Blue Velvet (1986)

Blue Velvet
Starring Kyle MacLachlan, Isabella Rossellini, Dennis Hopper, and Laura Dern
Written and Directed by David Lynch

Reviewed by David Wisehart

Blue Velvet is framed, beginning and end, with idyllic scenes of Lumberton, a dreamy small town too good to be ture: flowerbeds radiate color, a crossing guard guides happy school children across a street, a fireman waves and smiles from a shiny red truck. But writer-director David Lynch wastes no time shattering this illusion. He's far more interested in the deeper, darker illusions underneath.

The transformation begins with Mr. Beaumont (Jack Harvey) watering the lawn in front of his peaceful Lumberton home. Inside, a television gunman is poised to shoot; outside the garden hose kinks; seconds later, Mr. Beaumont suffers a stroke (Lynch is fond of foreshadowing and symbolism). A neighborhood dog plays in the cascading flow of water as Lynch takes us closer to the fallen form — tighter and tighter until the man is lost and we are drawn into the lawn itself. Blades of grass turn to towering sequoias as we enter a world unknown to us before. An army of beetles works furiously, and the soundtrack fills with their cacophony. Lynch relishes such bizarre subterranean worlds, and sets his mysterious thriler in just such a hypnotizing, hidden world.

The mystery begins when college student Jeffrey Beaumont visits his recovering father. Returning from the hospital, alone through the backwoods of Lumberton, he discovers an ear. A human ear. Jeffrey takes it to Police Detective Williams (George Dickerson), but that puts paid to nothing. Frank and Joe Hardy wouldn't let a good mystery pass them by, and Jeffrey's read far too many Hardy Boys mysteries to let this one escape him.

Sandy Williams (Laura Dern), the detective's daughter, is Nancy Drew incarnate. Together, Jeffrey and Sandy are drawn deeper and deeper into the terrifying and fascinating world hidden just beneath the surface of pleasant little Lumberton.

When the mystery leads them to the residence of club singer Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini), Jeffrey conspires to hide out in her apartment at night to see what he can learn. What he learns will forever change his perception of life, love, and the inherent brutality of mankind.

Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper, in the most powerful performance of his distinguished career) is brutality personified. He is all seething rage, malevolent passion, and frustrated lust. He is a man who has long since stepped over the edge, entering a bizarre accelerated hyper-reality where compassion is a stranger and sanity a sin. He is a man caught up in his own self-styled ritual of psychosexual dominance — desiring no escape because only in this prison of his mind is he truly at home. He is the darkest side of us all.

And he is terrifying. Lynch thrusts a splinter into our collective psyche and dares us to gnaw it free. Blue Velvet is almost an inhumane experience that somehow humanizes. It is an emotional workout, both repulsive and addictive. It is as exhausting as it is cathartic.

This would all border dangerously on voyeurism if it weren't for Kyle MacLachlan's superb performance. It is MacLachlan, as Jeffrey, who brings a much-needed sense of balance to Blue Velvet; it is MacLachlan who gives us someone to empathize with at times when we desperately need someone to share our horror and outrage.

This is nowhere more evident than in a brief scene following Jeffrey's clandestined sojourn in Dorothy's apartment. After witnessing Frank's psychosexual assault on Miss Vallens, Jeffrey sits slumped in the passenger seat of his car opposite Sandy, trying to find the words to explain what he has just seen.

But words fail, and the only explanation he can offer is the film's frequent refrain: "It's a strange world, Sandy." The pain in his expression is palpable. It is the perfect moment, and it is at this moment that MacLachlan wins our confidence.

In his only previous film — Dune, which David Lynch also directed — MacLachlan was burdened with the pivotal role of Paul Atriedes, the young messiah. It seemed a rather lackluster performance in a film that was either disappointing or downright confusing, depending on whether or not you'd read Frank Herbert's original novel. But on the far more intimate scale of Blue Velvet, MachLachlan shines.

Hopper and MacLachlan are not, however, the only exemplary performers in this most remarkable film.

Isabella Rossellini — Gregory Hines love interest in White Nights and the daughter of Ingrid Bergman — gives a standout performance as the tortured Dorothy Vallens, a lady dragged against her will into Frank's sadomasochistic sphere of influence. When Dorothy turns to Jeffrey for comfort, her cry for help is an eerie mimicry of Frank's abusive ritual: "Do you like the way I feel?" she asks seductively. "Feel me...hit me." For her, love and abuse are now synonymous; the line of departure between sex and violence is irrevocably blurred. Sex has become her persecutor and her savior, her illness and her cure. "He put his disease in me," Dorothy declares happily after she and Jeffrey consummate their desire.

Laura Dern's Sandy is the unlikely addition to this carnal triptych. She's the embodiment of everything Lumberton represents: beauty, purity, and innocent naivete. She dreams of robins conquering an oppressive darkness — just as love, she is certain, must triumph over hatred.

Lynch, of course, is not so optimistic. When Sandy — in the film's denouement — finally sees her robin, it crushes a beetle in its beak. Not only does Lynch's symbolism offer closure to the film's opening sequence, it reiterates a recurring theme in Blue Velvet: that love can be both very beautiful and very cruel.

Sandy is very much a '50s persona, as the brighter side of Lumberton is a '50s milieu. Indeed, this era is Blue Velvet's leitmotif. Bobby Vinton's classic song, "Blue Velvet," recurs throughout the film, as its theme song and as the mainstay of Dorothy's cabaret act. (Frank forces her to sing the song for him, and uses blue velvet cloth as an anchor for his psychosis.)

Blue Velvet is influenced by the films Hitchcock made in the 1950s. One can't help think of Vertigo as Jeffrey ascends, again and again, the seven flights of stairs leading to Dorothy's apartment — stairs which become his passageway into an intensely seductive sort of hell. And Blue Velvet's voyeurism evokes Rear Window in an admittedly distorted fashion. One gets the feeling that Blue Velvet is exactly the kind of film Hitchcock would have made after a nervous breakdown.

But there's no mistaking the fact that this is, above all else, a David Lynch film. Those who've seen Lynch's first film, Eraserhead, are in for a strange reawakening. Lynch has again spliced potent horror with absurd comedy to come up with a powerful vision that is uniquely his own. In a sense, Blue Velvet is a comedy of the blackest ilk, for it Lynch's warped sense of humor that makes this film both watchable and enjoyable.

Blue Velvet will haunt you moments of quiet reflection and follow you in dreams. It is, in brief, a masterpiece.

Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found, by Seuketu Mehta

Reviewed by Rachel Stoll

After his 21-year absence, Seuketu Mehta returned to Bombay, his childhood city, and found something very different than he remembered. Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found is an autobiographical narrative about Mehta’s rediscovery of the multicultural city he was born in. Upon his return, he was drawn to the darker sides of the city’s history and economy, providing an image of internal and external conflict in Bombay.

Initially Mehta is frustrated by the challenge of hooking up his electricity or gaining water in his apartment. Everything requires an additional bribe or waiting period, a clear sign of how corrupt the city has become in his absence, and it seems to foreshadow what his experience will be. Depressed and disappointed, Mehta looks at the years that transpired when he was living in New York, and begins researching the darker histories and stories of Bombay.

Mehta is drawn into the underbelly of the city when he investigates the city’s 1992-1993 riots. While interviewing Muslims who massacred Hindus and Hindus who massacred Muslims, he also meets the founder of the Hindu nationalist Shiv Sena party, Bal Thackeray. Mehta desires to delve deeper into the city’s criminal underworld of assassins and the Mafia, and into the continued violence between the Hindu and Muslim gangs, leading him to meet people who feel no remorse for the horrific crimes they commit.

Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found reads like a documentary, especially when Mehta makes connections with people in organized crime, the sex industry, and dishonest police officers. Mehta’s encounters with people in the underground economy are fascinating and full of darkness and grit. In parts of this book it seems as though the city is about to burst into flame from the violence; in other parts, it's as though the real economy and people above are really just being manipulated by those beneath.

