The Siskel & Ebert 500th Anniversary Special

Touch and Go/'Night, Mother/Blue Velvet/Where the River Runs Black

"Blue Velvet" is a movie that really challenges you to think about your reactions to it. And my reaction is, I think this movie is cruelly unfair to its actors. It was directed by David Lynch, the same man who made "Eraserhead" and "Dune", and he's a talented director. You can see that here in scenes that have a lot of power. But he has Isabella Rossellini in this movie to be undressed and humiliated on screen as few actresses ever have been, certainly non-porno roles. Then he tries to take the edge off her shocking scenes by turning the whole thing into some kind of joke. Well, either this material is funny, in which case, you don't take advantage of your stars, or it isn't funny, in which case, it shouldn't have such campy and adolescent dialogue along with the really powerful sexual scenes. Sure, the movie is well-made, but the more I thought about it, the less I liked it.

Well, I liked it, and I thought about it a lot. I think you may be on the wrong tack in trying to feel sorry for Isabella Rossellini. Because after all, she consented to do what she did on the screen, number one. Number two, I'm sure she's walking around wherever she lives, New York City or wherever, survived the whole experience. Just like Janet Leigh survived the shower scene in "Psycho". So I don't think that's pertinent. I think what's exciting about the film, and it IS challenging, is it starts out with flowers and sunlight, it's a happy little town, and then we dig deeper and we find out it's a nasty little town. Or at least, a couple of people are nasty. And I sat there, and this did for me, I use the "Psycho" example again, this did for me what "Pstych-", "Psycho" did, a lot younger, which is: Eyes open and "Oh my God, we're really getting in over our heads." An experience which is challenging, shocking, but mesmerizing, and I liked the picture.

Well first of all, I don't think I'm on the wrong tack with Isabella Rossellini. In the first place, the movie was shot in two halves, so she had no idea, making her part of the movie, that all of the stuff outdoors and in the daylight was gonna be smarmy and campy and funny with all kinds of in-jokes. And secondly, it seems we can't divorce our reactions, it's not how Isabella Rossellini reacts to the fact that she's standing there nude and humiliated on the lawn of the police captain's house with lots of people watching, it's how I react. And that's painful to me to see a woman treated like that. And I wanna know that if I'm feeling that pain, it's for a reason that the movie has, other than to cause pain to her.

Well, I think the reason is that the film is a thriller and a shocker. I mean, there are people that get hurt badly in real life, and I think that this is a legitimate one. This is NOT a simple mad slasher movie.

Because, he wants to set you up, he's a director, and he wants to play you like all the directors, the great directors want to do, he wants to play you like a piano. Which is, have you smile, and then swing you right into some depression.

Yeah, well, if someone wants to play ME like a piano, he better get some music that's worth listening to.

Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel in Siskel & Ebert (1986)

Michael Keaton, Roger Ebert, and Gene Siskel in Siskel & Ebert (1986)

Roger Ebert

Gene Siskel

In the premiere syndicated episode, Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert review &quot;Touch and Go&quot;, &quot;&apos;Night, Mother&quot;, &quot;Blue Velvet&quot;, and &quot;Where the River Runs Black&quot;.

Don Voigt

Touch and Go/&apos;Night, Mother/Blue Velvet/Where the River Runs Black

In the premiere syndicated episode, Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert review "Touch and Go", "'Night, Mother", "Blue Velvet", and "Where the River Runs Black".

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Touch and Go/'Night, Mother/Blue Velvet/Where the River Runs Black

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