BLUE VELVET: Looking at Something and Still Not Knowing What It Is
“In Blue Velvet, a ‘candy coloured clown’ references both the Roy Orbison song and drugs; a ‘love letter straight from my heart’ references murder; fabric can reference rape, physical abuse, and Oedipal complexes; and innocent young love can be warped into something dark and twisted. At its heart, Blue Velvet focuses on the absurd and analyses how strange it is that people assign meaning to certain actions and objects by taking said actions and objects and placing them in various different contexts to present how its meaning can change.”
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David Lynch's 1986 film, Blue Velvet is one which proves to be impossible to analyse in a succinct manner, no matter how simple the question one intends to answer. At its core, this film is one which constantly defies expectations and simple definitions through its diegetic and non-diegetic score which is referenced multiple times through the film's dialogue and interacts with the scenes in the way music is suddenly introduced and taken away and the visual and auditory double entendres through both the dialogue and the musical score. In Blue Velvet, akin to its protagonist, Jeffrey, no one thing means simply one thing. Jeffrey is a character thrust into the dark, seedy underbelly of society, a place in which he does not fit as asserted by the juxtaposition of his characterisation and how he reacts to violence as compared to other characters. Similarly, despite the overwhelmingly dark themes of rape, drugs, and aggression, the film asserts that what lies underneath, and what will always prevail, is positivity, something best exemplified by Jeffrey's saying at the end of the film to Sandy, in reference to her hopeful dream, "Maybe the robins are here."
Although the film ends on what appears to be a positive note, with an image of a fireman waving as he rides by on his firetruck and a close up image of flowers against a white picket fence leading to a slow motion sequence wherein Dororthy embraces her son, the film persists in ending with Bobby Vinton's “Blue Velvet” theme. In choosing the last haunting words the audience hears as "And I still can see blue velvet through my tears," as the camera lingers in a medium close-up shot on Dorothy embracing her son in his party hat before panning up slowly to the clear blue sky, not only does Lynch suggest that despite what appears to be a happy ending, Dorothy has to live and grapple with severe post traumatic stress, but he also suggests that even if everything appears beautiful, that may not be how it truly is in reality. This is something which is again asserted by the blue sky at the end of the film transitioning to a shot of blue velvet fabric, reminiscent of Dorothy's robe, billowing as the credits roll over it. Although Lynch's final frame of the film ends with a mother reuniting with her son, the lingering image left to the audience is that of the same material used by Frank when he raped Dorothy and threatened to kill Jeffrey.
The skeleton of the narrative of Blue Velvet is that it focuses on Jeffrey and “[t]he route by which the boy becomes a man” (Nochimson, “Blue Velvet”). In this endeavor, the film takes on a disorienting tone where what one sees and hears are almost always in conflict, mirroring the ways in which Jeffrey himself experiences conflict during his character arch, best exemplified by his refusing to strike Dorothy at the beginning of the film, but finally doing so in the middle of sex with her. While Jeffrey’s character is the one through which the narrative is told, he is not meant to be a sympathetic character. Though rather than isolate Jeffrey as the unsympathetic character of the film, Lynch frames most of his characters of the film in this manner.
David Lynch strikes a delicate balance in all of his works between lightness and darkness, good and evil, something which I argue he asserts through his most poignant works, most notably Twin Peaks the television show. What I find so perplexing about Lynch’s work, particularly in Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks the television show is that in one moment the audience is able to witness a touching moment between young and innocent people who love each other and in the next moment, suddenly, this idea can be subverted through love being subjected to a funhouse mirror, something best exemplified by Lynch’s juxtaposition of Jeffrey’s relationship with Dorothy and Jeffrey’s relationship with Sandy. This is mirrored once again in Twin Peaks the television show as the audience can be engaged in the relationship between Harry S. Truman and Dale Cooper and laugh at the absurdity of Pete Martell and Nadine’s superhuman strength though be abruptly reminded of the true root of the show, the murder and abuse of Laura Palmer, and the unabashed violence which is prevalent in the show, such as Leo’s abuse of Shelly.
Though an important distinction to make in Lynch’s works is that he does not argue that happiness cannot exist without sadness or evil. I do not believe that Lynch argues that sadness or the horrific acts human beings commit against one another can be substantiated. I believe that in Blue Velvet, Lynch encourages his audience to consider how many awful things happen in the film before something good happens. Then when something good happens, Lynch leads us to question whether or not the good can stay, as he asserts through the end of the film by having the last thing the audience hears be the haunting “Blue Velvet” song.
