I’d never say that the films of David Lynch are favorites of mine. They’re rather too puzzling and too macabre to make me want to watch them more than once. Still, Lynch’s recent death seent me back to the film that cemented his reputation in the film world. So I sat down and watched Blue Velvet, which I hadn’t seen since its release in 1986.
Lynch shot Blue Velvet after he’d already made a truly bizarre body horror indie (Eraserhead), a screen adaptation of a Broadway costume-drama (The Elephant Man), and a big-budget space opera (Dune). Following the latter serious but doomed effort to crank out a film version of Frank Herbert’s sci-fi novel, Lynch leapt at the chance to do something more intimate. As his acclaimed TV series, Twin Peaks, would later show, Lynch was fascinated by the hidden corners of small-town America, the dark secrets behind the sunny facades. Blue Velvet begins (to the syrupy tune of the Bobby Vinton pop hit) with glimpses of happy Americana: cheery flowers blooming, an off-duty fireman waving at the locals from his truck, a neat row of clean-cut school kids crossing a street, a middle-aged man watering his lawn. Then suddenly the man collapses to the ground, and we realize that Middle America isn’t all sunbeams and rosebuds. (Ironically, at this early point we’ve already caught a glimpse of the fallen man’s wife, curled up on a comfy couch to watch a TV episode in which somebody is pointing a gun.)
The hero of the story turns out to be Jeffrey, the son of the injured man. As played by Kyle MacLaughlin (who’d starred as Paul Atreides in Lynch’s version of Dune), Jeffrey’s a handsome and well-meaning fellow, home from college because of his father’s accident. Taking a walk in his neighborhood, he comes across a startling sight: a severed human ear. That’s when he can’t resist doing some sleuthing of his own. It quickly includes his neighbor, a pretty blonde high schooler named Sandy (Laura Dern), who jumps at the chance of playing Nancy Drew.
What they discover is a side of Lumberton, their cozy home town, that they hadn’t anticipated. There’s a lounge singer (Isabella Rossellini) with a masochistic streak, a psychopathic drug dealer (Dennis Hopper) with rape on his mind, and a weirdly effeminate creep (Dean Stockwell) who’s into karaoke. And, of course, a guy with a missing ear. The clean-cut Jeffrey can’t resist getting mixed up in all of this, acknowledging with fascination that “I’m seeing something that was always hidden.”
The curious thing about Blue Velvet is that, despite a good deal of grotesque violence, the movie ends on an upbeat note. Jeffrey and Sandy are a happy couple, Dad is well again, flowers are blooming against a bright blue sky. It’s as though none of the ugliness we’ve just seen has ever happened. Still: those flowers look suspiciously phony, as does the chirping bird (a callback to Sandy’s earlier romantic dream of happiness) that perches outside the window of the family kitchen. And look! Isn’t that a worm in its beak?
Blue Velvet will never be in my personal pantheon of truly great movies. I’ve liked other Lynch films better because I’ve found their characters more appealing: see, particularly, Wild at Heart (which stars Dern again, with Nicolas Cage). And the conundrums in later Lynch films like Mulholland Drive seem more worth figuring out. Still, Blue Velvet paved the way for the rest of Lynch’s important career. And it’s fun to see Isabella Rossellini wearing something other than a nun’s habit.
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