Blue Velvet (1986)

 

Some filmmakers have such a distinctive style that we've come to call that style by their name: Hitchcockian, for example, or even Spielbergian. The late, great David Lynch belongs in that kind of rare company, as anyone could tell you after watching Blue Velvet (1986), a most distinctively Lynchian film. The film begins (and ends) with images of seemingly placid small-town existence, but then we burrow under the ground (literally and figuratively) and discover some rather harsh truths about such calm exteriors. The plot is a relatively straightforward narrative. In fact, it's quite linear in its method of storytelling, but as the film progresses, events just seem to get weirder and stranger and odder as we learn more and more about what's going on in the seemingly peaceful town of Lumberton. The trajectory of the story just keeps seem to keep getting farther and farther away from whatever we would consider realistic. Sadomasochism, sexual violence, murder, drug use, voyeurism -- it's really quite a list of vices that the film depicts. What constitutes "normal" begins to shift and morph until, at times, you wonder how you wound up in such a surreal environment. All of this begins with the rather common event of a young man (Kyle McLachlan, at the peak of his beauty, as Jeffrey Beaumont) returning home after his father has been hospitalized. You might be expecting a different story than what emerges, though, when Jeffrey discovers a severed human ear on the ground near his family home. He goes to the police, reconnects with a teenage girl he once knew (the lovely Laura Dern as Sandy in a very early screen appearance), and begins plotting to find out whose ear he located. That leads him to a nightclub singer (Isabella Rossellini's Dorothy Vallens, a brave and shocking performance) and the man who may have kidnapped her husband and son: Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper, giving all he has to the role). Frank is the catalyst who upends the narrative beyond recognition, and the film veers into some even darker, even weirder directions after his first appearance. None of this is necessarily meant to make you feel comfortable, by the way. What can you make of what happens in Blue Velvet? So much seems to be -- shall we say? -- off-kilter. Lynch was also the screenwriter for the film and what you see on the screen is his vision of... something. It's not always easy to comprehend the meanings of some of the images you see and the sounds you hear. I mean, you'll never quite listen to Roy Orbison's "In Dreams" the same again after watching Dean Stockwell and then Hopper lip synch to it. The same is also true for Bobby Vinton's "Blue Velvet," performed here multiple times by Rossellini. Then again, perhaps Lynch is trying to suggest to us that we've been seeing and listening to everything the wrong way anyhow. Like I said at the beginning, Lynchian. Indeed.

Oscar Nomination: Best Director (David Lynch)

Sunset Boulevard (1950)

 

Sunset Boulevard is such a wonderful masterpiece of a movie and one of my favorite films of all time. It was released as Hollywood was experiencing yet another one of its many transitional moments. After the end of World War II, the movie business focused more on darker themes and more downbeat subject matter. This is the period of film noir, after all, and Sunset Boulevard certainly does demonstrate some of the key traits of film noir. The year of its release was also about twenty-two years or so since "talking pictures" had taken over as the dominant approach to filmmaking, and Sunset Boulevard takes on the subject of what happened to the stars of that era who didn't (or couldn't or weren't allowed to) make the transition from silent films to talkies. It's quite the tale of what happens when Old Hollywood clashes with New Hollywood.

Normal Desmond (played by Gloria Swanson in one of the most famous and magnificent performances ever committed to film) was a huge star in the silent era. However, she never made the transition to talking pictures, and she resents how the industry has left her behind. She lives alone in a huge mansion on Sunset Boulevard, which was, incidentally, the street for the location of the first film studio in Hollywood, with just her one servant, Max (famed director Erich von Stroheim showing he has acting chops too). A failed or failing Hollywood screenwriter named Joe Gillis (William Holden in a breakout role) accidentally interrupts their years-long solitude and becomes intertwined in Norma's plans for a return to movies. (Don't you dare call it a comeback. In the words of L.L. