First released in 1986 and still regularly watched and imitated, Blue Velvet is one of the most straight forward films that David Lynch ever made.

For all the talk about it being a strange and surreal vision of small town America, the plot of Blue Velvet is not difficult to follow.  After his father has a stroke that leaves him confined to a hospital bed, Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) returns home from college.  Lumberton appears to be a quiet and friendly little town, with pretty houses and manicured lawns and friendly people.  Jeffrey, with his dark jacket and his expression of concern, appears a little out-of-step with the rest of the town.  He’s been away, after all.  One day, while walking through a field, Jeffrey discovers a rotting, severed ear.  Jeffrey picks up the ear and takes it Detective Williams (George Dickerson).  Detective Williams, who looks like he could have stepped straight out of an episode of Dragnet, is such a man of the innocent 1950s that his wife is even played by Hope Lange.

“Yes, that’s a human ear, alright,” Williams says, deadpan.

Blue Velvet (1986, dir by David Lynch, DP: Frederick Elmes)

With the help of Detective Williams’s blonde and seemingly innocent daughter, Sandy (Laura Dern), Jeffrey launches his own investigation into why the ear was in the field.  He discovers that Lumberton has a teeming criminal underworld, one that is full of men who are as savage as the ants that we saw, in close-up, fighting over that ear in the field.  Jeffrey discovers that a singer named Dorothy (Isabella Rossellini) is being sexually blackmailed by a madman named Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper).  When Dorothy discovers Jeffrey hiding in her closet (where he had been voyeuristically watching her and Frank), it leads to Jeffrey and Dorothy having a sadomasochistic relationship.  “Hit me!” Dorothy demands and both the viewer and Jeffrey discover that he’s got his own darkness inside of him.  “You’re like me,” Frank hisses at Jeffrey at one point and, if we’re to be honest, it almost feels like too obvious a line for an artist like David Lynch.  Lynch once described the film as being “The Hardy Boys in Hell,” and the plot really is as straightforward as one of those teenage mystery books.

That said, Blue Velvet also features some of Lynch’s most memorable visuals, from the brilliant slow motion opening to the moment that the camera itself seems to descend into the ear, forcing us to consider just how fragile the human body actually is. The film goes from showcasing the green lawns and blue skies to Lumberton to tossing Jeffrey into the shadowy world of Dorothy’s apartment building and suddenly, the entire atmosphere changes and the town becomes very threatening.  We find ourselves wondering if even Detective Williams can be trusted.  That said, my favorite visual in the film is a simple one.  Sandy and Jeffrey walk along a suburban street at night and the camera shows us the dark trees that rise above them, contrasting their eerie stillness to Sandy and Jeffrey’s youthful flirtation.

Dean Stockwell in Blue Velvet

Dean Stockwell shows up as Ben, an associate of Frank’s who lip-synchs to Roy Orbison’s In Dreams while Frank himself seems to have a fit of some sort beside him.  In retrospect, Blue Velvet played a huge role in Dennis Hopper getting stereotyped as an out-of-control villain but that doesn’t make him any less terrifying as Frank Booth.  Hopper, recently sober after decades of drug abuse and self-destructive behavior, summoned up his own demons to play Booth and he turns Frank into a true nightmare creature.  Isabella Rossellini is heart-breaking as the fragile Dorothy.  That said, the heart of the film belongs to Kyle MacLachlan and Laura Dern and both of them do a wonderful job of suggesting not only the darkness lurking in their characters but also their kindness as well.  For all the talk about Lynch as a subversive artist, he was also someone who had a remarkable faith in humanity and that faith is found in both Jeffrey and Sandy.  MacLachlan and Dern manage to sell moments that should have been awkward, like Sandy’s monologue about the returning birds or Jeffrey’s emotional lament questioning why people like Frank have to exist.  Both Jeffrey and Sandy lose their innocence but not their hope for a better world.

Blue Velvet is a straight-forward mystery and a surreal dream but mostly it’s an ultimately hopeful portrait of humanity.  The world is dark and full of secrets, the film says.  But that doesn’t mean that it can’t be a beautiful place.

Blue Velvet (1986, dir by David Lynch, DP: Frederick Elmes)