With its well-written and compelling stories, Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found is highly recommended for those interested in underground economies and issues around racial and religious tensions. Definitely not for the faint of heart or for those who are easily offended, this book is gripping and feels like the labyrinth that Bombay’s underground clearly inhabits.

Shantaram: A Novel, by Gregory David Roberts

Reviewed by Rachel Stoll

Questionably autobiographical, Shantaram: A Novel follows the story of Roberts, who renames himself Lin, short for Linbaba, meaning “man of god’s peace,” who has escaped from his 19-year prison sentence in Australia and finds himself in Bombay. A former heroin addict with a failed marriage and a record of armed robberies, Lin arrives in Bombay with no money, false papers, and no plans. Wandering the city, he meets a man named Prabaker, a street guide who welcomes Lin into his family and home in the slums, where Lin ends up becoming the local “doctor.”

Lin’s knowledge of medicine and first aid is limited to his childhood and prison experiences, but the diseases plaguing the slum are simple and common issues, such as rat bites and dysentery, so Lin makes a plausible “doctor.” As his six months in the slums progress, Lin trades with the Mafia for medicines and meets Karla, who is friends with the local ex-patriots and is unable to love. Lin’s near-obsessive love for Karla propels the plot of this long novel.

Lin and Karla’s friendship and connections further intertwine when Lin is thrown into Arthur Road Prison and upon his release gets heavily involved with money laundering and making false papers for the Mafia. He learns of Karla’s deep connections and becomes involved in the guerrilla war between the Russians and Afghani’s.

At over 900 pages, Shantaram holds attention and interest. While the story is captivating, Roberts frequently goes on tangents about philosophy, life, and his existential crisis, which occasionally leads the reader to skim through a few pages before returning to the story. Although this is supposed to be an autobiography of Roberts’ experience, which he started writing while in prison in India, it seems implausible but not impossible.

Overall, Shantaram is an experience of a book. Long with plot twists and philosophically deep, it’s hard to find a novel that mirrors the nature of India so well. Recommended to readers who are interested in India and are willing to take the tangents and crazy stories with a grain of salt.

Seven Types of Ambiguity, by Elliot Perlman

Reviewed by Rachel Stoll

Elliot Perlman is an Australian author recommended to me by a staff member at Powell’s Books in Portland, OR one rainy afternoon while I was browsing the staff favorites section. Picking up all three of Perlman's novels at a discount, I started with Seven Types of Ambiguity mostly because it shared a title with a work of literary criticism I enjoyed by William Empson.

This incredibly driven and captivating story is told from seven different perspectives about the abduction of six-year-old Sam Geraghty by his mother’s ex-boyfriend Simon Heywood. Each narrator has a unique voice and perspective and has in some way been impacted by the kidnapping or has different information about other character’s involvements in other’s lives. A psychiatrist treating many of the patients/narrators is at the center of this quagmire, providing a means by which to judge the accuracy of the narrators, including the the psychiatrist himself.

The plot develops as Simon remains obsessed for nine years over his breakup with Anna, Sam’s mother, which infuriates Angelique, who is in love with Simon and happens to be a prostitute. Simon’s obsession separates him from the real world and renders him incapable of keeping a steady job. Further complicating the relationships, Anna’s current husband, Joe, is a regular customer of Angelique’s, which drives Simon to the plotting and justification of the kidnapping. The plot further tangles and ultimately Anna is forced to make a choice regarding all the men in her life and come to terms with Joe’s infidelity.

The choice by Perlman to have seven separate narrators is bold, but it works astoundingly well and helps drive the plot to fruition. This book is more of a light thriller with solid character development than a mystery.

I highly recommend Seven Types of Ambiguity by Elliot Perlman to anyone who likes mysteries, thrillers, postmodernism, and unique works of fiction.

Kate Spade’s Tarrytown Quinn Tote Bag

Reviewed by Rachel Stoll

While in the market for a new handbag, I was looking for a product that could easily and stylishly hold my wallet, a book, and a notebook while still accommodating all the other stuff that manages to make its way into my purse on a daily basis. I didn't initially find anything simple enough in the medium to high-end designer brands brands I was looking at. I wanted a leather bag with a classic and firm shape in a great color. Kate Spade’s Tarrytown Quinn tote quickly filled that need.

I ended up purchasing the Tarrytown Quinn tote in the peacock color, a nice teal which is made out of pebbled boar-skin leather with a gold interior fabric lining. It perfectly fit my notebook, day planner, a book and all the other things I carry on a regular basis. The simple structure of the bag is fantastic, and the use of quality leather allows the bag to slowly soften into how it is most frequently carried. The handles work well over the shoulder, in arm, or in hand, and the center zip pocket holds a large wallet and keys comfortably. The purse has two side pockets and a small zipper in the interior which are prefect for holding cell phones and pens. It has quickly become my favorite handbag due to its practicality and its simple design.

My one complaint is that when carrying the bag on my shoulder, one of the straps tends to fall off. Although this doesn't cause the purse to spill, it can be annoying. It's a common problem among handbags in general. Additionally, while the peacock teal color is fantastic, a more neutral color like black, cream, or grey would probably have better completed my wardrobe.

Colors and handles aside, I recommend this bag to those looking for a simple but medium-sized tote in a moderate price range. Do consider a neutral color, though, since this bag is likely to become a staple, or buy one in a neutral and another in one of the cheery seasonal offerings.

The Fate of Africa, by Martin Meredith

Reviewed by Rachel Stoll

Today's African nations were greatly shaped by the the post-colonial experience of the African continent. Even fifty years after independence, complex issues and overriding themes of afro-marxism, independence, nationalism, and big man rule remain prevalent and pervasive. The Fate of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence, Martin Meredith’s historical account of the experiences of the African continent, deals with the issues nation-by-nation, while still tying themes together by leaders and over time.

One of the best-written non-fiction accounts of modern African history, The Fate of Africa delves deep into the personalities of nationalist leaders and into the logic behind the sweeping movements of afro-marxism that were seen throughout the continent. Recalling the politics and policies of leaders such as Nyerere and Mugabe, and the ramifications of various types of leaders, Meredith shows the patterns and pitfalls of commonly-adopted policies, borrowing practices, and post-colonial reactions.

Compelling and gripping, this piece of non-fiction stands out as a definitive history of Africa with little political opinion. Meredith does not offer up solutions to the problems that plague the continent, but instead merely points out that these problems exist, and that they exist to a more extreme degree in Africa than in other nations gaining independence around the same time.

Two exceptionally well-written books with diverging opinions on what should be done are George Ayittey’s Africa Unchained: The Blueprint for Africa's Future, which calls for better governance before more foreign aid, and Goran Hyden’s African Politics in Comparative Perspective, commonly assigned as classroom reading, which makes a more Marxist argument about the issues of Africa. From two very different perspectives, these books offer the solutions that Meredith avoids.

Highly recommended to anyone with an interest in Africa, social work, political, racial, or post-colonial issues, The Fate of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence will not disappoint. Although void of a solution, the book recounts a history that points to its own solutions. Meredith allows the past to speak for itself.

Adventure Divas, by Holly Morris

Reviewed by Rachel Stoll

After spending most of her publishing career in a cubicle, Holly Morris decided to quit her day job and start Adventure Divas. She and her mother, who had a career in broadcasting, rounded up a crew of like-minded individuals and searched the globe to find true “divas.” For Morris a “diva” was a woman who had done or was doing extraordinary things to promote human rights. Adventure Divas: Searching the Globe for Women Who Are Changing the World is a non-fiction account of this journey from desk job to Cuba, to India, and beyond. Along the way she deals with interpersonal conflicts with her mother and with financial issues traveling abroad.

