‘Blue Velvet’ DVD
examines sexuality
By Christopher Kelly
Knight Ridder Newspapers
(KRT)
Sandy: “I don’t know if you’re a
detective or a pervert.”
Jeffrey: “Well, that’s for me to
know and you to find out.”
With those words, so begins one
of the most spectacularly twisted
sequences in American movie his
tory. Jeffrey (Kyle MacLachlan) sub
sequently sneaks into the apart
ment of a lounge singer named
Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rosselli
ni). He watches from her closet as
she acts out a bizarre rape fantasy
with a gangster named Frank Booth
(Dennis Hopper). Frank breathes an
aphrodisiac gas from a mask that he
carries with him. He calls Dorothy
“Mommy” and tells her, “Baby
wants blue velvet.” Dorothy re
sponds by making him chew on the
sash of her blue velvet robe. It only
gets weirder, a few scenes later,
when Jeffrey returns to Dorothy's
apartment, and she starts begging
him to hit her.
You might want to make sure
the kids are asleep before popping
“Blue Velvet” into the DVD play
er. Though, of course, the irony
there is that director David
Lynch’s subject is essentially the
same one that fuels so many fami
ly films, including both of this
year’s biggest hits, “Spider-Man”
and “Star Wars: Episode II — At
tack of the Clones.” “Blue Velvet”
is about the violent awakening of
an adolescent male sexual id. If
Lynch made a film infinitely more
honest and compelling than either
Sam Raimi’s or George Lucas’, it’s
because he understands that you
can’t render the journey from boy
to man in PG-13 terms.
“Blue Velvet” is back, 16 years af
ter it first befuddled audiences, on
a “special edition” DVD that reach
es stores this week. But because
Lynch — bless his soul — doesn’t
believe in “director’s cuts” that add
or subtract material to well-estab
lished works, there is no new
footage here.
Still, this may be the best DVD re
leased all year. Lynch did oversee a
new digital transfer of the print. Ac
cordingly, Frederick Elmes’ lush
photography vibrantly pops off the
television screen. (If you’ve seen
only the muddy VHS transfer of the
film, you’ll think you’re watching a
completely different movie.) More
to the point, this disc gives us a
chance to revisit one of the two or
three finest American films of the
1980s. And to realize that, amazing
ly, it hasn’t dated in the least. Quite
the contrary, its vision of a subur
ban/underground culture that
thrives — or perhaps the word is
“co-depends” — on sexuality and
violence, seems all the more rele
vant and prescient in our era of Jon
Benet Ramsey and Chandra Levy.
“Blue Velvet” tells the story of
handsome boy-next-door Jeffrey,
home from college to care for his
sick father; walking in a nearby
field, the young man stumbles
upon a severed human ear. Com
pelled to learn more, he teams up
with the angelic Sandy (Laura
Dern), whose father is the police
chief. Gradually, they are drawn
into a horrible circle of crime and
violence and weirdos — many
singing pop standards (watch out
for Dean Stockwell’s legendary
cameo, as he lip-syncs Roy Orbi
son’s “In Dreams.” Jeffrey eventual
ly falls in love with Dorothy and
finds that he, too, has sado
masochistic sexual impulses.
The greatness of the film — and
the reason, I think, it did escape
the ghetto of cult and has come to
be rightly regarded as a modern
classic — is that it so effortlessly
weds satire and serious-minded
ness. Lynch’s point is that, yes,
you can indeed laugh at the ab
surdity of small town, of a place in
deep denial about its own muck.
But that you also can’t deny what
lurks below. That within all of us
lies the impulse to do^vil, dirty
things. And that we will do our
best to push those tendencies be
low the surface.
Of course, the muck will always
rise to the top — and that’s why “
Blue Velvet” is at once so funny and
so scary. Lynch may be the only
American artist who has envisioned
the coming-of-age process in such
stark, black comic terms. Indeed,
the movie operates like a sick joke
shared between two junior-high
school boys in the locker room: It
laughs at the idea of violent sexual
fantasy, but at the same time it se
cretly stands in fear of that fantasy.
It asks us: What if sex is just as cor
rupting, just as destructive, and just
as compelling as we imagined it in
our weirdest pubescent fantasies?
The film’s genius, and its time
lessness, lies in the fact that we
never stop asking ourselves that
question, no matter how old we get.
© 2002, Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune
Information Services.
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Peter Utsey Emerald
Pulse brief
Cops hold R. Kelly on 21
child pornography charges
CHICAGO — Grammy Award
winning musician R. Kelly was ar
rested at his home near Orlando,
Fla., on Wednesday following the
return of a 21-count indictment in
Chicago charging the R&B artist
with child pornography stemming
from a tape in which he allegedly
has sexual relations with a teenage
girl in his former Chicago home.
Kelly was arrested by police in Dav
enport, Fla, as he was preparing to leave
his house and rent a car to drive back to
Chicago, authorities said.
At a news conference Wednesday,
Kelly’s attorney Edward Genson ex
pressed outrage over Kelly’s arrest. He
called the action “unconscionable”
and said he had made arrangements
for Kelly, 35, to surrender to authori
ties in Chicago on Thursday.
“I’ve represented congressmen,
I’ve represented judges, I’ve repre
sented people charged in all sorts of
offenses, and I’ve never had an agree
ment like this breached,” he said.
Polk County, Fla., sheriffs police
Sgt. Cassandra Kent said that Kelly
would likely be held overnight in
the county jail for a court appear
ance tentatively scheduled for
Thursday afternoon.
Kelly issued a statement Wednes
day maintaining his innocence.
“Even though I don’t believe any
of these charges are warranted, I’m
grateful that I will have a chance to
establish the truth about me in a
court of law,” he said. “I have com
plete faith in our system of justice,
and I am confident that when all
the facts come out, people will see
that I’m no criminal.”
© 2002, Chicago Tribune. Distributed by
Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
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