BLUE VELVET

David Lynch - love him or hate him, you've got to admire his originality and undoubted technical ability behind the camera. His debut feature film ERASERHEAD (1977) is a black-and-white nightmare that divides people to this day, whilst his follow-up THE ELEPHANT MAN (1980) is an acknowledged masterpiece, and is surely one of the most successful black and white films of the last 20 years. However, in 1984 it all started to go wrong. Lynch adapted Frank Herbert's multi-million selling SF classic DUNE for Dino De Laurentiis' production company. Lynch's original cut was reportedly around five hours long, and the shoot went well over budget. The shortened version of the film failed miserably at the box office, and De Laurentiis lost millions on it. However, Lynch had a clause written into his contract with De Laurentiis which allowed him to make a small, personal film ($6 million budget as opposed to DUNE's $45+ million budget) after DUNE and De Laurentiis was good enough to honour this (though Lynch had to agree to take no pay, and only a small fraction of any profits). The result was BLUE VELVET, one of the most influential and extreme films ever to come out of Hollywood. It cemented Lynch's reputation as a director of daring, originality and vision, and salvaged his career after the box office failure of DUNE.

The story concerns innocent Jeffrey Beaumont (played by David Lynch's alter-ego Kyle MacLachan, first seen as the star of DUNE and later to become known to millions as Agent Dale Cooper in TWIN PEAKS) who returns home from college to Lumberton, a small logging town. His father has been taken ill and he is needed to work at the family business, a hardware store. Walking home from visiting his father at the hospital one day he discovers a severed ear in a field near his house. He takes it to a detective whose daughter he knows. Intrigued, he wants to know more but is told to mind his own business... however, the detective's daughter Sandy (the virginal Laura Dern, daughter of Bruce Dern and Diane Ladd, who would play a very different role in Lynch's next film WILD AT HEART (1989)) catches up with Jeffrey and tells him what she's overheard of the case. It turns out that a lady called Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini, fashion model and daughter of Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini), who sings at a local club ('The Slow Club', a typically Lynchian name) is involved in the case in some way. Jeffrey persuades Sandy to go with him to Dorothy's apartment where he will get in by pretending to be a pest exterminator. Sandy is to come to the door and distract the woman whilst he opens a window. However, before Sandy gets to the door another man arrives. Jeffrey steals some keys and makes his exit. That night they go to the bar where Dorothy sings. They return to her apartment and Jeffrey sneaks in. Sandy gives him four toots of the car's horn when Dorothy arrives, but Jeffrey doesn't hear as he has just flushed the toilet. Taken unawares he hides in the closet and watches her undress and speak to someone on the phone. Dorothy discovers him and makes him undress at knifepoint. Just then another man arrives. Jeffrey quickly gets back in the closet, and observes the new arrival. The man is Frank Booth (a maniacal Dennis Hopper), a sadistic madman who inhales some sort of gas through a mask before humiliating Dorothy, beating her and finally having frenzied sex with her, without removing his trousers. He speaks in guttural, short sentences ("Baby wants to fuck") and is obviously very dangerous, though Dorothy appears to enjoy the abuse. Jeffrey surmises that Frank is holding Dorothy's husband and child hostage, and that the ear he found belongs to Dorothy's husband. Fascinated, he begins to dig deeper into Frank's affairs, whilst having a relationship with Dorothy. However, there is a price to pay, and things are not quite what they first seemed...

Lynch had originally wanted to direct his long-cherished (and still unrealised) RONNIE ROCKET screenplay ("It's about a little three foot tall guy with red hair and a sixty cycle alternating current..."), but was persuaded by De Laurentiis to do something just a little more commercial. So, he went away and wrote the screenplay to BLUE VELVET, starting with an image of a man sneaking into a woman's apartment and watching her from within a closet (a fantasy Lynch admits to having had), and taking in ideas that he'd been having for over a decade. On the surface, BLUE VELVET is a film about sadomasochism and a criminal. However, as with all of Lynch's work, it is also so much more. Everything about the film is perfectly realised - the casting, the gorgeous cinematography (by Lynch regular Frederick Elmes), the small town setting, the period look of the film, everything. It's easy to see why many people consider this to be Lynch's ultimate achievement.