To finance this dream project, Morris did odd jobs such as head-hunting head hunters in Borneo and being a broadcaster on a Matterhorn climb. Always up for the adventure, Morris recounts these experiences with a light heart, even when things don’t go as planned — which they rarely do. Quirky and lighthearted, this book is part adventure, part travel, and part human interest stories centered around women’s rights and human rights in general.

Morris’s interviews were conducted throughout the globe, with the first one in Cuba. Despite serious logistical and financial issues, the story was a success and her initial film sequence was picked up by PBS and later made into a documentary series. The most interesting interviews take place in the first half of the book, with people who are hard to find and harder to interview. Some of the figures include Black Panther exiles, authors, and various human rights activists.

Although the interviews are interesting — and the stories of getting lost, losing the film, and losing the interview are told with charm — the book becomes repetitive toward the end. Monetary issues are quickly resolved, the mother-daughter issues lack conflict, and the most interesting interviews occur early in the diva search. I found myself skimming the last half of the book, yearning for it to be as interesting as the first half.

This book was not awful, but it was not great either. Perfect for light reading or another excuse to quit that desk job, Adventure Divas: Searing the Globe for Women Who are Changing the World works well as a female travel-adventure book with some great interviews.

Mona Lisa (1986)

Mona Lisa
Starring Bob Hoskins, Cathy Tyson, Michael Caine, Robbie Coltrane, Katie Hardie
Directed by Neil Jordan
Written by Neil Jordan

Hollywood is in love with the small-time hood. Perhaps the industry is only looking after its own, but regardless of motives the crime milieu has been home to films running the gamut from the superb to superficial, from sublime to sordid.

In writer-director Neil Jordan's haunting film, Mona Lisa, an uncommonly moral small-time hood is forced to reconcile his life with the all-too-common immorality of the big-time underworld. It is a convincing, delicately drawn crime-world story — and, it should be noted, it hails not from the jungles of Hollywood but from George Harrison and Denis O'Brien's independent production company HandMade Films, which has been responsible for more than its share of quality films.

Bob Hoskins (The Long Good Friday, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Nixon) is George, an ex-con returning to the working-class London streets of his youth after serving seven years in prison. His wife won't have anything to do with him, so he turns instead to his old buddy Thomas (Robbie Coltrane), who is fond of spaghetti art and detective stories, and to his old boss Mortwell (Michael Caine), who hires George to chauffeur one of his call girls, Simone (Cathy Tyson).

As George drives Simone to an endless series of midnight rendezvous, he becomes increasingly involved in the world of prostitution and pornography — and increasingly involved with Simone. When Simone asks George to find an old friend of hers, Cathy (Katie Hardie), a 15-year-old prostitute still on the streets, George descends into the dark inner belly of London like Dante descending through the concentric circles of Hell, where his deeply ingrained sense of personal morality will be attacked from all sides.

The true triumph of Mona Lisa lies in Bob Hoskins' excellent portrait of the petty criminal George, who must keep his feet wet in the waters of the underworld in order to stay alive, but very nearly drowns in the process. It is the best role of his admirable career, a role for which he earned an Academy Award nomination and deservedly received the Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival.

Neil Jordan (The Company of Wolves, The Crying Game, Interview with the Vampire) coaxes convincing performances from the remainder of his cast, as well. Michael Caine is simply sinister as the epitome of evil, Cathy Tyson (niece of actress Cicely Tyson) makes an admirable debut, and Robbie Coltrane is perfectly off-beat as the only stabilizing force in George's life.

Jordan frames his film, beginning and end, with Nat King Cole's enduring classic, "Mona Lisa." And it is in Cole's lush vocals that this film finds its meaning: "Are you warm? Are you real, Mona Lisa? / Or just a cold and lonely lovely work of art?"

Mona Lisa may, at times, seem cold and lonely. But it is also a work of art.

Running Scared (1986)

Running Scared
Starring Gregory Hines, Billy Crystal, Jimmy Smits, Joe Pantoliano
Directed by Peter Hyams
Written by Gary Devore and Jimmy Huston

Running Scared is a triumph of showmanship over storytelling, surface over substance. Writers Gary Devore (Raw Deal) and Jimmy Huston have fashioned a fairly standard story about undercover cops chasing a cocaine kingpin, and Director-Photographer Peter Hyams (Outland,
2010, End of Days) delivers both a dark urban atmosphere and a hyperkinetic pace, but it is the actors who keep Running Scared on its feet.

Co-stars Gregory Hines (The Cotton Club, White Nights) and Billy Crystal (When Harry Met Sally, City Slickers) steal the show with their comic braggadocio and quick-fire badinage. Crystal and Hines manage to inject the film with enough street-wise sass to turn this otherwise petty vehicle into a rip-roaring roller coaster ride.

Both Hines and Crystal take calculated risks: prior to Running Scared, neither was best known for his thespian pursuits. Hines was a tap-dancer, Crystal a comedian. However, they both boosted their reputations with solid turns in this film. They are well supported by Jimmy Smits (NYPD Blue, The West Wing) as drug overlord Julio Gonzales, who comes across like Michael Corleone's darker side, and Joe Pantoliano (The Fugitive, The Sopranos) as street punk Snake, who would sooner sell his soul than take a bath.

Director Hyams, continuing the tradition established by his earlier films, is his own photographer on Running Scared — and herein lies a key problem with this film. Though his scenes are, with few exceptions, staged with consummate skill, Hyams has difficulty putting them all together. He often seems so absorbed in the details of his film that he loses any sense of the big picture. He is at his best when filming gun-play and car chases. This is indicative of Hyam's work in general: his early film, Capricorn One, was in effect one long chase sequence. Everything else in the movie fell flat.

Despite its lack of focus, Running Scared is worth a look from those not already jaded by television cops-and-robbers. This film may be on parole, but Hines and Crystal are certainly arresting.

Nike Zoom Trainer Essential Women's Running Shoes

Reviewed by Rachel Stoll

In Portland, Oregon, where I used to live, it’s almost a requirement to own Nike products. Nike headquarters are in the Portland metro area, and most everyone in Portland knows someone who works there. I’m no exception to this Rose City rule. Over the past few years I've acquired a fair number of Nike products, including my usual running shoes, the Nike Zoom Structure Triax series.

While shopping at a discount retailer I came across a pair of the Nike Zoom Trainer (for women) and promptly purchased them to speed train for my upcoming marathon. I was first attracted to these shoes because they are incredibly light and flexible, which is perfect for speed work and for transitioning into a more minimalist running shoe.

After taking them out for a week, I have a few observations: first, these are incredibly comfortable; second, it feels like I’m not wearing shoes; and third, I feel like I can run really fast.

The Nike Zoom Trainers are not cushioned like many of Nike's other shoes; instead, these lighter shoes allow for a more natural gait. Since they are intentionally light and minimalist, these shoes offer no arch support. The soles are so flexible that you can fold the shoes in half. Perfect for speed work on the street or on a treadmill, these shoes have quickly become a favorite.

If you are not used to racing flats, or to shoes that do not offer a lot of support or padding, then you should work these gradually into your runs, since wearing these shoes will work your muscles and gait differently than other shoes do. Furthermore, the Zoom Trainers are not particularly well suited for trail running, since they do not provide much traction.

If you're looking for a shoe to improve your speed training and your foot and calf strength, I highly recommend the Nike Zoom Trainer.

David Lynch

Interviewed by David Wisehart

[This interview took place in 1986.]

Things are seldom what they seem.

Consider film director David Lynch. A likable enough guy. Articulate, enthusiastic. Uses phrases like: "peechy keen," "cool enough," and "just nifty." He dresses in a hip sort of semi-prep. Shaves. Smiles.

So far, so good.

