Blue Velvet appreciation
TheMack
3,414 Posts
i know im mad late. but i just saw this movie. mind blown 
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K.
David Lynch???s ??Blue Velvet by DJ Coma Toast
David Lynch???s ???Blue Velvet??? takes place in the small town of Lumberton. It is a secluded Rural/Suburban town with white picket fences that guard its unknowing conservative citizens from its dark and dangerous underworld. Jeffery Beaumont, the main character in the story, is conducting an investigation into this underworld, along with the girl Sandy. It is said that David Lynch picked Kyle Maclachlan to play the character of Jeffery because he is similar in looks and actions to himself. So through Jeffery???s voyeurism he is representative of the director???s camera, seeing everything that goes on and then giving that experience to the audience. The leader of this underworld is the neurotic Frank Booth, whom Jeffery suspects to be responsible for a murder and the abuse of Dorothy Valens, a lounge singer who ???Likes to sing Blue Velvet???. Not to mention that she is usually wearing Blue Velvet when the Erotic Scenes take place.
Through Jeffery???s curiosity into these matters we find out a lot about who Jeffery is. The movie starts off with the sudden heart attack of his father, then a shot of the squirming bugs crawling beneath him. These bugs are representative of Lumberton???s Underworld, and because Mr. Beaumont sensed this darkness rising to the surface he becomes ill. You witness Mr. Beaumont at the end of the movie feeling well after the criminals are supposedly exterminated from the town. Jeffery then is walking from visiting his father in the hospital when he finds a human ear in a field. This ear is rotten and a shot zooms in through the ear. The symbol of the ear could be interpreted as a pathway that leads directly to the mind. Because the ear is rotten the place where the camera is taking us is dark, perverse, and dangerous. Later we find that this is
Dorothy???s husband???s ear. Jeffery is then drawn in to the mystery when he takes the ear to the local investigator Detective Williams, who is the father of Sandy Williams and Jeffery???s accomplice in the secret investigation. Sandy leads Jeffery to Dorothy???s apartment after procuring a key, and then reenters while Dorothy is supposedly away. You start to begin to realize how twisted Jeff really is while he is hiding in the closet. Jeffery watches Dorothy undress and then put on a blue velvet robe, which is a change from the red atmosphere of the apartment. She is even wearing a red towel when she reaches for the blue velvet robe. The Red represents that her apartment and body is a place where passion and fantasy are carried out, Almost in a dangerous way. You could say the blue velvet also represents passion but in a comforting and soft way. It is protection from the harmfulness of the red surroundings and danger of the outside world like a mothers womb. When she finds him in the closet the then makes him undress while she threatens him with a knife. Here is where the circle of Dominance begins. We witness this act by Dorothy as the one who is in power over Jeffery this time. Later we find out that she is doing and saying the same things to Jeffery as Frank does to her. When there is a knock at the door Jeffery goes back into the closet and watches the perverse neurotic Frank abuse Dorothy. Franks actions here are very peculiar and interesting. He insists that Dorothy calls him ???Daddy??? and then makes Dorothy spread her legs while inhaling some sort of gas. This may be evidence of a condition called asphyxophelia, in which the person gains erotic arousal or orgasm through suffocation, or lack of oxygen to the brain. This might be the case with frank, even though they never say what he is inhaling, but it is definitely manipulating his already obscured touch with reality. He then calls out ???Mother! Mother!??? while Dorothy comforts him, almost as if he is regressing to a primal fantasy state of mind. He then proceeds to physically abuse her. Dorothy does not fight; She actually seems to enjoy being beaten.
After Jeffery witnesses what frank does to her he tries to comfort her to no avail. She asks if he likes her and then asks him to hit her, but Jeffery does not. After this Jeffery has some sort of dream, with images of a candle being extinguished and of frank taking from the inhaler and then punching Dorothy. Later that week Jeffery comes back to see Dorothy again, and she asks him if he is a ???bad boy??? and to hit her again. When he refuses we see the image of the candle being extinguished, She lunges towards him and he smacks her in the face. She smiles crookedly and then an image of flames is shown on the screen as if to represent the passion or erotic enjoyment that she feels when she is abused. In this we start to see more of the dark side of Jeffery and his will to be dominant over Frank. He wants to bring Frank down so that he can have Dorothy to himself. The darkness in Jeffery is also shown through the simple fact that he is pursuing this dangerous woman whom he knows is married and has a child to
someone else. He also breaks into her apartment to do so.
While Jeffery is leaving He sees Frank enter the hallway. Conflict is presented between the two dominant characters during this scene when Frank takes them to
Ben???s house. Before they leave he makes Dorothy get the blue velvet robe. Frank is constantly questioning Jeffery???s strength as a man. This is what puts them
into the roles of a pseudo Oedipus complication whereas Jeffery is Fighting to replace Frank as the role of the father. This idea is strengthened through the
fact that Jeffery???s father is absent throughout the movie, and Frank demands being referred to by Dorothy as ???Daddy???. During this car ride Frank???s cohorts are constantly antagonizing Jeffery as if to get him to do something in retaliation, as if to test him or make him part of the group. The fact that they don???t actually kill him makes light of the fact that they see potential in him as a criminal, or even some kind of respect. When Jeffery punches Frank to help Dorothy, Frank says to Jeffery, ???You???re like me.??? which is very true statement.
