Hacker Cinema
Blue Velvet
1986 · Film · 120 min
Directed by David Lynch
The discovery of a severed human ear found in a field leads a young man on an investigation related to a beautiful, mysterious nightclub singer and a group of psychopathic criminals who have kidnapped her child.
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28 comments on Hacker News
he stole a complete workprint of the film from the archives of its production studio in 1980 – and has been screening it for guests in his apartment ever since.
Former 35mm projectionist here. I suspect there are a lot of old stashes like this. In our booth we had a gigantic reel of old 1960s and 1970s horror film trailers that previous projectionists had spliced together until there was no more space on the reel. We were not supposed to save trailers, but no one checked what we did with them after removing them from the film reels at the end of the run and returning those prints to the distributor.
On a quiet summer night, after the last showing had ended and the customers had left, we employees would sometimes lock the doors, get some snacks, and watch these old treasures from previous decades spool by.
The trailer reel included several versions of The Shining trailer, including one that had a slow-motion scene of blood pouring from the elevator that was waaaay longer than the clip in the movie (possibly from one of the alternate cameras, see https://geektyrant.com/news/the-story-behind-the-infamous-blood-gushing-elevator-scene-from-stanley-kubricks-the-shining). The reel also had some long-forgotten stinkers, including for the 1966 British horror film Psychopath which I only remember because the trailer featured an unusual song structured like a nursery rhyme that I can still partially recall.
A corporate chain took over (Lowes) and sometime in the early 1990s the theater was closed. The space is now a Staples. This illicit reel, if it wasn't thrown out during the closure, is probably in someone's basement. The only way to know the contents is to play it, which is hard to do as not many traditional 35mm projectors are still around or available for screening a 50-year-old reel that might be brittle, gunky, or otherwise damage the machine.
I've heard of similar stashes. For instance, around the same time, I had friends who worked in a photo shop. They had several binders of, um, special photos that they had copied from customers' negatives during the on-site development process.
I visited this basement lair once, which was dominated by a modern color processing machine. I remember flipping through one of the binders. It was very, very strange stuff, like something out of Blue Velvet.
> Somewhat ironically, HD killed cinematography.
Imagine Wild Strawberries in HD. I think it would seem bleaker. Or Blue Velvet. It would make Blue Velvet creepier. It would also make any Corman film seem classier.
HD didn't ruin cinema. It only ruins beauty.
There's a lot to be said for how abuse was portrayed in Twin Peaks. Many survivors of abuse have praised the show and it's film counterpart for their honest portrayal. Sheryl Lee, the actress who portrayed Laura Palmer, has highlighted her positive interactions with survivors in numerous interviews. It's a hard watch, but it's an honest watch, and empathetic at its core.
You're focusing on the fact that such abuse is shown, without digging any deeper into why it's shown, and in what context - context that you are inherently ignorant to by your own admission of never having seen Blue Velvet. I have, so I know of what I speak.
And to your flip response about, "Enjoy your Insta", I don't. I stay far away. Once again you seem to be making assumptions about people (and casting aspersions towards them based on said assumptions) and things based on surface level interactions, the opposite of trying to be compassionate.
I found the aforementioned elements of Blue Velvet to be very uncomfortable to watch, but I also don’t think it was necessarily a work of obscenity on Lynch’s part. It always struck me that the film’s violence was intentionally framed in suburban noir. Or, that way the audience might wonder about the darker parts of 20th century Americana around them, much like Lynch did as a child.
That said, I’m on the fence if whether or not the violence in the movie felt earned to me or not.
I think Ebert didn't grasp what Lynch was going for with the Dorothy character, because I don't think anyone else in Hollywood was thinking like Lynch at the time.
Blue Velvet challenges you as a viewer to look at the abuse Dorothy suffers and to be a witness -- and that's hard to do as a viewer because it is ugly. Ebert did what a lot of people did and attempted to defend Isabella Rossellini, who had signed on to the movie knowing full well what would be required.
Lynch made two other movies in that same "the audience needs to bear witness and empathize" theme (Fire Walk With Me, Lost Highway) before Ebert caught on with Mulholland Dr.
Ouch.. I'm sad to just see this here for the first time. He's for sure, 100% had an impact on how my mind had grown as a child. It's sending shivers down my back to think of the people I was with when we touched the edge of the reality through 1 person.
