Studio: De Laurentiis Entertainment Group
Starring:
Kyle MacLachlan
Kyle MacLachlan
Dennis Hopper
Isabella Rossellini
Laura Dern
Genre: Neo Noir
Isabella Rossellini
Laura Dern
Genre: Neo Noir
Rating: R
Running Time: 120 minutes
In order for a film to be made, an idea must come first, then a script is written to be used to film it as a full length motion picture. What mostly makes a film is great, when the script is well written. A great script contains believable characters, suspense, themes, symbolism character development, a plot that gets you hooked by the first page, and great (or witty) dialogue. Blue Velvet is one of those films that contains all these features of a great script, to this day, it has been consider one of the most critically acclaimed films of all time, and especially influential piece of the Neo Noir/Southern Gothic/Postmodern genre of film. This essay will analyse the script of Blue Velvet based on its characters (motivation, and archetype), themes/symbolism of the film’s major two plot devices (the ear and the insects), and an analysis of the ending (The Robin at the end of the film). Let’s take a look of this article, as it explores and analyse the script for Blue Velvet.
Running Time: 120 minutes
In order for a film to be made, an idea must come first, then a script is written to be used to film it as a full length motion picture. What mostly makes a film is great, when the script is well written. A great script contains believable characters, suspense, themes, symbolism character development, a plot that gets you hooked by the first page, and great (or witty) dialogue. Blue Velvet is one of those films that contains all these features of a great script, to this day, it has been consider one of the most critically acclaimed films of all time, and especially influential piece of the Neo Noir/Southern Gothic/Postmodern genre of film. This essay will analyse the script of Blue Velvet based on its characters (motivation, and archetype), themes/symbolism of the film’s major two plot devices (the ear and the insects), and an analysis of the ending (The Robin at the end of the film). Let’s take a look of this article, as it explores and analyse the script for Blue Velvet.
The first section of this essay will explore the characters of Blue
Velvet, this part will analyse the character’s gender roles, age, archetypal
traits, and development arc throughout the film. Often in a written story of
any kind, we must have a main character that is the focus of the story. In a film that take something simple like a
small town, and turns it over its head to complete surrealism, you need a main
character that is relatable, that the audience can focus on throughout the
film, his name is Jeffery Beaumont. Jeffery is the archetypical hero of the
story, he’s an ordinary college student to thrown in a surreal like (horrific
to be exact) circumstance. After finding a missing ear, Jeffery must solve the
case, which leads to a bigger situation, one involving a mentally unstable man,
and a femme fatale. In Jeffery’s quest to find the owner of missing ear, he
encounters the four key people; Sandy Williams, Dorothy Vallens, the Yellow
Man, and Frank Booth. What makes the four key characters as well as Jeffery
interesting that many of the audience watching this movie don’t realize, is
that these characters are based on mythic/1930s noir archetypes. Jeffery as
being mention before as the classic everyman archetype, Sandy being the
innocent maiden, Dorothy being the femme fatale (with a twist on the
archetype), and Frank Booth is the devil. The Yellow Man is interesting, you
would think the color of his suit would represents happiness and joy, but
yellow if dull represents caution and decay due to working with Frank, and the
lobotomy he receives from him. Dorothy is a different from most femme fatale’s
from 1930’s to 50s noir films. Yes, she seduces Jeffery, but what makes her
unique is that she’s a mother whose husband (owner of the ear) and son are held
hostage by Frank to stratify his sexual hunger. Frank personally split and him
saying “mommy wants to fuck!” with a
tiny voice while being high from the gas tank he inhales hints that Frank may
have been abuse sexually as a child (from his mother perhaps, which would
explain him abuse Dorothy as a way to possibly repress his anger from a past
event). Sandy is innocent, she‘s kind, wants to help Jeffery, believes in
justice, yet there is no sense of badness to her. Sandy is even willing to
forgive Jeffery from the affair he had with Dorothy. Writer/director David
Lynch borrows archetypes from past works of film from 1930s to 50’s, but toys
with their status and deconstructs them, which makes Blue Velvet’s script a
part of postmodern film. The first paragraph of this essay has ended.
The second section of this essay will examine the many themes, and
symbolisms that are presented from Blue Velvet’s script. This will also explore
many theories of the script from movie goers and myself. Blue Velvet many
themes and symbolism is what adds for great weight and strengths in the script that
was written by David Lynch, this is probably the shorter aspect of the essay,
but is none the less is important as the first one. When Jeffery first finds the
served ear in the open yard after his father’s heart attack, both his father’s
stroke and the ear represents the town Jeffery lives in, and how something
small and innocent as a little town could carry something sinister with it,
foreshadowing the event of the film latter on. The common use of incest being
in the film is important, it’s not just use in the script for an excuse for
David Lynch is film swarming insects underground. It’s used because the
incest’s swarming underground from the served ear represents Frank’s gas mask
he uses to inhale the gas, the mask itself resembles an insect, which both are
nasty and creepy. The fact the insects are swarming underground from the served
ear symbolizes two thing, one is that Frank cut off Dorothy’s husband’s ear,
and two is that underground symbolizes hell as frank is the devil archetype. This
part of the analysis has reach its conclusion, and now head towards the final
part of the essay.
In the final part of this analysis essay. I will intrepid the ending of
Blue Velvet based the Robin that had the incest in its mouth., in the dialogue
of script, Sandy said while walking with Jeffery at night that she had a dream
of a Robin, that she felt happiness from just seeing it, thus was foreshadowing
its ending. At the very end of the movie, Jeffery and Sandy sees a robin
holding an insect from its mouth. The robin’s red colors repent love, while the
black insect that the robin was eating represents Frank Booth, symbolizing that
love will conquer evil. What makes Blue
Velvet one of most interesting film of its time, was despite being a dark film,
it has one of the most optimist endings for a neo noir film, Jeffery lives a
happy life, Dorothy gets her child back, Sandy forgive Jeffery, and Frank is
dead. Lynch gives the script humanity in this dark strange world that he’s
created. In conclusion, this is what the Robin eating the insect symbolized in
the script.
Now that I’ve explained the characters, the two plot device, and the actual
meaning of the ending from David Lynch’s script for Blue Velvet. I hope that
you the reader of this article will put these thoughts when you consider
reading script, or watching the film Blue Velvet based on these three contexts
that were put in this essay. I hope you will have a new understanding, and
appreciation for Blue Velvet. This analysis essay on the script for Blue Velvet
has now been concluded.