Blue Velvet: An Analysis Essay of David Lynch’s Screenplay

Writer/Director: David Lynch

Studio: De Laurentiis Entertainment Group

Starring: 
Kyle MacLachlan 

Dennis Hopper
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.

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.