I'm happy I never met him, not in the sense of meeting your heros, but in the sense of, 'some things are better left unsaid'. I took that with me after blue velvet, I didn't get that movie when i first saw it, I didn't pretend to, but I took that experience with me..
I argue sometimes how some topics are unrelated to Tech (hn) that get a good ratio, but this one really is one that makes me appreciate the method of madness.
Rest in peace big man. I'm who I am thanks to your work.
Edit with appreciation " (I still don't 'get' his movies) They impact my thinking.
I feel the same. If Blue Velvet was the first Lynch movie I saw, I surely wouldn't have bothered with the rest, and I would have missed out on what I now consider one of my absolute favorites (Mulholland Drive). Same goes for Eraserhead and Wild at Heart.
I camped out in line on Hollywood Blvd for several hours to be in the first public screening of Dune at the Chinese Theater. So I know I saw the release print and to my then college-aged perceptions, I didn't really connect with it. I didn't think it was bad but I didn't think it was good either.
I blame this on the muddled mess that was the release edit and how misleadingly the film was promoted by the studio. I was a huge fan of pop sci-fi like Star Wars, Alien and Blade Runner and the advertising set a very different audience expectation than what the film delivered. Unfortunately, that experience kind of tainted Lynch's Dune for me.
I didn't really begin to appreciate Lynch as a great filmmaker until Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks, both of which I loved. Someone linked a 'highly-regarded' three hour fan edit of Lynch's Dune which I've bookmarked to check out.
Random anecdote along those lines: I got along great with my manager at my first full-time job, but was surprised when he mentioned one day that he wasn't interested in independent film at all. As an indie film lover myself, I asked him why.
He grew up in a very straight-laced conservative community, and he said that he and his friends tried to watch an independent film once, but they all found the film was far too disturbing. So after that he never tried again.
I asked what film they watched, and he answered Blue Velvet, and suddenly his perspective made a lot more sense to me!
If you enjoy surreal movies then definitely Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart. Just don't watch them with your kids. (Or parents...)
They are not 'normal', which is something I always admired about David Lynch. He had a very personal style and vision, and stuck with it.
> His work can have recurring themes and still be weird for the sake of weird and mostly atmosphere
Everything "weird" in his work serves the narrative and those themes. If you had spent any time thinking critically about any of his films you would understand that, but you clearly haven't.
The AIs also disagree with you. I asked Claude "what are your thoughts on this statement: "Lynch will be one of the easier things for an AI to replicate given his thing is weird for the sake of weird and being deliberately vague about it. His stuff is 90% atmosphere."
and it responds:
"I disagree with this characterization of David Lynch's work. While his films certainly feature surreal and dreamlike atmospheres, reducing them to "weird for weird's sake" misses their intricate emotional and thematic coherence.
Lynch's work often explores deeply human experiences - trauma, desire, identity, and the dark underbelly of seemingly idyllic Americana - through a distinctive visual and narrative language that draws heavily from dreams and the subconscious mind. Films like "Mulholland Drive" and "Blue Velvet" aren't merely atmospheric exercises, but carefully constructed works where the surreal elements serve specific narrative and thematic purposes.
Take "Mulholland Drive" - its dream logic and narrative fragmentation directly reflect the protagonist's psychological state and Hollywood's destructive impact on identity. The "weird" elements aren't arbitrary but emerge organically from the story's emotional core.
I think AI would actually struggle to replicate Lynch's work precisely because it's not random weirdness - it's a complex interweaving of personal obsessions, cultural critique, and psychological insight expressed through a unique artistic vocabulary he's developed over decades. The "atmosphere" in his films isn't just surface-level strangeness but rather the manifestation of deeper themes and emotions.
> ... a single armchair is surrounded by thick curtains made of blue velvet — a nod to Lynch’s 1986 film Blue Velvet.
Or, you know, it just means the curtains are fucking blue! (for anyone who gets the reference).
> a single armchair is surrounded by thick curtains made of blue velvet — a nod to Lynch’s 1986 film Blue Velvet.
I feel like Lynch might disagree with this. He pretty consistently dissuades people from trying to explain his works.
Also:
> Lynch was adamant that his new foray into design exists separately from his film career.
Oh my.
I love Philip Seymour Hoffman (RIP), but I found Synecdoche, New York to be sooo incredibly anti-interesting in its multiple layers of ironically unironic self-indulgence that I really truly hated the film.
