Watching Blue Velvet was my first exposure to a David Lynch product though it was bound to happen sooner or later as he’s been lurking around my watchlist for a long while. Now that I finally have seen one, it’s needless to say that I’ve since bumped Twin Peaks closer to the front of the line on my Netflix queue.
Blue Velvet is just so deliciously postmodern. It carries the same referential and aesthetic tendencies as other postmodern works that challenge the reverence given to the master narratives of modernism, but unlike many of the other works that wave their postmodernity like a banner (which is still a perfectly viable decision -- think Repo Man), Blue Velvet chooses to wear the guise of authority and legitimacy (like its modernist predecessor) so that when the guise is all but transparent the film’s exploitation of the American Dream and its complication of the binary dichotomy of good and evil make an effect that is one of disconcert and sobriety.
This isn’t to say that the film’s commentary is overly hidden, and that only the wariest of watchers can discern the film’s true intentions because from the very beginning there is a clear sense of Blue Velvet’s artificiality. The scenes of a white-picket fenced suburb are too perfect to be true, and if they aren’t obvious enough, it isn’t long before these familiar touchstones of idealized comfort are distorted by Lynch’s use of texture through tactile sounds and visuals. The reason that the film can be misinterpreted as having genuine meaning, in a modernist sense, is that the film wants the viewer to have difficulty acknowledging the transparency and vulnerability of the American Dream. Only through strain in the act of relinquishment can the confusion of ambiguity, and the reality that there is no such thing as concrete morals, be made comprehendible -- or at least made existent to the viewer. This is why the film hangs on to its archetypes and its genres and its set designs -- distorted though they may be. It does not want to discredit the ideal values of the American Dream, the film just wants to make it apparent that it is misleading to pursue such unattainable values; and that even if they are acquired, there will be insufficient satisfaction as the human condition desires more complex features than ones that can be corralled into the categories of good and evil. Disclaimer: There is a chance, given the content of this film, that with that rationality I just euphemized the film’s kinky sex. So be it: it’s illustrative of inexplicable human desire.
Irena Makarushka’s “Subverting Eden: Ambiguity of Evil and the American Dream in Blue Velvet” details many of the functions of ambiguity within the film. She asserts that “Lynch presents an allegory whose images reflect a nostalgia for absolute values that is subverted by the ambiguity implicit in the experience of evil” (32), and I tend to agree. Even the title of the essay merits a reconsideration of the story of Adam and Eve, especially when one considers that America’s identity, and by extension the American Dream, was founded upon values that uphold the ones laid out by Christian belief. If American Exceptionalism maintains that America has the ideal virtuosity and that the country can be a sort of return to Paradise, then Blue Velvet, as the postmodernity that preys upon historical narratives like American Exceptionalism (or the American Dream as Makarushka asserts), is obligated to point out that there are many complexities to ascertain before one confines their self to traditions that project genuine and safe touchstones -- and, accordingly, the movie doesn’t hesitate for a moment to tackle these reliances on denominators of morality. It promotes an awareness of ambiguity that, given the chance, might suggest to a person who believes in American Exceptionalism that even their idealized identity can still have the trappings of the serpent’s deceit. If a person’s opinion is “We had paradise once, why can’t we have it again?” then it is worth noting that other similar questions can be raised: “Why would paradise, under reclamation, not have the ambiguity of evil in its gardens yet again? Was not the existence of dangerous fruit and a beguiling serpent evidence enough that “evil” had infiltrated -- no, had already existed within -- Eden’s borders?” In a certain manner, these are the type of questions that Blue Velvet inquires to disable obligatory comfort.
Returning to the hollowness of nostalgia, Makarushka goes on to say that the film “can be described as a visual narrative allegory told in the language of familiar icons that no longer effectively evoke the meanings traditionally associated with them.” I believe that Lynch accomplishes this appropriation of nostalgic touchstones through the seemingly textured elements of his film’s construction -- namely, through sound and vision. An idyllic watering of the garden is perturbed by repressed water pressure in the faucet and further stifled in the neck of the hose as if to parallel the neck-grabbing that the man does when he has a stroke. There is a lingering atmosphere of cheer, especially in the sound, that contradicts the visuals on the screen to make one uncomfortable with something that may have been initially peaceful. And the film doesn’t let up, it decides to corner those who might think that the rare stroke while gardening is just a forgettable fluke in a truthfully perfect society; the film does this by turning to the dog, who seems to consider the taste of the water spout more frugal than the friendship American Dreamers were promised from man’s best friend. Truly, there is more constancy to be found beneath the perfect lawn, the unsettling clicks of beetles that lurk as a mystery never all that far from, perhaps even coexisting with, tranquil life.
