Let me start by saying that Blue Velvet has
scenes in it that many people would find objectionable. It contains moments of
disturbing violence and misogyny. The characters seem to have no redeeming
qualities, and the action moves in a dreamy quality where behavior and
motivation are unmoored from each other and one is left with a sense of physical
and spiritual disorientation. Perhaps this was director David Lynch’s intention.
Blue Velvet takes the viewer to a world where things seem comfortable
and normal on the surface, but when one looks just below, there is a world
crawling with ugliness and depravity. It is in the extraordinary detail that
Mr. Lynch pays to both sides of this reality that defines the greatness of his movie.
The central metaphor in the film revolves around
main character Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle McLachlan) finding a severed human ear in
a field near his parents’ house. The camera leads us into the ear and we do not
come out until the story ends. The ear is a literal entry point to a mystery
and a symbolic entry into the darkest parts of human behavior. Jeffrey takes
the ear to the police, where he becomes reacquainted with the detective’s
daughter Sandy (Laura Dern) who happens to be an old friend. Now as an unlikely
“MacMillan and Wife” the pair set out to discover the truth about the ear. Of
course, the truth is every bit as unsavory as one would imagine. The weird plot
is secondary to the overall sense of dread that permeates nearly every scene.
Jeffrey and Sandy become embroiled in the lives of a masochistic lounge singer
played Isabella Rossellini and her lover/antagonist Frank Booth played with
volcanic fury and cruelty by Dennis Hopper. Much of the movie’s fame and
notoriety comes from the scenes with these two actors. Rossellini manages to be
simultaneously sexy, tragic, dangerous and vulnerable. Her character is
tortured by abuse, but seemingly gets sexual pleasure from it. Her behavior
seems confounding, but by the end of the film we understand she is another
symptom of this cinematic universe where we are constantly just on the edge
between the normal “daytime” world and the shadowy underbelly of modern life.
The lord of the underworld in this film is Frank Booth. Hopper creates a
degenerate for the ages in the gas-huffing, drug dealing, sadistic hoodlum,
setting the template for many bad guys to come in the modern age. He is the
stereotype of the guy so beyond the law and the standard societal mores that he
becomes a moral code unto himself. Hopper was coming off a long dry period in
Hollywood, much of it the result of his own real-life Frank Booth-esque
behavior, but because of the ferocious intensity of his portrayal his career
began its much-celebrated upswing after Blue Velvet.
Ultimately, it is David Lynch who is the star of
Blue Velvet. As mentioned, the movie contains scenes of extreme
behavior, however Lynch keeps you engaged even as you are repulsed. It is his
artist’s sense of the details that make them so indelible. One of the most
memorable scenes of the movie involves Frank Booth visiting a drug dealing
acquaintance. The scene is shot with garish surrealism as character actor Dean
Stockwell pantomimes a Roy Orbison song like a scene from Cabaret. In
this scene we are given clues to Frank Booth’s humanity and the underlying
sadness of all the characters. A potentially throw-away scene illuminates all
the themes running through the film. This type of juxtaposition is Lynch’s
greatest asset. For every sun-soaked scene of suburbia there are two shadowy
glimpses down dark alleys. As the seemingly straight relationship between Sandy
and Jeffrey develops, Jeffrey’s feelings for Rossellini’s threatened lounge
singer becomes a twisted love triangle with no satisfactory solution. Lynch’s
vision may be upsetting but it is coherent. Not just coherent but, artistically
rewarding, intellectually stimulating, philosophically challenging. Does love
look the same for everyone? Are we all capable of descending to the lowest
depths of depravity? Is there a definitive good and evil? Is there an ugly
truth behind every lovely image? All thought-provoking ideas, and David Lynch
explores them with a true artist’s touch. His technical skills are all
marshalled to the perfect representation of the line between dark and light: capturing
the moment it goes from day to dusk.
The final line spoken in the film is “It’s a
strange world isn’t it?” Though it is meant in an ironic, almost comic way,
director David Lynch puts to film the notion that there is much we don’t know
in everyday life. To make seen the un-seeable is the artist’s task, and David
Lynch succeeds like few others.
-
Paul
Epstein
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