Three years after the major disappointment that was Dune, David Lynch came back better than ever with Blue Velvet. The film begins, appropriately enough, with the opening credits superimposed over a beautiful piece of blue velvet swaying in the breeze. The tone of Angelo Badlamenti’s score is melodramatic and ominous.
The small town of Lumbertown is a fantasy world; a glossy pretty place with a dark underbelly seething underneath. As fans of David Lynch know, the director is most comfortable exploring the darker side of society. Here, Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachan) is a young college graduate who stumbles upon a human ear lying in the grass. He does the right thing and takes it to the police station, where Detective Williams (George Dickerson) bags the evidence and opens the case. Still intrigued by the mystery of it all, Jeffrey begins his own Hardy Boys-type investigation into the crime with the help of Detective Williams’ daughter Sandy (Laura Dern). After following a few clues he finds himself hiding in the closet of Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini), a sultry lounge singer.
Dorothy is involved in an abusive S&M relationship with Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper) a mobster and a sociopath, with a taste for torture and rape. Frank has kidnapped Dorothy’s husband and son. Ostensibly, she allows Frank to brutalize her in order to keep her loved ones safe, but in reality, she is a masochist and gets off on being beaten and raped. Jeffrey learns the truth when he begins an affair with Dorothy, and finds that she prefers rough sex—rougher than he is initially willing, or can provide. It isn’t long though, before Jeffrey is being dragged deep into Dorothy and Frank’s dark world of depravity.
Blue Velvet isn’t a particularly easy pill to swallow. Lynch is a demanding director, and doesn’t hold anything back. Frank is a genuine monster without redeeming qualities who destroys, either physically or psychologically, everything he touches. Dorothy is a deeply troubled woman, but it’s not clear whether she’s beyond redemption. Clearly, Frank has corrupted her soul and twisted her idea of happiness. In order to get his point across, Lynch must present a number of disturbing images.
For a while, Blue Velvet appears to be a mystery. With two all-American, clean cut detectives involved, it could be mistaken for something out of the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew series. At the same time though, Dorothy and Frank are straight out of film noir—the femme fatale and the killer. By mixing the two genres, Lynch is able to satirize some American clichés while making a dark statement about human nature.
Kyle MacLachlan, who would go on to play Agent Cooper in Lynch’s Twin Peaks series, is the perfect all American boy. He brings a real sense of innocence to the part that serves the story well. It’s because of that, we can identify with Jeffrey as he begins his descent into darkness. Laura Dern portrays the good girl, embodying the part in every way. For me, Dorothy is the best performance of Isabella Rossellini’s career thus far. She is able to fully capture the complexities of her characters personality—desperation, vulnerability, sadness, hatred and need. Dennis Hopper played numerous villains throughout his career. Frank though, genuinely scares me. Hopper knows there’s nothing to like about this guy, and he plays it for all its worth.
As in the beginning, the closing frames of Blue Velvet are optimistic—against blue sky, a robin appears. All is well. But wait…the robin has a beetle in its beak, and we know the beetle comes from lower ground. The movie has gone full circle. The American Dream is still alive and well, but the dirt and grime of corruption are just beneath the surface.
Presented in the 2.35:1 aspect ratio, MGM’s 1080p transfer is very good. Apparently supervised by Lynch himself, the colors here are incredibly vibrant. Fine detail is also excellent in the brightly lit scenes, and even in some of the darker ones as well, with textures appearing almost palpable. There are several instances of crush which may bother some viewers. A few scenes are also a bit on the soft side, though this is likely due to the atmosphere Lynch was looking to create. All and all, this is a solid transfer.
Blue Velvet‘s lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix is perfectly rendered and adds immeasurably to the film’s unsettling feeling. The track has some great immersive moments, and great use of LFE. The now iconic uses of “Blue Velvet” and “In Dreams” also sound compellingly magnificent on this track. Dialogue is extremely well presented, nicely directional, and the sequences in The Slow Club offer some great surround activity.
English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, German, Italian, Dutch, and Mandarin (Traditional) subtitles are included.
The following special features are available:
- Mysteries of Love (SD; 1:10:45) a retrospective that provides a lot of background on Lynch’s creation of the project. Interviews with Lynch and most of the principal cast are included, along with behind the scenes footage.
- Newly Discovered Lost Footage (HD; 51:42). Lynch includes as a prologue, “It’s like the song ‘Amazing Grace,’ the footage was lost but now it’s found.” There’s some expectedly outré stuff here, including several sequences featuring full frontal female nudity. Keep an eye out for a very young Megan Mullally, replete with Farrah Fawcett hair, as Jeffrey’s one-time girlfriend Louise.
- A Few Outtakes (HD; 1:33) offers some ad libs and funny moments.
- Siskel and Ebert ‘At the Movies’ (SD; 1:30) is the pair’s 1986 summation of the film. One of them didn’t exactly love the film.
- Vignettes offers I Like Coffee Shops (SD; 00:22), The Chicken Walk (SD; 00:55), The Robin (SD; 1:33), Sita (SD; 00:45), four snippets mixing moments from the film with interviews with Lynch, MacLachlan, Rossellini and others.
- Theatrical Trailer (HD; 1:31)
- TV Spot 1 (SD; 00:32)
- TV Spot 2 (SD; 00:31)
