Who Did David Lynch Understand with a Camera?
Rare is the artist who taps into the collective subconscious
David Lynch matters to me. When I was 16 I was a pretty lonely boy who spent a lot of time reading books. I had seen classic movies and watched each successive Harry Potter and Narnia movie as they came out. I thought movies were supposed to unironically present the sentiment and drama of a story. I had seen successful movies, such as the Sound of Music or The Sting. They were movies that had a job to do and did it lovingly and gracefully. The actors in these movies were good looking and humorous and waltzed and joked their way through the world like I could only dream to. These movies fed my dreams, they did not disturb my dreams. Or my waking hours.
Still from Blue Velvet, 1986. Paramount Pictures. Directed by David Lynch.
One day I came home from school and turned on the TV. Blue Velvet was on. the name sounded hypnotic, rich, lovely, feminine. My high school was in no way hypnotic or beautiful, so I was keen to start watching a movie called “BBLLLLU VELLLLVETTT.” A movie that sounded like a waterbed, warm and enveloping. I had no idea.
Many small, tense, visually striking things happen in Blue Velvet and unforgettable characters are introduced. In some ways, the movie is like a simple Brothers Grimm fairy tale. MacLachlan is a young knight who must save Rosselini’s beautiful but miserable woman from the clutches of Hoppers monster. A young, sweet, hopeful girl, still asleep in childhood, like a long dream of sunlit meadows, waits for MacLachlan if he can succeed.
The movie is really about he discovery of evil, though. Evil, as we see, is Dennis Hopper inhaling gas from a tube. It is an addiction to something that will never fill you. It is taking glee in the powerless of another. It is disliking the way the world is and using violence to try to alter it, put it “right.” Evil can be committed by someone who believes he is putting the world right, who has told himself over and over again that his way is better. By someone who lives inside his own mind to an extent that he cannot measure whether the world will actually be right after he has acted. Who cannot measure the harm that will be done to others. Who can only marvel and delight in causing others pain.
MacLachlans character, Jeffrey, also goes to a club and sees Dorothy, Rosselini’s abused and timid character, singing. These are my favorite scenes. The song is nice. The acting is strong. The rich color, purples and blues, the meeting of eyes, the sense that something is being communicated which lies beyond words, the idea of performance as an outlet for someone, not to let out their grief, but to be in control, beautiful, the center of attention. Rosselini looks as though she is on the verge of tears as she sings. She is also breaking open with song, reminding herself of who she is away from Frank booth, Hoppers’ devious, cruel creation.
David Lynch made this film because he knew there was a link between growing up and falling in love. Only when Jeffrey has seen how much evil there is can he feel that magnetic pull towards a purely affectionate person. Only when he sees what a singer has endured off of the stage, can he listen for the notes in which she is telling on herself. Telling of her sorrow. But also telling of her goodness and love.
Only David Lynch could have made this film. Yet it applies to everyone. Every single person, all around the world, who has ever lived. What an accomplishment.