Blue Velvet (1986)
Review by Doc Ezra
Film:
DVD:

Written and Directed by David Lynch
Starring Kyle MacLachlan, Isabella Rossellini, Dennis Hopper, and Laura Dern

Features:

• New digital transfer supervised by Lynch
  
• "Mysteries of Love" documentary
  
• Deleted scenes montage
  
• "Siskel & Ebert" original review
  
• Photo gallery
  
• Theatrical trailer and TV spots
  
• English, French, and Spanish language tracks
  
• English, French,Spanish, & Portugese subtitles
  

Rating: R

Anamorphic: Yep.

My Advice: Own it.

On the heels of the box office disaster that was David Lynch's adaptation of Dune, the master of the surreal decided to stick to his own stories, and convinced Dino De Laurentis to fund the bizarre Blue Velvet. The result was one of the more memorable (and perplexing) contributions to American cinema. Love it or hate it, few that have seen the film come away indifferent.

The story follows young Jeffrey Beaumont (MacLachlan), who discovers a severed human ear in a field behind his parents' house while he's home from college to visit his ailing father. After turning it over to the police, he becomes obsessed with discovering the story behind the ear, and it leads him to many-troubled torch singer Dorothy Vallens (Rossellini). She has fallen under the control of the twisted Frank Booth (Hopper), a sadist and drug addict who runs the unexpected underworld of Beaumont's idyllic hometown of Lumberton. The investigation turns ugly when Booth becomes aware of Beaumont's interaction with Vallens, and drags the naive college boy into the bizarre world where Booth is a celebrity and human life is the cheapest commodity on the market.

Lynch's signature cinematographic sense shines here as it does in few other projects, excepting possibly Twin Peaks. No matter how disturbed the story, the film is beautiful. It is Lynch's peculiar genius that can take objects generally mundane or even disgusting, and render them into an image that begs for interpretation. But too much effort can be wasted in this attempt to interpret, instead of just letting Lynch have your eyes for two hours and enjoying the ride.

The performances are first-rate from top to bottom in the picture. The principals are all fantastic, and the role of Frank Booth will long be cemented in collective memory as definitive Dennis Hopper. MacLachlan conveys the double-edged Beaumont's innocence and dangerous curiosity perfectly, and Rossellini manages the fractured Dorothy superbly. Dern's part is really fairly small, though she manages it well, playing Beaumont's "normal" love interest. One of the real standouts in the supporting cast is Dean Stockwell's bizarre turn as a sort of underworld lounge singer/pimp/drug dealer, lounging around his house in a gold lame smoking jacket and lipsynching "Candy Colored Clown" into a shoplight.

Added to the already stellar credentials of this classic is a great DVD treatment. Lynch personally supervised the new digital transfer, and the end result is a beautiful anamorphic video. The "Mysteries of Love" documentary is over an hour long, and covers every detail of the production from initial concept and funding through to casting and on to post-production. The "Siskel & Ebert" TV spot is interesting, and enlightening as to just how long Roger Ebert has been holding forth annoying opinions about good films. The deleted scenes addition is a bit weak, as the original film stock was never recovered, so the montage is composed of a series of still shots, often only vaguely hinting at what the original scene might have looked like, and rarely what it might have meant or why it was cut from the final version. The only really noticeable absence in the package is a commentary track, likely because of Lynch's legendary reticence when it comes to discussing his own work.

So if you're interested in the surreal, in David Lynch, or just need something a little different from standard Hollywood fare in your DVD collection, add Blue Velvet to your media rack. It's both one of the true originals in American film-making, and arguably Lynch's finest film to date.