Blue Velvet Revisited (2016)

Interesting facts

Blue Velvet Revisited is a 2016 documentary film directed and edited by Peter Braatz. Using a montage technique, it documents the making of David Lynch's critically acclaimed film, Blue Velvet, using a combination of filmed footage, photographs and interviews captured on set by Braatz, with an accompanying soundtrack by Cult With No Name, Tuxedomoon and John Foxx.

Background and production

Peter Braatz had worked as a musician fronting the German avant-garde punk band S.Y.P.H. before moving to Berlin in the early eighties to study film. He first contacted Lynch in 1983, sending a critique of Lynch's The Elephant Man with a proposal to interview him to Mel Brooks, who had produced the film. Lynch wrote back several months later, and they exchanged letters over the following two years.

Braatz first released a film based on what he documented as No Frank in Lumberton in 1988. The film was avant-garde in its approach and had limited distribution through the German television station ZDF and a handful of festivals. In 2013, Braatz was in his studio listening to the track "As Below" by British band Cult With No Name.

Before editing began, Braatz commissioned Cult With No Name to produce the soundtrack, as it was always his intention to edit to music as much of his material was silent, having been filmed using Super 8. Cult With No Name invited Tuxedomoon and John Foxx to join them in producing the soundtrack, released on Crammed Discs in 2015 on vinyl and CD a year before the film.

Editing and production of the film took over a year in total. The film's Opening and chapter titles were provided by acclaimed graphic designer Jonathan Barnbrook, most famous for his work with David Bowie. Braatz himself dubbed the film "a meditation on a movie", making an important distinction between his approach and a conventional documentary with narration.

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