I just don’t think I am much of a Lynchian. David Lynch is obviously working on a level unlike 99.9999% of the directors out there and there appears to be only a couple of ways of looking at a Lynch film. You can absorb Lynch to the point you become immersed in the world(s) he creates in his films. You can search for meaning and you can spend a long time doing so. You can also watch 15 minutes of a Lynch film and give up on it before you even get into the darkness he sets out to create.
In 2001 I watched Mulholland Drive and I enjoyed dissecting that at the time, but for the life of me I can’t remember any of the conclusions I came to. I tried watching Lost Highway and failed, after all my only interest in the film was the Smashing Pumpkins song “Eye” that was on the soundtrack. That song still kicks all kinds of ass.
Blue Velvet is my third Lynch film even though I have Dune sitting on the shelf in HD DVD format and just haven’t taken the time to watch it, primarily because I know the investment needed to watch a Lynch film and finding that kind of time is rare for me recently.
Typically when I watch a film I have not seen I let it soak in and write it a day, week, two weeks or so later. With Blue Velvet I knew it was either “write it now” or “fuck it”. I have to get my thoughts on this one out now or they will just ruminate, fester and die. I am a fan of dark and twisted films, but a Lynch film is well beyond your average dark and twisted, he actually brings substance to the film and makes an audience work. Who woulda thunk?
Blue Velvet opens to white picket fences with splashes of colorful flowers enhancing the dream-like mood. A fire truck drives by and the firemen slowly wave their welcome. It’s the small town of Lumberton, a name setting the mood all on its own, but as the opening continues you get an extreme sense of surrealism. Our tour comes to an end as a man watering his lawn suffers a heart attack. He tumbles to the ground as the water continues to flow skyward. A little dog climbs on him and begins aggressively biting at the spraying water. A slow pan takes us below the surface, skimming the grassline to reveal a festering pile of beetles writhing in the dirt. This is how Lynch chooses to end our introduction to a town that opened with the bright and beautiful and ends in blackness.
Was it real or just a dream?
We next meet Jeffrey Beaumont played by Kyle MacLachlan, an actor I have never found all that appealing. Jeffrey is the son of the man we saw suffer a heart attack earlier. He visits his father in the hospital and there is an obvious sense of tension in the room and you get the impression they have not seen each other for some time, but the reason for their estrangement is not known… yet.
On Jeffrey’s walk back home he happens upon a severed ear in a field. Playing the good Samaritan he takes it to the police and this small appendage becomes the jumping off point for the film. Shortly thereafter Jeffrey goes for a walk to clear his head when Lynch cuts back to the ear on the coroner’s table and a camera move takes the audience closer and closer into the ear until we are once again shrouded in blackness… and the story continues as if nothing has changed. But has it?
The rest of the film involves Jeffrey trying to figure out the story behind the ear. He performs his own stake outs, breaks into apartments and begins a love affair with Sandy (Laura Dern) the daughter of the officer in charge of the investigation.
I believe everything that happens between the descent into the ear I just described and a similar exit out of Jeffrey’s ear as we wakes toward the end of the film is all in Jeffrey’s mind. Let me explain.
It doesn’t take long before we get the feeling something has changed after the ear sequence as we are first introduced to Sandy as she appears out of the darkness implying Jeffrey is beginning to pull characters from his real life to tell his story, the way people just seem to pop-up in your dreams out of nowhere. Lynch does say in a documentary on the DVD, “The ear would be an opening into another world.”
We next meet Isabella Rossellini and our film’s villain played by Dennis Hopper. Their introduction brings to light a whole new group of theories, metaphors and interpretations, primarily just
The big question of course: Is it any good?
Blue Velvet is considered something of a cult classic, a distinction almost all of Lynch’s films could wear with honor. For me cult classics are traditionally hit or miss with little room in between, and while fun to pick apart for awhile, this one is a miss for me. Sometimes I just don’t have the energy for Lynch.
I do believe this film is pretty straight forward. I know there are things I missed, but I just don’t have any interest in searching any further. I can understand why many would want to as Lynch is someone obviously intriguing and skilled at using film to his advantage and engaging a willing audience to try and decipher what he is telling on screen, and I am up for that, at least to a certain extent.
One thing I will say for the film is that I wholeheartedly believe my interpretation is 100% right on, but I can’t help but knock it down to 99% as the intensely over-exaggerated appearance of what would be the “real world” is so unbelievable it wouldn’t surprise me one iota if Lynch came out and said the exact opposite were true. Lynch doesn’t seem to have an overly happy view of the world, which makes even reality a metaphor in this one. I guess it is best to call it “Lynch’s charm” and leave it at that. He certainly breathes life into the film world, like it or leave it.
Now, after all this, enjoy this spoof trailer for the film I am sure anyone that has seen Blue Velvet or followed a word I have said is sure to enjoy:
