Deleted scene from Blue Velvet

BLUE VELVET SPECIAL EDITION DVD Image A- Sound A- Extras A-

Buy at Amazon USA Buy at Amazon Canada or Compare Prices June 1, 2002|Blue Velvet gets a welcome DVD overhaul from MGM this month with a Special Edition that's the most loaded yet for a film by David Lynch. The audio and video have also been reworked (under Lynch's supervision), though they were both pretty good to start with; while Angelo Badalamenti's score is fuller in 5.1, the music and Alan Splet's brilliant sound designs remain concentrated in the front speakers. The shining extra is Jeffrey Schwarz's mammoth, eight-part retrospective "Mysteries of Love" (70 mins.; named after the Lynch/Badalamenti collaboration that Julee Cruise performs on Blue Velvet's soundtrack), which does the "Twin Peaks" DVD documentaries one better by including comments from Lynch himself, albeit dated 1986 or 1987. The other participants--Kyle MacLachlan, Isabella Rossellini, Laura Dern, Dennis Hopper, d.p. Frederick Elmes, editor Duwayne Dunham, producer Fred Caruso, and composer Angelo Badalamenti--went on record more recently. (Dean Stockwell and Dino De Laurentiis are referred to at length, while Splet appears in an ironically out-of-synch talking head from sometime prior to 1994, the year of his death.) Although the usual armchair analysis of Lynch tends to get in the way of revelatory content, there is a surprising volume of fresh material in Schwarz's documentary, such as Rossellini's admission that she felt she "ruined" the film when critics such as Roger Ebert accused Lynch of exploiting her--she wondered if they might have seen Blue Velvet for the piece of art that it is had Lynch cast a more distinguished actress like Helen Mirren, whom he originally had in mind to play Dorothy. (Sure to rankle Ebert, Rossellini also recalls Lynch laughing during the filming of the rape scene.) Note that MacLachlan seems much more enthusiastic discussing Blue Velvet than he ever has "Twin Peaks". Elsewhere on the platter, a 1:30 excerpt from Siskel & Ebert's televised review of the film illuminates the discussion in "Mysteries of Love" of the polarizing effect that Blue Velvet had on audiences in its initial release. Lynch was contractually obliged to deliver a two-hour film, and the DVD features a montage of scenes deleted from his four-hour rough cut--reconstructed from production stills, since the actual footage is missing. (Lynch is fond of recounting a lost pool hall sequence in which a naked woman sets her nipples aflame, a freak-show too blurry to make out the way it's presented here.) Two photo galleries plus one of poster art, the trailer and a pair of TV spots for Blue Velvet, and a few interview Easter eggs--a hilarious anecdote from Elmes regarding the infamous robin glimpsed during the film's bookends, for instance--round out the disc, aside from a foldout case insert of factoids. Contrary to Lynch's standard practice, Blue Velvet retains its chapter stops from the previous DVD release. Aspect Ratio(s) 2.35:1 ONLY, 16x9-enhanced; Languages English DD 5.1, French Dolby Surround, Spanish Mono; CC Yes; Subtitles English, French, Spanish, Portuguese; DVD-9; Region One; MGM

There it is, at seemingly subterranean depth, a feast for the insects: a human ear. Appropriately, sound amplifies as we inch towards it, the microcosmic ant world rumbling at the volume of a busy city street.

The portrait of a deteriorating extremity minding its own business in the centre of a lush green field is one of the many juxtapositions (moreover, collisions) of beauty and sickness we'll see in Blue Velvet, a film in which the balance of good and evil in a small town is teetered by a visitor who, as exemplified by his wardrobe of neutral greys, straddles the divide.

His discovery of the appendage brings amusingly to mind an old ethics lesson: if you found one hundred dollars on the street, would you keep it or turn it over to the police? The Lynchian irony at work here is that Jeffrey reports his find (prosperous in its own right in that it leads to all sorts of excitement) but is nonetheless corrupted by an urge to retrace its origin.

First, Jeffrey joins forces with Sandy (Laura Dern), the daughter of the investigating officer. She provides him eavesdropped information about the ear and its possible link to local nightclub singer Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini). Jeffrey, born curious, breaks into Vallens' apartment while the cat's away, so to speak, but is caught when he doesn't hear Sandy's warning signal that the chanteuse has returned. Despite her abhorrence for intruders, Dorothy stows him away in a closet upon the arrival of a second guest, an act we'll come to see as merciful. Peering out through louver doors, Jeffrey observes Dorothy's violent sexual abuse at the hands of the tragically unhinged Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper), a leather-swathed nightmare of Oedipal frustration. This is Jeffrey's formal acquaintance with Lumberton's underbelly, and once he's tasted it, he wants more.

