Blue Velvet is a 1986 American mystery film written and directed by David Lynch. The movie exhibits elements of both film noir and surrealism. The film features Kyle MacLachlan, Isabella Rossellini, Dennis Hopper and Laura Dern. The title is taken from the 1963 Bobby Vinton song of the same name. Although initially detested by some mainstream critics, the film is now widely acclaimed,^[1][2] and earned Lynch his second Academy Award nomination for Best Director. As an example of a director casting against the norm, Blue Velvet is also noted for re-launching Hopper's career and for providing Rossellini with a dramatic outlet beyond the work as a fashion model and a cosmetics spokeswoman for which she had until then been known.

After the commercial and critical failure of Lynch's Dune (1984), he made attempts at developing a more "personal story", somewhat characteristic of his surreal style he displayed in his debut Eraserhead (1977). The screenplay of Blue Velvet had been passed around multiple times in the late 1970s and early 1980s, with many major studios declining it because of its strong sexual and violent content.^[3] The independent studio De Laurentiis Entertainment Group, which was owned at the time by Italian film producer Dino De Laurentiis, agreed to finance and produce the film. Since its initial theatrical release, Blue Velvet has achieved cult status, significant academic attention and is widely regarded as one of Lynch's finest works, alongside Eraserhead and Mulholland Drive (2001). It is also seen by many critics as representing a modern-day version of film-noir, "neo-noir", present in many thrillers from the early 1980s to the mid 1990s. Blue Velvet was ranked as one of the 100 Greatest Films of All Time by Entertainment Weekly in 1999 and chosen by the American Film Institute as one of the greatest mystery films ever made.

The film centers on college student Jeffrey Beaumont (MacLachlan), who, returning from visiting his ill father in the hospital, comes across a human ear in a field in his hometown of Lumberton. He proceeds to investigate the ear with help from a high school student, Sandy Williams (Dern), who provides him with information and leads from her father, a local police detective. Jeffrey's investigation draws him deeper into his hometown's seedy underworld, and sees him forming a sexual relationship with the alluring torch singer Dorothy Vallens (Rossellini), and uncovering psychotic criminal Frank Booth (Hopper), who engages in drug abuse, kidnapping, and sexual violence.

Plot[link]

Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) returns to his logging home town of Lumberton from Oak Lake College after his father (Jack Harvey) suffers a near fatal stroke. While walking home from the hospital, he cuts through a vacant lot and discovers a severed ear. Jeffrey takes the ear to Police Detective John Williams (George Dickerson), through whom he meets the detective's daughter, Sandy (Laura Dern). She tells him details about the ear case and a suspicious woman, Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini) who may be connected to the case. Increasingly curious, Jeffrey enters Dorothy's apartment by posing as an exterminator, and while Dorothy is distracted by a man (Fred Pickler) dressed in a yellow suit at her door (whom Jeffrey later refers to as the Yellow Man), Jeffrey steals her spare key.

Jeffrey and Sandy attend Dorothy's nightclub act at the Slow Club, in which Dorothy sings "Blue Velvet," and leave early so Jeffrey can sneak into her apartment to snoop. He hurriedly hides in a closet when she returns home. However, Dorothy, wielding a knife, finds him and threatens to hurt him. Thinking his curiosity is merely sexual and aroused by his voyeurism, Dorothy makes Jeffrey undress at knifepoint and begins to fellate him before their encounter is interrupted by a knock at the door, and Dorothy hides Jeffrey in the closet. From there, he witnesses the visitor, Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper), inflict his bizarre sexual proclivities — which include inhaling an unidentified gas, dry humping, and sadomasochism — upon Dorothy. Frank is an extremely foul-mouthed, violent sociopath whose orgasmic climax is a fit of both pleasure and rage. Frank has kidnapped Dorothy's husband and son to force her to perform sexual favors. When Frank leaves, a sad and desperate Dorothy tries to seduce Jeffrey again and demands that he hit her, but when he refuses, she loses sexual interest and asks to be left alone. When Jeffrey moves to leave, she asks him to stay, though he leaves anyway.

Jeffrey relays his experience to an eagerly listening Sandy, who in turn tells him of a wonderful dream she had about robins that she interprets as a hopeful sign of some upcoming improvement for humanity. It is clear that Jeffrey and Sandy are attracted to each other, though Sandy has a boyfriend.

Jeffrey again visits Dorothy's apartment and she tells him that though she knows nothing about him she has been yearning for him. The scene changes to one of Jeffrey's attending another of Dorothy's performances at the Slow Club, where she sings the same song. At the club, Jeffrey spots Frank in the audience fondling a piece of blue-velvet fabric he cut from Dorothy's robe. Jeffrey follows Frank and spends the next few days spying on him. Shortly afterwards, two men that Jeffrey calls the Well-Dressed Man and the Yellow Man exit an industrial building that Frank frequently goes to. Jeffrey concludes the men are criminal associates of Frank. Jeffrey tells his new findings to Sandy and the two briefly kiss, though she feels uncomfortable about going any further. Jeffrey immediately visits Dorothy again and the two have sex. When he refuses to hit her, though, she pressures him, becoming more emotional. In a blind rage he knocks her backwards and is instantly horrified, but Dorothy derives pleasure from it.

Afterwards, Frank catches Dorothy and Jeffrey together and forces them both to accompany him to the apartment of Ben (Dean Stockwell), a suave dandy, partner in crime (Ben is holding Dorothy's son) and drug dealer. In a bizarre but now iconic scene, Ben lip-syncs a performance of Roy Orbison's "In Dreams", sending Frank into maudlin sadness, then rage. Frank takes Jeffrey to a lumber yard and when he molests Dorothy, Jeffrey punches him. Frank's cronies drag Jeffrey out of the car and Frank kisses Jeffrey's face, psychologically intimidates Jeffrey, and then savagely beats him to the overture of "In Dreams". Jeffrey wakes the next day at the same place and walks home, where he is overcome with conflicting emotions, chief among them, guilt and despair. He goes to the police station, where he shockingly notices that Sandy's father's police partner is the Yellow Man — an officer named Lieutenant Detective Gordon. Later at Sandy's home, her father is amazed by Jeffrey's story, but warns Jeffrey to stop his amateur sleuthing lest he endanger himself and the investigation. After attending a dance party where they kiss and profess their love for each other, Jeffrey and Sandy are tailed on their way home. Fearing the follower is Frank, Jeffrey is relieved to discover that it is only Sandy's jealous ex-boyfriend. A confrontation is averted when the group finds a naked and distressed Dorothy on Jeffrey's front lawn. Barely conscious, Dorothy calls Jeffrey "My lover" and thus reveals her intimacy with Jeffrey, causing an upset Sandy to slap Jeffrey, although she later forgives him.