But David Lynch?!? Isn't this the same guy who put Eraserhead on film instead of seeing a good analyst like everyone else? The same guy who dismembered a chicken and photographed it for a conceptual art piece, Chicken Kit, complete with a "stitch kit" for assembly? The same guy who used Nair to singe the hair off a live mouse for examination?

A firm handshake and a quick flash of pearly whites (No fangs? Maybe they retract...) suffice for introduction. We work our way through the preliminaries. Lynch sure sounds like a nice enough guy. What gives? Maybe he's all bite and no bark.... His voice does sound a little raspy, though; I'm his sixth interviewer today.

His publicist won't tell me what happened to the other five.

I decide to remain wary until this thing is over, and try to act as un-mouselike as possible.

Lynch is obviously enjoying his current position. His first three films include a cult classic, Eraserhead; an Academy Award nominee, Elephant Man; and a box office megaflop, Dune. His fourth and most mature work, Blue Velvet, is already making waves.

Making waves like the A-bomb made potholes.

The critical response has been incredible. Reviewers have been sent into simultaneous orgasms at screenings across the nation.

Lynch takes all this with such a massive grain of salt, I begin considering investments in Morton Thiokol, Inc.

"A lot of critics have really loved [Blue Velvet]," he concedes. "But I read some of the early reviews and they don't give any indication about how much sexual violence there is in this picture. This is not a film for everyone."

Okay, okay. So I wouldn't take my mother to go see it —

"I told my mom not to go see this movie," he says, laughing. "She saw Eraserhead with a friend when it first came out, and the first thing she said was: 'Boy, I'd hate to have a dream like that!'"

Blue Velvet is certainly Lynch's most personal film since Eraserhead, and he seems very pleased with the results. He reserves special praise for his actors.

On Dennis Hopper, who won the Best Actor Award at the World Film Festival in Montreal for his spellbinding portrayal of the psychotic antagonist of Blue Velvet: "Hopper was fantastic. Almost everything he did in the film was in the script, but in addition to what was given him, he added Dennis Hopper to the role. Much of what comes across in his performance is uniquely Dennis."

On Kyle MacLachlan, who also starred in Lynch's Dune: "I had him in mind for Jeffrey (the protgagonist in Blue Velvet) during our work on Dune. He's a great actor to work with."

On Isabella Rossellini, the victim and seductress of the film: "I hired her because: a.) she could act, b.) she was attractive, and c.) she was foreign. I think that was important; it helped give her character a sense of mystery."

On Laura Dern, Kyle's love interest in the picture: "(Her character) is very dreamy, very '50s. That's not an easy thing to project and be convincing about. I think she did a wonderful job."

How much room does Lynch allow for his actors to create their own characters? Is he open to suggestions from his cast?

Lynch grimaces, feigning pain. "Sometimes when an actor or someone comes up with a suggestion on how to change something, my first instinct is to set them on fire." He smiles. "A director has to be open to suggestions, but only to a certain extent. A director is like a filter. He has to filter all these different things. But in the end, it still has to be his vision."

And what a vision.

Unlike most directors working in film today, Lynch did not grow up idolizing the cinema. No endless hours upon hours spent staring in awe at his favorite masterpiece. No 8mm high school films of electric trains crashing into one another. No UCLA or USC film degree.

David Lynch went to art school. He is first and foremost a painter, and brings his own unique artistic sensibilities to each new film. He attended the Corcoran School of Art in Boston and the Boston Museum School. But it was at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts that he made his first film, The Grandmother, a 16mm experimental work about a kid who grows his own grandmother from a seed. He combined both film and paint by filming his still paintings and editing them in with bold colors and black background sets.

Now, with multi-million dollar pictures to his credit, Lynch uses his painter's eye to fashion the startling imagery and intimate detail that still dominates his films. For example, Lynch loves filling the screen with dark images. At several points in Blue Velvet, Lynch has his characters emerging from the shadows like haunting apparitions. With the exception of the opening and closing sequences, Blue Velvet is photographed in dark hues throughout.

"I love the dark," he says. "So many things happen in the dark, at night. Things that don't happen in the daytime. It's a whole different world. Mysterious."

Lynch is also fond of creating dream sequences in his films. In The Elephant Man, John Merrick dreams of his mother and of elephants roaring from the blackness; in Dune, Paul Atreides dreams of his destiny; in Blue Velvet, Jeffrey Beaumont dreams of twisted love; and Eraserhead often seems like one long waking nightmare. "Dreams are a way of getting inside a character," Lynch explains. "You get a sense of what's happening in this guy's mind. It's a different perspective."

Factories also play an important part in Lynch's work. Eraserhead is set in an industrial miasma; The Elephant Man is set in late 18th century London; Dune is filled with all the technological marvels of Arrakis's spice mining ventures; and even Blue Velvet is not bereft of this industrial heritage. Lynch also draws factories into the background of his L.A. Reader cartoon, The Angriest Dog in the World. He admits that this obsession with factories is probably part of Philadelphia that has stayed with him since he left the Academy of Fine Arts for the West Coast. "I love the way they look, the way they sound. There's a texture and a mood and a rhythm to a factory that is really unique."

The conversation begins to drift from film to cartoons. Especially the one he runs in the Reader. Even during the harried confusion of a frantic shooting schedule, Lynch continued to submit his latest installments of The Angriest Dog in the World, which succeeds on the strength of Lynch's skewered — and pessimistic — wit and his unique format. The strip always begins with the legend: "The dog who is so angry he cannot move. He cannot eat. He can just barely growl.... Bound so tight with tension and anger, he approaches the state of rigor mortis." And the frames never change, only the dialog.

Explains Lynch: "I just started drawing this picture of a dog. It fascinated me, because the dog looked so angry. I wondered, why is he so angry? And I decided he was angry because of his environment. So angry he couldn't move."

The dog strains against a leash confining him to his suburban back yard. Does Lynch feel confined when working on his films?

"A director always has restrictions," he points out. "It's a good thing and a bad thing. If there are no restrictions, then everyone is saying 'yes' and no one is saying 'no.'" The Michael Cimino Syndrome vis-a-vis Heaven's Gate. "There has to be a set of checks and balances. I had plenty of restrictions on Dune, primarily financial. My restrictions are usually financial." Such restrictions often force him into being creative under pressure, which he sees as a plus.

But restrictions or no restrictions, conservative estimates still put Dune's price tag at $40 million. With so much financial backing and such a wealth of talent, why did Dune fail?

Lynch believes the film was simply too short to do justice to the late Frank Herbert's enormously complex and unwieldy novel.

But hindsight is 20/20 where foresight is blind.

When the film first came out, Lynch thought it worked. He'd already done what other filmmakers — including Alejandro Jodorowsky (El Topo) and Ridley Scott (Alien, Blade Runner) — couldn't. That is, put the damn thing up on the screen.

"Frank Herbert loved the movie," Lynch says. "He was real excited about it. But he and I were so close to it, it was impossible to distance ourselves and be objective. We knew so much about the story, we could just fill in the gaps in our minds." Most of the audience, however, didn't have that luxury; many people walked away from Dune in a fog of confusion.

Blue Velvet is, of course, a much more intimate film than Dune could ever hope to be. Lynch says he enjoys stories played out on a smaller canvas. "I don't like movies where they bring in the FBI and the CIA. That's not realistic to me. I do like movies set on a more intimate scale. You could do a whole scene on someone getting something caught in their teeth. Trying and trying to get it out, until the gums begin to bleed...I love little stuff like that."

Lynch is currently working on Ronnie Rocket, which looks to be his weirdest project to date. He has problems trying to describe it, which is understandable considering his previous track record. "It's about this strange little guy — I'm going to use a midget — who has physical problems. One of his problems is that he's bald, so he wears this red wig. The movie's also about 60 cycle alternating current." He thinks a moment. "It has a lot to do with electricity."

And what about Lynch? Does he see himself as strange?

