There are, of course, so many angles to this film. One of
the most interesting suggests that the descent of the p.o.v. into a severed ear
establishes that it’s a dream - - a nightmare of a post-war American childhood
experienced by either Jeffery (Kyle MacLachlan), or even his stroked out
father, writhing on the front lawn. This
trajectory heads right down the Freudian cellar stairs but this just begs the question. Why is
Frank Booth such a killer role?
To understand Hopper’s signatory part, the Warner Brothers
crime story elements need to be looked at carefully. One of the movies that
inform Hopper’s role, surely, is White Heat, as pointed out
elsewhere. Cody Jarrett, sick with
headaches and Oedipal rage, is weepy as a girl when he’s not drilling a
mug. Cagney’s misogyny, for example, Public
Enemy, is also channeled by Hopper; however, now everything inferred in the
Warner scripts is spilled out on the living-room rug.
Other noir villains are also quoted. The joy ride resembles
the trip taken by Edmond O’Brien and crazed killer Neville Brand in D.O.A.
(1950). Occasionally Frank minces into
Richard Widmark’s terrifyingly giggle in Kiss of Death. Hopper says the gas he was supposed to be
inhaling was amyl nitrate, adding to the homoerotic cachet, and its bug-eyed
effect on him has a Reefer Madness surrealism. And then there’s the
Yellow Man, another noir touch. When all this is combined with the oddly
timeless set decoration, Blue Velvet becomes not just a nightmare but
rather a peculiarly potent dream world, a greasy carney ride that is the
definition of expressionism.
And who else but a veteran and victim of all that 40’s
perversion could create Frank Booth? Imagine a nineteen-year old, very serious, actor in his first movie,
watching Joan Crawford and Sterling Hayden swap gender in Johnny Guitar.
Hopper learned his craft under studio censorship and knew exactly what icky
pool Lynch needed to tap.
So that’s the methodology. What’s the Method here? According
to both of them, Hopper phoned Lynch after casting was complete to tell him “I
am Frank Booth,” provoking a certain amount of fear on the set. But in reality there is no Frank Booth
character, just a cesspool of rage and lust. He has no past; his future is
short and brutish. Frank Booth is the
inverse of a lobotomy - - a pre-frontal lobe with a dick and a gun. Clearly, what Hopper meant to say is “I get
Frank Booth.” Hopper had a sense memory of this sick fuck, extracted from his
own personal demonology. And because Hopper’s dark side resonates so strongly
with our own, and is so repulsively true to life, we get Frank too.
The subversion of Blue Velvet is its gaze. Its
accurate exposure of the perversion of everyday life is so much more effective
in this than the creepier (Happiness) or more sympathetic (American
Beauty) versions. This balance of
authenticity and horror is primarily the result of Hopper’s well-dressed place
in our collective unconscious.