Blue Velvet
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Movie Reviews of Blue Velvet
Movie Review: Mysteries
Summary: 5 Stars
Lynch fills out the world of Blue Velvet so lovingly, and with such care and imagination, and attention to detail (and to the odd, essential quirks of life), that, surreal as it is, this world seems wholly authentic to us. Because Lynch is not afraid to "dream' his movies, he fills his world with the kind of "abritrary' touches that make up real life. And his mise en scene here, far from being merely the backdrop to his "plot," is actually central to it (and even takes precedence over it). The one grows organically out of the other, in fact, for, as in all true myths (and in dreams also), the two are inseparable. Because in life, there is no plot, obviously (save that written by God, or Chance), only an endless, infinite and unimaginably intricate unfolding of scenes, acts, events, encounters, gestures, words, sounds, smells. In a word--phenomena, endlessly spilling out and colliding and spinning off and resounding with all the crazy random beauty of pollen in the wind. There may be patterns in such chaos, but if so, they are infinite, varied, and eternally overlapping, interacting. And so the patterns we choose to isolate are simply that: their meanings is merely the meaning we have chosen to impose upon the chaos. For Lynch, the mystery of the world is inseparable from the mystery of us--the mystery of perceiving, which is the greatest mystery of them all. Something is out there, Lynch seems to be saying, because something is making us perceive. It's up to us, then, to seek it out, and even if we know we can never hope to understand it, we can at least try. What else are we here for? The alternative is simply too dull, too dispiriting, to entertain--that's there's nothing out there, nothing hidden or inexplicable, and that what we think is all there is. (The insanity of solipcism is the only thing that's unthinkable in Lynch's world.) To Lynch, the options are plain--either we know it all, and the answers are just what we choose to invent, in which case there's no sense in asking questions at all. Or--we know nothing, and no answers are possible, so all there is for us to do is ask the most exciting, enchanting, impossibly impertinent questions we can dream up. To Lynch, the world is a strange world, not because we do not understand it, but because that's the way it is--it's nothing but strangeness, that's what makes it the world (such stuff as dreams are made of). Since, for Lynch, there is nothing stranger than "normality," so, by the same token, the strange is the only "normal" thing there is. And seeing as we have made the world thus, by perceiving it, interpreting and assembling it, piece by piece, with our own thoughts and senses, then we must be mysteries, too.
With Blue Velvet, Lynch succeeds in perhaps the highest single accomplishment art can aspire to (at a human level, anyway): he shows us that, if reality is a dream and dream reality, then we, as both the dreamers and the dream, are the ultimate unfathomables: we are strangers to ourselves.
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Movie Review: An astonishingly conventional film that isn't nearly as subversive as it thinks it is
Summary: 2 Stars
Let it first be said that everyone who considers themselves a serious student of film should see "Blue Velvet" on principle alone-- this review is intended for people who have seen it, and thus contains SPOILERS.
David Lynch's "Blue Velvet" is that rare breed of film: an unquestioned modern masterpiece, upheld by imdb geeks and Entertainment Weekly-pop culture hounds as something truly special. Everybody seems to like it, and everybody's got their own reason. Some see it as allegory, some simply as a living nightmare, some as genuinely effective drama, some as a coming-of-age story.
I've seen "Blue Velvet" three times now. The first time, I admit a prejudicial point of view-- I wanted to prove Roger Ebert right in his criticism of it, because Ebert was my hero at the time. I was unimpressed. Later, I returned to it after a number of critics upheld it as the genuine article. I'd seen Mulholland Drive and Lost Highway, and loved both of them-- perhaps I was more prepared for Lynchian weirdness this time around. Nope. I was still unimpressed, although I was entranced by the visual look of the film.
Recently, I found myself picking it up again, after seeing Mulholland Drive with an artsy group of friends who were convinced that they could explain everything that happened in it to me, and pretty much did (except for the blue box and the scene with the huge dude who knocks out the
director's wife). With an increased appreciation of Lynch, I returned to what most consider his masterpiece, ironically enough, prejudiced IN ITS FAVOR this time around.