He laughs a little, obviously familiar with this line of questioning. "Let me put it this way," he begins, as if about to expound on the meaning of life. "The brain is shaped like a pyramid. The deeper you go, the wider it gets. I like kind of digging underneath the surface a little..."

Lynch seems like a nice enough guy, I guess. Articulate, enthusiastic. Shaves. Smiles. Couldn't be more normal.

Things are seldom what they appear.

Pedro the Lion: "Control" (2002)

Reviewed by Rachel Stoll

Indie rock band Pedro the Lion was started in the mid-nineties out of Seattle by David Bazan and a rotation of other band members. After releasing four albums as Pedro the Lion and quite a few EPs, the band officially called it quits in 2006, and David Bazan went on to release Fewer Moving Parts later that year. Pedro the Lion's third album, Control, is in line with the rest of Bazan’s writing and artistic vision by being deeply personal. Although Bazan claimed Control was a concept album, it fails at musically or lyrically presenting a clear single theme that holds the album together. Control seems to be the antithesis of a concept album, especially when compared to their earlier album, Winners Never Quit, which has a clear progression; however, Control does achieve a more realistic feel.

If Bazan’s concept was how relationships feel in the aftermath of infidelity, then this album is nothing short of art. Comprised of ten songs, the album’s musical progression demands to be heard in a single listen, with the musical themes and tempo of the songs flowing into each other. Stylistically, the album jumps from indie rock to melodic ballads, which makes it difficult to evaluate the album as a whole. Lyrically, the album is extremely disjointed, on the surface at least, with most of the songs exploring infidelity or society/consumerism, but there isn’t much development to the music or story. Songs don’t have finite endings, but blend into the next thought. For the most part, however, each song is musically distinct. With no defining sound, Control feels rough and unresolved, which I think is the point.

Like a relationship torn apart by infidelity, this album starts out almost sweet, with “Options,” but with a clear undertone of something wrong:

And I told her I loved her
and she told me she loved me
and I mostly believed her
and she mostly believed me.

The album moves quickly into the infidelity itself, from both sides, with “Rapture”:

Gideon’s in the drawer
clothes scattered on the floor
she’s arching her back
she screams for more

and “Rehearsal”:

It’s priceless when you say you have to work late
when we both know you’re at a motel

The lyrics of these stringed-together songs are not always directly related to infidelity. Often they relate to dysfunctional relationships (society and corporations) or the pain associated with living, as in “Priests and Paramedics.” Some of the other songs are more about society and corporations tainted by infidelity, a reminder that the world keeps turning even when relationships fall apart. With no clear direction or overarching musical theme, this album seems to be Bazan’s way of expressing the dissolution of his relationship.

For an introduction to Bazan's music, I usually suggest Fewer Moving Parts or Winners Never Quit. I recommend Control to those willing to take a risk.

Iron Eagle (1986)

Reviewed by David Wisehart

Iron Eagle
Starring Louis Gossett Jr., Jason Gedrick, Tim Thomerson
Directed by Sidney J. Furie
Written by Kevin Elders, Sidney J. Furie

Iron Eagle desperately wants to be a light-hearted, high-speed, free-for-all of a movie. It wants to be Raiders of the Lost Ark meets The Right Stuff, but doesn’t have enough of its own right stuff to make its formulaic adventure yarn work.

The beginning certainly bears promise: Ted Masters, a veteran Air Force pilot, is shot down during a routine reconnaissance mission over the disputed waters of an unnamed Middle Eastern country. Masters is held hostage, tried, and convicted of international espionage. In three days, his sentence will be carried out — a public lynching meant as a warning to the western world.

This premise may not be as unlikely as it seems, and it could certainly be developed into a real cold-war-of-nerves drama. Something on the order of a Middle Eastern Fail-Safe, perhaps. Writer-director Sidney J. Furie (The Ipcress File, Lady Sings the Blues) has no such intentions, however. He prefers, instead, to aim at the lowest common denominator, turning this bit of sophisticated celluloid into an aerial Rocky VI.

Eighteen-year-old Doug Masters (Jason Gedrick) happens to be a crack fighter pilot just like his dad. With the help of retired Air Force colonel Chappy Sinclaire (Louis Gossett, Jr.), and a band of Hardy Boy friends, Doug plans to steal two F-16s, fly with Chappy to the Middle East, and rescue his dear old dad before the Bad Guys do their dirty deed.

There are no surprises in this souped-up adolescent fantasy. It’s black and white. Day and night. Wrong and right. Fight, fight, fight.

Aside from some well-directed aerial footage, the only reason to watch this trite bit of rabble-rousing fantasy is for Gossett’s performance. There are no Sergeant Foley fireworks here, but Gossett is the only member of the cast who doesn’t embarrass himself. This is the sort of unassuming, undemanding role Gossett can do in his sleep, but who wouldn’t rather watch Gossett sleep-walking than the rest of this inept cast tripping over each other?

With plot holes you could fly an F-16 through, Iron Eagle is nonetheless a fairly harmless exercise in international bigotry and exploitative comic-book violence. It’s fodder for the masses, but all the sugar-coating at Furie’s disposal can’t make this stuff go down any easier.

Out of Bounds (1986)

Reviewed by David Wisehart

Out of Bounds
Starring Michael Anthony Hall, Jenny Wright, Jeff Kober, Glynn Turman
Directed by Richard Tuggle
Written by Tony Kayden

The teen flick is the black hole of Hollywood. It swallows up rising actors and directors alike. It entices the young and the old past its inescapable event horizon, forever hungering after fresh blood. The body count is staggering.

Consider Francis Ford Coppola. After masterminding such irrefutable classics as The Conversation, Apocalypse Now, and the Godfather sagas, he boldly tackled the teen genre with The Outsiders — and just as boldly fell on his face. Standing again on his own two feet, he summarily slapped the dust off his breeches and proceeded to trip over Rumble Fish (a.k.a. The Godson). Though his second jaunt into the world of adolescent angst was a dangerously moody piece with moments of heartrending beauty, it lacked the consistent genius of his earlier works.

But where Coppola has, for the most part, survived his fall from grace, lesser mortals have been far less fortunate.

Consider Richard Tuggle. After appearing out of nowhere to script Clint Eastwood's Escape from Alcatraz — his first film, mind you — he quickly went on to both write and direct Tightrope, one of Eastwood's finest films.

Word spreads quicker through Hollywood than brushfire through the desert, and the word was out: Richard Tuggle is hot.

But "hot" is a relative term. In an industry where accounting statements are long and memories short, you're only as hot as your last film. After Out of Bounds, Richard Tuggle is about as hot as a political prisoner in a Siberian gulag.

His problems begin with his choice of material. After scripting his first two features himself, he is here working from a screenplay by Tony Kayden, a veteran TV Movie-of-the-Week writer with credits like Fugitive Family and Ambush Murders. The story concerns a midwestern hick (Anthony Michael Hall of Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club) who comes to the big city (Los Angeles) and winds up on the run after being accused of a crime he didn't commit (his brother's murder). It's chock-a-block with hand-me-down plotting and moronic dialog meant to convince us that Hall is truly a midwestern hick and co-star Jenny Wright (St. Elmo's Fire) is truly an urban punk rocker.

Having not written this tripe himself, Tuggle struggles in foreign territory. The direction is limp throughout, as if he couldn't care less.

The end of the film is downright sloppy. One sequence is particularly incongruous — after spending nearly the entire film tracking down Hall on suspicion of murder, Police Lieutenant Delgado (Glynn Turman) commits a sudden about-face by stating that Hall is now "out there on his own" and needs their help. But it isn't until the next scene that Delgado gets the evidence proving Hall's innocence.

It seems someone fell asleep in the editing room.

Out of Bounds is slipshod filmmaking at its worse. Watching Tuggle fall into the miasma of teen flicks — after showing such great promise with Tightrope — is not a pleasant experience.