Jeffrey insists on returning to Dorothy's apartment and tells Sandy to send the police there, including her father, immediately. At Dorothy's apartment, Jeffrey finds Dorothy's husband who is dead from a gunshot to the head and identifiable by his missing ear, as well as a bloodied Yellow Man. The Yellow Man is standing rather still and seems to be in a catatonic state, having been apparently lobotomized by a bullet. When Jeffrey tries to leave, he sees the Well-Dressed Man coming up the stairs and recognizes him as Frank in disguise. Jeffrey talks to Detective Williams, Sandy's father, over the Yellow Man's police radio, but lies about his location inside the apartment. Frank enters the apartment and brags about hearing Jeffrey's location over his own police radio. While Frank searches for him in the wrong room, Jeffrey retrieves the Yellow Man's gun and hides in the same closet he hid during his first visit to the apartment. Frank fires sporadically, killing the Yellow Man, and when he opens the closet door, Jeffrey shoots him through the head. Detective Williams, gun drawn, enters with Sandy a moment later. Jeffrey and Sandy now go ahead with their relationship and note the unusual appearance of robins in their town. A montage sequence ends the film, which shows Dorothy and her son reunited.

Cast[link]

• Isabella Rossellini as Dorothy Vallens
• Kyle MacLachlan as Jeffrey Beaumont
• Dennis Hopper as Frank Booth
• Laura Dern as Sandy Williams
• Hope Lange as Mrs. Williams
• Dean Stockwell as Ben
• George Dickerson as Detective Williams
• Priscilla Pointer as Mrs. Beaumont
• Frances Bay as Aunt Barbara
• Jack Harvey as Mr. Beaumont
• Ken Stovitz as Mike
• Brad Dourif as Raymond
• Jack Nance as Paul
• J. Michael Hunter as Hunter
• Dick Green as Don Vallens
• Fred Pickler as "Yellow Man"/Det. T.R Gordon

Production[link]

The actual story of the film originated from three ideas that crystallized in the filmmaker's mind over a period of time starting as early as 1973. The first idea was only "a feeling" and the title Blue Velvet, Lynch told Cineaste in 1987.^[5] The second idea was an image of a severed, human ear lying in a field. "I don't know why it had to be an ear. Except it needed to be an opening of a part of the body, a hole into something else...The ear sits on the head and goes right into the mind so it felt perfect", Lynch remarked in an interview.^[6] The third idea was Bobby Vinton's classic rendition of the song Blue Velvet and "the mood that came with that song a mood, a time, and things that were of that time."^[7] Lynch and Roth pitched the script to Warner Bros., who showed interest in the project. Lynch eventually spent two years writing two drafts, which, he stated, were not very good. The problem with them, Lynch has said, was that "there was maybe all the unpleasantness in the film but nothing else. A lot was not there. And so it went away for a while."^[3]

After completing The Elephant Man (1980), Lynch met producer Richard Roth over coffee. Roth had read and enjoyed Lynch's Ronnie Rocket script, but did not think it was something he wanted to produce. He asked Lynch if the filmmaker had any other scripts, but the director only had ideas. "I told him I had always wanted to sneak into a girl's room to watch her into the night and that, maybe, at one point or another, I would see something that would be the clue to a murder mystery. Roth loved the idea and asked me to write a treatment. I went home and thought of the ear in the field."^[5][8] Production was announced in August 1984.^[9] Lynch wrote two more drafts before he was satisfied with the script of the film.^[10] Conditions at this point were ideal for Lynch's film: he had cut a deal with Dino De Laurentiis that gave him complete artistic freedom and final cut privileges, with the stipulation that the filmmaker take a cut in his salary and work with a budget of only $6 million.^[10] This deal meant that Blue Velvet was the smallest film on the De Laurentiis' slate.^[10] Consequently, Lynch would be left mostly unsupervised during production.^[10] "After Dune I was down so far that anything was up! So it was just a euphoria. And when you work with that kind of feeling, you can take chances. You can experiment."^[3] Because the material was completely different from anything that would be considered mainstream at the time, Laurentiis had to start his own production company to distribute it.^[11]

The cast of Blue Velvet included several then-relatively unknown actors. Isabella Rossellini had gained some exposure before the film for her Lancôme ads in the early 1980s. Dennis Hopper was the biggest "name" in the film, having starred in Easy Rider (1969) and Apocalypse Now (1979), while Kyle MacLachlan had played the central role in Lynch's Dune (1984), a science fiction epic based on the novel of the same name, the film having been a critical and commercial failure. Dennis Hopper—said to be Lynch's third choice—accepted the role, reportedly having exclaimed, "I've got to play Frank! I am Frank!" as Hopper confirmed in the Blue Velvet "making-of" documentary The Mysteries of Love, produced for the 2002 special edition.^[10] For the role of Dorothy Vallens, Lynch met Isabella Rossellini at a restaurant, and she accepted the role.

The scene in which Dorothy appears naked outside was inspired by a real-life experience Lynch had during childhood when he and his brother saw a naked woman walking down a neighborhood street at night. The experience was so traumatic to the young Lynch that it made him cry, and he had never forgotten it.^[12] Principal photography of Blue Velvet began in February 1986 and completed in April. The film was shot at EUE/Screen Gems studio in Wilmington, North Carolina, which also provided the exterior scenes of Lumberton. The scene with a raped and battered Dorothy proved to be particularly challenging. Several townspeople arrived to watch the filming with picnic baskets and rugs, against the wishes of Rossellini and Lynch. However, they continued filming as normal, and when Lynch yelled cut, the townspeople had left. As a result, police told Lynch they were no longer permitted to shoot in any public areas of Wilmington.^[13]

Lynch's original rough cut ran for approximately four hours.^[10] He was contractually obligated to deliver a two-hour movie by De Laurentiis and cut many small subplots and character scenes.^[14] He also made cuts at the request of the MPAA. For example, when Frank slaps Dorothy after the first rape scene, the audience was supposed to see Frank actually hitting her. Instead, the film cuts away to Jeffrey in the closet, wincing at what he has just seen. This cut was made to satisfy the MPAA's concerns about violence. Lynch thought that the change only made the scene more disturbing. Long thought lost, Lynch announced in a radio interview on January 18, 2011 that footage from the deleted scenes has been discovered and should appear on the upcoming Blu-ray disc release of the film.^[15] The final cut produced by Lynch runs for just under two hours.

Interpretation[link]

Despite Blue Velvet's initial appearance as a mystery, the film operates on a number of thematic levels. The film owes a large debt to 1950s film noir, containing and exploring such conventions as the femme fatale (Dorothy Vallens), a seemingly unstoppable villain (Frank Booth), and the questionable moral outlook of the hero (Jeffrey Beaumont), as well as its unusual use of shadowy, sometimes dark cinematography.^[16] Blue Velvet represents and establishes Lynch's famous "askew vision,"^[17] and introduces several common elements of Lynch's work, some of which would later become his trademarks, including distorted characters, a polarized world, and debilitating damage to the skull or brain. Perhaps the most significant "Lynchian" trademark in the film is the depiction of unearthing a dark underbelly in a seemingly idealized small town;^[18] Jeffrey even proclaims in the film that he is "seeing something that was always hidden," thus alluding to the film's plot central idea. Lynch's characterization of films, symbols, and motifs have become well-known, and his particular style, characterised largely in Blue Velvet for the first time, has been written about extensively using descriptions like "ultraweird,"^[19] "dark,"^[20] and "oddball."^[21] Red curtains also show up in key scenes, specifically in Dorothy's apartment, which have since become a Lynch trademark. The film has been compared to Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) because of its stark treatment of psychotic evil.^[22] The premise of both films is curiosity, leading to an investigation that draws the lead characters into a hidden, voyeuristic underworld of crime.^[23]

The film's thematic framework hearkens back to Poe, James, and early gothic fiction, as well as films such as Shadow of a Doubt (1943) and The Night of the Hunter (1955) and the entire notion of film noir.^[24] Lynch has called it a "film about things that are hidden — within a small city and within people."^[25] Like many other Lynch films, Blue Velvet is immersed in pop culture imagery, both from the 1950s and the 1960s, as well as the 1980s.^[26]

Feminist psychoanalytic film theorist Laura Mulvey argues that Blue Velvet establishes a metaphorical Oedipal family — "the child", Jeffrey Beaumont, and his "parents", Frank Booth and Dorothy Vallens — through deliberate references to film noir and its underlying Oedipal theme.^[27][28] The resulting violence, she claims, can be read as symbolic of domestic violence within real families. For instance, Frank's violent acts can be seen to reflect the different types of abuse within families, and the control he has over Dorothy might represent the hold an abusive husband has over his wife.^[9] Michael Atkinson reads Jeffrey as an innocent youth who is both horrified by the violence inflicted by Frank, but also tempted by it as the means of possessing Dorothy for himself.^[9][29] Atkinson takes a Freudian approach to the film; considering it to be an expression of the traumatised innocence which characterises Lynch's work.^[9] He claims that "Dorothy represents the sexual force of the mother [figure] because she is forbidden and because she becomes the object of the unhealthy, infantile impulses at work in Jeffrey's subconscious".^[9]

Symbolism[link]

Symbolism is used very heavily in Blue Velvet.^[9] The most consistent symbolism in the film is an insect motif introduced at the end of the first scene, when the camera zooms in on a well-kept suburban lawn until it unearths a swarming underground nest of disgusting bugs. This is generally recognized as a metaphor for the seedy underworld that Jeffrey will soon discover under the surface of his own suburban, Reaganesque paradise.^[9] The severed ear he finds is being overrun by black ants. The bug motif is recurrent throughout the film, most notably in the horrific bug-like nitrous oxide mask that Frank wears, but also the excuse that Jeffrey uses to gain access to Dorothy's apartment: he claims to be an insect exterminator.^[9] One of Frank's sinister accomplices is also consistently identified through the yellow jacket he wears, possibly reminiscent of the name of a type of wasp.^[9] Finally, a robin eating a bug on a fence becomes a topic of discussion in the last scene of the film.^[9] The Robin, (as mentioned earlier by Sandy recounting her dream) represents love conquering evil.

The severed ear that Jeffrey discovers is also a key symbolic element;^[9] the ear is what leads Jeffrey into danger. Indeed, just as Jeffrey's troubles begin, the audience is treated to a nightmarish sequence in which the camera zooms into the canal of the severed, decomposing ear. Notably, the camera does not reemerge from the ear canal until the end of the film. When Jeffrey finally comes through his hellish ordeal unscathed, the ear canal shot is replayed, only in reverse, zooming out through Jeffrey's own ear as he relaxes in his yard on a summer day.

Soundtrack[link]

The Blue Velvet soundtrack was supervised by Angelo Badalamenti. Badalamenti makes a brief cameo appearance as the pianist at the Slow Club where Dorothy performs. The soundtrack makes heavy usage of vintage pop songs, such as Bobby Vinton's "Blue Velvet" and Roy Orbison's "In Dreams", juxtaposed with an orchestral score inspired by Shostakovich. During filming, Lynch placed speakers on set and in streets and played Shostakovich to set the correct mood he wanted to convey.^[10] The score makes direct quotations from Shostakovich's 15th Symphony, which Lynch had been listening to regularly while writing the screenplay.^[30]

Entertainment Weekly ranked Blue Velvet's soundtrack on its list of the 100 Greatest Film Soundtracks, at the 100th position. Critic John Alexander wrote, "the haunting soundtrack accompanies the title credits, then weaves through the narrative, accentuating the noir mood of the film."^[31] Lynch worked with music composer Angelo Badalamenti for the first time in this film and asked him to write a score that had to be "like Shostakovich, be very Russian, but make it the most beautiful thing but make it dark and a little bit scary."^[32] Badalamenti's success with Blue Velvet would lead him to contribute to all of Lynch's future full-length films until Inland Empire. Also included in the sound team was long time Lynch collaborator Alan Splet, a sound editor and designer who had won an Academy Award for his work on The Black Stallion (1979), and been nominated for Never Cry Wolf (1983).^[33]

Release and reaction[link]

Performance[link]

Blue Velvet premiered in competition at the Montréal World Film Festival in August 1986, and at the Toronto Film Festival on September 12, 1986, and a few days later in the United States. It debuted commercially in both countries on September 19, 1986, in 98 theatres across the United States. In its opening weekend, the film grossed a total of $789,409. It eventually expanded to another fifteen theatres, and domestically grossed a total of $8,551,228.^[34] It was also released internationally, in Australia, most of West Germany, China, Canada, Hong Kong, and Japan, followed by subsequent video releases. The film grossed $900,000 in Australia, and $450,139 in Hong Kong.