The first time I saw the film (the first Lynch film I ever saw) I was hooked right from the brilliant opening montage. Lynch starts with scenes from small-town America - pure white picket fences against a painfully blue sky, a fire truck trundling slowly along, a man watering his perfect garden whilst a dog plays. Suddenly a snag develops in the man's hose and he collapses, still holding onto his hose whilst the dog barks and bites at the water. A noise starts to form on the soundtrack, slowly getting louder as the camera zooms into the undergrowth, revealing a crawling, slimy underworld of bugs. This opening literally peels back the normality of suburban life to reveal the putrefacation lying just below the surface, just as the rest of the film will go on to do. The film is filled with the bizarre imagery that Lynch has made his own, from the severed ear Jeffrey finds in the grass, to the deliberately fake robins at the end of the film. It is also filled with many of the obsessions that Lynch would later develop further - references to THE WIZARD OF OZ, fetishism, scenes of the road at night, decay, violent deaths, innocent versus manipulative women, over-the-top profanity, darkness and light, etc. It was also the first time that Lynch worked with perhaps his most important collaborator, the composer and musician Angelo Badalamenti. The film features a song ('Mysteries of Love') by Julee Cruise, Lynch and Badalamenti's angelic singer who would go on to appear in TWIN PEAKS (and INDUSTRIAL SYMPHONY NO 1 (1990)) and work on several albums with them. The film famously features songs by Roy Orbison ('In Dreams') and Ketty Lester ('Love Letters Straight from the Heart'), used for scenes which didn't go down too well with the artists themselves.

What really makes BLUE VELVET work are the actors. Kyle MacLachan plays Jeffrey as a young Lynch, complete with buttoned-up collars and childlike, fresh-faced innocence. He is perfect in the role, conveying just the right sense of beguilement and fascination with the world to make the sometimes corny sentiments he expresses seem correct. Laura Dern is also excellent as the angelic Sandy, and Isabella Rossellini plays an extremely daring role as Dorothy, requiring her to appear fully naked and in very uncomfortable situations. The film really belongs to Dennis Hopper though, whose wild-eyed portrayal of Frank Booth is simply astonishing. Hopper had effectively been blacklisted in Hollywood for several years due to his reputation for adiction to both drink and drugs, and 1986 was the year of his comeback (he also appeared in THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE II in a similarly crazed role). He snarls, swears and dominates proceedings with a daringly unhinged performance, and makes the most of some brilliant monologues; "Don't be a good neighbour to her. I'll send you a love letter - straight from my heart, fucker. Do you know what a love letter is? It's a bullet from a fucking gun, fucker. You receive a love letter from me and you're fucked for ever! Get it fucker? I'll send you straight to hell, fucker!" I particularly like the scene at Ben's, in which Hopper shows just how crazed Frank really is, constantly erupting into uncontrollable anger (for example when he has to wait a few seconds for some beer glasses he starts ranting "Where's those fucking glasses? That beer's going to get warm and if there's one thing I can't fucking stand it's warm beer. It makes me fucking puke!" At the end of the scene he stands, arms wide in the centre of the room screaming "Aaaaaaah! Let's fuck! I'll fuck anything that moves, ha-ha!" before a loud screech of tyres. Frank disappears from the screen, leaving the room empty. Hopper is genuinely frightening in the role, appearing bestial and primitive, yet managing to invoke some small amount of audience sympathy through sheer charisma. "You're like me" he tells Jeffrey and though it might not be immediately apparent to the audience, most people will see what he means by the end of the film. Even the small roles in the film are played to perfection. Particularly noteworthy is QUANTUM LEAP's Dean Stockwell as the effeminate, suave Ben. Lynch's old friend Jack 'Eraserhead' Nance appears in the film as one of Frank's gang ("I'm Paul"), and Brad Dourif (later to be seen in Argento's TRAUMA (1993)) plays another.

The film explores deeply uncomfortable ground for an American production - S&M relationships, drugs, corruption, and the hypocrisy behind suburban life. Some scenes are very hard to watch, like the moment when a naked, bruised Dorothy appears out of the darkness, later clinging to Jeffrey whilst telling Sandy that "he put his disease in me". The character of Dorothy is ugly, and not surprisingly Lynch ran into considerable problems with feminists over the character ("I want you to hurt me" she tells Jeffrey, smiling bloodily when she is punched), but he says that the problem is with them; "...[they] have an idea that Dorothy was Everywoman, instead of just being Dorothy. That's where the problem starts". Lynch would go on to provoke similar controversy with WILD AT HEART, and most especially TWIN PEAKS FWWM. 