I have never had such a strongly negative reaction to any other movie. I'm having trouble thinking of a somehwat-close second. Maybe Blue Velvet?
If I heard someone else say that, I'd imagine that they had missed something, or just didn't "get it", but I don't think that's the case! :)
I like each in their own way, I may be more biased towards Kubrick as I consider the Shining one of my top 3 movies of all time. Lynch may be the ultimate auteur in making a certain type of movie or tv show that really no one else was making or thinking about(Blue Velvet, Mulholland dr. etc). Twin Peaks season 3 might be one of the best tv shows ever made(and also one of the weirdest) and its why I like David Lynch so much. Kubrick touched on that side a bit with 2001(my second favorite of his movies) but his style is much more traditional.
Exactly this. Lynch would be the first to say that his "Dune" is a failure. The movie is pretty much incomprehensible if you don't know the book. Famously, the first cut was 5 hours long, and he never had a plan how to get the runtime down. I mean, just watch the prologue with the woman talking for 90+ seconds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqvSJp-6qT4
and tell me with a straight face that someone not knowing the book would be able to understand this. It's pure desperation. Don't get me wrong: it's beautifully shot, especially with the in&out-fading of the face, but it does not work to convey the setting of the story. It's simply too much information.
Quite famously, and also in this case, he refuses to even discuss it because this is a place in time he would rather not go to. It must have been traumatic for him. But this failure was a blessing in disguise, as he did this little movie "Blue Velvet" afterwards, and the rest is history. Lynch would not be where he is today without this failure. After "Elephant Man", he was destined to be the next Lucas, but instead, he pretty much defined a new genre.
Mm, but Ebert is now decades into the past, isn't he. I think critics are generally aligning better with audience understanding.
It's ironic that Ebert misunderstood a film like Fast Times, considering he co-wrote a film with bloomin' Russ Meyer isn't it!
I will have to look up those reviews (as a Brit I was not routinely exposed to Ebert; for us it was Barry Norman).
I don't expect film critics to like every movie, and I do expect them to engage in criticism of films they like, for example of weak parts of dialogue, of spoiled shots, etc.
Unpopular opinion: Blue Velvet is a bad film.
>How many reviews of movies have you seen from a senior, experienced reviewer got a film really totally wrong?
Tons. Even legendary critics like Ebert got movies wrong. He gave thumbs down to Full Metal Jacket, Blue Velvet, The Thing, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, The Usual Suspects, Ace Ventura, Tommy Boy, and many more.
Author here. I've dug reasonably far into international cinema -- at a glance, about 250 - 300 outside US Cinema, across various time periods: French New Wave, Korean, Iranian, etc.
On David Lynch -- I like stuff that is weird and unusual. I LOVED the first three or four episodes of Twin Peaks. But after that, it was an unbelievable disappointment. You cannot seriously tell me that the latter half of Season Two was good. It was clear that Lynch had drafted the body of a Blue Velvet-style movie that lent itself well to a few hours of material, but once you got past the first three or four episodes, there was no material left. From there on, the attempts to keep the plot together became more and more abstruse.
With a guy like Lynch, these movies do not showcase the "raw power of the human imagination" -- what they showcase is a man who is deeply disorganized.
To the extent that his films are flawed, they are always flawed in the same way: execution of the latter half. Premise and first half is always fine. That pattern speaks volumes.
I would definitely put Andrei Tarkovsky in the same league of Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch. Watching movies such as Solaris, A Clockwork Orange, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blue Velvet etc. feel like watching a beautiful and masterpiece art.
Some more movies in no particular order if you want to explore more of psychological horror:
Pandorum
The Lighthouse
eXistenZ
Videodrome
Hellraiser (I’m a fan of the series, some are better than others)
Blue Velvet
Mulholland Drive
The Thing
American Psycho
The Fly
Invasion of the Bodysnatchers (1978 version with Leonard Nimoy)
I still remember the vivid and strange experience when I watched Lynch's masterpiece TV show 'Twin Peaks'. Just an amazing experience! I have also enjoyed his films such as 'Blue Velvet' and 'Mulholland Drive'. When watching Lynch's shows and movies I feel his creations are similar to that of Stanley Kubrick.
Videodrome has faded from my memory. All I remeber is how I felt watching it. Like A Clockwork Orange, Dead Ringers, and Blue Velvet, I'm not sure I ever want to see it again.
