SXE11: BLUE VELVET

For our final regular episode of the podcast (yep, the whole thing) we finally come to one of the essential films of the mindfuck movie discussion, David Lynch's breakthrough as a popular artist, 1986's BLUE VELVET. Starring Kyle MacLachlan, Isabella Rossellini, Laura Dern, and of course Dennis Hopper, it was highly controversial upon release, and soon became the favorite film of academics and critical theorists—not to mention the late David Foster Wallace—and today stands as a film classic. But how challenging is it 33 years later? What are we to make of the multi-layered symbolism, the sexual violence, how much was borrowed into Twin Peaks, Lynch's Reaganism, its 50-plus minutes of deleted scenes, and its place in David Lynch's filmography? For the last time, your hosts Bill and Renan take on one film and see where it takes them. Then in two weeks, we'll return for our grand finale, a recap / retrospective of the entire podcast project.

Episode links:

• Blue Velvet on IMDb
• Blue Velvet on Wikipedia
• Roger Ebert initial review
• Roger Ebert's follow-up column
• Janet Maslin original NYT review
• Slate retrospective review in 2011
• AV Club retrospective review in 2011
• Mental Floss list of Blue Velvet factoids
• YouTube: Siskel & Ebert on Blue Velvet
• David Lynch's "eye of the duck" concept
• Cinephilia & Beyond essay on Blue Velvet
• Sheila O'Malley on Dean Stockwell as Ben
• BBC essay on Blue Velvet's cultural context
• Stephanie Lam on BV's exploration of duality
• Dennis Lim on Blue Velvet and the Reagan 80s
• Book: Dennis Lim's The Man from Another Place
• 1990 NYT article on Twin Peaks, uses "Lynchian"
• Freudian analysis of the characters' favorite beers
• 27,000 words on BV symbolism at Idyllopus Press
• DFW discusses Blue Velvet on Charlie Rose
• Blue Velvet shooting script as of 8-24-84
• YouTube: Blue Velvet deleted scenes

Show links:

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