Cinema Studies: Blue Velvet

Discuss the significance of mise-en-scene in Blue Velvet




Blue Velvet’s mise-en-scene serves as a basis for auteur theory. It is in every respect “Lynch’s classic”; it is also the film in which he “establishes his universe” and “creates a model which may serve in all the later films” (Chion 1995:97) . The mise-en-scene manifests a filiation with, and a ‘continuity’ between parts of Lynch’s oeuvre. In Blue Velvet, Lynch invents what might be called his ‘forever’ scene with the mad evening at Ben’s (Chion 1995:98). One aspect Blue Velvet’s mise-en-scene appears in many of Lynch’s films , so much so that it is named ‘Lynchtown’ . In the opening sequence of Blue Velvet, we see typical ‘Lynchtown’ characteristics in Lumberton- bright blue sky, red roses, a row of flowers in front of a white picket fence, and a man on a red fire truck, smiling as he waves at the camera. Shortly after that, Jeffrey Beaumont’s father collapses. The mise-en-scene in the opening sequence of The Straight Story is also that of a man collapsing in the vicinity of the house. In Blue Velvet, there is a scene where Jeffrey hides in a cupboard in Dorothy’s apartment, while in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, the character Laura Palmer finds Bobby Briggs hiding behind the chest of drawers in her bedroom. Lynch admits that as a young guy, he has had a fantasy of hiding in a girl’s room and watching her .



Another significance of Blue Velvet’s mise-en-scene is that it renders surrealist attributes to the film ; for instance, the motif of the severed ear “which obeys no comprehensible logic”, and the “image of ‘the yellow man” who, wounded and bleeding, obstinately remains standing before Jeffrey’s eyes (Chion 1995:90). This blending of surrealistic mise-en-scene into an otherwise formalist film makes the classification of Blue Velvet a highly debatable issue:

Although some purists argued that Lynch’s film did not belong to the fantasy genre…yet there are so many weird little touches and details that it is hard to deny that it belongs to the fantasy film genre. (Chion 1995:90) (Emphasis added)



Lynch describes Blue Velvet as “a story about a guy who lives in two worlds at the same time”- one of which is pleasant and the other dark and terrifying (Chion 1995:84). It is a story about a guy who has discovered “evil”, but the discovery will not change his life, and Lumberton will go back to its normal existence (Chion 1995:93). The representation of the ‘two different worlds’ is highly dependent upon the mise-en-scene; ‘Lynchtown’ placed in juxtaposition with the dark, film-noirish shots of Jeffrey ascending the staircase leading to Dorothy’s apartment, and him hiding in Dorothy’s cupboard .



Blue Velvet’s mise-en-scene also illustrates the Oedipal trajectory between Jeffrey (the symbolic child), Dorothy and Frank (the fantasy parents), which further adds to the fantastical attributes of Blue Velvet .



Through a clever maneuvering of mise-en-scene in Blue Velvet, Lynch “demonstrates his art of making daily life strange” (Chion 1995:98).