Lynch was nominated for a Best Director Oscar for the film.^[35] Isabella Rossellini won an Independent Spirit Award for the Best Female Lead in 1987. David Lynch and Dennis Hopper won a Los Angeles Film Critics Association award in 1987 for Blue Velvet in categories Best Director (Lynch) and Best Supporting Actor (Hopper). In 1987, National Society of Film Critics awarded Best Film, Best Director (David Lynch), Best Cinematography (Frederick Elmes), and Best Supporting Actor (Dennis Hopper) awards.^[25]

Critical reception[link]

The film received critical acclaim in the United States, with one critic claiming Blue Velvet would "cause a sensation."^[1][10] The film was included in The New York Times "10 Best Films of 1986" upon its release. Paul Attanasio of The Washington Post said "the film showcases a visual stylist utterly in command of his talents" and that Angelo Badalamenti "contributes an extraordinary score, slipping seamlessly from slinky jazz to violin figures to the romantic sweep of a classic Hollywood score", but claimed that Lynch "isn't interested in communicating, he's interested in parading his personality. The movie doesn't progress or deepen, it just gets weirder, and to no good end."^[36] The New York Times critic Janet Maslin expressed her admiration for the film, and directed much praise toward the performances of Hopper and Rossellini: "Mr. Hopper and Miss Rossellini are so far outside the bounds of ordinary acting here that their performances are best understood in terms of sheer lack of inhibition; both give themselves entirely over to the material, which seems to be exactly what's called for." She called it "an instant cult classic." Maslin concluded by saying that Blue Velvet "is as fascinating as it is freakish. It confirms Mr. Lynch's stature as an innovator, a superb technician, and someone best not encountered in a dark alley."^[37] Sheila Benson of the Los Angeles Times called the film "the most brilliantly disturbing film ever to have its roots in small-town American life." She called it "shocking, visionary, rapturously controlled."^[38]

Looking back in his Guardian/Observer review, critic Philip French wrote, "The film is wearing well and has attained a classic status without becoming respectable or losing its sense of danger."^[39] Peter Travers, film critic for Rolling Stone, named Blue Velvet the best film of the 1980s, and referred to the film as an "American masterpiece."^[1] Film critic Gene Siskel included Blue Velvet on his list of the best films of 1986, at #5. Nevertheless, Blue Velvet was not without its detractors. A general criticism from critics in the United States was the film's often vulgar approach to sexuality and violence that detracts from the film's serious side.^[40][41] One of the film's detractors, Roger Ebert, film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times, supported that view, although he praised Isabella Rossellini's performance as being "convincing and courageous." Ebert criticized how she was depicted in the film, even accusing David Lynch of misogyny: "degraded, slapped around, humiliated and undressed in front of the camera. And when you ask an actress to endure those experiences, you should keep your side of the bargain by putting her in an important film."^[40] During an online Q&A session in 2007, Ebert said he still had negativity regarding how Rossellini was depicted but said he should re-visit Blue Velvet and that David Lynch was a good director.^[42] In a Tweet honoring David Lynch's birthday, Ebert later revealed though he views Lynch as a great director, his feelings remain unchanged about Blue Velvet.^[43]

Legacy[link]

Although it initially gained a relatively small theatrical audience in North America and was met with controversy over its artistic merit, Blue Velvet soon became the center of a "national firestorm" in 1986, and over time achieved status as an American classic. In the late 1980s, and early 1990s, after its release on videotape, the film became a widely-known cult film, well known for its dark depiction of a suburban America.^[44] Followed by a myriad of VHS, Laserdisc and DVD releases, the film became more and more well-known among American audiences. It marked the entrance of David Lynch into the Hollywood mainstream and the comeback of Dennis Hopper after a significant hiatus from work. Its success has helped propel Hollywood mainstream toward more graphic displays of previously censored themes, a similar case to Psycho (1960) to which Blue Velvet has been frequently compared.^[22] It has become one of the most significant, well-recognized films of its era, spawning countless imitations and parodies in media. The film's dark, stylish and erotic production design has served as a benchmark for a number of films, parodies and even Lynch's own later work, notably Twin Peaks (1990–91), and Mulholland Drive (2001). Peter Travers of Rolling Stone magazine cited it as one of the most "influential American films", as did Michael Atkinson, who dedicated a book to the film's themes and motifs.^[1][9]

Blue Velvet now frequently appears in various critical assessments of all-time great films, also ranked as one of the greatest films of the 1980s, one of the best examples of American surrealism and one of the finest examples of David Lynch's work.^[9] In a poll of two American critics ranking the "most outstanding films of the decade", Blue Velvet was placed third and fourth, behind Raging Bull (1980), E.T. The Extra Terrestrial (1982) and the German film Wings of Desire (1987).^[45] An Entertainment Weekly book special released in 1999 ranked Blue Velvet at thirty-seventh greatest films of all time.^[46] The film was ranked by The Guardian in its list of the 100 Greatest Films.^[47] Film Four's ranked it on their list of 100 Greatest Films.^[47] In a 2007 poll of the online film community held by Variety, Blue Velvet came in at the ninety-fifth greatest film of all time.^[48] Total Film ranked Blue Velvet as one of the all time best films in both a critics list and a public poll, in 2006 and 2007, respectively. In December 2002, a UK film critics poll in Sight and Sound ranked the film #5 on their list of the 10 Best Films of the Last 25 Years.^[49] In a special Entertainment Weekly issue, 100 new film classics were chosen from 1983 to 2008: Blue Velvet was ranked at #4.^[50]

In addition to Blue Velvet's various "all time greatest films" rankings, the American Film Institute has awarded the film three honors in its lists: #96 on 100 Years... 100 Thrills in 2001, selecting cinema's most thrilling moments and ranked Frank Booth #36 of the 50 greatest villains in 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains in 2003. In June 2008, the AFI revealed its "Ten top Ten"—the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres—after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. Blue Velvet was acknowledged as the eighth best film in the mystery genre.^[51] Premiere magazine listed Frank Booth, played by Dennis Hopper, as #54 on its list of The 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time, calling him one of "the most monstrously funny creations in cinema history".^[52] The film was ranked #84 on Bravo Television's four-hour program 100 Scariest Movie Moments (2004).^[53] It is frequently sampled musically and an array of bands and solo artists have taken their names and inspiration from the film.^[54]

Blue Velvet was also nominated for the following AFI lists:

• AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs:
  • "In Dreams"
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition)

Blue Velvet also became the second David Lynch film to receive a Blu-Ray release in the United States when it was released on November 8, 2011 in a special 25th anniversary edition featuring never-before-seen deleted scenes.^[55]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Atkinson, Michael (1997). Blue Velvet. Long Island, New York.: British Film Institute. ISBN 0-85170-559-6.
• Drazin, Charles (2001). Blue Velvet: Bloomsbury Pocket Movie Guide 3. Britain. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 0-7475-5176-6.