Though Hollywood film directors are not known for their ascetism (there's no Saint Francis of Azusa) one certainly wishes Tuggle had striven for art and left his pocketbook behind. He gets to pay the bills with this one, no doubt, but forgets to pay attention — to his audience or his craft.

Bottom line: If you're in the mood for intelligent entertainment, Out of Bounds is out of the question.

Voices from Chernobyl, by Svetlana Alexievich

Reviewed by Rachel Stoll

The fire and subsequent disaster in Chernobyl on April 26, 1986, was one of the largest nuclear disasters of all time. Located in the Ukraine, which was then a part of the Soviet Union, the Chernobyl incident was mismanaged and covered up by a weakening government. Svetlana Alexievich's Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster (translated by Keith Gessen) is a collection of stories and memories that are equal parts history and horror.

The story of the Chernobyl incident is grim at best. A fire started in the nuclear reactor, but there were problems putting it out and it was allowed to burn. The Soviet Union, unsure of what to do, sent in the military, first to construct a giant sarcophagus around the building to contain any radiation and pollution, and then to clean up the rubble and debris from the countryside. An immense amount of radiation was released, and people from the town of Chernobyl were recruited to help with the site cleanup after the fire and to drive trucks to and from the site. After the government realized what was happening, the area was evacuated in a panic, but people returned to harvest their now-contaminated vegetables.

This book is a collection of stories mostly from the widows of those who worked in the cleanup, and from survivors who tell the stories of their childhoods. The interviews are often interrupted with crying, silence, and distance. These pages are filled with descriptions of the barren land years after the disaster, and of the hospital visits between spouses who can no longer touch each other due to the radiation. Some of the most heart-wrenching stories happen in the small villages after the incident, when older women go back to eat their vegetables, which were unknowingly grown in contaminated soil, and when wives and mothers serve contaminated milk, trying to absorb the radiation. Tragic and moving, these stories center around how no one was told of the danger and how lives were lost due to the Moscow cover-ups.

This is one of the more personal books I’ve read on Chernobyl. (The Sky Unwashed by Irene Zabytko is another compelling story from that fateful April day.) Voices from Chernobyl is a fantastic set of interviews with people from all walks of life, including some former party members. However, it’s not for the weak at heart or stomach, as the symptoms of radiation poisoning, and the resulting deaths, are described in graphic and accurate detail.

Istanbul: Memories and the City, by Orhan Pamuk

Reviewed by Rachel Stoll

For my recent vacation to Istanbul I picked up Orhan Pamuk's Istanbul: Memories and the City, which was recommended to me by a friend. Liking Pamuk's other works, including My Name is Red and Snow, I had high hopes and was excited to start Istanbul.

The book covers Pamuk’s childhood and adult experiences in the city he where was born, along with information about other famous artists, writers, and books that were complied over the centuries. Thematically the book seems to center around the decline and entropy of states, societies, and buildings, as well as the quirky “underside” of Istanbul’s writing community and social history. Written in a wonderfully descriptive style, the book is a world of colors and relationships playing out in a city that seems to be slowly deteriorating.

The problem with the book was that the first thirty pages or so were relatively uninteresting. It didn't hold my attention. I read about half the book and was just going through the motions in order to finish. Obligation kept me going, and at a certain point I began to dread finishing the book. There wasn’t any large problem, just the fact that I wasn’t particularly interested in Pamuk’s childhood or his family issues and it definitely wasn’t what I was expecting. Although Pamuk’s descriptive language and style was great, the book slowly lost my interest and was interrupted by two other books before David gently reminded me that life is too short to read books that we don’t want to read.

Thus, Istanbul: Memories and the City will be the second book I didn’t finish; the first being Oliver Twist. Honestly I don’t feel that guilty about it. I’m sure people who are more interested in the author himself and who just want to read colorful descriptions of a gorgeous city will enjoy it. Maybe I will later in life, but for now I’m moving on.

The Karate Kid, Part II (1986)

The Karate Kid, Part II
Starring Ralph Macchio, Noriyuki “Pat” Morita, Nobu McCarthy, Danny Kamekona, Yuji Okumoto, and Tamlyn Tomita.
Directed by John G. Avildsen
Screenplay by Mark Kamen

Reviewed by David Wisehart

There’s something to be said for predictability. It’s comforting to know that the sun will rise tomorrow, even if we don’t; it’s comforting to know that what goes up will inevitably come down; and it’s comforting to know that in movie land the Good Guys always win.

The Karate Kid, Part II is a very comforting movie.



It opens with the closing scenes from The Karate Kid and continues the tale of Daniel (Ralph Macchio) and Miyagi (Noriyuki “Pat” Morita) without a hitch — except for the rather awkward absence of Elizabeth Shue as Daniel’s old girlfriend. Rest assured, however, that he gets a new steady before the end of the first reel, though the fate of Shue is never mentioned. Instead, newcomer Tamlyn Tomita is brought in to play the new love interest, Kumiko.

But this is not a love story about Daniel and Kumiko. It’s not even their story at all, really, for this film belongs heart and soul to Miyagi.

It is this decision, by Director John G. Avildsen and Producer Jerry Weintraub, that saves The Karate Kid, Part II from being just another insipid rehash of its original.

Avildsen (who also directed the first Karate Kid movie) won the 1976 Academy Award as the director of Rocky, before being replaced by Sylvester Stallone in the sequel. This time out, Avildsen gets his shot at a sequel, and proves himself worthy of the calling.

But Avildsen’s talents would seem wasted on this picture if not for Pat Morita’s superb portrayal of the venerable sage, Miyagi. The role fits him like a pair of old jeans. Not only is his current rendering of Miyagi on a par with the first — which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor — but he is given more room in the sequel to develop his character.

For starters, Miyagi is given a love interest of his own, Yukie (Nobu McCarthy), when he returns to his homeland of Okinawa after a self-imposed exile of some 40 years. He also meets up with his best-friend-turned-worst-enemy, Sato (Danny Kamekona), who has been eagerly awaiting Miyagi’s return.

There is definitely a confrontation brewing — and this time it is not simply a matter of personal honor (as it was for Daniel in the original), but a struggle for the continued survival of Miyagi’s ancestral village.

The Karate Kid, Part II stands well apart from the glut of violent vigilante movies. At least there are no Uzis acting as human lawnmowers or Herculean superheroes each trying to outflex the other. In fact, it is only in the film’s closing minutes that any true violence occurs — in a somewhat contrived climax where Daniel is forced into a life-or-death battle with Sato’s nephew (Yuji Okumoto).

For the most part, though, The Karate Kid, Part II is concerned more with peace than with piecemeal destruction. Miyagi’s recurrent discourses on the power of nonviolent solutions to violent problems are certainly welcomed, and the strength of his convictions is admirable. We need more heroes like this.

When Avildsen is telling Miyagi’s story, this movie soars; when he tells Daniel’s, it suffers. Young actors Macchio and Tomita manage to be pleasant enough in their own way, but they are no match for Morita.

Yes, The Karate Kid, Part II is predictable. It takes the Rocky themes that Avildsen is so familiar with and replays them as a sort of Zen and the Art of Kicking Ass. But any picture concerned as much with Zen as with kicking ass deserves a double-take.

Have fun.

The Name of the Rose (1986)

The Name of the Rose
Starring Sean Connery, F. Murray Abraham, Christian Slater, Elya Baskin, Feodor Chaliapin, Jr., and William Hickey.
Directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud
Screenplay by Andrew Birkin, Gerard Brach, Howard Franklin, and Alain Godard. Based on the novel by Umberto Eco.

Reviewed by David Wisehart

I felt like poisoning a monk.
— Umberto Eco, on why he wrote The Name of the Rose

With his bestselling book, Umberto Eco poisoned enough monks to keep both heaven and hell busy awhile. Director Jean-Jacques Annaud (Quest for Fire) kills them all again in his film adaptation of The Name of the Rose.

