David Lynch's Blue Velvet (1986), the American Nightmare...
David Lynch is probabily one of the most original and visually brilliant filmmakers the world has to offer, whenever he brings a new film out, critics and audiences gleefully anticipate what twisted vision of the world he might stir up. He's covered the road movie genre with Wild At Heart (1990), inter-planetary fantasy with Dune (1984), down-to-earth true stories with The Elephant Man (1980) and The Straight Story (1999), and with his debut Eraserhead (1977), he put a literal nightmare on cinema screens. However, after Dune, he unleashed his view of small-town America, which was a horrific visual feast. He was able to make a seemingly peaceful town, a picture of the American Dream, into a weird and savage oddity. In a nutshell, a nightmare. Blue Velvet (1986), is easily David Lynch's masterpiece, the American Dream deconstructed by Lynch. The story is set in the seemingly all-American town of Lumberton, North Carolina, follows Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan), a young man who discovers an severed ear in a field, rotting and infested with ants. The police launch an investigation, but Jeffrey and the chief of police's daughter Sandy Williams (Laura Dern), start their own investigation into where the severed ear might have come from. Their investigation leads the to a woman called Dorothy Vallens, (Isabella Rossellini), who is a singer at the local club, and it turns out her husband and son have been kidnapped by local gangster Frank Booth, (a brilliant Dennis Hopper), it's up to Jeffrey to get Dorothy back her family from the clutches of Booth, who uses her for sexual favours. In any David Lynch film, nothing is what it seems, even the most ordinary looking of settings can be anything but ordinary. From the opening shot, he fools us completely, It LOOKS like the American Dream, perfect all-American town, white picket fences, a peaceful neighbourhood, firemen waving sweetly from a passing fire engine...hang on!! You don't see that in reality!! There's something about this town that is weird, and it's summed up when we zoom in under the lawn, what do we see, beetles and insects and all. This shows us that if we peel away this seemingly perfect setting, underneath, we find corruption, darkness and horror, which represents the crime underworld of Lumberton. The beetles and insects represent the darkness that is going on. Not every town is perfect, there is always something seedy going on. And in this case, it's in the form of Frank Booth, (played by Dennis Hopper, easily his best role). And the sight of him snorting Oxygen from a tank is horrific, and Lynch even makes a song like Roy Orbison's In Dreams seem horrific, especially in the context of the scene it's played in. But, at the heart of the story is a simple amateur sleuth tale, but nothing is ever simple with Lynch, with what should be simple to tell, he takes the long way round, making it more complex, adding nods and winks to contemporary culture and giving the tale more depth than there should be. Nothing in Lumberton is natural, there's even something odd about the way the characters talk and interact. The film is the American nightmare, appearences can be deceptive, Lynch is showing America as it truly is, beautiful on the outside, ugly and violent on the inside. There are town's like this in the world, Lynch might be onto something, you know.
Anyone here like Blue Velvet?? Is it Lynch's masterpiece?? Is it a perfect depiction of the American Nightmare?? I think it is, and so should you, the portrayal of small-town America is arguably the inspiration for what Lynch eventually came up with in the equally weird Twin Peaks. There are some good performances, Rossellini makes a good and offbeat romantic lead, McLachlan makes a good hero, Dern portrayed the squeaky-clean kid, while Hopper portrays the opposite, a dirty, violent old man. Lynch makes films about people, and their surroundings, and this is one of the most extreme examples of that. Nowhere is safe, you have been warned!! :shock:
David Lynch is probabily one of the most original and visually brilliant filmmakers the world has to offer, whenever he brings a new film out, critics and audiences gleefully anticipate what twisted vision of the world he might stir up. He's covered the road movie genre with Wild At Heart (1990), inter-planetary fantasy with Dune (1984), down-to-earth true stories with The Elephant Man (1980) and The Straight Story (1999), and with his debut Eraserhead (1977), he put a literal nightmare on cinema screens. However, after Dune, he unleashed his view of small-town America, which was a horrific visual feast. He was able to make a seemingly peaceful town, a picture of the American Dream, into a weird and savage oddity. In a nutshell, a nightmare. Blue Velvet (1986), is easily David Lynch's masterpiece, the American Dream deconstructed by Lynch. The story is set in the seemingly all-American town of Lumberton, North Carolina, follows Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan), a young man who discovers an severed ear in a field, rotting and infested with ants. The police launch an investigation, but Jeffrey and the chief of police's daughter Sandy Williams (Laura Dern), start their own investigation into where the severed ear might have come from. Their investigation leads the to a woman called Dorothy Vallens, (Isabella Rossellini), who is a singer at the local club, and it turns out her husband and son have been kidnapped by local gangster Frank Booth, (a brilliant Dennis Hopper), it's up to Jeffrey to get Dorothy back her family from the clutches of Booth, who uses her for sexual favours. In any David Lynch film, nothing is what it seems, even the most ordinary looking of settings can be anything but ordinary. From the opening shot, he fools us completely, It LOOKS like the American Dream, perfect all-American town, white picket fences, a peaceful neighbourhood, firemen waving sweetly from a passing fire engine...hang on!! You don't see that in reality!! There's something about this town that is weird, and it's summed up when we zoom in under the lawn, what do we see, beetles and insects and all. This shows us that if we peel away this seemingly perfect setting, underneath, we find corruption, darkness and horror, which represents the crime underworld of Lumberton. The beetles and insects represent the darkness that is going on. Not every town is perfect, there is always something seedy going on. And in this case, it's in the form of Frank Booth, (played by Dennis Hopper, easily his best role). And the sight of him snorting Oxygen from a tank is horrific, and Lynch even makes a song like Roy Orbison's In Dreams seem horrific, especially in the context of the scene it's played in. But, at the heart of the story is a simple amateur sleuth tale, but nothing is ever simple with Lynch, with what should be simple to tell, he takes the long way round, making it more complex, adding nods and winks to contemporary culture and giving the tale more depth than there should be. Nothing in Lumberton is natural, there's even something odd about the way the characters talk and interact. The film is the American nightmare, appearences can be deceptive, Lynch is showing America as it truly is, beautiful on the outside, ugly and violent on the inside. There are town's like this in the world, Lynch might be onto something, you know.
Anyone here like Blue Velvet?? Is it Lynch's masterpiece?? Is it a perfect depiction of the American Nightmare?? I think it is, and so should you, the portrayal of small-town America is arguably the inspiration for what Lynch eventually came up with in the equally weird Twin Peaks. There are some good performances, Rossellini makes a good and offbeat romantic lead, McLachlan makes a good hero, Dern portrayed the squeaky-clean kid, while Hopper portrays the opposite, a dirty, violent old man. Lynch makes films about people, and their surroundings, and this is one of the most extreme examples of that. Nowhere is safe, you have been warned!! :shock: