Blue Velvet (film)

This article is about the David Lynch film. For the popular song of the same name, see Blue Velvet (song).

Blue Velvet
File:Bvmovieposter.jpg Film poster
Directed by	David Lynch
Written by	David Lynch
Produced by	Fred C. Caruso
Starring	Kyle MacLachlan Isabella Rossellini Dennis Hopper Laura Dern Dean Stockwell
Cinematography	Frederick Elmes
Edited by	Duwayne Dunham
Music by	Angelo Badalamenti
Distributed by	De Laurentiis Entertainment Group
Release dates	12 September, 1986 (premiere at Toronto Film Festival) 19 September, 1986 (theatrical release) February 26, 1987
Running time	120 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$6,000,000 (estimated)
Box office	$8,551,228 (North America)

Blue Velvet is an influential 1986 neo-noir mystery and thriller film written and directed by David Lynch. The film features Kyle MacLachlan, Isabella Rossellini, Dennis Hopper and Laura Dern. The title is taken from a Bobby Vinton song by the same name, which continues the blue velvet motif that appears throughout the film in several significant moments. Following the initial commercial and critical failure of Dune (1984), Lynch returned to what he regards as a more personal study, which became Blue Velvet. The film was financed and produced for Italian movie producer Dino de Laurentiis, due to the fact that most major film studios had turned down the film, so Laurentiis created his own production company, D.E.G. in order to distribute the film.

Set in the small, quaint South Atlantic town of Lumberton, North Carolina, the film begins with the protagonist Jeffrey Beaumont (MacLachlan) wandering through a dilapidated field and discovering a severed human ear which he takes to the police. He begins to investigate the matter himself — and discovers a seamy underworld hidden beneath the veneer of his idealised small town in middle America — home to bizarre homicidal kidnapper and rapist Frank Booth (Hopper) and a seductive femme fatale night-club cabaret singer on the verge of a mental breakdown, Dorothy Vallens (Rossellini).

Blue Velvet opened to great critical acclaim and was a moderate box office success, considering its limited release in theatres across the United States. The film received an Academy Award nomination in the category of Best Director for Lynch, and has since become a cult classic, while it is still well-known and recognized to mainstream audiences as one of the most influential films of the 1980s.

Synopsis

Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) returns home from college after his father (Jack Harvey) suffered from a near fatal stroke. While walking home from the hospital, he finds a severed ear. Jeffrey takes the ear to local investigator Detective John Williams (George Dickerson). When he returns to the Williams house later to discuss the incident further, Jeffrey meets the detective’s daughter, Sandy (Laura Dern). She tells him details about the ear case and a suspicious woman, Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini).

Increasingly curious, Jeffrey devises a plan to sneak into Dorothy’s apartment that involves posing as a maintenance man. Dorothy becomes distracted when a man dressed in a yellow suit (played by Fred Pickler) knocks at her door, and Jeffrey steals Dorothy's spare key.

File:Bluevelvet dorothyvallens.jpg

Isabella Rossellini's shadowy figure, while singing her rendition of Blue Velvet at the Slow Club

Jeffrey and Sandy attend Dorothy's nightclub show at the Slow Club. While Dorothy performs at the nightclub, Jeffrey sneaks into her apartment to snoop. He hurriedly hides in a closet when she returns home. But Dorothy finds him hiding and threatens to hurt him. When she realizes he is merely a curious boy, she assumes his intentions are sexual in nature, and is turned on by his voyeurism. She makes him undress at knifepoint, then fellates him. Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper) interrupts their encounter. Jeffrey returns to the closet and witnesses Frank's bizarre sexual proclivities, which include erotic asphyxiation, dry humping, and sadomasochistic tendencies. Frank is an extremely foul-mouthed, violent sociopath whose orgasmic climax is a fit of both pleasure and rage. When Frank leaves, a saddened and desperate Dorothy tries to seduce Jeffrey again. She demands that he hit her but when he refuses she demands to be left alone. Jeffrey attends for a second time to Dorothy's nightclub show at the Slow Club, where she performs Blue Velvet by Bobby Vinton. Frank is also present at the nightclub.

At the police station, Jeffrey notices that Sandy's father's partner is Gordon — the Yellow Man. Later at Sandy's home, her father is amazed by Jeffrey's story, but warns Jeffrey of the danger of the situation. Jeffrey and Sandy go to a dance party together, profess their newfound love and embrace. When they're tailed on their way home, Jeffrey is relieved to discover that it's only Sandy’s football-playing ex-boyfriend. A confrontation is avoided when they see a naked and distressed Dorothy waiting on Jeffrey’s front lawn.

From the hospital, Jeffrey tells Sandy that he must return to Dorothy's apartment and tells Sandy to send her father there immediately. When he arrives back at Dorothy’s apartment, he finds the dead bodies of The Yellow Man and Dorothy’s husband, who is missing an ear. When he tries to leave, he sees The Well Dressed Man coming up the steps and recognizes him as Frank. Jeffrey talks to Det. Williams over the police radio but lies about his location inside the apartment. Frank enters the apartment and brags about hearing Jeffrey's location over his own police radio. When Frank fails to find Jeffrey in the bedroom, he returns to the lounge. Jeffrey shoots Frank with the Yellow Man's gun. Det. Williams arrives with Sandy in tow. Days later, we see Jeffrey and Sandy together, with their lives back to normal, and before the credits, Dorothy and her son playing happily in the park together.

Themes

As with much of the the psychological thriller genre, it owes a large debt to 1950s film noir, filtered through a uniquely individualistic vision, containing and exploring such conventions as the femme fatale, a seemingly unstoppable villain, and the questionable moral outlook of the Hero — extended here to include even the humanity of the hero, as well as the usual shadowy cinematography and important symbolism. The film also pays tribute to many 1950s and 1960s soap operas and B-films, showcasing nostalgic visuals; the setting is also very indistinguishable, as there are references to the both the 1950s and 1960s, and the 1980s.

Blue Velvet establishes a metaphorical family — Jeffrey Beaumont (the 'child') and his 'parents' Frank Booth and Dorothy Vallens — through deliberate references to film noir and its underlying Oedipal theme. The resulting violence can be read as symbolic of domestic violence within 'real' families. Frank's violent acts reflect the different types of abuse within families, and the control he has over Dorothy represents the hold an abusive husband has over his wife. Jeffrey is an innocent youth who is both horrified by the violence inflicted by Frank, but also tempted by it as the means of possessing Dorothy for himself. The film is also a journey into the heartland of a seemingly perfect small town America, and its underlying surface, which is presented throughout the film with the visual manifestation of roses, white-picket fenced homes, happy suburban families, and then the discovery of what lies beneath, visually represented with crawling insects, pain (such as the seizure of Jeffrey's father) and destruction.

In an interview, Lynch mentioned that he deliberately placed recurring symbols into the film. The most obvious symbol is that of insects, introduced at the end of the first scene, when the camera zooms in on a well-kept suburban lawn until it discovers, underground, a swarming nest of bugs, a metaphor for the seedy underworld that Jeffrey will soon discover in his suburban town. The bug motif recurs throughout the film, most notably in the bug-like oxygen mask that Frank wears, but also in the excuse that Jeffrey offers when he first gains access to Dorothy's apartment: he claims he is an insect exterminator, and finally in the last scene where a robin, which is meant to symbolize love, flies onto a windowsill with a beetle in its mouth.

The severed ear that Jeffrey discovers is also a key symbolic element; the ear is what leads Jeffrey into danger. Indeed, just as Jeffrey's troubles begin, the audience is treated to a nightmarish sequence in which the camera zooms into the ear canal of the severed, decomposing ear. Notably, the camera does not reemerge from the ear canal until the end of the film. When Jeffrey finally comes through his hellish ordeal unscathed, the ear canal shot is replayed, only in reverse, zooming out through Jeffrey's own ear as he relaxes in his yard on a summer day.

Origins and inspiration

File:Lumbertonbv.jpg

David Lynch took many inspirations for the film from his own childhood; including the setting of the film, acting as a substitute for his own northwestern hometown in Spokane, Washington

Blue Velvet's origins may lie in Lynch's childhood, spent deep in the forests of Spokane, Washington, a Northwestern setting similar to that of the film. Lynch has admitted to certain autobiographical content in the film. He has said:

"Kyle is dressed like me. My father was a research scientist for the Department of Agriculture in Washington. We were in the woods all the time. I'd sorta had enough of the woods by the time I left, but still, lumber and lumberjacks, all this kinda thing, that's America to me like the picket fences and the roses in the opening shot. It's so burned in, that image, and it makes me feel so happy."

If Lynch's childhood memories inspired the setting of Blue Velvet, the actual story of the film originated from three ideas that crystallized in the filmmaker's mind over a period of time starting as early as 1973, but at that time he "only had a feeling and a title."

The second idea was an image of a severed, human ear lying in a field that has since become one of the most striking visuals of the film. "I don't know why it had to be an ear. Except it needed to be an opening of a part of the body a hole into something else...The ear sits on the head and goes right into the mind so it felt perfect," Lynch remarked in an interview. For the filmmaker, the severed ear was the perfect way to draw Jeffrey into a secret world that lies at the heart of the film.

The third idea that came to Lynch was Bobby Vinton's classic rendition of the song Blue Velvet and "the mood that came with that song a mood, a time, and things that were of that time." Lynch was directly influenced by Kenneth Anger's use of Bobby Vinton's classic in his avant-garde film Scorpio Rising (1964). This song proved to be such a favorite with Lynch that he not only has Vinton's version in the film but Dorothy also sings it during one of her performances at the Slow Club. The song continues the blue velvet motif that appears throughout the film from the curtain or robe of velvet in the opening credits to the piece of material that Frank carries with him. Many elements of Blue Velvet are reminiscent of Charles Laughton's The Night of the Hunter (1955). The story of a child or naïve young man thrust into an unexpected adult world of crime, sex, and murder is common to both films, and the development of this subject as something of a journey towards the redemption of innocence also seems similar. Both films feature a helpless woman held under the power of a sometimes disarming but ultimately terrifying madman. Both madmen are tied symbolically to a primal, animal or insect world. And in both films the child character loses his father in the first scene, and later seeks the help of a surrogate father figure but is disappointed in this appeal to adult, masculine authority.

Once these three ideas came to Lynch, he and Roth pitched it to Warner Bros. Pictures who showed interest in the project. Lynch eventually spent two years writing two drafts which, by his own admission, were not very good. The problem with them, Lynch has said, was that "there was maybe all the unpleasantness in the film but nothing else. A lot was not there. And so it went away for a while."

Production

After finishing The Elephant Man in 1979, Lynch met producer Richard Roth over coffee. Roth had read and enjoyed Lynch's Ronnie Rocket script but did not think it was something he wanted to produce. He asked Lynch if the filmmaker had any other scripts but the director only had ideas. "I told him I had always wanted to sneak into a girl's room to watch her into the night and that, maybe, at one point or another, I would see something that would be the clue to a murder mystery. Roth loved the idea and asked me to write a treatment. I went home and thought of the ear in the field."

File:87lynch.jpg

David Lynch on the set of the film with Kyle MacLachlan, 1986

Lynch wrote two more drafts before he was satisfied with the script of the film. Conditions at this point were ideal for Lynch's film: he had cut a deal with Dino de Laurentiis that gave him complete artistic freedom and final cut privileges with the stipulation that the filmmaker take a cut in his salary and work with a budget of only $6 million. This deal meant that Blue Velvet was the smallest film on the De Laurentiis' slate. Consequently, Lynch would be left mostly unsupervised during production. "After Dune I was down so far that anything was up! So it was just a euphoria. And when you work with that kind of feeling, you can take chances. You can experiment." Because the material was completely different from anything that would be considered mainstream at the time, Laurentiis had to start his own production company to distribute it.

The scene where Dorothy appears naked outside after being raped and beaten was inspired by a real-life experience Lynch had in his childhood when he and his brother saw a naked woman walking down a neighborhood street at night. The experience was so traumatic to the young Lynch at the time, it made him cry and he had never forgotten it.

