Jack Vettriano to give David Lynch film talk

Artist Jack Vettriano will give a talk on David Lynch film Blue Velvet. Picture: Contributed

The Fife-born artist is to introduce and talk about the controversial film Blue Velvet at next month’s Glasgow Film Festival.

Vettriano will tell of his love of the David Lynch-directed film on September 22 - a day after his own major retrospective exhibition opens at Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Art Gallery.

Widely regarded as one of Lynch’s finest works, Blue Velvet is a surreal foray into the seedy underworld of sleepy logging town Lumberto.

Kyle Mclachlan and Isabella Rossellini in Blue Velvet

Upon finding a human ear in a field near his house, eccentric college student Jeffrey (Kyle MacLachlan) decides to investigate, and soon finds himself involved in a nightmarish world of voyeurism, sexual abuse and psychotic criminals.

This film has been chosen by artist Vettriano, who will be in conversation about the film and his other inspirations before the screening at the Glasgow Film Theatre.

The film’s title is taken from The Clovers’ 1955 song of the same name. Although initially detested by some mainstream critics, Blue Velvet is now widely acclaimed, and earned Lynch his second Academy Award nomination for Best Director.

As an example of a director casting against the norm, Blue Velvet is also noted for re-launching Dennis Hopper’s career and for providing Isabella Rossellini with a dramatic outlet beyond the work as a fashion model and a cosmetics spokeswoman for which she had until then been known.

The screenplay of Blue Velvet had been passed around multiple times in the late 1970s and early 1980s, with many major studios declining it because of its strong sexual and violent content.

The independent studio De Laurentiis Entertainment Group, owned at the time by Italian film producer Dino De Laurentiis, agreed to finance and produce the film.

Blue Velvet was ranked as one of the 100 Greatest Films of All Time by Entertainment Weekly in 1999 and chosen by the American Film Institute as one of the greatest mystery films ever made.

Meanwhile the most comprehensive exhibition of work by Vettriano will be on show in Glasgow this summer.

Kelvingrove will host more than 100 of his paintings, some of which have not been seen for more than 20 years.

The artist, whose best known work is The Singing Butler, said: “I was deeply touched when approached by Kelvingrove Art Gallery about staging a retrospective exhibition for me, having long since been an admirer of their collections and overall ethos.

“Exhibiting in such majestic surroundings is a great honour and one for which I am extremely grateful.

“I look forward to spending some time in Glasgow and renewing my acquaintance with some of my favourite paintings in Kelvingrove's collection that in many ways inspired me to become an artist at the outset.”

Jack Vettriano: A Retrospective opens in Kelvingrove on Saturday September 21 and runs until Sunday February 23 next year.

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