Blue Velvet (BFI Modern Classics) [Paperback]

Michael Atkinson (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0851705596 | ISBN-13: 978-0851705590 | Publication Date: October 1, 1997 | Edition: 1St Edition

For many, Blue Velvet is David Lynch's masterpiece. It crystallises many of his chief preoccupations: the evil and violence underlying the surface of suburbia, the seedy by-ways of sexuality, the frightening appearance of the adult world to a child's eyes. In this intricate and layered reading of the film, Michael Atkinson analyses Blue Velvet as the definitive expression of the traumatized innocence which characterizes Lynch's work.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Michael Atkinson teaches Film at Long Island University, and writes criticism for Film Comment and the Village Voice.

Product Details

• Paperback: 80 pages
• Publisher: British Film Institute; 1St Edition edition (October 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0851705596
• ISBN-13: 978-0851705590
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 5.3 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #925,610 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Son of Sayville, New York, Michael Atkinson is the author of seven books, including a debut novel, HEMINGWAY DEADLIGHTS (St. Martin's Press/Minotaur Books, 2009), and the second in its series, HEMINGWAY CUTTHROAT, coming in 2010.

He is a longtime film and culture critic, Googleable at Sight & Sound, The Boston Phoenix, The Guardian, The Believer, Moving Image Source, Modern Painters, IFC.com, TCM.com, Film Comment, The Village Voice, The Forward, Chicago Reader, The Progressive, In These Times, The Stranger, The American Prospect, Movieline (Hollywood Life), poetryfoundation.org, GOOD, Maxim, Details, Detour, Hollywood Life, Greencine.com, The Criterion Collection, Philadelphia City Paper, etc.

Other books include FLICKIPEDIA: Perfect Movies for Every Occasion, Holiday, Season, Mood, Ordeal and Whim (Chicago Review Press), EXILE CINEMA: Filmmakers At Work Beyond Hollywood (SUNY Press), GHOSTS IN THE MACHINE: Speculating on the Dark Heart of Pop Cinema (Limelight Eds.) and BLUE VELVET (British Film Institute).

He is also a widely published poet, with the debut collection ONE HUNDRED CHILDREN WAITING FOR A TRAIN (Word Works), and poems recently Michigan Quarterly Review, Zone 3, Mudfish, Phoebe, Passages North, Cimarron Review, Rhino, Carolina Quarterly and New Letters.

He is a professor of film at C.W. Post/Long Island University, a father of three, a (dormant) member of the New York Film Critics Circle, and a screenwriter, of among other things, a notorious TV pilot, BABYLON FIELDS (CBS), starring Amber Tamblyn, Ray Stevenson, Jamey Sheridan and Kathy Baker, unaired but easily found online.

His author site is www.mike-atkinson.com, and his blog resides at www.zeroforconduct.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Suggestive study of an endlessly fascinating masterwork., January 9, 2002

By 

darragh o'donoghue - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blue Velvet (BFI Modern Classics) (Paperback)

In the decade and a half between his pioneering 'Blue Velvet' and recent renaissance with 'Mulholland Drive', David Lynch's reputation had seriously plummeted, his name a synonym for kitschy, affectless weirdness. It's good to be reminded what a major filmmaker he could be, and Michael Atkinson claims 'Velvet' as the most important and influential film of the 80s. Although the film deals with areas of human behaviour, psychology and sexuality we'd prefer not to think about, and is full of reeling violence and disorienting cinematic procedures, Atkinson argues that Lynch is ultimately a conservative artist, affirming a childlike, pre-Oedipal innocence by vividly portraying its dark, disjunctive opposite.

This thesis is arguable to say the least, and Atkinson himself isn't always very convinced by it. Using a loose psychoanalytic framework, he discusses 'Velvet' as a psychodrama, a narrative unleashing of the Id, with Jeffrey as a kind of Alice or fairy-tale figure undergoing the harrowing, identity-threatening psychic journey to maturity. You may disagree with Atkinson's wider conclusions, but his attentive, close reading of the film pays justice to its full, ambiguous complexity, singling out Lynch's idiosyncratic use of colour, composition and the widescreen frame; his manipulation of physical space in psychic space; the equal importance of his 'aural design' to his visuals; his unexpected sensitivity to class and gender politics; his use of performance (Atkinson brilliantly recuperates the famously vicious Frank (Dennis Hopper)). Each passing insight adds layers to the film's suggestibility, without ever hoping to tie it up, so bound up is Lynch's aesthetic to his own impenetrable demons.

Atkinson has an annoying habit of repeating alienating buzzwords like 'interface' and 'topoi', where clearer words will do; his contention that 'Velvet' is a 'pure' movie, untainted by cinema history, is simply wrong (Douglas Sirk and Hitchcock's 'Vertigo' are obvious precedents for a start), and his interpretation of Lynch's Dennis Potter-like use of song is way off the mark. But if you want to tease out some of the stranger mysteries of Lynch's beautiful and enigmatic film, this is the book to get.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Atkinson's "Blue Velvet" study a must for Lynch fanatics, March 22, 1998

By 

Peter Pender (Shanghai, China) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blue Velvet (BFI Modern Classics) (Paperback)

Film writer Michael Atkinson delivers an exceptional short reading of one of the most influential and compelling films of the 1980s. Working with the efficiency of a Johns Hopkins-trained neurosurgeon, the author's recent addition to the BFI Modern Film Classics series irrefutably cements "Blue Velvet's" position in the canon and would undoubtedly turn the stomach of professed Lynch-hater Roger Ebert.

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars It's A Strange World, June 26, 1999

By 

"[e-mail]" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blue Velvet (BFI Modern Classics) (Paperback)

Michael Atkinson does a great job of analyzing and pointing out all the weird little touches that "Blue Velvet" contains. It is helpful to fans and is sure to tell you something about the film, even if you were sure you knew everything about it. Atkinson does get a little long-winded in some places but it is otherwise a good book for anyone interested in this film.