BLUE VELVET Blu-ray Review

David Lynch's suburban surrealist film noir masterpiece Blue Velvet makes its way to Blu-ray this week in an edition jam-packed with goodness. The film looks better than it ever has on home video, and the disc is brimming with content, both old and new. Looks like MGM realized that this is a film that fans will eat up, and the new content along with the upgrade in image quality is well worth the asking price!

Beneath the surface of small-town serenity lies a dark domain where innocence dare not tread and unpredictability is the norm. It is the haunting realm of BLUE VELVET. In this "shocking, deeply disturbing, startling mixture of the heartfelt and the horrific" (Newsweek), clean-cut Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan, "Twin Peaks") realizes his Mayberry-like hometown is not-so-normal when he discovers a human ear in a field. His investigation catapults him into an alluring, erotic murder mystery involving a disturbed nightclub singer (Isabella Rossellini, Death Becomes Her) and a drug-addicted sadist (Dennis Hopper, Speed). Soon, Jeffrey is led deeper into their depraved existence past the point of no return.

Blue Velvet is the film that introduced the true David Lynch to the film world. In 1985 he was coming off the hugely disappointing adaptation of Frank Herbert's Dune, and only a few years out from his take on the real life story of The Elephant Man, Joseph Merrick. Blue Velvet was his first opportunity to impress the world with both an original concept and a decent budget, even if Dino De Laurentiis only gave him $10 million. Eraserhead was an avant garde masterpiece and heralded the arrival of a film artist, but not necessarily someone who could make a commercially viable film. Dune was supposed to be that breakthrough, but after its spectacular failure, Lynch found himself in a bit of a bind.

That financial disaster led David Lynch back inside his own head, and what fantastic fruits were borne of that journey! Blue Velvet is less of a narrative film than an all out assault on the ruse of suburban normalcy. Everything about this film is subversive in some way or another. The settings are utterly flat and uninteresting on their own merits. The cast is mainly made up of archetypes from '40s and '50s film stories. Blue Velvet scrapes the veneer from these common starting points and very effectively shows them rotting from the inside, out.

Lynch casts his own boy-next-door discovery, Kyle MacLachlan as Jeffrey, a man who finds an ear in a field and is drawn into a world of decay and intrigue. MacLachlan's performance is pitch perfect, his "aw shucks" demeanor makes Jeffrey an unusually sympathetic lead in this film filled with unsavory characters. His partner in crime is an equally wholesome Laura Dern as the schoolgirl detective who anxiously pushes Jeffrey further and further into this rabbit hole. The pair are straight out of an Archie comic, straight laced and simple, but once they get moving and get a taste of the dark side, they want to know more, and won't stop until they find what they're looking for.

The other end of the moral spectrum is equally engaging. Isabella Rossellini's Dorothy is a chanteuse in decline as the nightly entertainment for a local nightclub. Her decay is on display throughout the film.  She is never whole, she is always searching, whether it is for her kidnapped husband, or the loving embrace of Jeffrey, or even the perverse attention of Dennis Hopper's sadistic Frank Booth. Rossellini is a real trooper in this role, taking on Lynch's vision with gusto and performing the hell out of it. The aforementioned Dennis Hopper as Frank Booth is the firecracker of the cast, though.  His performance is one for the ages. Frank is a bastard to everyone, and he doesn't give a shit if you live or die. He also gets all the best lines, and delivers them perfectly. He oozes menace, and he never dials it back. Frank Booth is always on full blast, and that is what makes this character one of cinema's all time great villains.

This film is an astonishing work from a director without a whole lot of experience, but talent to spare.  It also showcases David Lynch's penchant for subverting and twisting America's thin facade into something far more sinister.  It is a tact he took with Twin Peaks and Wild at Heart, and no one can get under small town America's skin like he can. This is one of the greats.

The Disc:

MGM's Blu-ray of Blue Velvet is impressive right from the start. First of all, there are no trailers or ads preceding the film. Bless them for that. Second of all, there isn't even a main menu, when you put the disc in, the film just plays, and there isn't even a top menu to go back to.  Everything must be accessed from the POP menu.  This clearly fits with Lynch's ideals about movie watching, that nothing should distract you from the film. Hell, for a long time, he wouldn't even allow chapter stops on DVDs of his films.  Thankfully he's backed off of that demand, but I understand his point of view, and it is nice to see that MGM has taken his wishes into account.

The image and sound quality are also commendable for this film, which is now 25 years old. Right from the opening credits sequences in which the credits run over a flowing swatch of blue velvet, we know we're in for a treat.  The colors are intense, at times even garish, in a way that DVD just couldn't quite manage.  Also impressive is the jump in detail from DVD to Blu, which is noticeable and pleasant to say the least. Never have I been so awed by a disembodied ear crawling with ants. The sound is less boisterous than the image, but still faithful, crisp, and clear, with the songs sharing sonic space nicely with dialogue, (or in Frank's case, diatribe) and effects. 

Beyond the superlative job done with the A/V, the extras on this disc will be of particular interest to fans of Lynch and the film.  There are two significant extras that are particularly impressive.  The first is the 70 minute documentary feature, "Mysteries of Love", which has been ported over from the DVD special edition.  This feature, directed by DVD extra veteran Jeffrey Schwartz (Spine Tingler: The William Castle Story, Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon, and the upcoming Divine documentary, I am Divine), Mysteries of Love goes over every aspect of the film's production with interviews from Lynch, MacLachlan, Rossellini, Hooper, De Laurentiis, and more.  The other biggie is the first appearance of nearly an hour of deleted scenes, all in HD. For once, the deleted scenes actually have something to add!  They are all clearly placed in Blue Velvet's world an none feel particularly extraneous, but the film is so well established that trying to cram them back in would be a crime.  I really enjoyed this 50 minute segment.

Beyond those two major extras, there are also some lesser pieces.  First of all there are 4 "vignettes", which are simply outtakes from the Mysteries of Love shoot, showcasing particularly esoteric anecdotes. There are a few outtakes and flubs from the shooting of Blue Velvet, and there are smoe TV spots and trailers. The best of the rest, though, is the original Siskel & Ebert review of Blue Velvet, in which Roger Ebert, who I adore, jumps onto his high horse to condemn the film for the situations in which Lynch puts Isabella Rossellini. It is laughable these days, but amusing as a time capsule.

This is a fantastic collection of material piled on top of a masterpiece of a film, and it's cheap!  Buy yours now!