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Blue Velvet (film)

• Blue Velvet at the Internet Movie Database
• Blue Velvet at Box Office Mojo
• Blue Velvet at Rotten Tomatoes

Blue Velvet may refer to:

• Blue Velvet (film), a 1986 film by David Lynch
  • Blue Velvet (film soundtrack), a soundtrack by Angelo Badalamenti for the 1986 film
• "Blue Velvet" (song), a popular song recorded by several artists
• Blue Velvet (album), a 1963 album by Bobby Vinton
• "Blue Velvet" (Shizuka Kudō song), a 1997 song by Shizuka Kudō
• Blue Velvet, a Japanese musical duo featuring Ayana and Shūichi Aoki
• Blue Velvet (Digital Project), an online history project about New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina
• Blue Velvet (band), an italin electro - industrial band

See also[link]

• Creedence Clearwater Revival, originally known as The Blue Velvets
• Paraglyphidodon oxyodon, commonly known as the Blue Velvet Damselfish
• Terana caerulea, commonly known as the Velvet Blue Spread
• Velvet Blue Music

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

David Lynch
David Lynch in 2007
Born	David Keith Lynch (1946-01-20) January 20, 1946 (age 66) Missoula, Montana, U.S.
Residence	Los Angeles, California
Nationality	American
Citizenship	United States
Education	School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Alma mater	Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, AFI Conservatory
Occupation	Film director, screenwriter, producer, painter, musician
Years active	1966–present
Notable work(s)	Twin Peaks, Mulholland Drive, Blue Velvet, The Elephant Man, Eraserhead
Style	Nonlinear, Psychological, Neo-noir, Surrealistic, Horror
Influenced by	Franz Kafka, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Stanley Kubrick, Nicolas Roeg, Federico Fellini, Alfred Hitchcock, Werner Herzog, Luis Buñuel, Billy Wilder, Jacques Tati, Ingmar Bergman, Roman Polanski, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Kenneth Anger, Maya Deren, Franz Kline, Jackson Pollock, Frances Bay
Influenced	Stanley Kubrick, Coen brothers,[1] Quentin Tarantino,[1] Darren Aronofsky, Jonathan Caouette, Adam Goldberg, Greg Harrison, Martin McDonagh, Jhonen Vasquez, Lars von Trier
Home town	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C.
Religion	none[2]
Spouse	Peggy Lentz (1967–1974) Mary Fisk (1977–1987) Mary Sweeney (2006) Emily Stofle (2009–present)
Partner	Isabella Rossellini (1986–1991)
Parents	Donald Walton Lynch, Edwina (nee Sundholm)

David Keith Lynch (born January 20, 1946) is an American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, comic book artist, musician and occasional actor. Known for his surrealist films, he has developed his own unique cinematic style, which has been dubbed "Lynchian", and which is characterized by its dream imagery, and meticulous sound design. The surreal, and in many cases violent, elements to his films have earned them the reputation that they "disturb, offend or mystify" their audiences.^[3]

Born to a middle class family in Missoula, Montana, Lynch spent his childhood traveling around the United States, before going on to study painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, where he first made the transition to producing short films. Deciding to devote himself more fully to this medium, he moved to Los Angeles, where he produced his first motion picture, the surrealist horror Eraserhead (1977). After Eraserhead became a cult classic on the midnight movie circuit, Lynch was employed to direct The Elephant Man (1980), from which he gained mainstream success. Then being employed by the De Laurentiis Entertainment Group, he proceeded to make two films: the science-fiction epic Dune (1984), which proved to be a critical and commercial failure, and then a neo-noir crime film, Blue Velvet (1986), which was highly critically acclaimed.

Proceeding to create his own television series with Mark Frost, the highly popular murder mystery Twin Peaks (1990–1992), he also created a cinematic prequel, Fire Walk With Me (1992); a road movie, Wild at Heart (1990) and a family film, The Straight Story (1999), in the same period. Turning further towards surrealist filmmaking, three of his following films worked on "dream logic" non-linear narrative structures, Lost Highway (1997), Mulholland Drive (2001) and Inland Empire (2006). Meanwhile, Lynch proceeded to embrace the internet as a medium, producing several web-based shows, such as the animation Dumbland (2002) and the surreal sitcom Rabbits (2002).

In the course of his career, Lynch has received three Academy Award nominations for Best Director,^[4][5][6] and a nomination for best screenplay. Lynch has twice won France's César Award for Best Foreign Film, as well as the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival^[7] and a Golden Lion award for lifetime achievement at the Venice Film Festival. The French government awarded him the Legion of Honor, the country's top civilian honor, as a Chevalier in 2002 and then an Officier in 2007,^[8] while that same year, The Guardian described Lynch as "the most important director of this era".^[9] Allmovie called him "the Renaissance man of modern American filmmaking",^[10] while the success of his films have led to him being labelled "the first popular Surrealist."^[11]

Life and career[link]

Early life: 1946–1965[link]

Lynch was born in Missoula, Montana on January 20, 1946.^[13][14] His father, Donald Walton Lynch, was a research scientist working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and his mother, Edwina "Sunny" Lynch (née Sundholm), was an English language tutor^[13] whose grandfather's parents had immigrated to the United States from Finland in the 19th century.^[15] Lynch was raised a Presbyterian.^[16][17] Due to Donald's job, the Lynch family often moved around according to where the Department of Agriculture assigned him. It was because of this that when he was two months old, David Lynch moved with his parents to Sandpoint, Idaho, and only two years after that, following the birth of his brother John, the family again moved, this time to Spokane, Washington. It was here that his sister Martha was born, before they once more moved, this time to Durham, North Carolina, then to Boise, Idaho and then to Alexandria, Virginia.^[14] Lynch found this transitory early life relatively easy to adjust to, noting that he found it fairly easy to meet new friends whenever he started attending a new school.^[18] Commenting on much of his early life, Lynch has remarked that "I found the world completely and totally fantastic as a child. Of course, I had the usual fears, like going to school… For me, back then, school was a crime against young people. It destroyed the seeds of liberty. The teachers didn't encourage knowledge or a positive attitude."^[19] Alongside this schooling, he joined the Boy Scouts, although he would later note that he only "became one so I could quit, and put it behind me." He rose to the highest rank of Eagle Scout. It was through being an Eagle Scout that he was present with other Boy Scouts outside of the White House at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy, which took place on Lynch's birthday in 1961.^[20]

