Reviews of Blue Velvet
Displaying all 5 reviews
earman
21Sep10
David Lynch is a fascinating director and Blue Velvet is a perfect example of how uniquely talented he is. Directing from his own intriguing screenplay he weaves a story about a small town in Oregon where there is two parallel worlds,the innocent world of Jeffrey Beaumont and the sinister world of Frank Booth. Kyle MacLachlan gives his best performance as the innocent but curious Jeffrey Beaumont, who finds a severed ear that leads him into the hidden and sinister world of Frank Booth. Trying to solve the mystery of the severed ear he comes in contact with Sarah Williams played by the beautifully radiant Laura Dern. Sarah tells Jeffrey that her detective father is investigating Frank Booth and a lounge singer named Dorothy Vallens. Frank Booth as played by Dennis Hopper is one of the most frightening and dark villains in movie history. Jeffrey and the audiences introduction to the evil Frank through a closet door, is one of the most disturbing scenes in film history. Jeffrey’s journey into the carnal world of Dorothy and Frank is in stark parallel to the innocent and budding romance he has with the angelic Sarah. Jeffrey’s journey into the dark side has a profound impact on him and it leads him into a very dangerous and disturbing quagmire.
David Lynch’s Blue Velvet masterfully tells it’s story with riveting images that lingers on a persons psyche long after it is viewed. The movie starts your journey through a decayed severed ear and it ends by departing the healthy young ear of Jeffrey. This is truly the tale of two cities.This is great movie making.
- Currently 5.0/5 Stars.
Conner Rainwater
3Jun10
I really love David Lynch’s style and his films are always amazing. Blue Velvet is one of my favorite films. It encompasses everything that I love about the movies. It has a great feel, it’s so glossy and perfectly twisted. I love everything from the characters to the attack on suburbia. It’s like a twilight zone episode gone completely awry. It’s a very bold film that isn’t afraid to challenge normal behavior and make you feel uncomfortable at times. The stylization is like no other, the performances are just so dead on that it works.
- Currently 5.0/5 Stars.
Rocco
12Sep09
Going into this film I expected to see what many call “one of the greatest American films ever made.” It all goes so well and is very intriguing for about an hour, before it all starts to get boring and fall apart. I truly cannot understand the praise for this film. I love Isabell Rossellini. She does a fantastic job but I find the rest of the cast to be very lackluster. One of the so-called “greatest villains in the history of cinema” is Frank Butler, played by Dennis Hopper. He also does an admirable job, but his performance is all surface. Does eccentricity equal greatness? I don’t think so. His performance is as weird as it gets, but his motivations are weak and his actions seem forced. However, all of this is fine until the second half of the film, when the narrative structure just kind of fizzles and we’re left with a run-of- the mill hollywood ending. Yes, some say that that’s the point. That the mechanical Robin is supposed to mean something. That evil is always just around the corner and suburbia hides dark secrets. That’s all great, but American Beauty does a similar thing, but does it much better.
- Currently 2.0/5 Stars.
Todd Kushigemachi
25May09
(Originally written February 4, 2007)
What Alfred Hitchcock did with Psycho, David Lynch did with Blue Velvet. This is a masterpiece that defines what it means for a film to be a “pure film.” It’s a work that uses aesthetics to engage the audience, creating the atmosphere of a dark, cruel world. Frank Booth makes Hannibal Lector, who was voted by the AFI to be the greatest screen villain, look like a gentleman. Dennis Hopper plays this character with such savage energy, a character with absolutely no redeeming qualities. He’s a foul-mouthed character who struggles with sexual frustration and a thirst for blood. This is a classic loss of innocence tale in which Jeffrey Beaumont steps into a world buried under the polished façade of everyday life. The film begins this journey by entering into the severed ear Beaumont finds in the fields. This film is perverse, cold, and difficult to completely grasp on the first viewing. It’s a film that, unlike most Hollywood productions, does not show a hackneyed triumph of good over evil. It’s an investigation of the scary truth that the world of Jeffrey Beaumont and that of Frank Booth necessarily coexist. Perhaps the most authentic line of the film is when Booth gazes at Beaumont and suggests, “You’re like me.” They are two sides of the same coin. Beaumont, by delving into this strange mystery, experiences a sexual awakening with his eyes opened to new, disgusting sights. The way in which music is used is fantastic. The way in which David Lynch is able to exploit the haunting atmosphere of songs such as “Blue Velvet” and “In Dreams” shows he understands the implications of the tone of the music. Evil does not impress itself upon the good world in this film, but, rather, good inevitably finds itself attracted to evil. The beautiful, clean-cut Sandy Williams is the one who inspires Beaumont to investigate the situation. This film requires more than one viewing to completely digest, but it stands as one of the great modern works of cinema.
