Blue Velvet

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.

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