Where the novel was a satisfying and complex mystery that inspired the intellect, the film is a satisfying and complex mystery that inspires indigestion.



Annaud had sense enough to keep most of the plot — and even manages to create much of the mood — of the original, but those who’ve read Eco’s work know his concerns went beyond plot and mood. The novel was as much a treatise on the history of the Church and the philosophies of Aristotle, Aquinas, and Bacon as it was a homicidal thriller. A rich and multi-layered piece of pop entertainment, it was spared from didactical oblivion by its convincing portrait of life in the intriguing 14th century Italian abbey that served as the story’s cornerstone.

Sean Connery plays William of Baskerville (an obvious reference to Sherlock Holmes, William’s literary progenitor), a Franciscan monk who travels with his novice, Adso of Melk (Christian Slater), to the abbey for an upcoming debate with delegates of the Papacy over the issue of poverty in the Church. He soon discovers a series of murders in the abbey, mysteries aptly suited to his humanist philosophies and cunning logic.

A central problem with this film is that William’s logic is too cunning. In condensing Eco’s massive 600-page novel, Annaud and his writers removed the thrill of the chase.

Eco’s William was a model of medieval intelligentsia, yes — but one that made mistakes. The novel was peppered with mental cul-de-sacs and frequent frustration. Annaud’s William isn’t given the time to make mistakes. At two and a quarter hours, there’s barely enough time to kill off everyone, set the clues, and wrap up the whole fiasco with one fell swoop of Aristotelian logic.

It’s all too damn pat.

There are other problems with Annaud’s film. The casting, for one. While Sean Connery is very good here — freeing himself of the Bond-age of his earlier work — much of the cast seems disappointing. Slater, as the novice, is required to show little more than terror, which quickly wears thin. F. Murray Abraham (who won an Academy Award as Salieri in Amadeus) is properly evil as the Inquisitor Bernardo Gui — pronounced “Gooey” by his detractors — but his is an obviously truncated performance.

And the casting of the bit players is downright intrusive. Instead of developing believable characters, Annaud substitutes character faces, turning the abbey into a circus sideshow. It all plays like something out of a P.T. Barnum nightmare.

Annaud changes the feel of Eco’s work in subtler ways, too, as when Adso is seduced by a village peasant girl (Valentina Vargas). Eco used this scene to good effect, showing a young celibate monk’s necessary reconciliation of his love for the Virgin Mary with his fleshly desires. For Adso, it was the ultimate Madonna-whore syndrome, and a major turning point in his quest for personal spirituality.

In the book, it worked wonderfully, but Annaud doesn’t give this moral dilemma the time it requires to play effectively onscreen. Instead, he gives us a racy love scene and then glosses over Adso’s moral anguish and confusion.

The best thing in this film is the abbey itself. Production designer Dante Feretti (who has collaborated with Fredrico Fellini in such films as And the Ship Sails On and Ginger and Fred) supervised the construction of a massive monastery on a mountaintop just outside of Rome, and the filmmakers reportedly looked at more than 300 abbeys before settling on Kloster Eberbach, near Frankfort in West Germany, for the interior scenes. All this attention to detail pays off visually, and Tonino Delli Colli’s photography beautifully captures the remarkable scenery.

And there’s no denying that the film’s climax — as the burning of heretics is juxtaposed with the burning of the abbey itself — is breathtaking.

Still, The Name of the Rose is destined to disappoint those who read the novel. Annaud seems to have realized this, and terms this film a palimpsest of Umberto Eco’s novel. Like a palimpsest, you can almost see the original beneath Annaud’s cinematic overly.

The Name of the Rose should have been a thrilling and enlightening experience. What we get instead is Arthur Canon Doyle.

Kyle MacLachlan

Interviewed by David Wisehart

[This interview took place in 1986.]

David Lynch’s Blue Velvet opened to widespread critical praise and heated public controversy. I’ve yet to hear a lukewarm reaction. Either you hate the film or you love it. Lynch leaves his audience no alternative. Blue Velvet polarizes audiences as few films — Last Tango in Paris, A Clockwork Orange — can.

Kyle MacLachlan, star of Blue Velvet (as well as Lynch’s earlier film, Dune) offers his view on the cinematic phenomenon.

Question: Before you starred in Dune, you had pretty much grown up with the character of Paul Atreides. I mean, you’d read Dune over and over again as a teenager, so you knew what you were getting into. When you did Blue Velvet, how did you prepare for the role of Jeffrey?

Answer: Obviously, I didn’t have the advantage of the book here, which I used as a lot of resource material for Dune. But I had a knowledge of the script because David (Lynch) spoke with me during the filming of Dune about it and gave me a draft of the script. So I had a year and a half with it. But I didn’t really get down to working on it until about a month or two before we began shooting.

Q: Do you enjoy working with Lynch?

A: I do very much. David is a wonderful human being, a nice person, along with being a brilliant director with quite an interesting vision. Different than anything I’ve seen before. On the set he prepares a real nice environment for his actors to work in. He’s very calm and supportive.

Q: I spoke with Lynch last week, and he told me he thought you were a bit too normal for his next film.

A: Ronnie Rocket? Yeah, we joke about that. He’s going even farther out there.

Q: Have you read the script for that?

A: No, I haven’t. I’ve read parts of it. It doesn’t seem to be very linear. It wasn’t a story I could follow easily. It jumped all over the place. It had some real strange places, which made it interesting. But he’s done massive rewrites on it from the one I read, so it’s probably changed quite a bit.

Q: Is Lynch restrictive with his actors?

A: Sometimes he can be very restrictive, and sometimes he can be very open. I pretty much tailored myself to what David wanted; I let him be the boss. I just felt that David’s vision of what he wanted to make is so specific, that for me to start screwing around with that would just hurt what he wanted to say.

Q: Did the two of you ever butt heads?

A: We’ve always been able to resolve any major differences. But yeah, there were a couple of things in Blue Velvet — for instance, the final scene. I was arguing for a moment that was a little bit more emotional. I mean, Jeffrey’s just killed a guy. There’s got to be something that goes with that — whether it’s weak knees or whatever. What sort of physical thing happens to him? But David was very strong in wanting that image of Laura Dern and I kissing there in the hall way so he could pan up. I wanted one thing, and he wanted another. I went with his vision, that’s the way it is. I fought for it, but…

Q: Lynch made the comment that sometimes when his actors made suggestions like that, he wanted to set them on fire.

A: (Laughter)

Q: How was it working with the other actors?

A: It was a real joy. When you’re working with an actor that’s wonderful, you don’t have to worry about trying to create things that he’s not doing for you, or trying to make up for his deficiencies.

Q: How was it relating to them on the set?

A: It’s like when you talk with someone and you know they’re preoccupied. On one level, they’re talking with you and everything’s cool, but you feel that they’re occupied with something else. That’s sort of the way it is on the set. As you get closer to the actual take, you just sort of leave the other person alone. You just sort of hang out.

Q: How much did Dennis Hopper stay in character when we wasn’t filming? Was he scary walking around the set, or did he just fall into that when the camera rolled?

A: Dennis is just terrific. I was really scared coming in. I’d heard these stories…

Q: Well he’s scary on the screen.

A: In the scene it’s wonderful. He gets this look in his eyes, and it’s like WHOA…!

Q: It’s just a film, Dennis, it’s just a film…

A: But he’s a consummate actor. You feel threatened as a character, but you know that the guy’s not going to be out of control. That’s just one of the fine lines. He’s not going to do bodily damage to people. As a matter of fact, in the fight sequence — incredible control. You know, when he’s punching me beating the hell out of me. Really terrific. He’s just a real professional.

Q: You enjoyed getting punched…

A: From Dennis Hopper, yeah, it’s okay.