Lynch's original script had Dorothy's child die before he could be saved, and Dorothy committing suicide at the end by throwing herself off the roof of the apartment building, her Blue Velvet robe dropping to cover the ground-level camera. Her suicide was to be crosscut with Jeffrey's idyllic home life. This referenced a previous scene in the film, shot but not included in the final cut, where Dorothy and Jeffrey make love on the roof of the apartment building during a thunderstorm, after which Dorothy threatens to jump from the roof. The exterior scenes of Lumberton were filmed in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Lynch's original rough cut ran for approximately four hours. He was contractually obligated to deliver a two-hour movie by De Laurentiis and cut many small subplots and character scenes. He also made cuts at the request of the MPAA. For example, when Frank slaps Dorothy after the first rape scene, the audience was supposed to see Frank actually hitting her, instead it cuts away to Jeffrey in the closet, wincing at what he has just seen. This was removed to satisfy the MPAA concerns about violence. Lynch thought that the change only made the scene more disturbing. To this day, footage of the deleted scenes has never been found and only stills remain. David Lynch's final cut of the film ran one frame under two hours.

Blue Velvet introduced several common elements of Lynch's work, including distorted characters, a polarized world, debilitating damage to the skull or brain and the dark underbelly of small towns (or large cities). Red curtains also show up in key scenes, which have since become a trademark of Lynch films. The opening title features the title cards, and a backdrop of a blue velvet robe blowing in the wind, which sets the mood for the blue velvet and how it consistently appears throughout the film. Much of the cinematography and shots bear similarities to surrealistic paintings, such as the way the streets of Lumberton are lit with very dim light. Many critics later noted that Lynch's directing and camera work contributed to Blue Velvet's success.

Music

Main article: Blue Velvet (film soundtrack)

Untitled

The Blue Velvet soundtrack by Angelo Badalamenti is a dark combination of classic composition and vintage/modern pop songs, which mirrors the film's un-stated setting envisioned by David Lynch. Thus, the film has become noted for its diverse musical selections. Scene as a prominent stylistic feature in the film is the unconventional use of vintage pop songs, such as Bobby Vinton’s "Blue Velvet" and Roy Orbison’s "In Dreams", juxtaposed with an orchestral score inspired largely by Shostakovich. The score makes direct quotations from Shostakovich's 15th Symphony, which Lynch had been listening to regularly while writing the screenplay. Entertainment Weekly ranked Blue Velvet at #100 on there list of the 100 Greatest Film Soundtracks.

"The haunting soundtrack accompanies the title credits, then weaves through the narrative, accentuating the noir mood of the film." — Critic John Alexander

Lynch worked with well-known music composer Angelo Badalamenti for the first time in this film and asked him to write a score that had to be “like Shostakovich, be very Russian, but make it the most beautiful thing but make it dark and a little bit scary.” Badalamenti would later go on to contribute to all of Lynch's future full-length films.

Track listing

1. "Main Title" 1:27
2. "Night Streets/Sandy and Jeffrey" 3:42
3. "Frank" 3:34
4. "Jeffrey's Dark Side" 1:48
5. "Mysteries of Love" 2:10
6. "Frank Returns" 4:39
7. "Mysteries of Love" [instrumental] 4:41
8. "Blue Velvet/Blue Star" 3:14
9. "Lumberton U.S.A./Going Down to Lincoln" 2:13
10. "Akron Meets the Blues" 2:40
11. Bill Doggett - "Honky Tonk, Pt. 1" 3:09
12. Roy Orbison - "In Dreams" 2:48
13. Ketty Lester - "Love Letters" 2:36
14. Julee Cruise - "Mysteries of Love" 4:22

Casting and characters

The cast of Blue Velvet included several then-unknown actors, including Isabella Rossellini, Kyle MacLachlan and Laura Dern. Blue Velvet's dark script and low budget limited the number of big names that Lynch could attract. The part of Frank Booth was originally offered to Robert Loggia, then Willem Dafoe and Richard Bright, all of whom turned it down. Dennis Hopper—Lynch's third choice—accepted the role, reportedly saying "I've got to play Frank! I am Frank!"