In framing his works in this way, Lynch asserts a depressing yet simultaneously hopeful message: that although there will always be sadness, happiness will come.
To some, David Lynch is simply weird to be weird and offers relatively nothing to film discourse aside from some unsettling imagery and interesting use of lights (though this can also be argued against him being relevant because he uses stark lighting that is clearly borrowed from other filmmakers and films which preceded him, most notably I argue, Dario Argento’s 1977 film, Suspiria). This is a discussion I love having because I am not sure what David Lynch offers to the film discourse; all I can argue is that he offers an intangible quality that I find stimulating and am still trying to understand.
I believe the reason why Lynch is fascinating is that he relishes in themes of absurdity, subversion, and Freudian nightmares, whether or not he intends to do so. I can confidently say that I have no idea what Lynch intended to mean in this film by his inclusion of an extreme close-up shot on what appear to be beetles crawling over each other in the grass as what sounds to be the non-diegetic crunching bones increases in volume until it is almost intolerable. What I believe it means in the context of his film is that what appears to be nothing out of the ordinary from far away may appear nightmarish at a much closer, more intimate perspective. Furthermore, I find it notable that this imagery is something which is mirrored in his 2001 film, Mulholland Drive, with its infamous dumpster sequence.
That being said, I completely understand why Lynch’s work would elude some and I completely empathise with anyone who feels this way as this is exactly how I felt when I first saw his work. The first film I saw by Lynch was his 1992 film, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, and it was a film which resonated with me because I remember how I felt after watching it: angry. This was my introduction to surrealist films that care little about anything besides a sensory experience and I was upset because I thought that film had to mean something, that it had to have a thesis, that even if it were difficult to assert or prove, were still there. Even now, after avidly watching most of Lynch’s filmography multiple times, his work still evades me. Though now, this is something which I have come to love about his work, that it cannot be explained, that to some it may be bad and tasteless, but to me there is something special and redeemable, and I think that is something which every person has to find within themselves for every director they feel a special connection to.
Furthermore, I believe that Blue Velvet ties not only utilises gimmickry, but that it relishes in it, something which is evident in nearly all of Lynch’s works. This is evident in Blue Velvet in particular in that although the film is so reliant on the song “Blue Velvet” and the fabric itself, at the conclusion of the film, neither seems to mean anything in the overall context of the narrative aside from simply being objects or singular experiences.
I argue that Lynch in this film is referencing the over-importance which is placed on gimmickry through the use of blue velvet by arguing that it infantilises audiences and leaves them begging for a reason why the gimmick is so important. Although it is a disturbing thought, I believe that the audience member who so desperately wants meaning spoon-fed to them is best exemplified by the character of Frank. Frank moves throughout the narrative expecting people to give him a show, as evidenced by his telling Dorothy to “show it to me” and demanding repeatedly that Ben put on a performance, lip syncing Roy Orbison’s “In Dreams.” Frank stares intensely at Dorothy’s body in the same way he stares intensely at Ben. He stares at them in the same way a hungry audience member, desperate for entertainment and substance looks to a movie. Although Frank huffs a mysterious gas and mumbles along the lyrics with Ben, all he is left with at the end of his experiences are the outward expressions of an angry, petulant child when they do not get what they want. In Frank’s instance, the expressions are much more dangerous in tone and severe in consequence as he demands, "Baby wants blue velvet!" and demands that Ben stop singing, leading one to question whether Lynch believes that an individual demanding that cinema provide a unique experience is inherently horrific or if, through cinema leading individuals to believe that they deserve a unique experience, it can create monsters.
In Blue Velvet, a “candy coloured clown” references both the Roy Orbison song and drugs; a “love letter straight from my heart” references murder; fabric can reference rape, physical abuse, and Oedipal complexes; and innocent young love can be warped into something dark and twisted. At its heart, Blue Velvet focuses on the absurd and analyses how strange it is that people assign meaning to certain actions and objects by taking said actions and objects and placing them in various different contexts to present how its meaning can change. The motif throughout the film of both “Blue Velvet” the song and blue velvet the fabric are disturbing because the audience is unable to definitively determine what they mean within the context of the film, what it means to its characters, and what it means to its narrative, leading the audience down a maze wherein they are at all times, in the words of Jeffrey, “seeing something that was always hidden" while still being right in front of their eyes.
Bibliography
Lynch, David, director. Blue Velvet. 1986.
Nochimson, Martha P. “Blue Velvet (Web Exclusive).” Cineaste
Magazine, 2012, www.cineaste.com/spring2012/blue-velvet-web-exclusive.
