By Todd Garbarini
There
are a handful of films that I hated the first time that I viewed them, but upon
subsequent viewings have all come to be beloved favorites of mine. James Toback’s Fingers (1978) was an incoherent mess to my naïve, nineteen
year-old eyes but was revealed to be one of the cinema’s greatest character
studies years later; William Friedkin’s To
Live and Die in L.A. (1985) seemed like a Miami Vice wanna-be, but is now
one of the best police thrillers ever and gives the average person a hint of
what it must be like to be a cop; and David Lynch’s Blue Velvet (1986) was…well…strange. The film was…confusing…boring…aimless…weird…My
friends and I honestly didn’t know what to make of it after we stumbled out of
the theater in October 1986 and pondered what we has just viewed for two
hours. We were honestly at a loss. What I didn’t realize was that I had just seen
David Lynch’s best film.
Filmed
between February and April in 1986, Blue
Velvet is about many things, and the main theme is set up beautifully in
the first few minutes after the main title credits roll over a blue velvet robe. It deals with the ugliness and rage that lies
beneath the surface of people’s faces and the beautiful sunny, white
picket-fenced suburbs. The milieu
doesn’t actually give us the impression that it takes place during the
mid-Eighties; there are visual references that almost suggest a time and place
thirty years earlier, but in keeping with the film’s themes it is very
subtle. From a plot perspective, Jeffrey
Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) returns home to handle things after his father has
taken sick after suffering a stroke in a scene that recall Don Corleone’s death
in The Godfather (1972). On his way home from seeing his father in the
hospital, he walks through a wooded area and discovers a severed human ear,
which he brings to Police Detective Williams (George Dickerson). His daughter Sandy Williams (Laura Dern) is
still in high school and knows details about the case since her room is above his
office, which she imparts to Jeffery over lunch. The case involves a singer, Dorothy Vallens
(Isabella Rossellini in a wonderful and courageous performance), and her
kidnapped husband and son. Jeffrey is
intrigued to the point that he hatches a plan with Sandy to gain access to
Dorothy’s apartment and spy on her from inside her closet. What follows is one of the most startling
mysteries ever filmed filled with some truly strange characters. The film is bolstered by a brilliant
performance by Dennis Hopper as Frank, one of cinema’s most frightening villains. I am willing to bet that Frank wasn’t much of
a stretch for the late great actor to portray. The scene where Frank takes Dorothy and Jeffery on a joyride is very unnerving.