Blue Velvet (1986) - David Lynch
Related: cult movie - art film - 'perversion' in mainstream cinema - American cinema - 1986 - David Lynch
Main character finds ear at the beginning of Blue Velvet (1986)
The strange sadomasochistic affair between Kyle MacLachlan and Isabella Rossellini.
Blue Velvet (1986) - David Lynch
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Description
Blue Velvet is a 1986 film directed and written by David Lynch. The title is taken from a Bobby Vinton song by the same name, which is sung by Isabella Rossellini's character in the film.
The film was made shortly after Lynch's artistically troubling film Dune, which ran into various series of problems during shooting and eventually became a commecial and critical disappointment.
By this time, Lynch had pieced together various story elements that he had been putting together for a peroid of time that eventually became the bulk of the material for Blue Velvet.
It was the second film Lynch produced for Dino de Laurentiis. Because the material was completely different from anything that would be considered mainstream at the time, Laurentiis had to start his own production company to distribute it. The film was also cut down from its original four-hour length to its final 120 minute length. The missing footage was put in storage and apparently lost for good.
Blue Velvet was a huge critical success, earning Lynch his second Academy Award nomination and introducing several common elements of his work, including abused women, the dark underbelly of small towns and unconventional uses of vintage songs (Bobby Vinton’s "Blue Velvet" and Roy Orbison’s "In Dreams" are both featured in disturbing ways). It was also the first time Lynch worked with composer Angelo Badalamenti, who would contribute to all of his future full-length films. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Velvet [Nov 2005]
Amazon review David Lynch peeks behind the picket fences of small-town America to reveal a corrupt shadow world of malevolence, sadism, and madness. From the opening shots Lynch turns the Technicolor picture postcard images of middle class homes and tree-lined lanes into a dreamy vision on the edge of nightmare. After his father collapses in a preternaturally eerie sequence, college boy Kyle MacLachlan returns home and stumbles across a severed human ear in a vacant lot. With the help of sweetly innocent high school girl (Laura Dern), he turns junior detective and uncovers a frightening yet darkly compelling world of voyeurism and sex. Drawn deeper into the brutal world of drug dealer and blackmailer Frank, played with raving mania by an obscenity-shouting Dennis Hopper in a career-reviving performance, he loses his innocence and his moral bearings when confronted with pure, unexplainable evil. Isabella Rossellini is terrifyingly desperate as Hopper's sexual slave who becomes MacLachlan's illicit lover, and Dean Stockwell purrs through his role as Hopper's oh-so-suave buddy. Lynch strips his surreally mundane sets to a ghostly austerity, which composer Angelo Badalamenti encourages with the smooth, spooky strains of a lush score. Blue Velvet is a disturbing film that delves into the darkest reaches of psycho-sexual brutality and simply isn't for everyone. But for a viewer who wants to see the cinematic world rocked off its foundations, David Lynch delivers a nightmarish masterpiece. --Sean Axmaker
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