Blue Velvet

Please note the purpose of this blog is to discuss established classics that I've never seen. As such, the following is laden with spoilers.

Why So Long?
"Hey all, it's Friday night and the vast possibilities of the weekend stretch before us, how about we stick on that film about violent, sadomasochistic sex and crack open a bottle of wine?". It's a hard a sell is what I'm saying. And, somewhat surprisingly given that I have a film degree, I didn't know anyone who had the film on DVD, so I could hardly stick it on when on my own. It's also somewhat a victim of its own success here, despite its content, the film has become a part of our cultural hegemony, even a cursory dip into the library of books on film history, art and/or legacy will leave you with quite the well-realised impression of what Blue Velvet is about.


And? 
Well, it's exactly what I imagined it was, only it was a lot better at doing that than I could possibly have grasped before hitting play. Blue Velvet is a film that delights in repeatedly hitting you in face, whilst also managing to simultaneously offer you a warm, tender embrace. It's hard to define the film, not because its allusive or an enigma, more that it's hard to define one's feelings for a film that is so determined to pull you in different directions and so successful at doing so.

Any discussion of this film has to tackle that scene at some point so I might as well get it out of the way here at the top. Even if you've never seen Blue Velvet, you undoubtedly are able to conjure the scene up in your mind. Kyle MacLachlan, lit up through the slits on the wardrobe doors looks on as Dennis Hopper first physically and then sexually assaults Isabella Rosselini. I'm not wet behind the ears on this kind of thing and yet, so powerful was the execution of the scene that I found myself gasping audibly. It's one thing for a film to evoke that in someone sat in the dark of a movie theatre, quite another to evoke it in a man sat alone in his living room on a Tuesday night. 

The scene encompasses a truth about the film which is impossible to ignore. Whether or not I like the film or dislike the film is immaterial. What cannot be denied, is that everyone involved in this film is on their A-game. The MVP is unquestionably Rossellini; taking on this role would be brave even if the actor was planning on phoning it in. As it is, she commits to the role with such a dedication that despite the horrors she endures and inhibits, one cannot help but see a little bit of true beauty in what she has brought to the screen. This again brings back the duopoly at the heart of Blue Velvet, that desire to pull the audience in many different directions at once. Take the scene where she is found on the lawn of MacLachlan's family home; naked, afraid and completely vulnerable. It's distressing, haunting, horrible and yet beautiful all at once.

The yang to Rossellini's yin is of course Dennis Hopper; he apparently begged Lynch to cast him but one does have to wonder who else could have pulled this off. Few other actors have such a terrifying screen presence as Hopper; one imagines that you could have filmed him eating a bag of crisps for fifteen minutes and the audience would be terrified throughout. Seeing him here, being allowed to turn the whole thing up to eleven, is an incredible sight. Even a dodgy disguise in the film's final reel does nothing to rob this character of his inherent violent being. Yet, here as with his other notable roles, it should be noted that Hopper did not enjoy (although one wagers he didn't enjoy much) career longevity by playing a simple thug. He brings a humanising quality to the role, think of the scene in the lounge as he rubs on the material he holds in his hands. This doesn't illicit sympathy, but instead hints at just how deep the cuts that made him this way run.

Its an odd but true statement to assert that after The Elephant Man and The Straight Story, this is probably Lynch's most accessible film. Even when one considers the sexual violence. What Blue Velvet showcases best about Lynch is a quality he possesses which often gets overlooked in essays on his work. Lynch the filmmaker is certainly a unique voice, that his film's enchant because of how he blurs the lines between dreams and reality is also true. But what Lynch is, first and foremost, is a craftsman who knows exactly what he's doing and realises the importance of this craft to the overall effect. Consider the scene where MacLachlan picks up Laura Dern after the school dance and camera lingers long enough through the car's back window to allow the appearance of Hopper's headlights in the distance. This is Hitchcock's-guide-to-filmmaking-101 stuff, but its stuff that many other filmmakers either get wrong or simply ignore. Lynch is aware that he can linger on severed ears covered in ants all he wants, if he can't get his dramatic beats correct, the rest is immaterial.

You put your disease in me.

Which brings me to my closing thought on Blue Velvet, and its a thought I had a few years ago after watching 12 Years A Slave. That this film is perfectly put together is true and it also showcases two very fine screen performances but why exactly am I being asked to sit through this assault on the senses? That the white-picket fence image of suburbia might be hiding a dark underbelly is hardly a new message, I'll bet it wasn't much newer back in 1986. I'll be the first to admit that I may be missing something but, to borrow a criticism from the late, great Roger Ebert - does this film earn Rossellini's performance? The legacy of the film has ensured hers but then that legacy owes so much to her performance.


Will You be Watching it Again?
It carries the same pull and push, revulsion and attractions as a car crash, or given the tone of the radio announcements in the film, a more apt comparison might be that of a man getting hit in the groin unexpectedly. The question is less, will I be watching it again and more, will I be able to not?


Has Any Light Been Shone on Some Heretofore Unknown Bit of Pop Culture?
No, the film is too much a part of our modern cultural stew for that. However we now count Laura Dern in with Paul Rudd, Keanu Reeves and Lauren Lavergne, among that group of people who appear to be incapable of aging.