- Currently 5.0/5 Stars.
salikshah
21Feb09
“Well, film is really voyeurism. You sit there in the safety of the theatre, and seeing is such a powerful thing. And we want to see secret things, we really want to see them. New things. It drives you nuts, you know! And the more new and secret they are, the more you want to see them.” — David Lynch
As the blue sky descends to the white picket fence behind red roses and yellow poppies in Blue Velvet (1986), I remembered a similar opening shot in Guru Dutt’s Pyasa (1951), and then the fact that this is David Lynch. In Blue Velvet too, the slow and happy world comes to an abrupt end in a frightening stroke. Strangely, each stroke evokes an emotion that is complete in itself. I don’t remember a film that felt so complete. Here each subplot seems a whole. This is David Lynch, I can tell, the voyeur. His films open door to the strange land of mystery and he is the man with the courage to cross the existing limits imposed on the medium in the eighties.
This is rightly called Lynch’s Psycho (1960). Both films feature psychotic villains. Blue Velvet is Hitchcockian in the beginning until the Lynchian tone, a suspense mystery, becomes more apparent. This is a filmic novel, if there is one. A neo-noir. A cult classic. This is short of pornography but I’m sure the original rough cut would have been. After all, a film which has its origin in this desire to ‘sneak into a girl’s room to see her into the night’ can be ‘blue’ with or without the velvet. The film progresses as a curious agonist Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) tries to unravel the mystery of a severed ear. Who would dare to sneak into the severed human ear? David Lynch, of course. The good news is Lynch also comes out of it and returns to the happy first.
“Blue Velvet is a love story.” “I started with the idea of front yards at night and Bobby Vinton’s song playing from a distance. Then I always had this fantasy of sneaking into a girl’s room and hiding through the night. It was a strange angle to come at a murder mystery.” “And then, I’d always had a desire to sneak into a girl’s apartment and watch her through the night. I had the idea that while I was doing this I’d see something which I’d later realize was the clue to a mystery. I think people are fascinated by that, by being able to see into a world they couldn’t visit. That’s the fantastic thing about cinema, everybody can be a voyeur. Voyeurism is a bit like watching television – go one step further and you want to start looking in on things that are really happening.” — David LynchAfter the bizarre debut Eraserhead (1977), Lynch’s attempt to develop a personal story paid off in Blue Velvet which is at its best an unusual masterpiece with characters that are hard to erase from the brain even after lobotomy by an inexperienced dentist with a pair of septic scissors. His characters face all sorts of extremities until facing possible death. Sexual peculiarities and horrendous barbarity mark them. But then, this is Lynch Land, true to the essence of all objects, but also eluding all sense of moral inhibition. His Freudian characters are out of place and his works borrow heavily from his life the most perturbing moments with an exaggerated distortion. Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper) is an excess of cruelty and madness. But Lynch’s Frank, just like the alien baby in Eraserhead, is both teasing and ‘monstrously funny.’ Jeffrey is determined to save Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini) from Frank but can’t resist her sexual appeal or endure her masochism. Here is a bloke who can just fondle his girl and becomes frustrated to find this femme fatale who pleads for fists and fury alone.
In one memorable scene of this film, a helpless, an almost teary Jeffrey asks his girlfriend Sandy (Laura Dern), “Why are there people like Frank? Why is there so much trouble in this world?” After an attentive pause, Sandy answers, “I don’t know.” Perhaps, there can’t be a better answer. Then she narrates him a dream as the brilliant soundtrack sets the right mood:
“I had a dream… In the dream, there was our world, and the world was dark because there weren’t any robins and the robins represented love. And for the longest time, there was this darkness. And all of a sudden, thousands of robins were set free and they flew down and brought this blinding light of love. And it seemed that love would make any difference, and it did… So, I guess it means that there is trouble until the robins come.”And robins come before the film reaches its climax and the film returns to the opening shot of the poppies and the roses and the picket fence and dissolves in the blue sky with scattered cotton clouds until dark blue velvet flashes back on the screen and the credits start rolling. Not a bad way to end a year and start a new one, isn’t it? Good luck till the robins come. And robins that sing!
— Jan 1, ’09