Three actresses were offered the role of Dorothy Vallens. Lynch tested and turned down German/Polish actress Hanna Schygulla, then considered Helen Mirren, who was unavailable at the time. While in New York City, Lynch met Isabella Rossellini at a restaurant, and she accepted the role. Lynch only had one choice for the role of Jeffrey Beaumont: Val Kilmer, who turned the role down, describing the script he read as "pornography". Kilmer later said he would have done the version of the film that finally made it to the big screen; he became very fond of the final version of the film, just not the version he read as a script. Kyle MacLachlan, who had previously starred in one film directed by Lynch, Dune (1984), was asked to play the role of Jeffrey. He instantly agreed. For MacLachlan, who appears in every scene in the film, the intense shooting schedule was exhausting.

In an interview and on the 2002 documentary (The Mysteries of Love) produced for the films anniversary, Lynch said that he originally wanted Molly Ringwald, who was then a "teen idol", to star as Sandy in Blue Velvet, but Ringwald's mother objected to her starring in the film due to the graphic content, and both agreed that it would tarnish her then successful career in the film industry.

File:Blue velvet scene.jpg

The iconic scene in which Frank Booth sexually assaults Dorothy Vallens while inhaling his drug

• Kyle MacLachlan as Jeffrey Beamount. He is a clean-cut young male, developing his personality and discovering his own sexual life. After Jeffrey makes the discovery of a human ear in a grassy field in his quant, small town of Lumberton, a detrimental impact his made on his life, come across a seedy underworld of his initially peaceful All-American town. The underworld is home to an unstoppable psychotic rapist, who may risk Jeffrey's life.
• Dennis Hopper as Frank Booth. One of the most iconic Blue Velvet character's is Frank Booth; a homicidal kidnapping rapist, who is currently holding hostage to Dorothy Vallen's son and husband, in order to receive sexual favors from Dorothy. Hopper's character is frequently sampled in music, film and literature.
• Isabella Rossellini as Dorothy Vallens. Vallens is a distraught and mysterious night-club singer; unaware of whether or not she will get back her son and husband. Vallens is comforted through the situation by Jeffery.
• Laura Dern as Sandy Williams. Williams is a virginal, innocent and pure teenager caught between the murder mystery involving Frank and Jeffrey.
• Dean Stockwell as Ben Ben is Frank's flamboyant assistant and partner in crime.
• David Lynch cameo appearance is a signature occurrence in most of his films. In Blue Velvet he can be seen on the Lumberton highway as a homeless person, during Frank's "joy ride."

Reception

Box office performance

Blue Velvet was released in theatres in the United States on February 26, 1986. In its opening weekend, Blue Velvet grossed a total of (USD) $789,409 in 98 theaters in the United States. As of August 7 2006, the film has grossed a total of $8,551,228 domestically. It was also released internationally, in Australia, most of West Germany, China, Canada, Hong Kong, Western Europe and Japan, followed by subsquent video releases. The film grossed (AU) $900,000 in Australia, which was a large and impressive amount of money for a film to gross at the box office in Australia, in that day, and (HKD) 450,139 in Hong Kong. Blue Velvet's release on home video has contributed to its popularity over the years.

Critical reception

The film received an extremely positive reaction from critics in the United States. Paul Attanasio of The Washington Post said that "the film showcases a visual stylist utterly in command of his talents" and that Angelo Badalamenti "contributes an extraordinary score, slipping seamlessly from slinky jazz to violin figures to the romantic sweep of a classic Hollywood score," but claims that Lynch "isn't interested in communicating, he's interested in parading his personality. The movie doesn't progress or deepen, it just gets weirder, and to no good end."

Janet Maslin, critic from The New York Times expressed her admiration for the film, and directed much praise toward the performances of Hopper and Rossellini: "Mr. Hopper and Miss Rossellini are so far outside the bounds of ordinary acting here that their performances are best understood in terms of sheer lack of inhibition; both give themselves entirely over to the material, which seems to be exactly what's called for."

