Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle McLachlan) lives in a small, quiet logging town called Lumberton. His father falls ill and he goes to the hospital to see him. On the way there he idly throws some rocks at some bottles in a field. This idleness will become a bit thematic later on. His father can't talk and Jeffrey struggles with the thought of losing him. His face distorts grotesquely in his mind. What kind of man will he be after his father is gone? Who is he really and what does he want from life? Jeffrey seems a bit lost to answer these questions. Fear distorts things in his head, which also becomes thematic. But the world gives him an answer, a doorway if you will. He starts throwing rocks idly again and finds a severed human ear in a field. He takes it to the police but the ear has stirred up something in him. It's a mystery that he must pursue. But is the mystery external or internal? The camera goes all the way into the ear...
He meets Sandy Williams (Laura Dern), the daughter of the police detective, and they start talking about the ear and other things. A few things become apparent in this scene. For one, Jeffrey is a bit of a loner who used to have friends but who have all moved away. Jeffrey also seems a bit silly, a bit charming on a surface level but maybe trying too hard to make small talk with Sandy. Their conversation is banal and full of non-sequitors and they both seem a bit naive. Nevertheless they hit it off and begin to investigate the ear together.
Right off the bat Jeffrey seems a little too interested in this mystery. And he seems very two-faced and even a bit creepy with Sandy as things escalate. He knows she has a boyfriend but still tries to put the moves on her. He becomes very interested in getting into this woman's apartment who is supposed to be connected to the case. Shots of him such as the one in shadowy silhouette going down a staircase paint Jeffrey as someone who may be hiding and supressing some inner darkness. And this begins to come into view when he sneaks into Dorthy Vallens apartment, played by Isabella Rosselini. His plan for Sandy to signal him when she comes in goes wrong due to too much Heineken and he is forced to hide in the closet just before Dorothy enters and undresses. Jeffrey doesn't look away for a moment. He hears her call someone and she appears to be talking to her husband and child who sound like they're in distress. She talks to another man and it's clear that he's coming to see her. She likes to sing Blue Velvet for him. There's a lot of mystery to this conversation and the scene that follows, but the film will never give any answers and this is important later on.
Dorothy discovers Jeffrey in her closet and is at first furious. Then she becomes interested in him. She seduces him at knifepoint and he submits. We see a lot of new parts of Jeffrey, both internal and external. She has bared him naked physically and emotionally. They don't get very far though. Enter Dennis Hopper, as one of my favourite film characters of all time, Frank Booth.
Jeffrey goes back into the closet. Frank enters and starts verbally and physically abusing Dorothy, followed by some perverse sex acts that Dorothy seems to enjoy on some level, even in spite of the kidnapping. It's clear that there is some level of consent between her and Frank and it seems to me that Frank actually loves her and they are playing some sort of game to excise both of their demons. He tells her to stay alive and Jeffrey says he thinks she wants to die. Is Frank trying to save her? He is motivated by love even though it comes out in bizarre, Freudian ways. How to even describe a character like Frank Booth? A bad guy? A sadist? A gas huffer? A kidnapper and abuser? These are all valid comments on the character given the shocking nature of this scene. But what kind of person is Frank deep down? If we were to say that he is simply evil, do we really have the right to make that judgement? Or are we looking through narrow slats like Jeffrey and never really seeing the full picture? Even Dennis Hopper said that this is a love story between Frank and Dorothy. The film shows us Frank holding that blue belvet while Dorothy sings with a very human look on his face. He almost breaks down later during In Dreams by Roy Orbison. He is such a human character despite all of his tough guy demeanor and bizarre sexual appetite. Hopper manages to make the character both absolutely terrifying and kind of lovable and endearing. He's a man who knows what he wants out of life and who he is, making him almost the polar opposite of Jeffrey. He likes PBR, fast cars, drugs and blue velvet. I have to respect him for at least being honest about who he is deep down, even though his tough guy routine does sometimes seem like a show for his gang. He's clearly very twisted and damaged but I find him fascinating to watch and very complex. There's a telling line where his friend Ben says "Here's to your health Frank." And Frank says softly "Ah let's drink to something else." Is he a dying man? So much of what drives him is a mystery to the end but I love how much humanity manages to squeeze through some of the cracks in his armour. And he is a character with armour, but only one face, a man united with his own dark self, and that's why I can honestly say that I kind of love his character and kind of hate the two-faced voyeur Jeffrey.
When Frank leaves Dorothy's apartment, Jeffrey comes out and comforts her on the sofa. What follows is one of my favourite shots in any film ever: it's the one on a lot of the posters where it's angled from the top of Jeffrey's head so you can't see his eyes. And it goes on for well over a minute. But in that moment and never again it feels like Jeffrey is seen as he truly is; tender, caring, sensual, but most importantly, we see his duality, and that he has somehow unified the good parts of himself with his shadow self. Fully embracing every part of who is. Accepting every choice that led him to this point and ready for whatever is to come. Her darkness is almost telling his darkness that it's okay to come out and play. Then Dorothy asks him to hit her and he retreats. She breaks down. Unable to assuage her of her troubles, he ends up leaving. But the connection established in this shot is undeniable. Eventually he tries again to unite these two parts of himself, becoming lovers with Dorothy, and finally giving in and hitting her at her request. But again he retreats from this moment and sobs in his room. This would seem like a natural reaction for a normal human being to have in such a situation. But is he actually remorseful or is he just wallowing in self-doubt? Should he be sorry?
Frank eventually beats up Jeffrey and plants bizarre kisses on him, telling him that he'll walk with him in dreams forever like the Orbison song, and that if he keeps seeing Dorothy, he'll send him a love letter (a bullet) straight from his heart. But does he mean it? Is Frank really a killer or is he just troubled because of something in his past? Again Frank's motivation of love underpins the surreal elements of this scene. Jeffrey later tells Sandy that he thinks Frank is a killer. This is a very important assumption that he makes, especially after Frank spared his life. Would Jeffrey do the same?
Dorothy shows up, beat up, naked and distraught, saying that Jeffrey "put his disease in her" and Sandy finally sees Jeffrey's dark side when the full nature of their relationship is revealed. She is horrified to her core. But eventually she makes peace with it and her and Jeffrey make up and start to fall for each other. But is she accepting his dark side or hoping that she can bring him to the light?
Jeffrey winds up back at Dorothy's to find her husband and a corrupt cop working with Frank both dead in what appears to be some kind of murder suicide. But it raises so many questions too that are never answered which I find fascinating. So often the important the things are not what this film shows, but what it doesn't show. Things going on below the surface. Abstractions.
Frank comes up to the apartment and Jeffrey tricks him into going into the bedroom. Then he leaves the closet, grabs the cop's gun and goes back into the closet. The most important choice in Jeffrey's life. He could have run away and never looked back. He could have left the case alone at any time. But he made his choices. And he made a conscious choice to go back into that closet. He wanted to kill Frank because he had judged him as being an evil killer. And he wanted to be the righteous hand of judgement. The closet is symbolic of how much he hides himself and from his shadow self. And of his narrow perspective on the world and how much he sees only the surface of things. His denial of the abstractions of life. But he makes his choice and in the end takes Frank's life, as well as possibly inciting everything that happened with the police dying and Dorothy's husband. His foe vanquished, he returns to his surface life, his hiding place behind his white picket fences and his naive family and girlfriend. But I always feel like that choice to kill Frank will haunt him, in dreams like the song, due to the contrast and similarity between the two characters. Frank was far from being fully evil and Jeffrey is far from being a saint. And Jeffrey's shadow self will always be there inside of him now in the form of Frank opening that closet door to his brain-splattered doom. And in that weird lipstick-wearing beat-down. In Frank telling him "You're like me". He will never be able to escape it, as the creepy fake robin at the end seems to foreshadow. But he retreats into his denial and supression. Where will this lead him? I'll let you be the judge.
In the end, Dorothy gets her son back, but still seems to see that sad blue velvet in her tears as the song suggests, and the meaning of the velvet and of her and Frank's love remains a mystery.
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