David Foster Wallace Explains How David Lynch Filmed That Hellacious Forced Joyride in Blue Velvet

From David Foster Wallace’s essay “David Lynch Keeps His Head,” collected in A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again:

TIDBIT: HOW LYNCH AND HIS CINEMATOGRAPHER FOR BV FILMED THAT HELLACIOUS FORCED “JOYRIDE” IN FRANK BOOTH’S CAR, THE SCENE WHERE FRANK AND JACK NANCE AND BRAD DOURIF HAVE KIDNAPPED JEFFREY BEAUMONT AND ARE MENACING HIM INSIDE THE CAR WHILE THEY’RE GOING WHAT LOOKS LIKE 100+ DOWN A DISMAL RURAL TWO-LANER: The reason it looks like the car’s going so fast is that lights outside the car are going by so fast. In fact the car wasn’t even moving. A burly grip was bouncing madly up and down on the back bumper to make the car jiggle and roll, and other crewpeople with hand-held lamps were sprinting back and forth outside the car to make it look like the car was whizzing past streetlights. The whole scene’s got a claustrophobia-in-motion feel that they never could have gotten if the car’d actually been moving (the production’s insurance wouldn’t have allowed that kind of speed in a real take), and the whole thing was done for about $8.95.

5 thoughts on “David Foster Wallace Explains How David Lynch Filmed That Hellacious Forced Joyride in Blue Velvet”

  1. Much better in French. Adds to the comic book quality of the acting and staging. What was it about? I have no idea.

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    1. LOL. Jeez. The first clip I posted — you’re referring to the second, no longer there either — had been removed by YouTube. I put the post together Wednesday or maybe late Tuesday, so who knows how long any of these last. I didn’t catch that the second was in French in my haste to emend the post. My kids were eating breakfast so I had the volume muted because my kids don’t need to experience this kind of stuff, especially in the morning. Not until their like, I dunno, 8 or 9.

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      1. I just received this blog this morning. The French dialog really added to the dramatical effect. Like English dubbing in French movies, it was emotionally overwrought and fulfilled the cliche of the evil Frenchmen. Since it is David Lynch and since it s a clip, there wasn’t any need to understand the dialog. I usually click on the YouTube ikon for videos in blogs because for some reason they seem to load faster.

        I am a victim of being squeezed for bandwidth by big corporate. After a few videos, downloading becomes impossible. For some reason the Canterbury Tales loaded in less than an hour and I was able to play it all the way through except for the last minute, which I could not get to play, no matter what. The stills were in place. So, I missed what the demon said to the tourist in hell.
        I pity the parents who try to keep the debased aspects of our civilization from youngsters’ eyes, because as you know, the more forbidden the more fascinating. This entire county here on the Suwannee seems to be in a time warp, some where in the late 50’s or early 60’s. Very sanitized. 92 churches in the phone book. But in spite of all the virginal virtue, bottom rot creeps in. Several columns of names of people busted for Meth every issue of the biweekly paper. I saw a carload of teenagers at the gas pumps at Walmart who would have made authentic extras if David Lynch ever makes a movie about the end time. It made my skin feel chilled just to look at them. Animated cadavers.

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