She concluded by saying that the movie, "is as fascinating as it is freakish. It confirms Mr. Lynch's stature as an innovator, a superb technician, and someone best not encountered in a dark alley." Looking back in his Guardian/Observer, critic Philip French felt that "The film is wearing well and has attained a classic status without becoming respectable or losing its sense of danger." Blue Velvet holds a 90 percent "fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes and a well-above average mark on the Internet Movie Database. Peter Travers, the film critic for Rolling Stone magazine, named Blue Velvet the best film of the 1980s, and refered to the film as an "American masterpiece".

Nevertheless, Blue Velvet was not without its detractors. Roger Ebert, noted film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times praised Isabella Rosselini's performance as being "convincing and courageous" but criticized how she was depicted in the film, even accusing David Lynch of misogyny: "degraded, slapped around, humiliated and undressed in front of the camera. And when you ask an actress to endure those experiences, you should keep your side of the bargain by putting her in an important film." He ended up giving the movie one star out of four.

Awards and nominations

The film received an array of nominations, ranging from independent awards to mainstream. Isabella Rossellini won an Independent Spirit Award for the Best Female Lead in 1987. David Lynch and Dennis Hopper won a Los Angeles Film Critics Association award in 1987 for Blue Velvet in categories Best Director (Lynch) and Best Supporting Actor (Hopper). In 1987 National Society of Film Critics gave the film Best Film, Best Director (David Lynch), Best Cinematography (Frederick Elmes) and Best Supporting Actor (Dennis Hopper) awards. In addition, David Lynch was nominated for the 1987 Best Director Academy Award. Dennis Hopper received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for the film Hoosiers. At the time, it was believed that the Academy wanted to honor Hopper's portrayal of Frank in Lynch's film, but gave him the Oscar nomination for his appearance in Hoosiers instead because Frank was just too evil a character. Many feel that Isabella Rossellini was also snubbed by the awards for her performance in the film.

It has won the following accolades:

Year	Award	Category — Recipient(s)
1986	Avoriaz Fantastic Film Festival	Best Film (Grand Prize) — David Lynch
1987	Boston Society of Film Critics Awards	Best Cinematography — Frederick Elmes
		Best Director — David Lynch
		Best Film — David Lynch
		Best Actor in a Supporting Role — Dennis Hopper
1987	Independent Spirit Awards	Best Female Lead — Isabella Rossellini
1987	Montreal World Film Festival	Best Male Actor — Dennis Hopper
1987	National Society of Film Critics Awards	Best Cinematography — Frederick Elmes.

It was nominated for the following awards:

• Academy Awards (1987)
  • Academy Award for Best Director
• Golden Globes (1987)
  • Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture — Dennis Hopper
  • Best Screenplay (Motion Picture) — David Lynch

• Independent Spirit Award (1987)
  • Best Cinematography — Frederick Elmes
  • Best Director — David Lynch
  • Best Feature — Fred C. Caruso
  • Best Female Lead — Laura Dern
  • Best Male Lead — Dennis Hopper
  • Best Screenplay — David Lynch

• Writers Guild of America (1987)
  • Best Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen

Influence and rankings

Although it initially gained a small global audience, Blue Velvet received a cult classic status thanks to a myriad of VHS releases, and has become frequently referenced in popular media and culture.

Blue Velvet's dark, dream-like and symbolistic design have served as a benchmark and its inspiration can be seen in many subsequent suburban-set thriller films and television programs including The X-Files and Desperate Housewives, and films such as X (1996), Happiness (1998), American Beauty (1999) and Lantana (2001). Lynch also continued themes established in Blue Velvet, in Twin Peaks, which details an exploration of a small town whose dark secrets are revealed during the murder investigation of high-school prom queen Laura Palmer (played by Sheryl Lee). The film has also been used and studied frequently in university courses. Blue Velvet is also one of the most musically sampled films of the 20th century.

