by Tony Dayoub
The first thing that comes to mind when I think of Blue Velvet, surely one of the most significant films of the last 25 years, is something rather ordinary for a movie with so many shocking and memorable images. It is the opening shot. Not the saturated opening shot of the red roses against the white picket fence of the film proper, mind you. I mean the fade up into the image of blue velvet flapping as if being blown by some mysterious wind. Composer Angelo Badalamenti’s timpanists roll right into the plaintive violins of his main theme, paving the way for a solitary clarinet repeating their melody. Initially, the clarinet’s crisp intrusion into the lushness of the violins is as transgressive as that of the film’s main character, Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) into the nightmarish beauty of his sleepy hometown, Lumberton. But eventually, the clarinet blends in with the violins, achieving a harmonic unity not unlike the one the naïve Jeffrey does when he gets simpatico with the twisted underbelly of his innocent-looking small town and its frightening denizens.
It’s telling that this encapsulation of the movie’s plot occurs aurally as opposed to visually, for director David Lynch’s films stimulate the auditory as much as (if not more than) the visual nerve centers. Indeed, Blue Velvet credits Lynch’s longtime collaborator, sound designer Alan Splet (The Black Stallion), immediately after Badalamenti (Mulholland Dr.) in the opening titles. Appropriate for a film that can mostly be read as Jeffrey’s extended dream, beginning when he finds a dismembered ear while walking in the woods. Frederick Elmes’s camera dollies into the ear, traveling in extreme close-up until it seemingly falls down the ear canal, only to emerge out of a different ear – a sleeping Jeffrey’s – at the film’s conclusion. Everything that happens in between could just be happening in the inquisitive Jeffrey’s head, Lynch seems to be saying. And what a remarkable imagination Jeffrey (an archetypal Lynch alter ego) possesses, if that’s the case...
CONTINUE READING AT NOMAD EDITIONS: WIDE SCREEN
I'll look forward to seeing those 50 minutes, because I'm ambivalent about your larger point. On the one hand, I completely agree that Blue Velvet is stronger as the lean, focused, tight film it is (interesting to see that it contained Wild at Heart/Twin Peaks/Cowboy and the Frenchman-type goofy humor, as that seemed to be a hallmark of Lynch's work at this time and I sort of wondered why it wasn't featured more heavily in Velvet).
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, I tend to prefer his later films where he DOES get more self-indulgent and while the economy worked here I'm glad he grew more excessive with time. While an extended cut might not be desirable for this particular material (and it is a relief to find a director willing to let his work stand instead of endlessly tinkering with and inevitably damaging a finished work), I'm glad he gave himself more leeway down the line.
I think the kind of stuff you like, while interesting, dates his work in the same way a lot of Tarantino-isms date that director's work. In both cases, it is not the auteurs' fault. It is more of an unfortunate byproduct of the faddish importance their work took on in the pop culture zeitgeist of the moment. The minute little red dwarves started appearing on THE SIMPSONS and SNL it diminished any strength or mileage Lynch could derive from such Lynchian signposts.
ReplyDeleteI think the kind of stuff you like, while interesting, dates his work in the same way a lot of Tarantino-isms date that director's work. In both cases, it is not the auteurs' fault. It is more of an unfortunate byproduct of the faddish importance their work took on in the pop culture zeitgeist of the moment. The minute little red dwarves started appearing on THE SIMPSONS and SNL it diminished any strength or mileage Lynch could derive from such Lynchian signposts.
ReplyDeleteWell, let me clarify - the reference to the Wild at Heart/Cowboy and the Frenchman element is a bit misleading. It isn't actually those elements I respond to the most - like you, I can find the goofiness a bit grating and dated in a 90s-kind of way, Wild at Heart particularly.
ReplyDeleteBut I don't think the surreal expansiveness, the wandering into weird corners, of Lost Highway or Mulholland Drive, is in the same category. And no, I don't the red dwarf is either; he's funny but more funny strange than funny haha, and the Simpsons/SNL parodies play for me like riffs that don't dilute the central action.
What's missing for me a bit with Blue Velvet is that bracing sense of strangeness, not cerebral but visceral - the touches that reach right out and grab you. It's somewhat there with Frank, but overall Velvet might suffer for me the way it sounds like the red room suffers for you - pop culture overexposure may mute my responsiveness, an unfortunate factor I wish could be overcome more easily.
At any rate, even with that aside, what Mulholland Drive offers me that Blue Velvet does not is a ticket into the dream. I think this comes through his ability to conjure up characters and images that don't seem to have a place in the narrative yet "work." As such, the economy of Blue Velvet is something I respect but when I want to get lost in Lynchland I look elsewhere.