After two subpar productions in which his idiosyncratic vision was unable to reach full capacity, David Lynch garnered the opportunity not only to make a movie with total creative control but also to delve deep into the themes and notions of his first feature, Eraserhead, which in many ways laid the foundation for Blue Velvet. Yet this movie is more synthesized and approachable than Lynch’s debut, and this is due in part to combining two dramatic elements not previously considered complementary: the emerging suburban American culture and stylized, emotionally-charged violence. Before Blue Velvet, it was standard to portray city and urban surroundings as the epicenter of brutal conflict and suburban life as the quintessential, successful class status. Aiming for this kind of life was, and in some ways remains, the highest achievement for the typical American family. In the case of David Lynch, he was born into this privileged status and then briefly lived in the gritty, hard-edged neighborhoods of Philadelphia while enrolled at the Pensylvania Academy of Fine Arts. It was this setting exclusively that set the tone for Eraserhead and, after becoming successful enough to move out of that dangerous area, Lynch brought its sensibilities and emotions to the idealized suburban life in which he grew up and remembered so fondly. While this seems like a common plot in today’s media, few American movies before 1986 referenced it, and as the decades have passed, Blue Velvet‘s status as one of the most influential movies of the last fifty years has helped cement its legacy not only for diehard Lynch fans but also innumberable movies (and television shows) aiming to lift the lid off suburbia and explore the vices and perversions thriving underneath.

The typical reading of Blue Velvet is fairly obvious. Lynch establishes the setting of an Americana town nestled in the Inner Banks of North Carolina, with the most archetypal imagery while the warm, sensual Bobby Vinton version of the titular song plays. We see bright blue skies, crimson-red roses and white picket fences, symbols of American suburbia in all its lush and glory. Looking a little closer, these elements also represent comfort, safety, patriotism and provide the type of security and peace of mind most people desire for an area in which to live and raise a family. As the opening montage introduces other comfortable elements of this small-town — friendly firefighters, pleasant crossing guards and spacious split-level homes where the most threatening force comes from the television — Lynch moves to one man watering his lawn, only to be struck mysteriously by what appears to be a stroke. As he lies on the ground, a cute dog tries to drink from his watering hose, maintaining the surface of humor and acceptance while the camera zooms in ever closer, first to the dewey grass and, finally, underneath, focusig on the dirt where beetles crawl all over one another, emitting a sickening crunch and buzz. Right from the beginning, Lynch grounds the viewer in the two main elements of this story: a sweet and pleasant surface with a tremendous amount of depravity and ambiguity lurking below. Subsequently, the notion of uncertainty remains constant throughout the picture.

While all this is used to establish context, Lynch infuses the story with several layers of interpretative material, continuing to blend genres and stock characters and elements from both the movie and objective worlds. Yet, it is this careful mixture of the two, just like that of the beautiful surface and the dangerous sublevels, that continues to fascinate and infiltrate audiences’ own psyches, even decades later. Not only does it become a personal mystery for each viewer to “solve,” but the notion of what must be solved is also brought into question. Dennis Lim of the Film Society of Lincoln Center sees Blue Velvet as one of the first postmodern movies, in the sense that what is interpretable becomes part of the mystery. Does Lynch even want the viewer to bother with understanding these elements and their representive images or is it all set design to lure one into a different kind of world and leave them there to fend for themselves and find their own way out? The answer to this question may always evade viewers, but the desire to know lurks deeper and will not go away any time soon.

It doesn’t help matters that as the story develops, Lynch continuously piles on details and characters that are so striking in their initial encounter that it is impossible to ignore. Like the overall structure of the movie, these characters often fall into one of two categories, which are also represented by their connection to two very different eras in 20th century American life: the 1950s and 1980s. Nearly all of the characters the main character, Jeffrey Beaumont, encounters during the day seem to have stepped out of a movie or magazine from the 1950s, the decade where modesty still reigned over relationships, social graces retained their value and sunny, cock-eyed optimism was seen as a legitimate philosophy of life rather than hopeless naivety. As a product of this era, David Lynch is able to relate its idealism and shortcomings to later decades marked by social unrest and violence. When Jeffrey first sets eyes on nightclub singer Dorothy Vallens, she becomes his (and ours) ticket to the seedy underbelly of this town, as well as the shortcut from the idyllic, brightly colored 1950s surface of Lumberton to the dark, sinister, vulgar modern setting, which is understood to represent the then-current decade of the 1980s. It is in this setting Jeffrey (and we) are introduced to Frank Booth, a most memorable villain if only because Lynch infuses him with a tremendous joie de vivre. For Frank, every waking moment is an opportunity to indulge in any one of life’s pleasures, even at the expense and pain of others. As he takes Jeffrey deeper into his world of mixed-up morality and bizarre hedonism, the viewer is given a close-up of self-gratifying wickedness. Within this overarching binary of innocence and debauchery, many other symmetrical elements exist. There is, of course, the color schemes for day and night but also the different eras symbolized explicitly by Jeffrey’s crush Sandy, whose pink outfits and bright blond hair and name remind us of Sandra Dee, Doris Day and other 1950s teenage icons; and Dorothy, whose jet-black wig, dark, billowy blue velvet robe and crimson-red lipstick exhibit overt sexuality, dark secrets and a sense of forbidden desire that someone like Jeffrey (and Lynch) cannot help but be attracted to. Furthermore, the two authority figures of Detective Williams and Frank Booth symbolize contrasting elements of the benevolent father and the tyrannical father, with Jeffrey as the symbolic child seeking guidance, but also encouragement and support. If the detective helps keep Jeffrey’s interest piqued in the case (a lone human ear found by Jeffrey at the beginning of the film is our unsolved mystery), Frank’s unfettered hedonism maintains Jeffrey’s moral courage to solve the case and bring about justice. In nearly every detail, Lynch includes its inverse duplicate, giving a strong indication that whatever appears in life also contains its own opposite. Such a Taoist interpretation can only further the mystery and continue the fascination of Blue Velvet.

Critics such as Lim have noted that this strong emphasis on binaries might be a subtle nod to the Ronald Reagan era, in which the hedonistic pursuit for success reigned supreme, and the distinctions between previous decades and the current 1980s continued to blur as more Americans became disillusioned regarding their place in the world and their own sense of identity. What could be considered real and imaginary in this new and dangerous world? And what, if any, was the responsibility for the United States as the Cold War lingered on and leaders like Reagan and Margaret Thatcher continued to push for combative action to defeat the obvious evil that existed on the other side of the globe? This idea may not seem directly connected to Lynch’s vision, but Blue Velvet evokes a landscape in which appearances deceive as a way of distracting many from the real issues at hand. If most of the residents of Lumberton knew what went on in certain parts of their town, would they do anything about it? Indeed, one final binary, the bookending shots of ears, symbolizing a passage into and out of a strange, dark place, may be the ultimate question Lynch poses. After the ear is found and Jeffrey begins his inquiry, Lynch’s camera zooms directly into its deep, cavernous orifice with a loud roar accompanying on the soundtrack. This shot is repeated in reverse at the end, as the camera exits what is revealed to be Jeffrey’s ear after the case has been solved to the satisfaction of most of the characters (although the audience may still have questions). Lynch solidifes this feeling of satisfaction with a few final shots that seem, on the surface, to show how all is returning to normal and the overwhelming love of the robins conquers the darkness. Can such a scenario be taken seriously? Further, are there some elements of the darkness that remain in the end? It is clear that Lynch is much more interested in posing questions than answering them and for this reason and others, Blue Velvet continues to fascinate and disturb viewers without giving them the definitive answers for which they have been programmed to accept.