Jeffrey's temptations come to a boil once he, after assuming the roles of first her protector, then her saner lover, beats Dorothy during intercourse, becoming a version of Frank in the process. It's a film noir tradition for the hero to have his loyalties inverted--a "case" becomes a probing of the self, an excuse to explore and indeed challenge his humanity. Jeffrey is swiftly redeemed in the film's centerpiece, for my money the most transporting sequence ever committed to celluloid: kidnapped by Frank and his goons, he is brought to a drug den and subjected to a lip-synched performance of Roy Orbison's heartbreaking "In Dreams" by suave transvestite Ben (an enchanted Dean Stockwell). Unable to bear the deceptively simple song's emotional weight, Frank packs up his gang and (I'm paraphrasing this next development, natch) brings his hostage to a deserted patch of road, where he applies lipstick and vents his psychotic frustrations on Jeffrey.

The fever dream qualities of this cinematic descant are not necessarily indicative of the whole of Blue Velvet: there is a like moment in every Lynch film, a liberated set-piece governed by subconscious whim. (This may account for the perceived artistic failure of Lost Highway, which is amorphously nutty throughout--too much of a good thing.) Debate has transpired over the years as to Blue Velvet's categorical approach: is it surrealism, realism, or naturalism? Chris Rodley, editor of the fabulous Faber and Faber tome Lynch on Lynch, rejects notions of the latter, at least in terms of dialogue. I threw my hat into the ring two years back, in an essay on the AFI 100 List's more glaring omissions, when I called Blue Velvet "hyperrealistic": so real it rings false.

The frequently asinine exchanges between characters, for example, only strike us as such because we're not used to hearing the kind of aimless talk we enage in daily in movies. And if we closely examine Jeffrey and Sandy's tentative romance, we realize how mannered young love can be. Jeffrey's offer to demonstrate his "chicken walk" for Sandy, apart from being a uniquely eighties gesture, draws attention to itself because of its astounding sincerity. The mystery itself is similarly routine, anticlimactic in its solution, yet it only seems that way in relation to other pictures about small-time crooks.

It helps that actors incapable of untruth populate Blue Velvet's cast, at least in the context of Lynch's difficult screenplay, which could've turned into another suburban satire on a dime. Two standouts: Kyle MacLachlan, possessed of that rare memorable face that nonetheless allows us to project our own feelings onto it, and devilish Dennis Hopper, mesmerizing and unhealthily iconic in a perversely charismatic role. Rossellini would weather a political hailstorm for her naked portrayal of a guilt-wracked sadomasochist; Blue Velvet's disparagers, an outspoken lot, saw her as victimized off-camera, too, by virtue of playing the script as written. I'm torn: the film inevitably exploits Ms. Rossellini's body, but Dorothy Vallens is a juicy part, and such monstrosities occur in real life--we can wave the banner of political correctness, or give the issue of rape its ugly due. It's a fine line, to be sure.

The film was immediately, deservedly canonized upon its release in 1986 by such luminaries as Woody Allen (whose own work has been significantly darker since) and Pauline Kael ("The charged erotic atmosphere makes the film something of a trance-out, but Lynch's humour keeps breaking through, too"). The zeitgeist was a little slower to latch on, perhaps because of the controversy--they have adopted Blue Velvet's sitcom cousin American Beauty instead. But nine months later, the latter already feels staler than does the former, because Blue Velvet's precedents existed only between Lynch's ears, an opening as wide as it is vast, lending the picture a sense of perpetuity.

Blue Velvet must be seen in widescreen to be fully appreciated--director of photography Frederick Elmes gives scope to living rooms! Pan-and-scan users and even owners of Lorimar's letterboxed LaserDisc will want to upgrade to MGM's 2.35:1, 16x9-enhanced DVD, which is tighter compositionally and features clearer, more colourful images. Given its age and the format's tendency to highlight print flaws, the transfer is surprisingly devoid of nicks and scars. Grain is apparent, but so what? Aside from some minor compression artifacts, my only criticism of the video quality is inherent in all older footage generated using anamorphic lenses: wider shots look softer than close-ups.

I alluded to this in my introduction: Lynch is famed for his imaginative aural tapestries (this one a collaboration with Alan Splet) and the discs's crisp Dolby Surround mix highlights Blue Velvet's complex soundscape. Angelo Badalamenti's luscious score, his first for Lynch, is slightly shrill here, but various ambient effects get under one's skin. What audiences rarely pay attention to is Lynch's restraint--what you're not hearing is equally meaningful (he drops the sound entirely each time Jeffrey farcically ducks into Dorothy's closet), and that's where the utter cleanliness of this track warrants a mention: you won't be distracted by hiss or pops.

Extras include a four page trivia booklet, a trailer for Blue Velvet of extremely poor quality (it appears as though it has been videotaped off a wall by a camcorder), plus a truly weird montage of clips from the film entitled "Strange World." To access this hidden bonus, sit on "Play Movie" and then press the left arrow on your remote control.-Bill Chambers

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DVD VITALS:
Running Time
120 minutes
MPAA
R
Aspect Ratio(s)
2.35:1 ONLY, 16x9-enhanced
Languages
English Dolby Surround
CC
Yes
Subtitles
French, Spanish
DVD-9
Region One
MGM

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Published: May, 2000