Before he started swimming almost exclusively in the deep end, David Lynch actually made some (relatively) mainstream, comprehensible content in the early to mid-1980s. Case in point: Blue Velvet (1986), a neo-noir thriller in which college student Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) uncovers disquieting secrets in his idyllic hometown. Teaming up with high school student Sandy Williams (Laura Dern), Jeffrey's investigation leads him to Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini), a traumatized lounge singer trapped in a sadistic cycle of abuse by Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper), a psychotic crime boss (with an unnerving penchant for inhaling amyl nitrite) holding her family hostage. As Jeffrey descends deeper into this surreal world and is exposed to terrifying violence lurking beneath suburban tranquility, he taps into a darker side of human nature.
To listen to a recording of our CineVerse group discussion of Blue Velvet, conducted last week, click here.
Forty years later, Blue Velvet hasn’t lost any of its potency as an exposé of America’s dark underbelly. The film espouses that even the most wholesome and healthy-appearing environment can conceal festering evil and decay if you look closer beneath the surface. The famous opening – one of the most visually arresting in film history – begins with the nostalgic titular ballad, which harkens back to the “golden age” 1950s when it was written, along with comforting iconography associated with small-town USA: red roses against a white picket fence and a deep blue sky (the three hues of the American flag), yellow tulips, a crossing guard shepherding young children to school, and a happy homeowner hand-watering his lawn while his TV-watching wife sips coffee on the couch. But suddenly the man falls to the ground sick; a dog barks erratically as it gulps up wayward water gushing from the hose, and we are brought to ground level as the camera creeps through the lush lawn, bringing us face to face with undulating waves of crawling black beetles.
Not long afterward, Jeffrey discovers an ant-infested severed ear, obscured amid the grass in a field, and the camera pulls us into the ear canal, taking us visually and symbolically deeper into the unfolding mystery. Indeed, not all is as it appears in Lumberton, a place the sweet, virginal girl next door calls home but which also contains hidden-in-plain-sight abominations like Booth and his band of toxic miscreants.
This remains one of Lynch’s very best films, representing a worthy comeback after the failure of his Dune adaptation in 1984 and the movie that established his pre-Twin Peaks reputation as a visionary filmmaker known for dabbling in dark subject matter and infusing his works with surreal imagery, unsettling dream logic, and bizarre characters. Here, we can easily identify a more mature, confident, and skillful director who benefits from a fine script and a dependence on the plot, excellent casting of Hopper and three relative unknowns at the time in MacLachlan, Rossellini, and Dern, vividly dark, rich and chromatically vibrant cinematography courtesy of Frederick Elmes, and a standout score by Angelo Badalamenti, who regularly partnered with Lynch from this collaboration onward.
Part of Blue Velvet’s greatness lies in its boldness: its ability, especially back in 1986, to challenge audiences with more disturbing themes, graphic violence, and evil characters, much in the same way Psycho did in 1960 and A Clockwork Orange accomplished in 1971. This was an extremely controversial motion picture for viewers and critics alike four decades ago. But by pushing the envelope, Lynch and his team helped open the door to exploring more intense subject matter, particularly sexual violence, in a way that advanced the conversation and forced audiences to recognize the black yin opposite the white yang in characters both likeable (Jeffrey) and despicable (Booth).
Deep Focus Review essayist Brian Eggert
believes that “No other Lynch film affects or transports more than Blue Velvet…the viewer never feels completely astray inside some horrible subconscious delusion, nor does the viewer feel immersed in over-the-top comic irony…the film also resists being as literal as his true stories. Even still, Lynch’s film doesn’t stop to ask why or assign psychoanalytical meaning…his style of filmmaking is unfiltered subconscious.” Eggert calls it a work that balances “between dreamworlds—the American Dream and an American nightmare—enough to create a false feeling of equalization, if not normalcy by the conclusion…To watch Blue Velvet is not to see only the dreadful, ugly parts of America; it’s about seeing the world itself from a unique angle, which is to say, from the surreal perspective of David Lynch.”
Blue Velvet boasts an array of exceptional Lynchian visuals that long imprint on the mind. Especially impressive are the nighttime outdoor shots, especially down the dark, deserted neighborhood streets of Lumberton as the camera lingers on things like the ominous tree branches overhead, inky blacks from which characters emerge (such as Sandy’s sudden appearance from out of the shadows), and the ominous apartment building where Dorothy resides. Lynch’s lighting, compositions, and milieu details perfectly capture the look and feel of a tranquil small town.