Blue Velvet has also been recognized in many lists conducted by the media. The film has been listed by the American Film Institute twice: the film's villain Frank Booth was anointed at number 36 on the the of list of the 50 Best villains in cinema history, and the film itself was ranked #96 on 100 Most Thrilling Films of All Time in 2003. It was ranked at #84 by Bravo Television Network in a four-hour televised countdown of the 100 Scariest Movie Moments for the scene when Jeffery watches Frank booth from the closet. In 2003, British film magazine Sight and Sound ranked Blue Velvet as one of the ten greatest films in the past 25 years. In 1999, Entertainment Weekly released a magazine guide celebrating the 100 Greatest Films of All Time, excluding short films and doccumentaries. Blue Velvet was ranked at #37.

In 2007, the film was ranked by Premiere Magazine as the 25 Greatest Dangerous Films in 2007, at number nine, as well as the list of the 100 Greatest Movie Moments, with the scene in which Ben performs "In Dreams", at number 73. Also, Michael Atkinson claimed Blue Velvet was the "most influential and crucial film of the decade".

Documentaries

The Mysteries of Love (70 mins) produced in 2001 by MGM, was supplied on the VHS and DVD release of Blue Velvet, in 2002, as apart of the special edition. Interviews with production staff, including David Lynch, give details of the creative process and the turmoil during preproduction. Lynch also gave insight on his opinions of the film.

Interwoven are also cast interviews with Dennis Hopper, Kyle MacLachlan, Isabella Rossellini and Laura Dern. It features many test screenings and behind the scenes footage of Lynch on set. As well as cast intreviews and information on actors considered for the roles, but subsequently turned down. It also provides background on the (in)famous drug used by Frank Booth (Hopper), where both Lynch and Hopper debate on what it actually was. The success and influence of the film also surfaces in the doccumentary.

Frank's drug

Throughout the film, Frank Booth uses a mask to breathe a gas from a tank. The identity of this gas is a subject of controversy. Lynch's script specified helium, to raise Frank's voice and have it resemble that of an infant. However, during filming, Hopper, an experienced drug user, claimed to have insight into Frank's choice of drug and that helium was inappropriate:

"...I'm thankful to Dennis," Lynch said, "because up until the last minute it was gonna be helium — to make the difference between 'Daddy' and the baby that much more. But I didn't want it to be funny. So helium went out the window and became just a gas. Then, in the first rehearsal, Dennis said, 'David, I know what's in these different canisters.' And I said, 'Thank God, Dennis, that you know that!' And he named all the gases."

In The Mysteries of Love documentary on the DVD version of the film, Hopper claims that the drug was amyl nitrite an angina medication that was first used recreationally as an inhalant in the disco club scene. However, amyl nitrite is a yellow-gold liquid that is inhaled as it evaporates, not a gas that comes in a canister.

References in popular culture

Music

A number of musicians have sampled Dennis Hopper's character, Frank Booth. The Louisiana band Acid Bath samples Frank Booth in the song "Cassie Eats Cockroaches," the final track on When the Kite String Pops. Amon Tobin in turn referenced Blue Velvet and Frank on the 1998 album Permutation, with the song "People Like Frank," which also samples music from Angelo Badalamenti's score. The Hypnotist (Casper Pound) in "The Ride" (Give Peace a Dance, Vol 3) prominently features the sample "A ride... well that's a good idea" spoken by Frank, as well of other lines from that same scene in the hallway.

Rollins Band (Henry Rollins) released a lengthy 'jam' song called "JoyRiding with Frank." The live version starts with Henry quoting Frank: "This Is IT!" The beginning of the Fear Factory song "Concrete" off their album of the same title features a sample of Frank screaming "Next!" after Jeffrey punches him in the face. Benediction wrote "Dark Is the Season," a song about Blue Velvet having lyrics directly referencing the movie. It is recorded on the Dark is the Season EP. The lyrics sheet further states, "See the film Blue Velvet by David Lynch, freak out & blow your mind!!!" Iowa metalcore band A Well Dressed Man took their name from the disguise worn by Frank Booth, referred to by Jeffrey as "the well-dressed man disguise."

