Specifically structure. And characters. Affinity. I don’t know if you’re a detective or a pervert. Death and sex. Blue Velvet (1986, David Lynch) uses the mystery genre as our desire to indulge in the forbidden. Its resolution is the reconciliation between our fears our shame our guilt and the embracing of the acceptance that a carnal inferno within us may exist but lest we allow it to overcome us there is yet hope that the balance harmony beauty of nature can be restored and preserved. You know. The robins.
FRANK BOOTH represents perversion. Both in terms of sexually and of the corruption of society. Like a fire he engulfs others and needs them to grow stronger. Take the life of DOROTHY VALLENS. We know that during sex Frank demands Dorothy to refer to him alternately as either baby or daddy—Dorothy’s child and husband are both named DON. Frank has replaced them both. Turning Dorothy from mother and wife into sex slave. Shame is expressed through Frank’s line “Don’t look at me.”
When Dorothy tells JEFFREY BEAUMONT “Don’t look at me” this tells us she has become perversion. But with her there’s this struggle. She resists. Because even though we see her bring Jeffrey into the let’s say immoral sex acts afterwards she yearns for the feeling of safety from him that Frank lacks. Dorothy calls Jeffrey Don—trying to return to her old life.
And when I say immoral sex acts I don’t mean the movie cares about what your kink is and doesn’t imply there’s anything wrong with any manner of sexual tastes but on the contrary it denounces sexual assault. The destructive abusive coerced victimization of another person. That first time we see Dorothy wielding that huge kitchen knife and playing dom initiating sex between she and Jeffrey when it stops notice the way she looks at the knife in her own hand. Like she knows it’s wrong.
The scene that stands out. The one that really sticks with me is when she asks Jeffrey to hit her and he does. The sound design anguish underwater immersing subsuming soundscape of savage wild abandon animal screeching scary abstraction. Along with the off-speed camera (or step printing? or changing the shutter angle?) jitter voracious sex when he punches her that close-up of Rossellini’s mouth smiling in ecstasy taunts us with its ambiguity. It haunts Jeffrey because he has transgressed beyond what he’s comfortable with. He has become perversion. Because once he’s gotten a taste he keeps going back night after night. And he hides it.
The real mystery in Blue Velvet is Meadowland. When we first hear it Dorothy mentions it on the phone with presumably Frank. The joyride night when Frank kisses Jeffrey and beats the crap out of him happens at Meadowland. But there’s an elliptical cut that says a lot by not. Time cut night to day. What happened between? By the look on Jeffrey’s face something traumatic. Guessing isn’t the point. It’s what your imagination thinks happened. But remember right before all of this Frank tells Jeffrey “You’re like me” at the height of the sublime Orbison’s woeful crooning along with Alan Splet’s flapping flag storm foley awakens us into the dream that this is the meaning of cinema we are implicitly complicit as both detective and pervert for being here with them.
Structuring. Perversion as plague. Parasite Frank infests Dorothy—Dorothy becomes like Frank. Dorothy infests Jeffrey—Jeffrey becomes like Frank. I don’t know if you’re a detective or a pervert. When Jeffrey’s mother and aunt watch the noir footsteps scene they show interest in being detective. Although from a distance. From the safety of their own home. And advise him to stay away from Lincoln. The real life crime source. Then SANDY emerges from the dark. She eavesdrops on her detective father’s cases. She enables Jeffrey to pursue his illegal (and illicit) investigation. These women are detectives. Jeffrey is both.
Meadowland represents each individual’s own budding sexuality. When Frank assaults Jeffrey he’s torn the boy’s libido to shreds just like that swath of blue velvet. Again because of his violent destructive nature. Blue Velvet doesn’t say there’s anything wrong or deviant with any type of sexual behavior; except again that which is forced without consent from the partner; or that which you yourself are not comfortable with. In Blue Velvet the police as the balance of law stand in for morality the balance of what is permitted sexually and what is taboo.
Blue Velvet is structured as a classic morality tale because when Dorothy (Jeffrey’s hidden sexual desires) shows up at Sandy’s house pleading with him to rescue her he does. He doesn’t deny their affair in front of his intended girlfriend or her mother. He owns up to it. And in that final confrontation both Jeffrey and Frank have cop walkies—they transcend the law. They make their own rules as so too do we all. Jeffrey says “I’ll let them find you on their own” meaning he wants to distance himself from Frank. Maybe because he’s still traumatized. But their final confrontation is inevitable. And Jeffrey returns to the closet—voyeuristic. Denying himself physical pleasure past his acceptable boundaries without getting rid of them entirely. Repression? Also dig how Frank Booth can’t appear in daylight without a disguise. He’s the embodiment of immorality.
Characters. Blue Velvet characterizes each of Jeffrey’s objects of desire through the dichotomy of the girl you fuck and the girl you marry. Stereotypically so. Broadly satisfying in its implications of traditional feminine roles dated though they may be.
Sandy isn’t immediately available for sex. She initiates the introduction between she and Jeffrey. She’s the girl Jeffrey takes it slow with and asks out on a series of dates. He makes her laugh. Establishes trust. Meets her parents. They go to a diner and have Coca-Colas cheeseburgers and french fries. A great scene is when Jeffrey is confronted by Sandy’s boyfriend Mike. It vaguely resembles the joyride scene with Frank. And compared to the dude Jeffrey has to face because of how hot sex with Dorothy is the vanilla virgin Sandy’s boyfriend is is so non-threatening that when he chases Jeffrey down with his car Jeffrey at first thinks it’s Frank; only to find out it’s Mike and we all sigh a huge breath of relief.