Lynch had become interested in painting and drawing from an early age, becoming intrigued by the idea of pursuing it as a career path when living in Virginia, where his friend's father was a professional painter.^[21] At Francis C. Hammond High School in Alexandria, Virginia, he did poorly academically, having little interest in school work, but was popular with other students, and after leaving decided that he wanted to study painting at college, thereby beginning his studies at School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 1964, where he was a roommate of Peter Wolf.^[22] Nonetheless, he left after only a year, stating that "I was not inspired AT ALL in that place", and instead deciding that he wanted to travel around Europe for three years with his friend Jack Fisk, who was similarly unhappy with his studies at Cooper Union. They had some hopes that in Europe they could train with the expressionist painter Oskar Kokoschka at his school. Upon reaching Salzburg, however, they found that he was not available and, disillusioned, returned to the United States after spending only 15 days of their planned three years in Europe.^[23]

Philadelphia and short films: 1966–1970[link]

Back in the United States, Lynch returned to Virginia, but since his parents had moved to Walnut Creek, California, he was forced to stay with his friend Tony Keeler for a while, before he decided to move to the city of Philadelphia, where, at the advice of Jack Fisk, who was already attending it, he decided to enroll at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, something he preferred far more than his previous art college in Boston, claiming that "In Philadelphia there were great and serious painters, and everybody was inspiring one another and it was a beautiful time there."^[24] It was here that he began a relationship with a fellow student, Peggy Reavey, and they were married in 1967. The following year, Peggy gave birth to their child, a girl whom they named Jennifer. Later describing this situation, Peggy stated that "[Lynch] definitely was a reluctant father, but a very loving one. Hey, I was pregnant when we got married. We were both reluctant."^[25] As a family, they moved to the Fairmount neighborhood of Philadelphia, where they were able to purchase a large 12-room house for a relatively low $3,500 due to the high crime and poverty rates in the area. Later describing living there, Lynch stated that "We lived cheap, but the city was full of fear. A kid was shot to death down the street… We were robbed twice, had windows shot out and a car stolen. The house was first broken into only three days after we moved in… The feeling was so close to extreme danger, and the fear was so intense. There was violence and hate and filth. But the biggest influence in my whole life was that city."^[26] Meanwhile, in order to help financially support his family alongside his art studies, he took up a job printing engravings.^[27]

It was at the Philadelphia Academy that Lynch made his first short film, which was entitled Six Men Getting Sick (1966). He had first come up with the idea when he developed a wish to see his paintings move, and he subsequently began discussing the idea of creating an animation with an artist named Bruce Samuelson. When this project never came about, Lynch decided to work on a film alone, and so purchased the cheapest 16mm camera that he could find in order to do so. Taking one of the abandoned upper rooms of the Academy as a working space, he spent $200 – which at the time he felt to be a lot of money – to produce Six Men Getting Sick.^[28] Describing the work as "57 seconds of growth and fire, and three seconds of vomit", Lynch played the film on a loop at the Academy's annual end-of-year exhibit, where it shared joint first prize with a painting by Noel Mahaffey.^[29][30] This led to a commission from one of his fellow students, the wealthy H. Barton Wasserman, who offered him $1000 to create a film installation in his home. Spending $478.28 of that on purchasing the second-hand Bolex camera "of [his] dreams," Lynch produced a new animated short, but upon getting the film developed, realized that the result was simply a blurred, frameless print. As he would later relate, "So I called up Bart [Wasserman] and said, 'Bart, the film is a disaster. The camera was broken and what I've done hasn't turned out.' And he said, 'Don't worry, David, take the rest of the money and make something else for me. Just give me a print.' End of story."^[31]

Using this leftover money, Lynch decided to experiment on making a work that was a mix of animation with live action, producing a four minute short entitled The Alphabet (1968). The film starred Lynch's wife Peggy as a character known as The Girl, who chants the alphabet to a series of images of horses before dying at the end by hemorrhaging blood all over her bed sheets. Adding a sound effect, Lynch used a broken Uher tape recorder to record the sound of his baby daughter Jennifer crying, creating a distorted sound that Lynch felt to be particularly effective. Later describing where he had got inspiration for this work from, Lynch stated that "Peggy's niece was having a bad dream one night and was saying the alphabet in her sleep in a tormented way. So that's sort of what started The Alphabet going. The rest of it was just subconscious."^[30][32]

Learning about the newly founded American Film Institute, which gave grants to film makers who could produce for them both a prior work and a script for a new project, Lynch decided to send them a copy of The Alphabet along with a script that he had written for a new short film, one that would be almost entirely live action, and which would be entitled The Grandmother.^[33] The Institute agreed to help finance the work, initially offering him $5000, out of his requested budget of $7,200, but later granting him the further $2,200 which he needed. Starring people he knew from both work and college and filmed in his own house,^[34] The Grandmother revolved around the story of a neglected boy who "grows" a grandmother from a seed to care for him. The film critics Michelle Le Blanc and Colin Odell later remarked that "this film is a true oddity but contains many of the themes and ideas that would filter into his later work, and shows a remarkable grasp of the medium".^[35]

[edit] Los Angeles and Eraserhead: 1971–1979

The poster for Eraserhead, featuring the film's protagonist, Henry (Jack Nance).

