff.

re-releasing Blue Velvet with these bonus deleted scenes is going to be the best thing he's done in ten years.
Title: Re: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: SiliasRuby on November 09, 2011, 06:31:02 AM
This is the best news I've heard in a month.
Title: Re: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: Pubrick on November 09, 2011, 07:16:08 AM
Why, what happened a month ago SiliasRuby?
Title: Re: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: SiliasRuby on April 13, 2012, 02:49:27 AM
I know most of you will mock me for this but I don't care, some will love this cause I'm ballsy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHkmBlqR2GI&feature=relmfu
Title: Re: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: 03 on May 29, 2015, 11:47:59 AM
yeah so apparently this played in a local theatre recently and no one knew about it.
if you didnt catch that:
BLUE VELVET PLAYED IN A MOVIE THEATRE IN ALA FUCKING BAMA
and i didnt know about it. thanks, little movie theatre, dick move.
Title: Re: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: wilder on March 04, 2016, 04:41:52 PM
New restoration opens at Film Forum on March 25th and then will tour nationwide




(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FPpvNOUh.jpg&hash=53b13fe9b86137d8018331f6e8c5f7cc97db81b4)
Title: Re: I just saw the movie/film "Blue Velvet"
Post by: ono on January 26, 2018, 07:53:58 PM
https://twitter.com/Kyle_MacLachlan/status/956885835420446720