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'Hilarious and disturbing' film left mark

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'Hilarious and disturbing' film left mark

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Collection	Movie-Making Collection
Title	'Hilarious and disturbing' film left mark
Subject	Wilmington, NC; Blue Velvet; films; movies;
Description	So why all the fuss over “Blue Velvet”? The movie’s not to everyone’s taste. Rogert Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times, while admitting it had scenes of “raw emotional energy,” deplored a story line “marred by sophomoric satire and cheap shots” and accused director David Lynch of “pretending it’s all part of a campy in-joke.” Others disagreed. Lynch, who had previously directed “The Elephant Man” and “Dune,” was nominated for an Academy Award for best director. The National Society of Film Critics named it the best film of 1986. “It’s still striking in the way it plays against your expectations,” said Dave Monahan, chairman of the film studies department at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Monahan recalled how audiences laughed nervously at the first showings, not knowing how to respond to the material. “It’s hilarious and disturbing at the same time,” he said. In case you’ve never seen it, “Blue Velvet” is a hard picture to pigeonhole. On the surface it’s a mystery. In the otherwise idyllic, all-American city of “Lumberton” (no relation to the real Lumberton, NC), a severed human ear is found in an open field. Jeffrey (played by Kyle MacLachlan), a college student home to help care for his ill father, tries to find out what happened. His amateur sleuthing leads him to Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini), a literally tortured nightclub singer who’s somehow enslaved to Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper), a sadistic, drug-huffing gangster. Jeffrey is sweet on Sandy (Laura Dern), a wholesome high school girl, but he finds himself drawn into a darker erotic relationship with Dorothy. Then things get kind of weird. Todd Berliner, a professor of film studies at UNCW, classifies “Blue Velvet” as a “ambiguous movie, open to multiple interpretations and sharing qualities with a dream. At the same time, Berliner said, the movie has the classic structure of a Hollywood crime drama with elements of suspense. “Lynch rides along the edge,” Berliner said. Both Monahan and Berliner praised the film’s production design, which mixes anachronistic elements. Superficially modern and featuring some fabulous ‘80s hairstyles, “Blue Velvet” has costumes, props and backdrops from what looks like a 1950s movie or even a 1940s Hollywood “film noir” crime yarn. Berliner thinks “Blue Velvet” wasn’t successful as Lynch’s TV series “Twin Peaks,” or his later, even more mystifying films, such as “Lost Highway,” “Mulholland Dr.” and “Inland Empire.” “But it was bold for the time.” Berliner said. “And it was our introduction to David Lynch.”
Creator	Steelman, Ben
Publisher	Wilmington Star-News
Date	2011-09-19
Type	text
Format	pdf
Rights	New Hanover County Public Library
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