In 1971 Lynch moved with his wife and daughter to Los Angeles, where he began studying filmmaking at the AFI Conservatory, a place that he would later describe as being "completely chaotic and disorganized, which was great… you quickly learned that if you were going to get something done, you would have to do it yourself. They wanted to let people do their thing."^[36] He began writing a script for a proposed work entitled Gardenback, which had "unfolded from this painting I'd done." In this venture he was supported by a number of figures at the Conservatory, who encouraged him to lengthen the script and add in more dialogue, something that he reluctantly agreed to do. Nonetheless, with all the interference on his Gardenback project, he became fed up with the Conservatory and announced that he was quitting. Attempting to prevent this, many of the teachers at the center asked him to reconsider, believing that he was one of their best students, and he finally agreed, albeit on the condition that he could create his own project that would not be interfered with. Feeling that Gardenback was "wrecked", he instead set about on a new film, which he called Eraserhead.^[37]

Despite the fact that the film was planned to be about forty-two minutes long (it ended up being eighty-nine minutes long), the script for Eraserhead was only 21 pages long, and some of the teachers at the Conservatory were concerned that the film would not be a success with such little dialogue and action. Nonetheless, they agreed not to interfere as they had done with Gardenback, and as such Lynch was able to create the film free from interference. Filming, which began in 1972, took place at night in some abandoned stables, allowing the production team, which was largely Lynch and some of his friends, including Sissy Spacek, Jack Fisk, cinematographer Frederick Elmes and sound designer Alan Splet to set up a camera room, green room, editing room, sets as well as a food room and a bathroom.^[38] Initially, funding for the project came from the AFI, who gave Lynch a $10,000 grant, but it was not enough to complete the work, and under pressure from studios after the success of the relatively cheap feature film Easy Rider, they were unable to provide him with any more. Following this, Lynch was also supported by a loan given to him by his father, and by money that he was able to bring in from a paper route that he took up delivering the Wall Street Journal.^[39] Not long into the production of Eraserhead, Lynch and his wife Peggy amicably separated and divorced, and so he began living full-time on set. In 1977, Lynch would remarry, this time to a woman named Mary Fisk.^[40]

Filmed in black and white, Eraserhead tells the story of a quiet young man named Henry (Jack Nance) living in a dystopian industrial wasteland, whose girlfriend gives birth to a deformed baby whom she leaves in his care. The baby constantly cries, eventually leading to its accidental death, at which the world itself begins to fall apart. Lynch has consistently refused to either confirm or deny any interpretation of Eraserhead, or to "confess his own thinking behind the many abstractions in the film."^[41] Nonetheless, he admits that it was heavily influenced by the fearful mood of Philadelphia, and referred to the film as "my Philadelphia Story".^[42][43]

It was due to the financial problems with the production of Eraserhead that filming was haphazard, regularly stopping and starting again. It was in one such break in 1974 that Lynch created a short film entitled The Amputee, which revolved around a woman with two amputated legs (played by Jack Nance's wife, Catherine Coulson) reading aloud a letter and having her stumps washed by a doctor (played by Lynch himself).^[44][45]

Eraserhead was finally finished in 1976, after five years of production. Lynch subsequently tried to get the film entered into the Cannes Film Festival, but while some reviewers liked it, others felt that it was awful, and so it was not selected for screening. Similarly, reviewers from the New York Film Festival also rejected it, though it was screened at the Los Angeles Film Festival, where Ben Barenholtz, the distributor of the Elgin Theater, heard about it.^[46] He was very supportive of the movie, helping to distribute it around the United States in 1977, and Eraserhead subsequently became popular on the midnight movie underground circuit,^[41] and was later described as one of the most important midnight movies of the seventies along with El Topo, Pink Flamingos, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Harder They Come and Night of the Living Dead.^[47] The acclaimed film maker Stanley Kubrick said that it was one of his all-time favorite films.^[48]

[edit] The Elephant Man and mainstream success: 1980–1982

After the cult success of Eraserhead on the underground circuit, Stuart Cornfeld, an executive producer for Mel Brooks, saw it and later remarked that "I was just 100 per cent blown away… I thought it was the greatest thing I'd ever seen. It was such a cleansing experience."^[49] Contacting Lynch, he agreed to help him with his next planned project, a film entitled Ronnie Rocket for which Lynch had already written a script. Nonetheless, Lynch soon realized that Ronnie Rocket, a film that he described as being about "electricity and a three-foot guy with red hair", was not going to be picked up by any financiers, and so he asked Cornfeld to find him a script written by someone else which he could direct. Cornfeld went away and found him four possible scripts, but upon hearing the title of the first, The Elephant Man, Lynch was already sure that that was the script for him, going on nothing but the title.^[50]

The Elephant Man script – written by Chris de Vore and Eric Bergren – was based upon a true story, that of Joseph Merrick, a heavily deformed man living in Victorian London, who was held in a sideshow but was later taken under the care of a London surgeon, Frederick Treves. Lynch wanted to film it, but at the same time also had to make some alterations that would alter the story from true events, but in his view make a better plot.^[51] However, in order to do so he would have to get the permission of Mel Brooks, whose company, BrookFilms, would be responsible for production; subsequently Brooks viewed Eraserhead, and after coming out of the screening theatre, embraced Lynch, declaring that "You're a madman, I love you! You're in."^[52]

The resulting film, The Elephant Man, starred John Hurt as John Merrick (his name was changed from Joseph), as well as Anthony Hopkins as Frederick Treves. Filming took place in London, and Lynch brought his own distinctively surrealist approach to the film, filming it in color stock black and white, but nonetheless it has been described as "one of the most conventional" of his films.^[53] The Elephant Man was a huge critical and commercial success, and earned eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay for Lynch personally.^[54]

[edit] The De Laurentiis films, Dune and Blue Velvet: 1983–1986

Following on from the success of The Elephant Man, the film maker George Lucas, himself a fan of Eraserhead, offered Lynch the opportunity to direct the third film in his Star Wars trilogy, Return of the Jedi. Lynch however refused, arguing that Lucas should direct the film himself as the movie should reflect his own vision, not Lynch's take on it.^[43][55] Soon after however, the opportunity to direct another big-budget science fiction epic arose when Dino de Laurentiis of the De Laurentiis Entertainment Group asked him to create a film adaptation of Frank Herbert's science fiction novel Dune (1965).^[55] Lynch agreed, and in doing so was also contractually obliged to produce two other works for the company. He then set about writing a script based upon the original novel, initially with both Chris de Vore and Eric Bergren, and then just by himself when De Laurentiis wasn't happy with their ideas.^[56] Lynch also helped build some of the sets, attempting to create "a certain look" for the film, and he particularly enjoyed building the set for the oil planet of Giedi Prime, for which he "used steel, bolts, and porcelain to construct" it.^[57]