Q: He sort of turns it on, then. Can you just turn it on, or do you have to stay in character?

A: It’s like a gas stove and a pot of water, you know. It’s on and it’s hot, and you can see the bubbles around it. It’s always on all day — but you can still be a nice person. And then, when you need it — five or ten minutes before a scene — you sit down in your chair and you start to let that stuff cook. You bring it up, and let it boil for awhile as you do the scene; and then you bring it back down, and let it sit there awhile.

Q: You said Lynch had a very specific idea of what he wanted to do. Were you able to pick up on that easily?

A: David doesn’t always communicate with language that I can understand. But he’s very specific about what he wants when he sees it, and he can identify that. Some directors will do 30 or 40 takes because they don’t know what they want. We did between two and five — sometimes one.

Q: What was the most challenging aspect of the movie for you?

A: One thing was the nudity. I had never done it before, onstage or in Dune, so that was something I had to sort of sit, think about, and get comfortable with. Again, that’s where David was real great, because he creates a wonderful atmosphere on the set. Isabella and I worked together and it got to a place where it was okay. You take it step-by-step in rehearsal until you’re comfortable with the person and with what’s going on. Then they bring in a small crew — four or five people to shoot the scene. At which point I, as an actor, am unaware of what they’re doing.

Q: Did you get a lot of rehearsal time?

A: Yeah, as much time as we felt we needed. That was also a wonderful thing about Fred Caruso, who produced the picture. Producers work with time and money. But he tried to be as sympathetic as he could and give David the amount of time that he needed.

Q: What was your relationship with the production side of the film? With Caruso and (studio head) Dino DeLaurentiis and the others?

A: It all comes down to a system of buffers, you know. From Dino to Fred, from Fred to David, from David to us. The better they are at buffering and protecting the actors, the better I’m going to feel working on the picture.

Q: How did you get the role?

A: It all started with Dune. While we were shooting Dune, David had a copy of the script and he let me read it. He thought I’d be great as Jeffrey. So we sort of made a little pact that we’d work on it. Then Dune opened, and we both went into sort of a tailspin.

Q: What were your opinions of Dune?

A: I had so many feelings: part of me loved the film, and part of me hated the film. I guess because you live through all of it. It’s exciting to watch it happen. These are my friends on the screen. I was watching the scenes and I knew what was going on around the scenes.

Q: You really can’t divorce yourself from it.

A: It’s very difficult, yeah. I also thought the film was very talky, and had too much explaining, and all those things. I sort of looked at is as a “Best Of.” You take the novel, and you’ve got a certain number of scenes. You’ve gotta know the novel, I think, to get much from the scenes in the picture. The gaps are pretty wide.

Q: You shot a lot more than what ended up on the screen. Lynch said something about re-editing a longer version. Do you know anything about that?

A: Yeah, he said to me that for television — NBC, CBS, whoever’s gonna take it…

Q: Do a miniseries?

A: It’ll probably be a two-nighter. He wants to put about a half hour in, which would make it about a four hour picture. So we’ll get more stuff on the Fremen — which will help, because they disappeared from the picture. Hopefully there’ll be a little more filler, you know. So the scenes will be a little bigger, and maybe they’ll be closer together so people will be able to follow the story line.

Q: So people who haven’t read the novel will know what’s going on?

A: Maybe. Or at least get a better idea of this world that David sort of worked in conjunction with Frank Herbert to create.

Q: Herbert really liked the movie, right?

A: Yeah, Frank was a real positive guy. [Note: Frank Herbert, the author of the novel, died before the movie opened.] It was probably similar for him to watch the movie as it was for me to watch the movie. He was down there a lot. I think he really enjoyed the whole process, and he enjoyed seeing his picture put up on film. The film wasn’t terrible. It wasn’t an embarrassment to watch. I mean the acting was…what it was. It was very stylized. It wasn’t like you look at it and go, “Oh God, that’s really bad.” It just didn’t click somehow. It’s easy to sort of rationalize that when you’re involved with it. You sort of look over that and say, “I love it.”

Q: Hard to be objective.

A: It is. Very difficult.

Q: Okay, let’s move on. First you played a messiah in Dune. And in Blue Velvet you’re just a college kid in a small town. You’ve gone from one extreme to another. What do you want to do next?

A: Sometimes people ask me, “What’s role do you want to do next?” On film it’s so difficult because every script that comes to you has got a completely different set of circumstances. On stage, I can say, “Yeah, someday I’d like to do Cyrano,” you know. Or Mercutio. There are roles that are set there that I’d really love to do. But on film it comes down to something that’s a wonderful story about people. With some good writing, relationships that are multi-layered, and characters that are interesting and develop from A to Z. And that can be set anywhere. It comes down to that type of thing as opposed to a certain character that I want to step into.

Q: Is there something specific that you’re developing now?

A: Nothing specific, no. I’m just reading things and trying to find something that I would really like to do. I find those, and then I go and start the battle, you know. Meet and read and fight with all the other actors that want to do it. I’ve come close, but so far I haven’t gotten anything solid yet. I’m hoping Blue Velvet helps. It always helps when people can see that you can do something else besides fight robots and talk in deep voices. They need a little more than just Dune.

Q: Did you have to fight for Blue Velvet or was it pretty much set for you?

A: In David’s mind it was set for me. I turned it down. I said, “I can’t do it” at one point, because I felt it was just…too intense, somehow. So I went away for about a month, two months. During that period of time, I think, they went out and looked for other actors. And then finally I said, “Well, no, I think I really want to do it.” Then they stopped the search and I stepped in. I think in David’s mind he knew I was going to do it all along. It was just a matter of me coming around.

Q: You’ve said Lynch has a very specific vision of what he wants. During the course of production, are you more or less aware of what the final product will be?

A: Yes and no. I was there almost every day. I shot 60-plus days, which is a lot. I was there, in Dorothy’s apartment, and I saw what it looked like. The first day when we all walked in we went, “Ooooo…this is wonderful.” So you get a feel somehow. You also feel the style because of the dialog. David’s dialog is very stylized, I think. It’s very difficult to say and make real. It’s one of the challenges. But I really didn’t pick up on the humor of it until I saw it with an audience at Telluride. And suddenly, I heard lines like, “We don’t know much but bits and pieces.” People laugh, and I thought, God, that’s funny. You never realize at the time the humor of the stuff. It’s like a big puzzle. You take a piece — the scene you’re working on today — and you look at it, and you’ve got no idea of what the whole is going to be. Shooting a movie is like taking a piece and putting four or five together at one time and then leaving it.

Q: You don’t film it chronologically.

A: No. Usually within a scene you try and shoot it at one point. So I really didn’t have a strong idea of what David was going finish. I think he does while he’s doing it. When he sees what he wants, it’s cut, print, onto the next one.

Q: How would you describe Blue Velvet to someone who hasn’t seen it before?

A: That would be difficult. I’m not even sure what it is, you know. From my point of view, as the character, I look at it as a journey — as a young man who comes home and…goes through some experiences. That’s just about it, you know. It’s such a mind-boggling film for me. I’ve read some reviews that have come out already — John Powers in the L.A. Weekly and David Thompson in California magazine — and they’ve got a couple of pages, devoted to this thing. I sort of read it and go, “Yeah…that sounds pretty good.” They take a stab and write all this stuff and I’m just boggled by the things they pull out of this picture. So I yield to them.

Q: When you saw Blue Velvet at the film festival, what was the audience reaction like?

A: They went crazy. I was amazed. I mean, when we made this picture, we had no idea how it was going to be responded to. I thought it was weird. I thought, who knows, either it’s going to be universally panned or it’s going to be looked at as this new, brilliant picture. Which is kind of fun, in a way. It’s like with Dune: you do your work, you come out, and the critics — they knock it aside. So you come back and you another one, and the critics — they love it. It’s a funny game…