There are so many other examples of confluence between tradition and illusion that Lynch depicts in this film that it would be impossible to include them all. A few of these examples that I found noteworthy included the uses of diegetic sound, the perversion of the film noir genre, and the heavily book-ended style of the narrative frame.
Lynch’s use of diegetic sound (sound whose source is identifiable within the storyspace of the frame) shares a similar function to that of the aforementioned camerawork that had established discomfort because, in Blue Velvet, the diegetic sound is seemingly commandeered as non-diegetic sound (mood music, voice-over narration, added sound effects -- sounds without the frame or storyspace). This is paradoxical because once non-diegetic is revealed within the storyspace then it immediately becomes diegetic, but I’m comparing it in this way to illustrate how palpable the sound and visuals feel. The tones of scenes are set by the film’s varied sound design. Sometimes the proximity of recording seems rather intimate, like the sound is zoomed in on the cottonmouth in the actors’ voices, or there is ruffling of clothes and textures that are not usually heard on screen. Sometimes the sound of the next scene, like a car passing by, begins while the frame is still within the current scene, say in a living room; and similarly, the current scenes sound might linger into the next scenes frame. More frequently, we get purely aesthetic clips to preface the consecutive scene, like the candle flame blowing in the wind to make us rather unstable. And my favorite, the ironic uses of sound which can be observed in the scene where Jeffrey and Sandy are sharing a heartfelt moment while hymnal music plays, a church in the background. The hymnal music might be comforting non-diegetic sound to set the mood, or it might just be diegetic sound emanating from the nearby church and merely giving the scene ironic levity. The answer is certainly the latter, but regardless it exemplifies the immense degree in which Lynch layers the ambiguity within this film, even in its technical construction.
Regarding the perversion of the film noir genre with Blue Velvet, it may be more appropriate to say that the movie merely reveals an element of perversion that has always been inherent to the hugely American genre. On the very surface, all signs point to the classic film noir setup. You’ve got good-guy detective (good-guy emphasized to indicate that this highly debatable) pulled into a seedy world during his investigation of a jazzy femme fatale. You’ve got low key lighting ratios, and German Expressionist shadows, and suspect currents that blow in the wind, and an alluring but unknown beauty -- the formula is all there. So why are viewers still left unsettled even though they’re watching a tried-and-true American genre. Maybe because the film calls the inadequate comparison of good and evil like it is as it is quintessentially summarized by one of Sandy’s lines to Jeffrey: “I don’t know if you're a detective or a pervert.” There is no difference between detective and pervert when they share the same muddled ground of voyeurism. Makarushka makes a few great points about this obscurity. On one hand, she fleshes out the notion that being good and doing good aren’t always congruent. She says, undermining the American Dream yet again, “American religious self-understanding is continually challenged by the tension between spirituality and materialism, status quo and change, intolerance and liberalism.” Similarly, Jeffrey’s intentions to examine Dorothy more thoroughly might be “good” by his own definition, but his experience is more ambivalent and to the viewer it is self-indulgent. Additionally, Makarushka asserts that “Participation in the process of narrative construction provides the viewer with a sense of complicity in Lynch’s decomposition of the ideals of the American Dream.” The viewer is just as complicit in Jeffrey’s voyeurism.
Lastly, one more thing I wanted to touch on was the framing of the entire film within and without the decomposing ear and the healthy pink one. Concerning the decomposing ear and relating to the connection between values of religion and values of the American Dream, Makarushka asserts, “Insofar as Lynch focuses the unfolding narrative in Blue Velvet on the decomposing ear, the viewer is invited to consider whether God can still be heard” (34). While this is valid evidence for supporting the vulnerability of the American Dream as the authority of God is a critical component to such values and a decomposing ear goes a long way in subverting such values, I found the ears to also have had a less religious function, though one that is equally murky. I think that the narrative frames itself within these ears for two reasons. One, the more simple of the two: it provides such a neat bookendedness (you like that word?) to the film, especially with the palindromic recycling of opening and closing scenes. This is a reassertion of the film’s postmodernity because its adherence to such rigid narrative structure and traditional circularity is so obvious and deliberate that it just becomes ridiculously satirical of such structure. Two: the ears provide an illustration. Before the camera zooms in on the decomposing ear, the scenes are idyllic and fantastical, and after the camera zooms out of Jeffrey’s healthy ear, the scenes resume this sense of fantasy. But the bulk of the movie is figuratively contained within the two ears, perhaps in the mind. While the viewers are between the ears, the camera is now taking us into the unbridled depths of the human mind -- here, the ambiguity runs rampant. On the surface, the ears hear the delineations of moral codes and defined values, but deep inside a mind fights against the rules that are heard. Inside, there are repressions like the water in the faucet and in the knotted hose, there is disillusionment of the kind when spurned by not-so-faithful dogs, and there is curiosity that lurks beneath perfectly trimmed lawns or behind the blinds of a closet -- a kind of curiosity that is nebulous, and often disquieting like the clicks of a beetle.