Well, I'm still not impressed. "Blue Velvet" thinks it's so damn cool and subversive. It thinks it's turning Americana on its head by depicting sexual perversion behind white picket fences. I don't think it's doing anything at all.
Granted, for forty minutes or so, "Blue Velvet" is compelling. From the opening scene to the discovery of the ear all the way up to Dennis Hopper's unforgettable apperance and including the dream sequence afterwards, Lynch had me hooked. He seemed at that point to be ready to go for broke, to show us unimaginable horrors, to penetrate through to the darkest aspects of human nature.
Yet something odd happens after the forty minute mark-- the story that we thought was gradually unfolding into something complex and sinister stops unfolding altogether. After forty minutes, we have all the plot we're going to get. We have a woman held in sexual slavery by a drug dealer who has kidnapped her husband and son, we have the naive college kid who tries to help her out, we have the sweet high school girl he's falling in love with, and that's all we have. Those expecting "Blue Velvet" to "go somewhere" from this point will be sorely disappointed.
In the end, "Blue Velvet" goes down an entirely conventional path towards its conclusion. Instead of exploring the Hopper character, Lynch makes him into a campy villain. Instead of exploring the Rosellini character, Lynch makes her into a conventional damsel in distress, longing after her husband and son. Instead of exploring the MacLachlan character, Lynch turns him into an uninteresting do-gooder. The latter choice is particularly odd, given that Lynch has set him up to have his whole world turned upside-down-- yet he heroically takes everything in stride and saves the day.
Most egregious of all is the resolution of the plot, which I've got to assume is intended as a joke on the viewer. After all of Lynch's pretensions about inverting Americana, he gives us a reaffirmation of it, in the form of a conventional ending in which a simple act of violence
restores the natural order of things, the robins make everything better, and, gee, everything's just great! Even though I'm sure this is intended as ironic, I found myself frustrated anyway. If Lynch isn't going to take his art seriously, why should the viewer?
I don't want to seem like I'm making an attack on Lynch, although it may seem that way, as I'm criticizing his most canonized work. Lynch has proven that he is capable of taking himself seriously, and developing stories that go places-- even if they work with a logic that conventional films do not. "Blue Velvet," by contrast, goes nowhere and does nothing truly unusual or interesting in the process. I've endeavored to work my way around to enjoying it, but I can't. It simply is not interesting, as a dramatic work, or even as an abstract collection of images.
I would direct those who want to see Lynch at his best to "Eraserhead," "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me," "Lost Highway" (my personal favorite), and, in a more conventional vein (well, relatively speaking), "Wild at Heart." These are virtuoso films that see the director exploiting the most fearsome resources of cinema to lead his viewers on journeys that begin and end, with point and purpose. They are masterpieces, and no matter what anyone tells you, they make sense if you are willing to do the intellectual heavy-lifting.
Compared to these later works, "Blue Velvet" is positively forgettable.
Movie Review: about the movie blue velvet...........
Summary: 5 Stars
This DVD film/movie is sold around Singapore videoshops and I have grabbed a copy and watched....hee hee...The story basically talk about the case of the chop off ears which the murder case was investigated and the case detail came to the light to the higher police investigating department which was done by a the actor himself. The case was presented by the police and this mad person whom was acted by Dennis Hooper (famous for his insane killer character in also other films) in the end died under gunfire when he tried to catch the actor for trying to go into a house and look for 'evidence'. Recommended to those whom are interested in this genre of DVD film/movie.
Review by:
(Dr)Ang Poon Kah
Rogue University Professor certificate
Imagine Entertainment for film/mvoie the Da vinci Code.
Zakkers film director.
Movie Review: Definitely a nightmare.
Summary: 4 Stars
The icy, but strange Lynch mood enters Blue Velvet from the very beginning. Starting off semi-squeaky clean, things start darkening as the main character, Kyle MacLachlan, begins to discover, of course, wierd things in his hometown. After a meeting with Isabella Rossellini's character, MacLachlan begins a downward spiral into an evil world of desparation, wickedness and corruption. Blue Velvet's 'plot' is much easier to follow than Lynch's Lost Highway. However, it's a bumpy mental road for those who try to figure it all out. One of Lynch's best.Movie Review: A lush, beautiful masterpiece
Summary: 5 Stars
David Lynch is the definition of a "Love Him or Hate Him" director. There are those who adore his mystery-laden, intellectually-challenging films, and those who can't stand them. Lynch has had a few films in his career, however, which have been hits with critics and audiences alike. The biggest of those was 1986's BLUE VELVET.
