Interpretations of David Lynch's Film Blue Velvet - Essay Example

?Submitted Interpretations of David Lynch's film Blue Velvet (1986) Blue Velvet (David Lynch, 1986) is today still as shocking, sensual and disturbing, in this age of outrageous popular culture, as it was 26 years ago. The Plot: In order to completely understand the interpretations of this laden film it is necessary to strip the movie of its symbolism and the sheer volume of references and simply comprehend the plot. The plot of Blue Velvet is that of a simple mystery. It starts when Jeffrey (Kyle MacLachlan) returns home to the city of Lumberton after his father, Mr. Beaumont, suffers a near fatal stroke. While walking home from the hospital he takes a short cut across a field and stumbles upon a moldy human ear, which he takes to the police. They do not reveal anything about the investigation but it is here that he meets Sandy (Laura Dern), the detective’s daughter, who unveils what her father has deciphered about the case- that a woman named Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini) is a suspect of the case. Jeffrey then poses as a help man and as Dorothy is engaged in conversation with a man in the yellow suit (to whom Jeffrey later refers to as Yellow Man), Jeffrey takes the key to Dorothy’s apartment. Sandy and Jeffrey then attend Dorothy’s nightclub act where she sings ‘Blue Velvet’, and from thereon Jeffrey leaves early to sneak into Dorothy’s apartment to find clues. When Dorothy arrives he hides in her closet, but she sensing him finds him with a knife in her hand. Mistaking Jeffrey’s curiosity for sexual interest she forces him to undress as she threatens him with the knife. At this point Dorothy engages in orally stimulating Jeffrey. The encounter is interrupted by a knock on the door whereby Dorothy pushes Jeffrey back in the closet from where he witnesses that the visitor-Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper)- attempts to molest, abuse and rape Dorothy. Hiding in the closet Jeffrey finds that Frank Booth is a drug dealer who has kidnapped Dorothy’s husband and son so that he may use Dorothy to satisfy his sexual appetite. When Frank has left Dorothy turns to Jeffrey and attempts to make him mistreat her but he refuses and leaves even upon her insistence for him to stay. Jeffrey later relays his experience to Sandy and subsequently they go to Dorothy’s club where she performs Blue Velvet yet again. At the club Jeffrey observes Frank Booth who is fondling a piece of blue velvet which he had torn from Dorothy’s clothes the night Jeffrey has witnessed his assault and rape of Dorothy. It is then that Jeffrey decides to follow Frank. The next scenes show Jeffrey prying on Frank and his connection with the Yellow Man and another man which Jeffrey identifies as the Well Dressed Man. Jeffrey goes onto inform Sandy about his new findings and it is then that the sexual tension between the two breaks and they engage in a soft kiss. But Sandy is reluctant to go any further with Jeffrey because she has a boyfriend and Jeffrey taking this as rejection turns to Dorothy and the two have sexual intercourse. During this second intimate encounter with Dorothy, Dorothy is able to extract a frustrated reaction from Jeffrey whereby he turns and hits her. Instantly, we see that Jeffrey regrets this violent act but Dorothy enjoys it. Afterwards, Frank Booth finds Dorothy and Jeffrey coerces them to go to his partner Ben’s apartment. The scene at Ben’s residence is sadistic, here Ben sings ‘In Dreams’ and in the wake of this music Frank punches Jeffrey to unconsciousness when Jeffrey attempts to hit Frank when the later molests Dorothy. In the morning Frank wakes up in the yard where he had been beaten unconscious and goes to Sandy’s father (the detective) to relay the entire course of events. That day Sandy accompanies Jeffrey to a dance and upon their return to Jeffrey’s residence they find a stricken, naked and traumatized Dorothy on Jeffrey’s lawn. Sandy is gone to fetch the police and her father and take them to Dorothy’s apartment and Jeffrey leaves to investigate Dorothy’s apartment. At the apartment he finds Dorothy’s husband and the Yellow Man (who is recognized earlier as Sandy’s father’s partner) who has been a victim of leucotomy (a psychiatric procedure where the nerves of the frontal lobe of the brain are severed). As Jeffrey is leaving he sees that the earlier identified Well Dressed Man is coming up the stairs and he hides in Dorothy’s closet with the Yellow Man’s gun. Upon entering the apartment Frank senses an intruder and ends up shooting the Yellow man. As he approaches the closet Jeffrey is ready for him and shoots him in the head. In the end Sandy who has found out about Dorothy and Jeffrey’s physical intimacy forgives Jeffrey and the movie ends on the beginning of a relationship between the two. Nicholas Rombes Interpretations: Nicholas Rombes takes the example of Sandy’s observation of the robins from the window of Jeffrey’s car and says that to most students that scene is representative of the 1950’s car-romance melodrama and a form of satirical deconstruction. But he believes that there is much more to it. That David lynches script was about genuine dialogue than irony and to appreciate it, it is important to understand the cultural movement-punk-of that time. He believes that Blue Velvet is not about the dark subtext but also about what’s on the surface of the film. Nicholas Rombes in many ways tries to express that David Lynch has moved past postmodern aesthetics. In a way he rejects the idea that postmodernism aesthetics forwards- that of deconstruction. Deconstruction is the study of rhetorical features of Blue Velvets script; this approach looks at the interaction of the many elements of the film and analysis how they all fit. How even the dialogue, which seems tangential is in fact linked and referenced or is a pun. Deconstruction, here, means that every dialogue/ scene has refuting statements. Nicholas Rombes believes, however, that Blue Velvet has taken a 1950’s innocence where the concept of social evil is extracted from all other evils, e.g. political evils, and it is tailored to the experience of a single person-Jeffrey, and molds it along the age-old awareness off innocence against experience. Nicholas’s argument is solidified when he states that they way that David Lynch has moved past the use of deconstruction and post modernism is that he enacts postmodernism rather than echoing it. The film clearly shows violence, rape, sex and decay (that of the ear for instance) instead of simply projecting it as an underlying concept. My opinion: I agree, to an extent, with Nicholas Rombes argument that Blue Velvet is perhaps read with a basic ironic credence because today’s culture perceives plot as a plain enactment where characters are simply that ‘Asian dude’ or that ‘villain’ or that ‘sociopath’. It is also true that for present day television such as Survivor, it is crucial to remember the use of irony and parody. Nonetheless, I believe that if David Lynch had moved beyond deconstruction towards constructed-ness then he would have not borrowed quiet as heavily from references. It is important to consider that if a script is so laden with references than it is deconstructed or pretends to be falsely constructed because where is the authenticity of reality if actuality is borrowed from other experiences or works. To summarize: the sense of small town incorruptibility is rented from Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt; the introductory stroke denotes LumEire brothers LaArrosseurArrose (1896). Also, the movie tries to distance the viewer; the camerawork wants the viewer to analyze as they watch. An example of this is the instance where the spectators watch Jeffrey hiding in the closet watching Dorothy undress and the spectators are complicit. The audience has to decide whether they are the detectives or perverts. References: David Lynch. Blue Velvet. 1986. Nicholas Rombes. Blue Velvet Underground: David Lynch’s Post Punk Poetics. Chapter 5. 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