It’s hard to imagine today the resistance “Blue Velvet” faced when it was released in 1986. Critics accused David Lynch of brazenly playing with misogynistic images; The sado-masochistic practices that the film suggests were interpreted by the director as deliberate provocation and tastelessness. There were even small demonstrations against the film, although only in prudish America.
The rest of the world (and later also Lynch’s home country) marveled at the mysterious “blue movie” that dreamed itself into a forbidden zone of sexual and aggressive debauchery about a handful of fairytale-like, simple characters in one of those picture-postcard small towns in the USA. The starting point was, of all things, a hit by Bobby Vinton; Lynch’s penchant for the supposedly ideal world of the 1950s, under whose surface there was tremendous ferment, became clear here for the first time. In later films it grew into a ghostly background noise that was always present.
Because of its distinctive color dramaturgy, which is established from the very first shot of the film, the dazzling soundtrack (which helped Roy Orbison make a comeback) and its seductively embellished dream symbols, “Blue Velvet” was quickly declared a cult classic. Lynch also managed to simultaneously celebrate the American way of life and disintegrate it in an acid bath of sinister images in a frighteningly plausible way.
ROLLING STONE lists five unforgettable scenes from “Blue Velvet”:
Blue clouds and black beetles
The blue velvet curtain opens to reveal an even bluer sky. To the sounds of Bobby Vinton’s hit “Blue Velvet,” the camera pans to a white fence and red roses swaying gently in the wind. We’re in Lumberton; The world couldn’t be better, firefighters wave directly into the camera, school children safely cross a street, a man waters the lawn in his garden. But then something happens. The man – it is Mr. Beaumont, the father of the main character Jeffrey – grabs his neck and collapses. A dog and a small child run up, horrifying noises replace the score and the camera digs deep under the turf, where smacking beetles pounce on each other in the absolute darkness. Perhaps this is the most perfect shot in all of Lynch’s cinematic work: an oppressive, surrealistic, magnificently choreographed horror journey from heaven to hell.
Page 2: The tracking shot into the ear