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Blue Velvet

© James C. Hess

Oh, my. Oh, my. Oh. . . my.

Here it is, already the second month of the year and I feel I have done so little when I want to do so much. So much, that is, in the way of questions I want to, need to ask. Questions like:

Does director David Lynch hear music? If so, when? When no one else can?

I think so.

His film, "Blue Velvet", by its very existence, suggests so.

"Blue Velvet" is a film so original in concept and design (but not execution; more on that later) that one is required to pause and give thanks for a certain fact: Films and movies like this one are not made often. Were this so it is very likely the viewer would become numb to the subject matter at hand.

And what is the subject matter at hand? Small-town life as we want to see it--Idyllic, and small-town life as it most likely is: Hidden, buried, closeted (pun on the latter; more on that later).

"Blue Velvet" opens with a sequence that is, well, amazing. So amazing it still has people talking. And why are people talking about it?

Oh, so many questions. They are talking about this sequence because of its almost-hypnotic pace: Picket fences and flower beds, fresh-faced children and innocent romance, mature adults and bucolic existence.

Then, though, almost without warning and little effort, this setting is effectively turned inside out: A man collapses while watering his lawn. He falls, unseen by his neighbors or passer-bys, and slips into unconsciousness, still gripping the phallic hose. A passing dog sees the prone man, approaches, and drinks from the man's hose. (Do what you will, in a Freudian context, with this image.) The camera lingers on this scene a moment or two, then continues on, down, burrowing, into the green lawn, revealing there hungry, busy, aggressive insects. (Again, do what you will for whatever it may be worth with this imagery.)

Now. At about the same time the fallen man's son, a college student, Jeffrey (Kyle MacLachlan), comes home to be at his father's bedside. While there he resumes an affair he was having before he went off to college. The young woman in question is named Sandy (Laura Dern). She, incidentally, is the daughter of the local police detective. The local police detective, incidentally, becomes interested in Jeffrey not only because Jeffrey is

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