David Lynch's "Blue Velvet" (1986)
I am near the beginning of a course called "Reading Film" that is really pushing the limits of my normal thinking. I suppose that's the point of University. The biggest problem facing me is the lack of structure for the assignments. Each week there is a lecture and a film screening requiring a two page critical response of the "filmic elements". What does this mean you say? I wondered as well. After listening closely, my educated guess is that I am not to speak about story, character, or dialogue as is natural for an English student, but only to the technical aspects of the films. The following is my best effort on the second film, "Blue Velvet" directed by David Lynch. I would recommend seeing the film before reading this. The response will make more sense and you will have a chance to have your own reaction to this strange and wonderful movie. You have heard my warnings, now read on if you will.
One review of David Lynch’s “Blue Velvet” (1986) by Roger Ebert declares that:
...those very scenes of stark sexual despair are the tipoff to
what's wrong with the movie. They're so strong that they deserve
to be in a movie that is sincere, honest and true. But "Blue
Velvet" surrounds them with a story that's marred by sophomoric
satire and cheap shots. The director is either denying the strength
of his material or trying to defuse it by pretending it's all part of
a campy in-joke...Blue Velvet is like the guy who drives you
nuts by hinting at horrifying news and then saying, 'Never mind.'
(www.lynchnet.com/bv/)
After personally viewing the film, I would say that Lynch does not say “never mind” to evil or despair, nor does he make a campy in-joke of these serious issues. Perhaps the depiction of a campy idyllic world which bookends the film is a representation of a real world of people who wish to pretend that “horrifying news” does not exist. Lynch appears to investigate the human tendency to externalize evil and deny its power by creating the illusion of safe neighbourhoods. This investigation is seen most clearly in the auteur’s use of colour and light to contrast innocence/denial and depravity/acceptance in the world of “Blue Velvet”.
Lynch assigns a colour palette and level of light to each character and the world they inhabit to represent their level of denial or acceptance. Sandy is the ultimate picture of naïveté dressed always in pale pink, white, florals, and pastels. Though she has seen evil throughout the film she denies the darkness with her light-coloured attire and blond hair. She is nearly always followed by natural sunlight, as in Arlene’s diner and her school, or is well lit amidst darkness, as at her school party and in Jeffrey’s car as she speaks of her dream. In contrast, Dorothy Valens is shrouded in darkness. This raven-haired lounge singer cannot deny depravity as seen in her indigo robe, crimson drapes, and blood-red lips and dresses. Her apartment is pink, but a sad, dark pink, as though tainted by the evil around her. The singer is even called “the blue lady” at the Slow Club, where she sings in despair and darkness. The two extremes crash together in the hallway of Dorothy’s building after Sandy sees Frank’s demise. In the dark blue hall after a violent death, a white-sweatered Sandy stands in a spotlight, underlining the absurdity of her naïveté and denial.
Jeffrey, on the other hand, is clothed in black and white throughout the film. He has not decided which world he lives in. The character’s struggle of acceptance and denial of the evil within himself is seen mostly through light and in the absence of colour. Jeffrey spends most of his days with Sandy and his nights with Dorothy. After losing his innocence to Dorothy and hitting her, he awakes in the light of his bedroom. Nearly every scene where Jeffrey gives in to his dark side is followed by darkness, a flickering flame, and a blinding light. Perhaps the flame is a symbol of the decision Jeffrey must make between the two extremes.
Also, the bulk of the film is spent after zooming into the darkness of the severed ear. Near the end of the film, the camera zooms out of Jeffery’s ear and into the light of his idyllic world. This crystallizes Jeffrey’s decision to live in the light while hiding the darkness within him. To assuage his guilt, Jeffrey sees both Sandy and Dorothy happy in the light. Perhaps the world on either side of “the ears” is merely a dream representing an eerie and unattainable perfection Jeffrey wishes to hold onto. Regardless of his wishes, the film begins and ends with a dark sheet of blue velvet filling the screen. No amount of dreaming or pretending can erase the fact that darkness and sadness prevails.
Through extreme contrasts of colour and light, David Lynch clearly unveils the absurdity of the human tendency to externalize evil and deny its power by creating the illusion of safe neighbourhoods. “Blue Velvet”’s opposition of innocence and depravity and the denial and acceptance of the two does not discard the importance of the issue but inspects it in a way that is nothing but “sincere, honest and true”.
posted by alison keddy at 10:10 a.m.
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