Blue Velvet is just so deliciously postmodern. It carries the same referential and aesthetic tendencies as other postmodern works that challenge the reverence given to the master narratives of modernism, but unlike many of the other works that wave their postmodernity like a banner (which is still a perfectly viable decision -- think Repo Man), Blue Velvet chooses to wear the guise of authority and legitimacy (like its modernist predecessor) so that when the guise is all but transparent the film’s exploitation of the American Dream and its complication of the binary dichotomy of good and evil make an effect that is one of disconcert and sobriety.
This isn’t to say that the film’s commentary is overly hidden, and that only the wariest of watchers can discern the film’s true intentions because from the very beginning there is a clear sense of Blue Velvet’s artificiality. The scenes of a white-picket fenced suburb are too perfect to be true, and if they aren’t obvious enough, it isn’t long before these familiar touchstones of idealized comfort are distorted by Lynch’s use of texture through tactile sounds and visuals. The reason that the film can be misinterpreted as having genuine meaning, in a modernist sense, is that the film wants the viewer to have difficulty acknowledging the transparency and vulnerability of the American Dream. Only through strain in the act of relinquishment can the confusion of ambiguity, and the reality that there is no such thing as concrete morals, be made comprehendible -- or at least made existent to the viewer. This is why the film hangs on to its archetypes and its genres and its set designs -- distorted though they may be. It does not want to discredit the ideal values of the American Dream, the film just wants to make it apparent that it is misleading to pursue such unattainable values; and that even if they are acquired, there will be insufficient satisfaction as the human condition desires more complex features than ones that can be corralled into the categories of good and evil. Disclaimer: There is a chance, given the content of this film, that with that rationality I just euphemized the film’s kinky sex. So be it: it’s illustrative of inexplicable human desire.
Returning to the hollowness of nostalgia, Makarushka goes on to say that the film “can be described as a visual narrative allegory told in the language of familiar icons that no longer effectively evoke the meanings traditionally associated with them.” I believe that Lynch accomplishes this appropriation of nostalgic touchstones through the seemingly textured elements of his film’s construction -- namely, through sound and vision. An idyllic watering of the garden is perturbed by repressed water pressure in the faucet and further stifled in the neck of the hose as if to parallel the neck-grabbing that the man does when he has a stroke. There is a lingering atmosphere of cheer, especially in the sound, that contradicts the visuals on the screen to make one uncomfortable with something that may have been initially peaceful. And the film doesn’t let up, it decides to corner those who might think that the rare stroke while gardening is just a forgettable fluke in a truthfully perfect society; the film does this by turning to the dog, who seems to consider the taste of the water spout more frugal than the friendship American Dreamers were promised from man’s best friend. Truly, there is more constancy to be found beneath the perfect lawn, the unsettling clicks of beetles that lurk as a mystery never all that far from, perhaps even coexisting with, tranquil life.
There are so many other examples of confluence between tradition and illusion that Lynch depicts in this film that it would be impossible to include them all. A few of these examples that I found noteworthy included the uses of diegetic sound, the perversion of the film noir genre, and the heavily book-ended style of the narrative frame.
Lynch’s use of diegetic sound (sound whose source is identifiable within the storyspace of the frame) shares a similar function to that of the aforementioned camerawork that had established discomfort because, in Blue Velvet, the diegetic sound is seemingly commandeered as non-diegetic sound (mood music, voice-over narration, added sound effects -- sounds without the frame or storyspace). This is paradoxical because once non-diegetic is revealed within the storyspace then it immediately becomes diegetic, but I’m comparing it in this way to illustrate how palpable the sound and visuals feel. The tones of scenes are set by the film’s varied sound design. Sometimes the proximity of recording seems rather intimate, like the sound is zoomed in on the cottonmouth in the actors’ voices, or there is ruffling of clothes and textures that are not usually heard on screen. Sometimes the sound of the next scene, like a car passing by, begins while the frame is still within the current scene, say in a living room; and similarly, the current scenes sound might linger into the next scenes frame. More frequently, we get purely aesthetic clips to preface the consecutive scene, like the candle flame blowing in the wind to make us rather unstable. And my favorite, the ironic uses of sound which can be observed in the scene where Jeffrey and Sandy are sharing a heartfelt moment while hymnal music plays, a church in the background. The hymnal music might be comforting non-diegetic sound to set the mood, or it might just be diegetic sound emanating from the nearby church and merely giving the scene ironic levity. The answer is certainly the latter, but regardless it exemplifies the immense degree in which Lynch layers the ambiguity within this film, even in its technical construction.