Four particular motifs used effectively include swishing curtains; flickering candles that get snuffed out; extreme slow-motion shots (Jeffrey hitting Dorothy, the dog gulping up the hose water) punctuated with animalistic noises that are artificially slowed down to make them sound more aggressive; and insect imagery and associations (the beetles and ants, Jeffrey’s exterminator ruse, the double-dealing detective in the “yellow jacket,” and Booth’s gas mask that perhaps makes us think of a pest control safety apparatus).
One unforgettable shot often cited is Booth standing in Ben’s doorway, threatening aloud to “fuck anything that moves” as he laughs maniacally and – poof – instantly vanishes from that very spot as we hear the squeal of his tires. This image and sound here convey all the menace, capriciousness, and imminent danger that the man signifies.
Lynch masterfully uses misdirection in the scene where, behind the wheel, Jeffrey thinks he’s being chased by Booth’s black car, but it turns out to be Sandy’s angry boyfriend. What’s emotionally fascinating is that, when the jealous steady emerges from his vehicle and, backed by his posse, threatens to harm Jeffrey, it feels like a relief compared to the Booth alternative.
Of course, this is a Lynch work so it’s going to include some outright weird optics and directorial oddities, such as the dead yellow man standing stonelike despite being shot in the brain; Booth’s zippered-up sexual assault; the unattended baby walking near Jeffrey’s prostrate father; Ben’s neon-lit den of grotesques; and the animatronic robin.
The director also opts for striking symmetry by bookending the film in two ways: Blue Velvet opens and closes with those eerie swaying blue curtains, and similarly to how we are visually sucked into the force field that is the ear canal from that detached appendage, near the ending we slow zoom out from that same auditory orifice.
Upon digging further, it’s satisfying to learn how Lynch stayed authentic to his memories, emotions, and gut instincts in shaping the story and tone of Blue Velvet. This was a filmmaker famous for drawing creative inspiration from dreams, premonitions, pieces of music, past experiences, and the transcendental meditation he regularly practiced. We learn that he was first motivated by an intuitive feeling, by an unprovoked image of a severed ear lying in a field conjured out of nowhere in his imagination, by the raw vibe he felt when listening to Bobby Vinton’s chart-topping 1963 cover of the song Blue Velvet, and by a distressing childhood memory of a nude female walking down the street at night.
Blue Velvet is distinctive in the Lynch canon. His filmography begins with Eraserhead (1977), a more unhinged and experimental black-and-white midnight movie cult film with horror undertones, then segues to a more traditional narrative with The Elephant Man (1980), which was widely hailed for its performances and direction. Lynch was hamstrung by a limited budget and studio interference with his third outing, an adaptation of the science-fiction literary classic Dune (1984).
While he infused his unique brand of surreal cinema in Eraserhead, a work that defies conventional logic and traditional filmic storytelling conventions with unsettling visuals and a distinctive sound design, he returns to some of these eclectic approaches in Blue Velvet; yet, unlike that first foray, this movie has a coherent plot and a narrative throughline that satisfies mainstream audiences. Along with The Straight Story (1999) and The Elephant Man—both based on true stories—Blue Velvet is the most coherent and accessible of Lynch’s works to wider audiences. He more widely diverged from the straight and narrow just a few years later with his polarizing Wild at Heart (1989), Twin Peaks TV show (1990-1991), and spinoff film Fire Walk with Me (1992), followed by a trio of increasingly outlandish, dreamlike, and noirish mystery thrillers: Lost Highway (1997), Mulholland Drive (2001), Inland Empire (2006), and Twin Peaks: The Return (season 3; 2017). It’s these qualities and collective works that have earned the artist his own adjective in the dictionary: Lynchian.
According to Slant Magazine reviewer Chuck Bowen, “Blue Velvet’s mix of pop cultural fetishizing and extreme, occasionally ironic brutality, its swirling together of banality, kink, and tragedy, would prove to be monumentally inspirational. Quentin Tarantino’s films, namely Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994), would be unimaginable without Blue Velvet.”
You could also draw a throughline to later films like Safe (1995), which channels the same blend of suburban alienation and psychological dread; Happiness (1998), which exposes the dark, taboo desires festering underneath the squeaky-clean surface of middle-class suburbia; and Blue Ruin (2013), which follows an unassuming protagonist stumbling out of his depth into a gritty criminal underworld.
Precursors that presumably influenced Lynch in the creation of this film include the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew mystery books; numerous film noir pictures from the 1940s and 1950s, especially Kiss of Death (1947), also featuring a psychopathic and unpredictable killer; Sudden Fear (1952), which has a protagonist who similarly uncovers a monstrous truth from a hidden vantage point; and works by Hitchcock, particularly Shadow of a Doubt (1943), another film that reveals the darkness lurking beneath the surface in small town America, Rear Window (1954), and Psycho (1960), the latter two steeped in like-minded voyeuristic themes and mysteries that pull the lead characters into danger. Turner Classic Movies’ Richard Harland Smith also
makes a compelling case that the mechanical robin used in Mary Poppins (1964) likely inspired Lynch to use a similar artificial bird in Blue Velvet.
