One of the rare directors who has been able to create a unique language in cinema is David Lynch. With his unbalanced characters who lose their minds between subjective and objective reality, eerie atmosphere, and films that scrutinize reality through dreams, Lynch is undoubtedly a director ahead of his time. Throughout his career, he has created films that are difficult to understand, and is one of the directors on whom perhaps the most academic research has been conducted. With his statement, “I don’t understand why people expect art to make sense when they accept the fact that life doesn’t make sense,” he explains his works quite well, in my opinion. Blurring the thin red line between good-bad, guilty-innocent, and imaginary-real, and constantly manipulating the audience’s perception of reality, Blue Velvet (1987), a surreal masterpiece that is entirely surrendered to his signature style, is one of the milestones of surreal cinema.
In the opening scene, after a bright blue sky, cheerful children playing in the street, and happy firefighters waving to people, the camera focuses on a man who suddenly collapses while watering his lawn. As peaceful music plays in the background, Lynch exposes us to the disturbing rustling of bugs crawling under the vibrant grass, and the first traces of repressed violence, ugliness, and endless perversions in the subconscious that penetrate the film. Violence that has been swept under the rug.
In the following scene, after Jeffrey visits his father in the hospital, he finds a human ear on the ground and takes it to the police. During our short journey inside the ear, covered with ants, the atmosphere that shakes our perception of reality, drags us into the uncanny with Lynch’s masterful use of sound, perhaps the most defining concept of Lynch’s cinema. Sandy, the detective’s daughter, tells Jeffrey that she heard her father’s conversations, and they make plans to sneak into the woman’s house related to the case. While Jeffrey sneaks into the woman’s house, he peers through the closet. Dorothy talks to someone named Frank on the phone, and we hear her call him “sir.” When Jeffrey is caught by the woman, she forcibly undresses him, and they start having sex. When Frank arrives, Jeffrey hides back in the closet and is confronted with shocking events. Frank, who gives the impression of being a highly qualified mental patient with his oxygen mask and movements, starts harassing the woman while cursing at her. While asking her to spread her legs, he calls out “Mom!” When she looks at him, she punches him. In the close-up shot of Dorothy’s face, we see the pleasure she gets, revealing how problematic of a character she is.
In the following scene, Jeffrey meets Sandy and tells her about his experience. Frank has kidnapped Dorothy’s husband and child. Jeffrey is happy with his new adventure and returns to the woman’s house. Following a sadomasochistic sex scene, the two are caught by Frank, and they embark on a Lynchian journey together. The journey to the brothel reveals the sharp humor underlying the shocking elements that emerge from Lynch’s subconscious. Frank’s lipstick kisses and attempts to stuff blue velvet into Jeffrey’s mouth, his yelling to feel his muscles, and the prostitute’s unabashed dancing on top of the car with Roy Orbison’s “In Dreams” playing all contribute to the scene’s Lynchian quality.
Blue Velvet contains all the codes of a film noir. There is a man investigating the mystery, a femme fatale who could lead him to his downfall, and a corrupt police force. However, we should not expect a classic film noir from Lynch’s perspective.
The “Mcguffin,” which is a plot device that serves as a mysterious element to move the story forward and is often left unresolved, is also present in Blue Velvet. The drug issue is never solved, and we never find out why Dorothy’s husband and the corrupt cop Don are involved in drug trafficking.
The feeling of timelessness that we see in Lynch’s other works is also prevalent in the film. Many elements remind us of both the 1950s and the 1980s. The music and songs, cars, and cafes create a 1950s atmosphere, while other visual codes suggest that the story takes place in the 1980s. The 1950s represent a longing for a Capraesque way of life, while the 1980s symbolize the new American conservatism embodied by Reagan. Jeffrey’s dilemma in choosing between Sandy, who represents the pure American ideal, and Dorothy, who belongs to a corrupt and dark world, emphasizes this contrast. Lynch’s obsession with the lost American ideal is further highlighted by the fact that Dorothy’s street is named Lincoln, and Frank’s last name is “Booth.” The iconic scene where “Blue Velvet” is sung features the red curtains that are associated with Lynch’s cinema, and they hint at the hidden truth we have seen in Twin Peaks. The similar scene in Eraserhead is a metaphor for a non-functioning factory. The monotony of the gears that serve a sterile system that does not produce anything shows how far Lynch’s American ideal is. The stairs that lead to Dorothy’s house in Blue Velvet, like the café stairs in Mulholland Drive, represent the boundary between consciousness and the subconscious, reality and dreams. We cannot know which world is real. The sharp contrast between night and day scenes also refers to this duality of reality. The disturbing sounds over peaceful rhythms are designed to keep us dissatisfied.
After the scene where Jeffrey traps and kills Frank in the finale, the camera comes out of Jeffrey’s ear. His family, girlfriend Sandy, and even Dorothy, who has been reunited with her child, are preparing a meal in a peaceful garden, as at the beginning of the film. They watch a bulbul with a bug in its mouth perched on the windowsill. This bird represents the love that Sandy spoke of in her dream, which symbolizes the end of all evil when it arrives. Lynch creates a contrast between the two animals that represent two completely different worlds and casts a shadow over the happy ending. Although they may think they have left the dark world with Frank’s death, it is emphasized that this dark world will always be with them. These two worlds are parts of an inseparable whole.
The camera entering Jeffrey’s ear, which he found at the beginning of the film, is open to different interpretations. The movement of the camera coming out of his ear in the finale allows us to perceive the events of the film as taking place in Jeffrey’s subconscious, which is highly likely when thinking of Lost Highway (1997). Jeffrey’s repressed impulses continue to shuttle between the dirty bottom of the basket and the rose garden, and always will.
In conclusion, Blue Velvet is a satirical American Dream story where David Lynch stylizes the cruelty, illness, and horror underlying the good, clean, white-picket-fence life of the American middle class. It is an extraordinary masterpiece with its chaotic atmosphere, striking scenes that are open to Freudian and feminist interpretations, and unique sound mixing. It is one of the most original examples of postmodern cinema and, in my opinion, one of Lynch’s three ‘great’ films.
“Only in dreams.”