"It had to be an ear because it's an opening. An ear is wide and as it narrows, you can go down into it. And it goes somewhere vast." -David Lynch
There it is, at seemingly subterranean depth, a feast for the insects: a human ear. Appropriately, sound amplifies as we inch towards it, the microcosmic ant world rumbling at the volume of a busy city street.
The portrait of a deteriorating extremity minding its own business in the centre of a lush green field is one of the many juxtapositions (or, more appropriately, collisions) of beauty and sickness we'll see in Blue Velvet, a film in which the balance of good and evil in a small town is teetered by a visitor who straddles the divide (as exemplified by his wardrobe of neutral greys).
This tourist is Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan), the sort of sturdy American go-getter we used to call "a button-down man"; he happens upon the ear while refamiliarizing himself with Lumberton, where he grew up and where his father has suffered a stroke. Jeffrey will be running the family hardware store in dad's absence by day, leaving his nights free for amateur sleuthing.
His discovery of the appendage brings amusingly to mind an old ethics lesson: If you found one hundred dollars on the street, would you keep it or turn it over to the police? The Lynchian irony at work here is that Jeffrey delivers his find (prosperous in its own right in that it leads to all sorts of excitement) to the cops but is nonetheless corrupted by his desire to retrace its origin.
First, Jeffrey teams with Sandy (Laura Dern), the daughter of the investigating detective. She provides him eavesdropped information about the ear and its possible link to local nightclub singer Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini). Jeffrey, born curious, breaks into Vallens' apartment while the cat's away, so to speak, but is caught when he doesn't hear Sandy's warning signal that the chanteuse has returned.
Despite her abhorrence for intruders, Dorothy stows him away in a closet upon the arrival of a second guest, an act we'll come to see as merciful. Peering out through louver doors, Jeffrey observes Dorothy's violent sexual abuse at the hands of tragically unhinged Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper), a leather-swathed Freudian nightmare. This is Jeffrey's formal acquaintance with Lumberton's underbelly, and once he's tasted it, he wants more.
Jeffrey's temptations come to a boil once he, after becoming her protector and then saner lover, beats Dorothy during intercourse, becoming a version of Frank in the process. It's a film noir tradition for the hero to have his loyalties inverted; a "case" becomes a probing of the self, an excuse to explore his humanity.
Jeffrey is swiftly redeemed in the film's centrepiece, for my money the most transporting sequence ever committed to celluloid. Kidnapped by Frank and his goons, he is brought to a drug den and subjected to a lip-synched performance of Roy Orbison's heartbreaking "In Dreams" by a suave transvestite named Ben (a brilliantly passive-aggressive Dean Stockwell). Unable to bear the deceptively simple song's emotional weight, Frank packs up his gang and (I'm paraphrasing this next development) brings his hostage to a deserted patch of road, where he applies lipstick and vents his psychotic frustrations on Jeffrey.
The fever dream qualities of this cinematic descant are not necessarily indicative of the whole of Blue Velvet; there is a like moment in every Lynch film, a liberated set piece governed by subconscious whim. (This may account for the perceived artistic failure of Lost Highway, which is amorphously nutty throughout--too much of a good thing.)
Debate has transpired over the years as to Blue Velvet's categorical approach: is it surrealism, realism, or naturalism? Chris Rodley, editor of the fabulous Faber and Faber tome Lynch on Lynch, rejects notions of the latter, at least in terms of dialogue. I threw my hat into the ring two years back, in an essay on the AFI 100 List's more glaring omissions, when I called Blue Velvet "hyperrealistic": so real it rings false.
The frequently asinine dialogue, for example, only strikes us as such because we're not used to hearing the kind of aimless talk we enage in daily in movies. And if we closely examine Jeffrey and Sandy's tentative romance, we realize how mannered young love can be; Jeffrey's offer to demonstrate his "chicken walk" for Sandy, apart from being a uniquely eighties gesture, draws attention to itself because of its astounding sincerity.
Finally, the mystery itself is anticlimactic, routine in its solution, yet it only seems that way in relation to other pictures about small-time crooks.
It helps that actors incapable of untruth populate Blue Velvet's cast, at least in the context of Lynch's difficult screenplay, which could've turned into another suburban satire on a dime. Two standouts: Kyle MacLachlan, who has that rare face that allows us to project our own feelings onto it, and devilish Dennis Hopper, mesmerizing and unhealthily iconic in a perversely charismatic role.
Rossellini weathered a political hailstorm for her naked portrayal of a guilt-wracked sadomasochist; Blue Velvet's disparagers, an outspoken lot, saw her as victimized off-camera, too, by virtue of playing the script as written. I'm torn: the film inevitably exploits Ms. Rossellini's body, but Dorothy Vallens is a juicy part, and such monstrosities occur in real life--we can wave the banner of political correctness, or give the issue of rape its uglydue. It's a fine line, to be sure.
The film was immediately, deservedly canonized upon its release in 1986 by such luminaries as Woody Allen (whose own work has been darker since) and Pauline Kael ("The charged erotic atmosphere makes the film something of a trance-out, but Lynch's humour keeps breaking through, too."). The zeitgeist was a little slower to latch on, perhaps because of the controversy--they have adopted Blue Velvet's sitcom cousin American Beauty instead. But nine months later, the latter already feels staler than the former, because Blue Velvet's precedents existed only between Lynch's ears, lending it a sense of perpetuity.
Blue Velvet must be seen in widescreen to be fully appreciated--director of photography Frederick Elmes gives scope to living rooms! Pan-and-scan users and even owners of Lorimar's letterboxed LaserDisc will want to upgrade to MGM's 16x9-enhanced, 2.35:1 DVD, which is tighter compositionally and features clearer, more colourful images. Given its age and the format's tendency to highlight print flaws, the transfer is surprisingly devoid of nicks and scars. Grain is apparent but so what? Aside from some minor compression artifacts, my only criticism of the picture quality is inherent in all older footage generated using anamorphic lenses: wider shots are softer than close-ups.
I alluded to this in my introduction: Lynch is famed for his imaginative aural designs and the discs's crisp Dolby Surround mix highlights Blue Velvet's complex soundscape. Angelo Badalamenti's luscious score, his first for Lynch, is slightly shrill here, but various implacable ambient effects get under the skin. What audiences rarely pay attention to is Lynch's restraint--what you're not hearing is equally meaningful (he drops the sound entirely each time as Jeffrey farcically ducks into Dorothy's closet), and that's where the utter cleanliness of this track warrants a mention: you won't be distracted by hiss or pops.
Extras include a four page trivia booklet, a trailer for Blue Velvet of extremely poor quality (it appears as though it has been videotaped off a wall by a camcorder), plus a truly weird montage of clips from the film entitled "Strange World". To access this hidden bonus, sit on "Play Movie" and then press the left arrow on your remote control.
Director David Lynch follows up 1984's DUNE with this electrifyingly original thriller. After returning to his hometown of Lumberton North Carolina in...More at Family Video
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