Shocking. Controversial. Unforgettable. – Dennis Hopper’s brilliant punk rock masterpiece of adolescent rebellion is ready for a new, long overdue close-up!
A kind of spiritual sequel (and cautionary counterpoint) to Hopper’s own Easy Rider, OUT OF THE BLUE chronicles the idealism of the sixties decline into the hazy nihilism of the 1980’s.
Don Barnes (Dennis Hopper) is a truck driver in prison for drunkenly smashing his rig into a school bus. Linda Manz (Days of Heaven) plays Cebe, his daughter, a teen rebel obsessed with Elvis and The Sex Pistols. Her mother (Sharon Farrell) waitresses, shoots up drugs and takes refuge in the arms of other men. Cebe runs away to Vancouver’s punk scene and ends up on probation under the care of psychiatrist Raymond Burr. After Don’s release, the family struggles to re-connect before the revelation of dark secrets leads to a harrowing conclusion.
Working from the original 35mm negative restored by Discovery in 2010, John Alan Simon and Elizabeth Karr’s Discovery Productions undertook the digital scan and mastering of Out of the Blue to premiere as an official selection at the Venice Film Festival in 2019, preserving Hopper’s landmark film to make it available to new audiences.The New 4K restoration is being shown for the first time on the big screen theatrically at Metrograph in November, 2021 in New York.
Despite critical acclaim at its original Cannes premiere in 1980, OUT OF THE BLUE went unreleased because it was considered too bleak for U.S. audiences. John Alan Simon, then a film critic/journalist, rescued the film from the shelf, secured distribution rights and took it on the road with Dennis Hopper back in 1982 to art house theaters across the U.S. including a 17-week record-breaking run at the Coolidge Corner Cinema in Boston and then NYC and Los Angeles theatrical releases.
“It’s incredibly important to us that OUT OF THE BLUE be preserved for future generations to experience its emotional impact and as the artistic achievement that helped re-establish Dennis Hopper as an important American director,” commented Elizabeth Karr on behalf of Discovery Productions.
“For me, this restoration project was pay-back for all I learned from Dennis Hopper when we originally took OUT OF THE BLUE on the road in 1982 after I rescued it from the shelf. He was an amazing artist and friend and OUT OF THE BLUE remains as unforgettable as he was and serves as an indelible tribute to the talents of Linda Manz,” John Alan Simon from Discovery Productions concluded.
