Blue Velvet
In an interview, Dennis Hopper claimed that writer/director David Lynch would never say the word "fuck" during filming, he would simply point to the line in the script and say "that word". Hopper laughed, saying "He can write it, but he won't say it. He's a peculiar man." Lynch has said this isn't exactly true, but he didn't want to charge the atmosphere anymore than it already was.,Dorothy lives on the seventh floor of Deep River Apartments, a building which only has six floors. This is done purposely and occurs similarly in many movies to deter sightseers, fans and psychos from disrupting people who live in the real location. For similar reasons, "555-" is nearly always used on film and TV as the first three digits of phone numbers, to prevent people from trying the number and annoying people.,Frank Booth: Hey you wanna go for a ride?
Jeffrey Beaumont: No thanks.
Frank Booth: No thanks? What does that mean?
Jeffrey Beaumont: I don't wanna go.
Frank Booth: Go where?
Jeffrey Beaumont: For a ride.,A German version omits the entire scene where Frank first rapes Dorothy that Jeffrey witnesses from inside her closet, and it is only implied that he raped her.,Edited into Blue Peanuts (1987),Blue Velvet
Written by Lee Morris and Bernie Wayne
Performed by Bobby Vinton
Provided courtesy of CBS Records
Publisher: Vogue Music,With Blue Velvet, David Lynch made a film that was so pure to his original vision that it would become the archetype of his work for the next fifteen years. Here, Lynch cast his ever probing, surrealist gaze upon small town middle America, and for the first time in a US film, showed the audience the darker side to what was often depicted as nothing more than the birth place of apple pie. We are drawn into the story almost immediately, with what would seem like a simple depiction of small town life, but the use of slow-motion hints that there is something not quite right with what we are looking at. So by the time Lynch has pushed his camera through the soft green grass of a regular front lawn, only to show us the slithering insects that hide in the darkness, we know that we are about to enter a very dark world.

Blue Velvet is a world filled with not only darkness, but also ambiguity. The characters of this world are constantly hiding behind some kind of façade, be it the wardrobe doors that practicing teenage voyeur Jeffrey peers from behind as he watches Dorothy and Frank interact, or something as simple as the make-up worn by Ben. Everything suggests to us that these characters inhabit a world at night, a world away from the life they live in the day. As the film moves closer and closer to the climax Jeffrey begins to feel more of a connection with Frank, having to go to some very dark places within his psyche. However Lynch's message, that underneath the normal persona of a regular human being is a repressed pervert laying in wait, or whatever point he is making doesn't really translate well. Not least to today's audience.

Blue Velvet is very much a film of its time, that time being the mid-eighties, with aids paranoia everywhere, it's easy to see this metaphor for the dangers of sex and love within the films turgid dreamscapes. But beneath this message hides a strong detective story, a modern day neo-noir that delivers interesting twists and a controversial pay-off with it's almost fairytale climax. This is the film David Lynch got right, proceeding to make great films that where all personal, but completely different in terms of style and substance from one another. Blue Velvet is a great film, with some fine (albeit bizarre) performances, still challenging to this day, If only Lynch hadn't gone on to spend the rest of his career re-making it.,