BLUE VELVET stars Lynch favorite Kyle MacLachlan as Jeffrey Beaumont, an extremely polite and kind young man who returns home from college when his father is hospitalized. Home is Lumberton, a seemingly-perfect little town stuck in the 50's. When Jeffrey discovers a severed human ear in a field, curiosity gets the best of him and he sets out on a quest to find out just what an ear is doing in a field.
To reveal much more would take away the mystery and shock which BLUE VELVET is so full of. Although it's undoubtedly a Lynchian film, it's devoid of the dreamy fantasy and nonsensical dialogue of such Lynch films as ERASERHEAD and MULHOLLAND DR. The story is, more or less, clear, and it's told in typical linear fashion. No doubt this comprehensability allowed many critics to finally notice Lynch's filmmaking expertise when BLUE VELVET was released.
More than anything, the film is a visual spectacle. Frederick Elmes' cinematography is nothing short of magnificent. BLUE VELVET is shot like one grand, lush painting, filled with vibrant colors and beautiful imagery. Attention is paid to every little detail of the film. The sets are so well-decorated that they seem undoubtedly real (in the case of Dorothy Valens' apartment, chillingly so). Isabella Rossellini, who plays mysterious club singer Dorothy Valens, once recounted a story about David Lynch making sure there was dust under a radiator which could possibly be seen clearly on-screen. He did this just to make it real, the best it possibly could be. Lynch's attention to detail really shines.
As in all of Lynch's films, the casting is flawless. Undoubtedly, the standout of the cast is Dennis Hopper, in the career-reviving and now famous role of sadistic Frank Booth. Hopper is outstanding; his Booth is likely one of the screen's greatest villains. Booth's inhumanity and constant spewing of obscenities is at once terrifying and hilarious.
Kyle MacLachlan is a perfect fit for innocent Jeffrey Beaumont. Laura Dern (who also starred in Lynch's WILD AT HEART) makes young Sandy Williams seem completely inculpable. Isabella Rossellini brings out Dorothy Valens' sense of hopelessness. Though in a supporting role, Dean Stockwell gives another stand-out performance as the unbelievably suave Ben. George Dickerson makes Detective Williams seem strong and heroic, though I felt a twinge of uncertainty as to whose side he was on. Lynch regular Jack Nance (ERASERHEAD) has a short but very funny role.
As is especially clear in this and MULHOLLAND DR., David Lynch has an obsession with smalltown, 50's-style America. Lynch doesn't want to let go of this idyllic time. At one time in the film, he voices this through Jeffrey. Jeffrey, walking with Sandy, points out a house. "Do you see that house?" he says. "I used to know a kid who lived there. He had the biggest tongue in the world." Sandy laughs and asks what happened to him. Jeffrey sighs and smiles a sad smile and says, "I don't know. He moved away. All my friends are gone."
Also of note is Angelo Badalamenti's excellent score. This was Badalamenti's first collaboration with Lynch; he would collaborate with him on all of Lynch's subsequent projects. Badalamenti's score is over-the-top and bold, bringing to mind the music of such classic thrillers as THE BIG SLEEP and THE MALTESE FALCON. He is an extremely talented composer, and BLUE VELVET is one of his very greatest compositions.
Although BLUE VELVET was not nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award (though Lynch did receive a Best Director nomination), it was on nearly every critic's list of the best films of the year. When, in 1999, Entertainment Weekly released their list of the 100 greatest movies ever made, BLUE VELVET was ranked 37th on the list. Though it's not quite David Lynch's finest film, it's definitely close. It is one of the most important, and greatest, films of the 1980s without a doubt. BLUE VELVET is a contemporary masterpiece, emphasizing how strange and brutal, yet beautiful, this world can be.