Dune is set in the far future, when humans live in an interstellar empire run along a feudal system. The main character, Paul Atreides (played by Kyle MacLachlan), is the son of a noble who takes control of the desert planet Arrakis which grows the rare spice melange, the most highly prized commodity in the empire. Lynch however was unhappy with the work, later remarking that "Dune was a kind of studio film. I didn’t have final cut. And, little by little, I was subconsciously making compromises" to his own vision.^[58] He produced much footage for the film that was eventually removed out from the final theatrical cut, dramatically condensing the plot.^[59] Although De Laurentiis hoped it would be as successful as Star Wars, Lynch's Dune (1984) was a critical and commercial dud; it had cost $45 million to make, and grossed a mere $27.4 million domestically. Later on, Universal Studios released an "extended cut" of the film for syndicated television, containing almost an hour of cutting-room-floor footage and new narration. Such was not representative of Lynch's intentions, but the studio considered it more comprehensible than the original two-hour version. Lynch objected to these changes and had his name struck from the extended cut, which has "Alan Smithee" credited as the director and "Judas Booth" (a pseudonym which Lynch himself invented, inspired by his own feelings of betrayal) as the screenwriter.^[60]

Meanwhile in 1983 he had begun the writing and drawing of a comic strip, The Angriest Dog in the World, which featured unchanging graphics of a tethered dog that was so angry that it could not move, alongside cryptic philosophical references. It ran from 1983 until 1992 in the Village Voice, Creative Loafing and other tabloid and alternative publications.^[61] It was around this period that Lynch also got increasingly interested in photography as an art form, and travelled to northern England to take photos of the degrading industrial landscape, something that he was particularly interested in.^[62]

Following on from Dune, Lynch was contractually still obliged to produce two other projects for De Laurentiis: the first of these was a planned sequel, which due to the film's lack of success never went beyond the script stage.^[56] The other was a more personal work, based upon a script that Lynch had been working on for some time. Developing from ideas that Lynch had had since 1973, the resulting film, Blue Velvet, was set in the fictional town of Lumberton, USA, and revolves around a college student named Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan), who finds a severed ear in a field. Subsequently investigating further with the help of friend Sandy (Laura Dern), he uncovers that it is related to a criminal gang led by psychopath Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper), who has kidnapped the husband and child of singer Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini) and repeatedly subjects her to rape. Lynch himself characterizes the story as "a dream of strange desires wrapped inside a mystery story."^[63]

For the film, Lynch decided to include pop songs from the 1950s, including "In Dreams" by Roy Orbison and "Blue Velvet" by Bobby Vinton, the latter of which was largely inspirational for the film, with Lynch stating that "It was the song that sparked the movie… There was something mysterious about it. It made me think about things. And the first things I thought about were lawns – lawns and the neighbourhood."^[64] Other music for the film was also produced, this time composed by Angelo Badalamenti, who would go on to produce the music for most of Lynch’s subsequent cinematic works.^[65] Dino de Laurentiis loved the film, and it achieved support from some of the early specialist screenings, but the preview screenings to a mainstream audience were instead highly negative, with most of the audience hating the film.^[66] Although Lynch had found success previously with The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet's controversy with audiences and critics introduced him into the mainstream, and became a huge critical and moderate commercial success. The film earned Lynch his second Academy Award nomination for Best Director. Woody Allen, whose film Hannah and Her Sisters was nominated for Best Picture, said that Blue Velvet was his favorite film of the year.^[67]

[edit] Twin Peaks, Wild at Heart and Fire Walk With Me: 1987–1996

Lynch at the 1990 Emmy Awards ceremony.

During the late 1980s, Lynch had begun to work in television as well as cinema, directing a short piece entitled The Cowboy and the Frenchman for French television in 1989.^[68] Around this time, he met the television producer Mark Frost, who had formerly worked on such projects as the television police series Hill Street Blues, and they decided to start working together on a biopic of singer and actress Marilyn Monroe based upon Anthony Summers's book, The Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe. While this project never got off the ground, the duo went on to work on a comedy script entitled One Saliva Bubble, but that did not see completion either.^[69][70] It was while they were talking in a coffee shop that Lynch and Frost both had the idea of a corpse washing up on the shore of a lake, and using this image as a basis subsequently set about on their third project, which they initially named Northwest Passage but which would eventually come to fruition as the television series Twin Peaks (1990–1991).^[71] A drama series set in a small Washington town where popular high school student Laura Palmer has been raped and murdered, Twin Peaks featured FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) as the investigator trying to unearth the killer, and discovering not only the supernatural elements to the murder but also the secrets of many of the local townsfolk – as Lynch himself summed it up, "The project was to mix a police investigation with the ordinary lives of the characters." In plotting out the series, Lynch later related that "[Mark Frost and I] worked together, especially in the initial stages. Later on we started working more apart." They subsequently pitched the series to the ABC Network, who agreed to finance the pilot episode, and once this was completed they also commissioned the first season, which comprised seven episodes.^[72]

A second season went into production soon after, which would last for a further 22 episodes. In all, Lynch himself only directed six episodes out of the whole series due to other responsibilities, namely his work on the film Wild at Heart (see below), but carefully chose those other directors whom he entrusted with the job.^[73] Meanwhile, Lynch also appeared in several episodes of the series, acting in the role of deaf FBI agent Gordon Cole. The series was a success, with high viewing figures both in the United States and in many nations abroad, and soon spawned a cult following. Nonetheless, the executives at the ABC Network, believing that public interest in the show was decreasing, insisted that Lynch and Frost reveal who the killer of Laura Palmer was prematurely, something that they only begrudgingly agreed to do,^[74] and Lynch has always felt that agreeing to do so is one of his biggest professional regrets.^[75] Following the revealing of the murderer and the series' move from Thursday to Saturday night on the ABC Network, Twin Peaks continued on for several more episodes, but following a ratings drop was cancelled. Lynch, who disliked the direction that the writers and directors had taken in the previous few episodes, chose to direct the final episode, which he ended on a cliffhanger, later stating that "that's not the ending. That's the ending that people were stuck with."^[76]

While Twin Peaks was in production, the Brooklyn Academy of Music asked Lynch and the composer Angelo Badalamenti, who had been responsible for the music in Twin Peaks, to create a theatrical piece which would only be performed twice at their academy in New York City in 1989 as a part of the New Music America Festival. The result was Industrial Symphony No. 1: The Dream of the Broken Hearted, which starred such frequent Lynch collaborators as Laura Dern, Nicolas Cage and Michael J. Anderson as well as containing five songs sung by Julee Cruise. David Lynch produced a fifty-minute video of the performance in 1990.^[77] Meanwhile, Lynch was also involved in the creation of various commercials for different companies, including perfume companies like Yves Saint Laurent, Calvin Klein and Giorgio Armani and for the Japanese coffee company Namoi, the latter of which involved a Japanese man searching the town of Twin Peaks for his missing wife.^[78]