A film I don't often see mentioned but that I still think is a good watch is Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
I haven't seen Inland Empire yet. I discovered David Lynch in the last 5 years and it's taking me a lot of time to get through his movies because it takes a whole lot of processing to really understand every one of them. It creeps into your psyche and sometimes your dreams. And for me it takes time to muster up the energy to put myself through another one of those experiences.
Eraserhead was a trip, I still haven't totally figured it out. But in terms of pure cinematic enjoyment Blue Velvet would be my favorite.
Now that I hear other Lynch fans talk about Inland Empire I'm really excited to watch it.
It would have been amazing if Jodorowsky's Dune actually got made and released. He really was too far ahead of his time for the studio.
I feel that in order to make a roughly 2-hour long film on as complex a subject as what the novel portrays, the only way to illustrate that complexity properly is to ascribe to surrealist elements. That is the only form that can provide the necessary density, if done properly. Lynch knew this, which is why he took on the project, but was later pressured by the studio and his vision was lost. He did a pretty admirable job considering.
Lynch's pedigree speaks for itself:
Blue Velvet: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090756/?ref_=nm_flmg_wr_23 Lost Highway: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116922/?ref_=nm_flmg_wr_16 Mulholland Drive: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0166924/?ref_=nm_flmg_wr_14 Twin Peaks... etc...
For some it was Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet, "Heineken? Fuck that shit! Pabst Blue Ribbon!".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeWUXV89w0g
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090756/quotes
Opinions on some of the movies from the list I've seen:
Idiocracy – Basically an ordinary comedy, with an above average plot, but overall nothing that special or interesting. Overrated.
Fight Club – One of my favourite movies, perhaps in my top 10. Really loved it.
The Game – Another great movie from David Fincher, I love the mysterious atmosphere of his movies.
The Man From Earth. – Huge disappointment, I never understood why people like this movie. It's basically one guy telling a predictable and boring story. One of the most overrated movies ever. (I mean overrated in subjective sense obviously.)
Traffic – One of the best movies about drugs and organized crime.
Inception – Above average but overrated, logically inconsistent, nothing really special about this movie. The Cell is another movie where people enter someone else's dreams and even though it has only 6.2 on IMDB, I think I enjoyed it more. The depictions of the dreams were definitely more creative and looked more dreamy.
Of the top of my head I would recommend these:
* Something from David Lynch – Lost Highway, Blue Velvet or Mullholland Drive.
* Requiem for Dream
* Evil (2003)
* Sin City
* Crank – not very known, but wow, this is the best action movie ever.
* Elite squad – another great action movie, very realistic, borderline documentary.
In terms of producing movies, music or other kinds of content, the only real value that remains in the studio model is financing. That is, someone pays to make your movie based on how excited you can make them in 10 minutes. With distribution being replaced, there may yet be a business model in production financing. Maybe "get enough people on facebook to like your script, and we'll give you 60 million dollars to make it...." or "hey everyone vote up our spec album"
That sounds more like a nightmare to me.
I've got a lot of friends who lack the ability to distribute themselves well. Actually, it's almost all my friends. Most musicians I know aren't good at publicity. In a scenario without effective distribution, the viral scene favors not the best work, but the most easily digestible work. That means a trend away towards complexity, which is not necessarily a trend I'd want to see.
Trent Reznor seems to be the flagship of this attitude of "a musician ought to do everything himself and publicize himself to death." That's great for him to say, but what about the people who can't do that as well as he can? I mean, NiN isn't particularly a brilliant band; it's good, but there's a lot better out there. Reznor is iconic not because he's the best but because he's the most savvy. Again: not certain that's a good thing. Not every talented person is good at promotion; we'd lose a lot of meaning for the sake of a lot of fluff. Distributors aren't a perfect solution, but they at least act as a sort of safegate. They do the work other people can't.
If I saw the opening 10 minutes of 2001 I wouldn't be excited. Ditto Blue Velvet and every Lynch film, ditto most Coen brothers films, ditto pretty much every movie I love that isn't made by Edgar Wright. You're asking people to judge a book by its cover, and that's not exactly fair.
The crowd sucks. The crowd is stupid. Look at Shirky's recent article about #amazonfail. Individuals become stupid when they become part of a mass. That's why the best producers and distributors tend to work alone or in small groups: because crowdsourcing doesn't work when it comes to finding good things. I don't trust even my handpicked Facebook friends to like good things, so I don't know why I'd trust the rest of the users on Facebook any more.