In the 1950s and 1960s Dennis Hopper was a young actor appearing in classic films like Rebel Without a Cause, Giant and The Sons of Katie Elder. But by the late 1960s Hopper was tired of directors telling him what to do. He felt like he knew better and he’d prove it if he could get behind the camera. Hopper got his shot with Easy Rider and he made good on his threats, transmuting a no-budget biker flick into an iconic cinematic statement of youthful revolution and kick-starting the greatest period of filmmaking the world has ever seen. But by the time Hopper followed up his success with the brilliant flop The Last Movie the actor/director began a long and storied slide into an oblivion of drugs and alcohol.

I’m thinking about Hopper tonight because 2018 marks the 30th anniversary of the director’s cops and gangs film Colors. Hopper got sober and made his comeback as an actor in 1986, a busy year in which he turned in four fantastic performances in Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, Blue Velvet, Hoosiers and River’s Edge. But Hopper’s comeback as a director wouldn’t happen until two years later when he directed Sean Penn and Robert Duvall in the gritty cops and gangs film. Colors‘ concrete realism illuminated Los Angeles’ gang culture before most American’s had ever heard of the Crips and the Bloods, and actual gang members were cast in the film. Colors also pointed a camera at the uneasy relationship between the LAPD and Los Angeles’ black community three years before those pigs beat Rodney King and laid the groundwork for the LA Riots in 1992.

Here’s a great documentary about Hopper’s life and art…

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I’ve been seeing a lot of old David Lynch posts popping up as Facebook “Memories” lately, and I was reminded that we’re still celebrating the 30th anniversary of that strange, sad, scary and sensational film, Blue Velvet. It looks like we’ll be getting a new doc about Lynch and his visual art practice soon, but now’s a great time to re-watch Blue Velvet. As a teaser here’s a great little conversation about the film, the Twin Peaks series, and Pussy Riot between Lynch and Patti Smith…

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My last post celebrating Blue Velvet at 30 created a lot of fun comments and discussions on social media, and that made me glad that I’d bookmarked this great interview with Dennis Hopper. This chat covers Hopper’s work with David Lynch on the film, and looks back at the star’s storied, sordid, remarkable career.

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This year we celebrate the 30th anniversary of David Lynch’s surreal skewering of suburbia, Blue Velvet. A 2002 documentary illuminated that story’s darkest shadows. Here’s IndieWire with the word…

The 70-minute-long, 2002 documentary The Mysteries Of Love dives deep into the 1986 film, with interviews with key members of the creative team, including Lynch himself, along with Kyle MacLachlan, Isabella Rossellini, Laura Dern, and Dennis Hopper. It has some great insight into how the film came to be, both in terms of the financing and in the creative origins, as well as some great Lynch anecdotes from the actors, almost all revolving around Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank. The doc also talks about the use of nudity, the first reaction from producers and test audiences, and much more. This is one Lynch fans have to watch.

Here’s The Mysteries of Love…

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Please subscribe to my YouTube channel where I archive all of the videos I curate at Insomnia. Click here to check out more Cinema posts