Regarding the perversion of the film noir genre with Blue Velvet, it may be more appropriate to say that the movie merely reveals an element of perversion that has always been inherent to the hugely American genre. On the very surface, all signs point to the classic film noir setup. You’ve got good-guy detective (good-guy emphasized to indicate that this highly debatable) pulled into a seedy world during his investigation of a jazzy femme fatale. You’ve got low key lighting ratios, and German Expressionist shadows, and suspect currents that blow in the wind, and an alluring but unknown beauty -- the formula is all there. So why are viewers still left unsettled even though they’re watching a tried-and-true American genre. Maybe because the film calls the inadequate comparison of good and evil like it is as it is quintessentially summarized by one of Sandy’s lines to Jeffrey: “I don’t know if you're a detective or a pervert.” There is no difference between detective and pervert when they share the same muddled ground of voyeurism. Makarushka makes a few great points about this obscurity. On one hand, she fleshes out the notion that being good and doing good aren’t always congruent. She says, undermining the American Dream yet again, “American religious self-understanding is continually challenged by the tension between spirituality and materialism, status quo and change, intolerance and liberalism.” Similarly, Jeffrey’s intentions to examine Dorothy more thoroughly might be “good” by his own definition, but his experience is more ambivalent and to the viewer it is self-indulgent. Additionally, Makarushka asserts that “Participation in the process of narrative construction provides the viewer with a sense of complicity in Lynch’s decomposition of the ideals of the American Dream.” The viewer is just as complicit in Jeffrey’s voyeurism.
Lastly, one more thing I wanted to touch on was the framing of the entire film within and without the decomposing ear and the healthy pink one. Concerning the decomposing ear and relating to the connection between values of religion and values of the American Dream, Makarushka asserts, “Insofar as Lynch focuses the unfolding narrative in Blue Velvet on the decomposing ear, the viewer is invited to consider whether God can still be heard” (34). While this is valid evidence for supporting the vulnerability of the American Dream as the authority of God is a critical component to such values and a decomposing ear goes a long way in subverting such values, I found the ears to also have had a less religious function, though one that is equally murky. I think that the narrative frames itself within these ears for two reasons. One, the more simple of the two: it provides such a neat bookendedness (you like that word?) to the film, especially with the palindromic recycling of opening and closing scenes. This is a reassertion of the film’s postmodernity because its adherence to such rigid narrative structure and traditional circularity is so obvious and deliberate that it just becomes ridiculously satirical of such structure. Two: the ears provide an illustration. Before the camera zooms in on the decomposing ear, the scenes are idyllic and fantastical, and after the camera zooms out of Jeffrey’s healthy ear, the scenes resume this sense of fantasy. But the bulk of the movie is figuratively contained within the two ears, perhaps in the mind. While the viewers are between the ears, the camera is now taking us into the unbridled depths of the human mind -- here, the ambiguity runs rampant. On the surface, the ears hear the delineations of moral codes and defined values, but deep inside a mind fights against the rules that are heard. Inside, there are repressions like the water in the faucet and in the knotted hose, there is disillusionment of the kind when spurned by not-so-faithful dogs, and there is curiosity that lurks beneath perfectly trimmed lawns or behind the blinds of a closet -- a kind of curiosity that is nebulous, and often disquieting like the clicks of a beetle.
I really like your post. It`s so organized and you use reading so well to explaing what happened in Blue Velvet. There are a lot of "What`s going on now" events to make Jeffrey have bigger and bigger troubles. Whole world in Blue Velvet is so faked, Postmodern and Surrealistic. It is impressive that David Lynch can play with surrealism and postmodernism to express what he wants in the film.
ReplyDeleteThis is excellent. It stands on its own as a really strong essay. You articulate what Lynch is doing with ambiguity, and _why_ he's doing it, better than a lot of criticism I've read (and I've read a lot of Lynch criticism). I also like your point that even if Eden were reconstructible, the evil would still be there because its constitutive of the entire construct. Really strong synthesis and integration of the reading, as a way to advance your own well-crafted argument. Well done!
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