Mr. Bungle's self-titled album featured samples of dialog from Blue Velvet in the songs "Squeeze Me Macaroni," "Stubb (A Dub)," and "My Ass Is on Fire." The San Diego band Deadbolt recorded the song "E Frank" with lyrics inspired by some of Frank Booth's lines in the film. The song, recorded live, appears on the B-side of a single issued by Trademark Records (TMR-1003). The band Anthrax wrote "Now It's Dark", a song about Blue Velvet on their State of Euphoria album. Many of the lyrics reference the movie, including the infamous "Don't you fucking look at me!" A soundbite of Frank Booth screaming "Heineken? Fuck that shit!" is heard in the middle of the Green Day cover of "My Generation." The Norwegian band Combichrist used "Fuck that shit" in the chorus to a song titled the same. The CD accompanying Arthur Kroker's book "Spasm" contains a track that begins by repeating the line, "Stay alive baby. Do it for Van Gogh."

Film, television, and other media

Blue Velvet was discussed and quoted in Resevoir Dogs (1992). The film is also quoted several times in the Kevin Smith movie Clerks (1994). In Bio Dome, while inhaling nitrous oxide from a tank with a mask, Pauly Shore's character says, "Dennis Hopper, Blue Velvet: 'Oh I'm slutty!, Oh I'm slutty!'" referencing Dennis Hopper's character's crude sexual nature and the scene where Dennis Hopper gets high using a mask to inhale nitrous oxide. In The Squid and the Whale (2005), set in 1986, the year of Blue Velvet's release, three characters choose to see Blue Velvet at the theater instead of Short Circuit, released the same year as Blue Velvet. A line in the film which is said by Frank Booth ("Spread your legs, wider") during the rape of Dorothy Vallens is used during a similar concept of sexual harrassment in Closer (2004) by Clive Owen. Also, in RoboCop 2, the drug under development is "Blue Velvet" and the scientist working on the drug is named Frank. When the drug is tested it Kane gives the Lynchian response "It's making my teeth wiggle."

On an American radio call-in show Loveline, the engineer will often drop (play) a sample of Frank shouting "Where's my bourbon!?" when the hosts and/or the (usually female) caller are discussing abusive, alcoholic fathers, boyriends, etc. In the television series Spaced, Tim says that the kind of people who enjoy The Rocky Horror Picture Show have too many posters of Blue Velvet, Betty Blue and The Big Blue on their "blue bloody walls!"

Blue Velvet is referenced in an episode of the television series Arrested Development. Wayne Jarvis comments on Gob's puppet Franklin, asking (in an imitation of Kyle MacLachlan), "Why do there have to be puppets like Frank?" In the Capcom video game Resident Evil 4, a recurring treasure is named Velvet Blue in a subtle homage to the film. In the video game Conker's Bad Fur Day, the famous "Do you want to go for a ride?" scene is mimicked at the end of the game.

On June 14, 2007, the Village Voice showcased a story upon a devoted fan of the film, Artist Christian Tomaszewski. Tomaszewski re-built most of the film’s set pieces, and re-created several of the film’s most important moments. He claims "So much a part of our language is the movie . . . so much a part of our behavior."

See also

• Themes in Blue Velvet
• List of characters in Blue Velvet
• Film noir
• Films that have been considered the greatest ever
• 1950s Nostalgia films

Further reading

• Atkinson, Michael (1997). Blue Velvet. Long Island, New York.: British Film Institute. ISBN 0-851-70559-6.
• Drazin, Charles (2001). Blue Velvet: Bloomsbury Pocket Movie Guide 3. Britain. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 0-747-55176-6.
• Burr, T (1999). The 100 Greatest Movies of All Time, New York: Time-Life Books ISBN 0-883013-68-2. Lists Blue Velvet as one of the "greatest films of all time."

External links

• LynchNet - Blue Velvet
• Blue Velvet at All Movie Guide
• Blue Velvet Mysteries: two part search for the film's deleted scenes
• Blue Velvet at IMDb
• Blue Velvet at the TCM Movie Database

Reviews:

• Template:Filmsite
• Blue Velvet at Rotten Tomatoes