The most astonishing aspect of BLUE VELVET is its success in America. It is highly unusual for a film as challenging as this to get shown at the box office, and it's even more unusual for it to enjoy the kind of critical success (and Oscar nomination) that BLUE VELVET enjoyed. One can only wonder whether it would be as positively received in today's Hollywood, as anaemic and stilted as it has now become. Regardless, Lynch would go on to even greater success in the coming years with his Cannes-winning WILD AT HEART and widely acclaimed TV series TWIN PEAKS, before falling from grace in 1992 with his TWIN PEAKS prequel FIRE WALK WITH ME. Sadly, Lynch has only completed two films in the last decade (LOST HIGHWAY (1997) and THE STRAIGHT STORY (1999)) and his latest project, a TV series called MULHOLLAND DRIVE has been dropped by the commissioning network (ABC) which considered his pilot "too weird", leading Lynch to declare that he was finished with TV for good. It will be interesting to see what Lynch turns his hand to next, and to see whether he can still find a place in an increasingly bland, characterless American film market. Meanwhile, we can only enjoy the few masterpieces that he has already made, of which this is probably the finest example.

DVD Specification
Original year of release - 1986
Approximate running time - 120min.
Aspect ratio - Widescreen 2.35:1
System - NTSC (colour)
Rating - R
Sound - Dolby Digital (3.0)
DVD release - MGM
Region Coding - Region 1

DVD Extras
Original Theatrical Trailer

DVD Ratings (out of 5)
Picture - 5
Simply stunning! I must admit that when the DVD was first released I was quite nervous about what sort of job MGM would have done with it. They don't have the best reputation and the fact that the disc appeared to be a 'bare bones' release worried me even more. However, the transfer presented here is breathtaking. BLUE VELVET is given its correct full scope aspect ratio, very important in order to appreciate Lynch's painstaking compositions. Even better, the image is anamorphically enhanced, allowing the viewer to enjoy the film in what is undoubtedly its best presentation ever. It's unlikely that the film ever looked as good as this, even at the cinema. Top marks for what is the joint best transfer (with the Japanese disc of GEMINI) I've yet to see.
Sound - 4
The Dolby Digital soundtrack is very important in order to fully appreciate Lynch's innovative use of sound and music. Lynch is fascinated by sound and here worked with his ERASERHEAD collaborator Alan Splet to produce truly original soundscapes, which seem to envelop the viewer and certainly serve to take one further into the film's world. As with the image, the sound is extremely clear and as good as it's ever likely to be, short of a DD5.1 remix, which would really be unneccessary. I for one prefer to have the track as Lynch intended.
Extras - 2
A short theatrical trailer's all you're getting, I'm afraid. There's also a little booklet with the DVD. MGM probably shouldn't be blamed for this, as all of Lynch's films that have so far made it to disc have been similarly bereft of extras, probably down to Lynch himself. He is famously reticent about discussing his films and the meanings behind them, though rumour has it that the long-forthcoming TWIN PEAKS: FWWM and TWIN PEAKS pilot episode DVD's will have audio commentaries by Lynch. An interview would have been nice...
Overall Rating - 5
A seminal film in American cinema is given a pristine transfer for DVD release. It's highly unlikely to ever look better than this, and you really have no reason not to buy it, particularly given its very reasonable price tag. I'm sure that most people know whether they like Lynch's films or not by now; there doesn't tend to be too much middle ground where he is concerned. One of the best DVD's I've yet to see.

Film Tag Lines
"It's a strange world"

Alternative versions
BLUE VELVET has had lots of releases around the world. Most notably, it's been available on US Laserdiscs from Warner and Lorimar. A widescreen budget VHS tape has been available in the UK for some years from 4-Front, and both a pan-and-scan DVD (from Castle Entertainment) and a widescreen DVD (also from Castle) are also available in the UK. The UK releases aren't cut, but are the same as the US 'R' version, i.e. missing several shots that were removed to gain that rating. The German version apparently omits the scene where Frank first attacks Dorothy.

Movie Facts

The role of Jeffrey was originally offered to Val Kilmer, who turned it down, describing the script he read as "pornography", although he says he would've done the version that finally made it to the screen.
When Jeffrey first meets Sandy she "materializes" out of the dark just the same way as Henry's neighbour did in Eraserhead (1977), also directed by David Lynch.
Lynch originally wanted Frank to be inhaling helium during the sex scene with Dorothy.
A big picture of Montgomery Clift hangs in Sandy's bedroom.
A scene in which Dennis Hopper hits Isabella Rossellini was edited so that his hand connects with her face offscreen, to satisfy MPAA concerns about violence towards women. Director David Lynch opined that that change only made the scene more disturbing.
Several of the actors who were considered for the role of Frank found the character too repulsive and intense. Dennis Hopper, by contrast, is reported to have exclaimed, "I've got to play Frank. Because I am Frank!"

Awards
Many nominations and prizes. Most importantly David Lynch was nominated for an Oscar - surely one of the most surprising nominations in the history of the ultra-conservative Hollywood ceremony.

 

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