Film Review: Blue Velvet (1986)

Fig. 1 Blue Velvet (1986) Film Poster

David Lynchs 1986 American mystery isnt your usual mystery with its demonstrations of surrealism and film noir. In a typical apple pie American neighbourhood something out of the ordinary is unfolding, something involving a dismembered ear and a nightclub singer welcome to Lumberton. Jeffery Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) returns to his hometown after the near fatal stroke his father suffers but on the way back from visiting him in hospital he comes across a severed ear in an empty field. After informing Police Detective John Williams (George Dickerson) of his discovery and a tip off from his daughter, Sandy (Laura Dern) and himself head on a journey deep into Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini) life beyond the seemingly ensconce of her singingwhat secrets lie beneath? On first glance Blue Velvet seems to set out as a typically linear mystery. Beaumont finds something wrong, ends up with a partner and then begins his investigation however, Lynch does something that upsets the linear normality and upsets his audiences way of unfolding the mystery alongside Beaumont. He throws in the intrusion of psychosexuality, something Beaumont and the inhabitants of Lumberton are not familiar with and what he assumes his audience isnt either. This psychosexuality acts as the perfect interruption to the characters lives because of the way discussions and acts of inappropriate sexuality have been marked down as taboo subjects in history. We dont know that these characters have nave knowledge of sexuality but Lynch implies it with the clean, perfect nature of their town and the inhabitants from the bright, sunny lighting that seems to radiate and bring happiness, to the characters looking like they have just stepped out from a dressing room. So when they are faced with Frank Booths (Denis Hopper) violent sexual acts they dont know how to respond, this is just something they werent prepared for.

Fig. 2 Apple Pie, healthy Lumberton

The ways of life of Jeffery, Sandy and those alike are binary oppositions of Dorothy Vallens and Lynch does away with the clean cut, happy Americana ideology other films have brainwashed into their audience. We automatically view America in this way but Lynch delves deep- using Jeffery Beaumonts investigation as a metaphor- into the American society we are withheld from or really is withheld from us as if it is a big terror or disease to the health perfection America seems to want. Cut and dried, Blue Velvet rolls together Lynchs two diametrically opposed, but indivisible, views of American life: One is the white picket fences faade, the other its grimy, badly infected underbelly. (Christley: 2011) Lynch doesnt use Blue Velvet to tell the story of Dorothy Vallens, if he did then he would have spent more time bringing more emotion into the film rather than having it suggest irony verging on parody. His audience could decide to take what they are given on screen very seriously and be disgusted by the way Lynch makes actress Isabella Rossellini act but instead he wants us to comprehend that there is more to the world than meets the eyes, to take away the ambiguous sense about life events we at the moment do not understand rather than just being open to the unambiguously bright and happy ones. Blue Velvet is more like a perception of how we react when we are faced with the unknown yet from the perspective of those in society who are not ready to just sit there without investigating the world some and Guardians reviewer Derek Malcolm explores this Lynchs films are not so much psychological studies of character as surreal impressions- more of a sensation than a story. (Malcolm: 2000) The sensation of opening up your eyes to the bigger picture.

Fig. 3 Jeffery opening his eyes to the real world

Blue Velvet is full of symbolic imagery for looking beyond what we see such as the bugs burrowing in the grass which is suggestive of the ugly truth that inhabits the beautiful scenery of

Lumberton. The ending scene of the film is a key example of this where everything out of the ordinary that happened during the film seems to have gone amiss, instead everyone is happy again but then a bird settles outside the window with a bug in its beak and it doesnt go past the audiences notice of how connotative it is of how beauty and happiness disguises the truth when the characters are mesmerised by the bird rather than paying attention and feeling sorry for the bug it caught. Yet there is something seriously wrong with the final scene, yes it seems like everything is back to normal but we feel like shouting at the characters as if they are crazy for returning to their normality because we sure wont forget what happened. Surely they should be hankering for more because when we find out something we want to find out more, its like a disease just like sexual acts were a disease for Frank Booth and Lynch himself sums this thirst for more up perfectly. Well, film is really voyeurism. You sit there in the safety of the theatre, and seeing is such a powerful thing. And we want to see secret things, we really want to see them. New things. It drives you nuts, you know! And the more new and secret they are, the more you want to see them. (Lynch: 2005) Maybe this is just what the characters are doing, sitting there in their safety watching and waiting to see new things.

Bibliography
Christley, Jaime. N, (2011) slantmagazine.com http://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/review/bluevelvet/2140 (Accessed 14/01/2012) Malcolm, Derek, (2000) David Lynch: Blue Velvet http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2000/feb/17/artsfeatures.davidlynch (Accessed 14/01/2012) Rodley, Chris and Lynch, David, (2005) Lynch on Lynch, Macmillan, London

List of Illustrations
Fig. 1. Blue Velvet (1986) Film Poster From: Blue Velvet Directed by: David Lynch. [film poster] On movieposter.com http://uk.movieposter.com/posters/archive/main/43/MPW-21636 (Accessed 14/01/2012) Fig. 2. Apple pie, healthy Lumberton (1986) From: Blue Velvet Directed by: David Lynch. [film still] On dvdtalk.com http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/images/reviews/277/1321040010_5.png (Accessed 14/01/2012) Fig. 3. Jeffery opening his eyes to the real world (1986) From: Blue Velvet Directed by: David Lynch. [film still] On wikia.com http://images.wikia.com/lynch/images/f/f6/Beaumont.jpg (Accessed 14/01/2012)