This is the picture that gave us one of cinema’s very best movie villains in Booth, played so convincingly by Hopper in a role that represented his critical and popular comeback after years of lesser films and being sidelined with addiction problems. (Blue Velvet, in fact, helped rejuvenate Hopper’s and Lynch’s careers, and also served as a big-screen launching pad for Rossellini.) Casting Hopper was a coup, as this actor and several of his earlier roles were long associated with controversy, instability, and impulsiveness. He’s a thespian with piercingly wicked eyes and an upsetting countenance when playing angry.
Booth’s strongest attribute as a terrifying antagonist – which also demonstrates the actor’s supreme command of this character – is his unpredictability. He appears when you least expect him to. He employs clever disguises when necessary. After Jeffrey punches him in the face, Frank surprisingly doesn’t torture or kill him. This is a man who will cry tenderly when hearing a beautifully sung song, but will also murder, rape, kidnap, and mutilate the innocent. What’s also fascinating is, at the same time, how predictably Booth will spew F-bombs and childish-sounding profanities and escalate his verbal volatility.
On multiple levels, Booth’s rape of Dorothy is a downright scarring sequence for watchers—and I say watchers because, like Jeffrey, we are complicit in the act of voyeuristically watching this horrific act. We see Frank punch, slap, and physically dominate her, threaten her with scissors, engage in orally fetishistic behavior by stuffing their mouths with a blue velvet sash, use a gas mask to deeply inhale a mind-altering vapor, verbally berate her with shouted obscenities, and—strangely—dry hump her supine form in a penetration-less assault that only lasts a few seconds. We also observe Dorothy acquiesce without much struggle and, at points, bear an expression of seeming enjoyment. And we witness Jeffrey do nothing to stop Frank and aid this helpless woman.
There’s also the stomach-turning scene where Jeffrey discovers Dorothy wandering naked in the street in a fugue state, displaying cuts, scrapes, and bruises. This may have been the last straw for late critic Roger Ebert, who, in his
one-star review of the film, remarked: “Rossellini is asked to do things in this film that require real nerve. In one scene, she’s publicly embarrassed by being dumped naked on the lawn of the police detective. In others, she is asked to portray emotions that I imagine most actresses would rather not touch. She is degraded, slapped around, humiliated and undressed in front of the camera.”
While the picture ends with Dorothy reunited in a happy embrace with her son, we are inevitably, devastatingly reminded how much she has suffered to get to this point and will continue to suffer: Her husband is dead, her dignity and agency had been stripped away, and she bears deep psychological scars from the experience. She will never be the same again.
Essentially, Blue Velvet is most concerned with the mystery that is Jeffrey: his inherent sexual duality and oscillation between altruistic amateur detective and unwitting Booth understudy. “I’m seeing something that was hidden – I’m involved in a mystery,” Jeffrey admits.
“It’s about a young man’s learning through flabbergasting and violent experience to appreciate a relatively safe and manageable sex life…This is possibly the only coming-of-age movie in which sex has the danger and the heightened excitement of a horror picture… There’s no sticky-sweet lost innocence, because the darkness was always there, inside,”
wrote Pauline Kael, who added that the film puts us in an “erotic trance.”
We continually observe an empathetic, kindhearted young man who’s falling fast for Sandy and everything she represents. But we also observe how Jeffrey's swelling sexual curiosity draws him into the exotically appealing vortex of Dorothy and down the Frank rabbit hole of depravity. This isn’t a simple Riverdale Betty vs. Veronica paradigm; Jeffrey’s suffering from a classic madonna-whore syndrome where he can’t resist Dorothy’s dangerous allure and the sadomasochism associated with her, yet he’s also drawn to the downhome innocence and family-friendly simplicity of Sandy. Tellingly, we hear her say, “I don’t know if you’re a detective or a pervert,” to which Jeffrey replies, “That’s for me to know and you to find out.”
Later, we see how conflicted Jeffrey is after indulging in her S&M demands, now clearly distinguishing between the selfish titillation and the real-life abuse. By the third act, Jeffrey has apparently abandoned his dark fantasies forthwith and refocused his desires in a healthier direction by pursuing Sandy, a much safer and more fulfilling partner. Still, we can’t escape the uncomfortable truth that the young man earlier discovered within himself: Human nature harbors a hidden darkness.
