I’ve been in a David Lynch kind of mood lately. And sometimes, I often enjoy going back to what really got a creator going. It’s the film that cemented his style on the map, it’s still considered one of his best, it’s delightfully delirious—it’s Blue Velvet.
Lynch’s crack at the first adaptation of Dune left people about as befuddled as they would if they were staring at a Jackson Pollock painting with coffee stained over it—and though it wasn’t entirely his fault, it left his career on rather shaky grounds. Thankfully, he still had some favor leftover with a producer who enjoyed Elephant Man, which gave him the freedom to focus on a less extravagant but far more effective product. Themes of dark voyuerism, of scummy undercurrents in the shadows of small town USA…this wasn’t entirely what was in vogue amid the forced smiles of the MTV-binging mid-eighties, but putting a mirror to trends of the time is something any decent artist should probably endeavour to at some point.
The film starts off much better than a disembodied head rambling about planetary populations, with its Morning in America-esque atmosphere of a humble logging town where a returning student (Kyle McLachlan) stumbles on a severed ear, and decides to get on it seemingly for want of anything else to do. Lynch eases folks in with something that feels a little more typical of the time, his brand not quite being as established in the popular consciousness yet—it’s between the dementia of Eraserhead and the fairly conventional style of Elephant Man. And it’s done well enough nevertheless, letting you think you’re in for a mystery tale of a plucky young wannabe detective. That’s before he sneaks into the apartment of lounge singer played by Isabella Rossellini, who he suspects is in on things. And that’s before we get introduced to Dennis Hopper’s character who makes his impeccably memorably entrance into the plot.
Now, it’s an antagonist role from Hopper, so of course, you should expect nothing but the utmost subtlety, with every movement underplayed, and pffffttttttttttttt.
But seriously—what comes next is something that’s now as indelible to me as the Room 237 sequence from The Shining. Turns out Hopper’s Frank Booth is a deranged drug dealer, forcing Rossellini into an unwilling sadomasochistic ritual. McLachlan is stuck in a closet, with nothing but shutters between him and madness, forming the perfect audience surrogate to latch onto and get sucked in. The lighting and visual production is spot on, hitting the right notes of a twisted nightmare atmosphere, and as it goes on, the tension of whether our hero will be discovered, trapped as an unwilling voyeur, adds to the nerve-wracking discomfort that Lynch is too happy to draw out. I joke about Hopper’s hamminess, but in this case, his unhinged performance serves well enough in disarming any eroticism in the scene, replacing it with escalating delirium that sets the tone for the rest of the film. I always enjoy those kind of moments where a film completely pivots itself on a knife-edge, with a more recent excellent example being in Parasite.
It feels initially a little like the movie peaks slightly early, but there’s more great sequences to come. Throughout, McLachlan gets drawn deeper into the underworld of his town—peeling away the cutesy Americana we established at the beginning, twisting away those Reaganist images of such seemingly idyllic communities, and seeing just what our characters are willing to do to get through it. Some critics at the time felt that the film was simply getting weirder for the sake of it—which feels silly to think now, but again, Lynch’s brand wasn’t really as engrained yet. Indeed, given what it kicks off early on, to keep the atmosphere rising like a crescendo is the only real way to follow up—and as we see Booth’s lunacy on ever greater display, as we encounter more deranged figures around him, it’s an atmosphere more than well earned.
The score is also excellent, between the titular song, and it wouldn’t be the last time a Lynch project imprinted itself musically. After all, try driving around a quiet suburb or in the countryside on an overcast day with the Twin Peaks theme playing, and you’ll see what I mean.
Overall, Blue Velvet is a film best watched rather than described—and for getting into Lynch’s filmography, it’s as good as it gets. It’s more conventional than some others, it’s not slightly awkward like Wild at Heart is, and it’s got just that real level of mood that doesn’t manage to let itself up. It’s become more a favorite of mine as time goes on, so check it out.
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