What Blue Velvet and both of these women characters convey is the wonder thrill and mystery of having sex for the first time. Relationships for the first time. Loss of innocence and the innocence of first love. That and perhaps our repressed darkest sexual perversions buried in our subconscious that like Orbison says In dreams I walk with you in dreams I talk with you. But it's cool. You know. The robins are back.
When Dorothy tells JEFFREY BEAUMONT “Don’t look at me” this tells us she has become perversion. But with her there’s this struggle. She resists. Because even though we see her bring Jeffrey into the let’s say immoral sex acts afterwards she yearns for the feeling of safety from him that Frank lacks. Dorothy calls Jeffrey Don—trying to return to her old life.
And when I say immoral sex acts I don’t mean the movie cares about what your kink is and doesn’t imply there’s anything wrong with any manner of sexual tastes but on the contrary it denounces sexual assault. The destructive abusive coerced victimization of another person. That first time we see Dorothy wielding that huge kitchen knife and playing dom initiating sex between she and Jeffrey when it stops notice the way she looks at the knife in her own hand. Like she knows it’s wrong.
The scene that stands out. The one that really sticks with me is when she asks Jeffrey to hit her and he does. The sound design anguish underwater immersing subsuming soundscape of savage wild abandon animal screeching scary abstraction. Along with the off-speed camera (or step printing? or changing the shutter angle?) jitter voracious sex when he punches her that close-up of Rossellini’s mouth smiling in ecstasy taunts us with its ambiguity. It haunts Jeffrey because he has transgressed beyond what he’s comfortable with. He has become perversion. Because once he’s gotten a taste he keeps going back night after night. And he hides it.
The real mystery in Blue Velvet is Meadowland. When we first hear it Dorothy mentions it on the phone with presumably Frank. The joyride night when Frank kisses Jeffrey and beats the crap out of him happens at Meadowland. But there’s an elliptical cut that says a lot by not. Time cut night to day. What happened between? By the look on Jeffrey’s face something traumatic. Guessing isn’t the point. It’s what your imagination thinks happened. But remember right before all of this Frank tells Jeffrey “You’re like me” at the height of the sublime Orbison’s woeful crooning along with Alan Splet’s flapping flag storm foley awakens us into the dream that this is the meaning of cinema we are implicitly complicit as both detective and pervert for being here with them.
Structuring. Perversion as plague. Parasite Frank infests Dorothy—Dorothy becomes like Frank. Dorothy infests Jeffrey—Jeffrey becomes like Frank. I don’t know if you’re a detective or a pervert. When Jeffrey’s mother and aunt watch the noir footsteps scene they show interest in being detective. Although from a distance. From the safety of their own home. And advise him to stay away from Lincoln. The real life crime source. Then SANDY emerges from the dark. She eavesdrops on her detective father’s cases. She enables Jeffrey to pursue his illegal (and illicit) investigation. These women are detectives. Jeffrey is both.
Meadowland represents each individual’s own budding sexuality. When Frank assaults Jeffrey he’s torn the boy’s libido to shreds just like that swath of blue velvet. Again because of his violent destructive nature. Blue Velvet doesn’t say there’s anything wrong or deviant with any type of sexual behavior; except again that which is forced without consent from the partner; or that which you yourself are not comfortable with. In Blue Velvet the police as the balance of law stand in for morality the balance of what is permitted sexually and what is taboo.
Blue Velvet is structured as a classic morality tale because when Dorothy (Jeffrey’s hidden sexual desires) shows up at Sandy’s house pleading with him to rescue her he does. He doesn’t deny their affair in front of his intended girlfriend or her mother. He owns up to it. And in that final confrontation both Jeffrey and Frank have cop walkies—they transcend the law. They make their own rules as so too do we all. Jeffrey says “I’ll let them find you on their own” meaning he wants to distance himself from Frank. Maybe because he’s still traumatized. But their final confrontation is inevitable. And Jeffrey returns to the closet—voyeuristic. Denying himself physical pleasure past his acceptable boundaries without getting rid of them entirely. Repression? Also dig how Frank Booth can’t appear in daylight without a disguise. He’s the embodiment of immorality.
Characters. Blue Velvet characterizes each of Jeffrey’s objects of desire through the dichotomy of the girl you fuck and the girl you marry. Stereotypically so. Broadly satisfying in its implications of traditional feminine roles dated though they may be.
Sandy isn’t immediately available for sex. She initiates the introduction between she and Jeffrey. She’s the girl Jeffrey takes it slow with and asks out on a series of dates. He makes her laugh. Establishes trust. Meets her parents. They go to a diner and have Coca-Colas cheeseburgers and french fries. A great scene is when Jeffrey is confronted by Sandy’s boyfriend Mike. It vaguely resembles the joyride scene with Frank. And compared to the dude Jeffrey has to face because of how hot sex with Dorothy is the vanilla virgin Sandy’s boyfriend is is so non-threatening that when he chases Jeffrey down with his car Jeffrey at first thinks it’s Frank; only to find out it’s Mike and we all sigh a huge breath of relief.
What Blue Velvet and both of these women characters convey is the wonder thrill and mystery of having sex for the first time. Relationships for the first time. Loss of innocence and the innocence of first love. That and perhaps our repressed darkest sexual perversions buried in our subconscious that like Orbison says In dreams I walk with you in dreams I talk with you. But it's cool. You know. The robins are back.
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