“DON’T LOOK AT ME!â€
By Raymond Benson
“Don’t
look at me!†shouts Frank Booth, the sociopath played by Dennis Hopper, but
that, of course, is exactly what David Lynch wants you to do.
Lynch
was nominated for a Best Director Oscar for this singular, extraordinary film
that shook audiences around the world in 1986, and it’s the picture that
solidified the filmmaker as perhaps the heir to the surrealists of the 1920s.
It’s a polarizing film that makes audiences uncomfortable and sometimes
outraged, and yet it possesses signature stylistic and thematic aspects to
which Lynch has returned many times in such fare as the more mainstream (but
also surreal) television series Twin
Peaks, and the dreamlike fugues of pictures like Lost Highway and Mulholland
Drive.
After
the box-office and critical failure of the sci-fi extravaganza, Dune (1984), Lynch exercised his option
with producer Dino De Laurentiis to make a smaller, personal movie of his
choice (with a drastically reduced budget). It is a work of striking brilliance
and power, despite the negative reactions from some viewers (including Roger
Ebert) to the violence against women depicted in the story. But this is what
the movie is about, and it is handled with frank and often shocking, but
artfully drawn, imagery in a film noir framework.
Lynch’s recurring themes of lost innocence, exploring the dark underbelly of a
seemingly all-American small town, voyeurism, good versus evil, and the
“mysteries of love†are on full display.
Jeffrey
(Kyle MacLachlan) is a college student who has come home to visit his
hospitalized father in his small town of Lumberton, North Carolina. While
walking through a field, he finds a severed human ear. He dutifully brings it
to the police station, and then becomes friendly with the detective’s daughter,
Sandy (Laura Dern). While on a date, Sandy tells him that she overheard her
father discussing the case, and it involves a lounge singer named Dorothy
Vallens (Isabella Rossellini). Jeffrey takes it upon himself to play detective
on his own and break into Dorothy’s apartment. Suddenly, Jeffrey’s safe little
world is turned upside down and he is sucked into a cabal of sadistic criminals
led by Frank Booth (Hopper, in a truly scary, nightmare-inducing performance).
Dean Stockwell, Brad Dourif, and Jack Nance are among the gang members, and
each of them are as eccentric and creepy as their boss.
It’s
a tale of a Boy Scout who discovers hard truths
about the world we live in, and of a woman who sacrifices her soul for the
safety of her husband and son. At its heart it is a profound statement on love
and what we as humans are willing to do, not for it, but because of
it. Blue Velvet is an uncompromising
work of art that will stand the test of time, the quintessential David Lynch
film, the one that can be buried in a time capsule to represent his entire oeuvre.
Besides
the excellent cast, the gorgeously dark cinematography (by Frederick Elmes),
and the bravura direction, Blue Velvet also
marked the beginning of Lynch’s relationship with composer Angelo Badalamenti,
whose music has become identified with the filmmaker’s titles. Alternating
between the dreamy and beautiful to the menacing and dark, Badalamenti’s score perfectly
captures Lynch’s mise-en-scène as the director takes us from the bright, sunny
cheeriness of Lumberton’s surface to the ugly, nefarious underground that most
likely exists in all towns across America.