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.

                      

                                                

                  

Saga Vol 1 Review

Written By: Brian K. Vaughan

Art By: Fiona Staples

Genre: Science Fiction/Fantasy

Publisher: Image Comics

Ranking: ****/***** Stars

When I heard that Brian K. Vaughan (writer of Lost, Runaways, Y The Last Man) was going to return in writing comics, I was excited. After a little hiatus in comics writing, as well as being one of the writers of  TV series Lost, it was about time Vaughan return writing in the comic medium. Lets just say after reading the first volume of Saga, I was quite impressed.

Saga is technically Game of Thrones meets Star Wars, it's set in a very strange alien galaxy like Star Wars, with the tone being dark, and R rated like Game of Thrones. The first volume centres around two alien couples, Marko (a Faun like alien) and Alana (a harpy like alien), who recently gave birth to a hybrid name Hazel, and both their races are in a interplanetary war. Since having a child mixed of two different alien races is illegal in this world, both Marko and Alana are hunted by their own kin, and freelancing bounty hunters.

Right off the bat, after reading the first chapter, I was hooked instantly, as I continued reading Saga, nothing really life changing or epic has happen, but their is a lot of set up in the book, right in the beginning Hazel narrates the book and tells the reader that her father, Marko will save the universe, which will be most likely foreshadow in the final volume in the near future. The most interesting part of the book are the supporting cast, The Will, a freelancing bounty hunter with a Lying Cat as a sidekick. A character who's hunting Marko and Alana, at the same time has a heart of gold. The other supporting cast, Prince Robot IV of the Robot Kingdom, the antagonist of the volume, has a pregnant robot wife, can only see her and his child if he kills Marko and Alana (apparently in this world, robot and get other robots pregnant, I know it's sounds insane,  but so are other things in this book that I don't want to spoil).

The art in the book is fantastic, Fiona Staples art fits and sets the tone for this entire series. Vaughan's imagination is strong and out their, each character although living in a sci-fi setting, are very grounded and don't feel two dimensional. My only problem with the book is it's more set up, nothing really big happens, I hope Vaughan does a good payoff in the final act of the series. I should warn reader that this book has extreme violence and graphic sex scenes, I would not recommend it to the faint of heart or to kids. If you are like 16 years old, and can stomach thought the intense panels in the book. I would strongly recommend the book.

The Marine - Review

Cast: John Cena, Robert Patrick, Kelly Carlson

Screenplay: Michelle Gallagher, Alan B. McElory

Producers: Vince McMahon, Joel Simon

Director: John Bonito

Running Time: 92 Minutes 

Studio: WWE Films, 20th Century Fox (Distributed)

Before writing this review, I want to make it clear that I'm not a fan of professional wrestling (due to actor John Cena being a professional wrestler, and the film being produced by WWE films) . I have nothing against it, it just doesn't appeal to me. Now on with the review......

I remember seeing The Marine in theaters, I never even heard of this flick, my step siblings wanted to see it, because of John Cena, I though, what could one little action movie do that could hurt. I went to local movie theater with my siblings (note the theater screening was small, and barley anyone was in the seats, first bad sign), when opening text crawl came up, it was so cartoony, and cheesy (second and major bad sign!). I knew straight away it was going to be a really bad movie. If I had to describe The Marine in a few word to sum up the entire movie, it would be this; imagine Commando and the original Die Hard were so unbelievably bad.

The plot is about a former Marine, whose wife gets kidnap by high profile criminals, and that Marine goes on a mission to rescue her. Wow, how original (sarcasm)! Right of the bat, this film fails to be even standard action movie, the acting is mostly horrible,  special effects are awful the script is lazy, painfully cliched, and poorly written. Oh get this, one of the main villain's henchmen always complains throughout the movie to his boss that he's not being treated right by him and the other gain, because he's black.

I. AM. NOT. MAKING. THIS. UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ranking: 0 out of Five Stars

           

     

Jack and Jill Review

Cast: Adam Sandler, Katie Holmes, Al Pacino
Story: Ben Zook
Screenplay: Adam Sandler, Steve Koren
Director: Dennis Dugan
Genre: Comedy
Rating: PG
Running Time: 91 Minutes
Studio: Sony Pictures, Happy Madison

It's one thing to watch a bad movie, it's an entirely different thing to watch a horrible comedy. When watching a comedy, you expect to laugh, and have a fun time watching a movie. When the film is not funny at all, you'll get mad, and this movie did that. Jack and Jill is probably one of the worst comedies I've seen in recent years. If I have to describe the entire plot of Jack and Jill in one word, it would be this, lazy.

I should be warning you the reader of this review for spoilers, but I'm not because its so awful,  I need to explain why this movie does not work at all.  

The plot is a film (if I even consider it an ACTUAL film) is about Jack Sadelstein, a big time advertising executive, with a wife and two kids, invite his crazy twin sister Jill (also played by Adam Sandler) to come over on the Thanksgiving holidays. When she decides to stay for a few months, chaos consumes Jack's world. Most of the film is filled with the many painful trademarks of Adam Sandler's produced films (Happy Madison Productions is owned by Adam Sandler, so their's the reason why Jack and Jill got greenlit) such as:

• Various Product Placement: Sony VISO Laptops, Coca-Cola, Pepto Bismol, Duncan Donuts, etc. - CHECK!
• Various forgotten cast members of SNL (Sandler's Buddies) - CHECK
• Dennis Dugan directing - CHECK! 
• Racist jokes - CHECK!
• A-List actors in short cameos for a fat paycheck - CHECK! (Al Pacino gets a major role in this film as himself, thus serving a bigger crime sentence) 
• Random fart jokes and people getting hit in the head (without any setup, buildup, and payoff for joke being setup.) - DOUBLE CHECK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The film's pacing is completely rushed, the location sets look incredibly cheep, and obviously green screened (the Lakers stadium as a good example). Jack is just like any other Adam Sandler character not playing a oddball character, Jill is annoying, and unlikable. The film has no major conflict whatsoever, when Jack needs Al Pacino to be in a Duncan Donuts commercial, there is even no stake such as, "if I don't get him in the commercial, I will lose my job!" Really.....its that lazy in writing. Speaking of Al Pacino, what the hell is he doing in a film like this, before seeing Jack and Jill, I respected him as an actor, but there was this one scene in the movie, where Jill is at Pacino's house, plays baseball in his living room, hits the ball hard, it bounces to his Oscar trophy, and smashing it to a million pieces. The moment I saw that, to me it was a metaphor of Al Pacino, destroying his entire career to be in this movie, that breaks my heart. I shut the film off on Netflix after that particular scene, and I didn't bother watching the rest of that movie. Overall, I would not recommend Jack and Jill to anyone (including kids, teens, and even adults), a waste of a production spent to make this abomination.

Ranking: 0 out of 5 Stars