You could say that Jeffery is worse or more threatening than Frank because Jeffery actually kills Frank. Another thing that is very perverse about Jeffery is his Manipulation of Sandy. Getting her to leave her boyfriend is morally questionable, in the same regards copulating with a married woman, and when that fact is presented to Sandy when Dorothy is found naked and beaten, Sandy still
admits to loving Jeffery even though she knows he has been fornicating with this older woman.
After the police and Jeffery finish off the bad guys in a showdown in Dorothy???s apartment we see a transition to the future, Beginning with a shot through Jeffery???s cavernous ear. Jeffery is lounging comfortably in the yard but in a strange way. We know that the underworld still exists in Lumberton because they didn???t get rid of all of Frank???s cohorts and Jeffery???s own evil is what overcame them all. They end with Sandy???s ???robin of love??? eating a bug on the windowsill, as if to reinforce the regression of the underworld. This is also expressed through the miraculous recovery of Jeffery???s father. We see that Jeffery and Sandy have a happy future ahead of them, or you could see it as Jeffery has found his Next victim in the game of Domination, the Submissive Sandy.
the scene where they take jeffrey out into that lot and "In Dreams" is playing is so FREAKIN awesome. Dennis Hopper RULES
Very good paper man... insightful. Thanks for posting.
Not too play proof-reader or anything, because I know you already got yer "A"...
But did you mean "psychotic" instead of "neurotic" in reference to Frank? Like... Woody Allen is to nuerotic what Frank Booth is to psychotic. I could be wrong, and it doesn't matter much, as it's obvious what you mean... but yeah, nice paper!
Peace...
Mimizu
Edit: After looking at those two words again, I guess maybe neurotic might be right... I can't really tell. Depends on what his shrink would say I guess (and though psych was my first major, I never saw it to fruition before changing)
thanks mimizu,
good points...i see what you mean. I think he could be both psychotic and neurotic with a bit of derranged sociopathy thrown in. either way hopper is nuts and amazing in that film. I thought it would be funny to post the paper, i was actually going through all my old .doc's from college recently. also have a 14 pager on the history of pinball and a 20 or so pager on R. Crumb.
Mulholland drive is (IMO, always IMO) very good. It's very weird, for sure, but there's a good link explaning the movie that you can then read after you watch the movie, and then watch the movie again. Even then everything doesn't tie together, but I thought it was really well done. And there's lengthy lesbian sex scenes.
Alone worth the price of admission.
Yup - great film, til the end. It just fell apart after the puzzle box opens in the aunt's bedroom.The grandparents in the paperbag was goofy.
Rebekah Del Rio's rendition of Crying alone made the film worth seeing.
Twin Peaks
Am I the only one here that hated 'Twin Peaks' and thinks David Lynch is a pretentious fraud????
I agree with you that he is a pretentious fraud, but BLUE VELVET rises to something else. It's very much like a Hitchcock movie, only on acid.
And it's much more focused than his other stuff.
no you are not
Eraserhead was my shit when I was a teenager, I mean considdering the time it was done, this was totaly out there.
Twin Peaks was a let down for me but all of Lynch's earlier work is all anywhere between good entertainment and mindblowing.
I took my girlfriend to see Wild At Heart on our first date and I gave her one of those candy necklaces after the movie. Goddamn was that corny... but whatever, we stayed together ever since and it's been what, almost 14 years now and in three weeks we'll get married... ups, kinda rambeling here... anyway:
What I wanted to say is that Blue Velvet has to be Hoppers best perfomance next to Out Of The Blue. I was a bit of a Hopper fan back in the day and read tons of interviews with him, also been to exhibits with his photography work from the mid to late 60s and that shit was one big fucking trip, guy used to hang out with just about everybody from Steve McQueen to heroinsmoking, swastika-wearing bikers, mindblowing stuff! Still must have a coffe table book with that stuff somewhere. What I wanted to say was that Hopper said in an interview that the persona he's portraying in Blue Velvet came scaringly close to the person he was when shooting Out Of The Blue.
Have any of you seen that movie? It fucking rules and is hands down the best, most nihilistic, most entertaining and saddest movie with a Neil Young Soundtrack that involves Punk Rock and Elvis Presley. So if you haven't seen it yet, go out and get it!
Frank Booth is easily one of the ten top best movie villians of all time.
I will check out "Out of the Blue"...sounds pretty good.
Dude is a total freak. Which is why I love him. Well, I used to love his stuff, but now I can't really deal with it.
"Wild At Heart" was my shit when I was in high school. I think I saw it like 3 times in a row.
"You fuck like a bunny?"
Out Of The Blue is a great, great movie. Like you said, the soundtrack, the feeling of the movie. The ending is some shit to. Crazy performance for such a young actress and, yeah, Dennis Hopper was in top form.
Wild at Heart is a very good first date film, in a slightly-to-highly-uncomfortable-yet-intriguing-sexual-tension way.
Linda Manz was also in Gummo. She played little dude's crazy ass mother.
Agreed. Watching this movie with the right person will get you laid.
Agreed.