Ponder, as well, the Freudian conflict woven into this perturbing tale. Laura Mulvey, a feminist film scholar, posited that there’s an Oedipal family in this movie, represented by two parents (Dorothy and Frank) and a child (Jeffrey). In this psychoanalytic dynamic, Jeffrey desires to kill his symbolic father and sexually possess his mother. Per film critic Michael Atkinson, “Dorothy represents the sexual force of the mother because she is forbidden and because she becomes the object of the unhealthy, infantile impulses at work in Jeffrey’s subconscious.” And Debopriyaa Dutta of Slash Film
wrote: “Although Jeffrey is both repulsed and fascinated by Frank’s existence, he must eliminate Frank’s unchecked id (instinct) to return to his fantastical world of white picket fences and blissful ignorance. Once the Freudian id is destroyed, the false normalcy of Jeffrey’s ego (logic) takes over my bringing the adventure to an end.”
Dichotomy and duplicity pack a powerful one-two punch in Blue Velvet. We see two sides to many characters here — the caring vs. the libidinously deviant Jeffrey; the docile, tormented victim vs. the trauma-triggered masochistic Dorothy; Frank the sociopath vs. Frank the mustachioed, wig-wearing avatar of chaos; and the detective in yellow who moonlights as Frank’s accomplice.
In a movie already packed to the gills with stirring ideas, perhaps the most consequential takeaway is the fallacy of normalcy. The quiet, peaceful town of Lumberton, like so many other outwardly ordinary ’burbs and burgs, exudes a sheen of normality, harmony, safety, virtuousness, and domestic tranquility. But crime, sin, and chaos exist behind the locked doors and around the outskirts. And even when the evils are flushed out into the open and presumably vanquished, there are other threats buried beneath the surface, waiting to emerge.
For proof of this pessimism, consider the dénouement. Jeffrey is awakened from a dream – in which he has exited safely from the inner canal of that detached ear – by a robin singing energetically, which reminds us of Sandy’s earlier dream. Recall her description of that slumbering vision, in which the world was dark because there weren’t any robins: winged creatures that represented pure love. She warns of trouble until these birds appeared. Sandy, Jeffrey, and his mother and aunt stare fascinated at a curiously phony-looking robin that appears on the windowsill; look closely and you see that their feathered friend has in its beak one of those repellent black beetles we noticed in the opening scene. The aunt expresses revulsion over the bird eating the bug, but Jeffrey and Sandy seem to gloss over this fact, intentionally oblivious to the violent nature of this conquest and opting instead to believe that love and light have triumphed over darkness.
If this conclusion is intended to bring happy closure, it’s unpersuasive. No, the implication here is clear: Evil may be out of sight, yet it’s ever-present, and even when it’s rooted out, it’s only a temporary victory that can bring a false sense of security. That tidy carpet of well-manicured emerald orderliness is actually just a thin barrier separating us from the countless miles of ugly decomposing matter underneath, fooling many of us into thinking that this world is a safe, civilized, and beautiful place. “It’s a strange world,” we hear Sandy and Jeffrey say multiple times, one that can be both lovely and loathsome.
While Jeffrey ultimately makes the safe and sensible choice in Sandy – apple pie over dark chocolate – there’s the potential danger of complacency here. Optimistic Americans like the ultra-sincere Sandy may continue to convince the Jeffries of the world that the robins are present and plentiful, which could blind them both (accidentally or willfully) to future infestations of hidden insects, or whatever new form these bugs take.
Blue Velvet earned Best Film and Best Director honors from the National Society of Film Critics in 1986 as well as a second Oscar nomination for Best Director for Lynch. The film has garnered widespread critical acclaim in the years since, taking fourth place in an Entertainment Weekly list of 100 new film classics from 1983 to 2008, and slotting #37 in that magazine’s 1999 all-time top 100 survey. The American Film Institute ranked it 96th on its 100 Years... 100 Thrills list (2001), placing Frank Booth 36th on its greatest villains list (2003), and naming it the eighth-best mystery film in its "Ten Top Ten" poll (2008). It subsequently placed fifth in a December 2002 Sight & Sound UK critics' poll of the 10 best films of the last 25 years, clocked in at #95 in Variety's 2007 online community poll, and received a #54 ranking for Frank Booth on Premiere magazine's list of the greatest movie characters. It came in at #69 in the 2012 Sight & Sound greatest films list, and #60 in BBC Culture's 2015 ranking of the greatest American films; in the 2022 Sight & Sound poll it earned #85 in the critics' poll and #72 in the directors' poll. Today, Blue Velvet commands a 91% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with an average critical score of 8.4 out of 10.
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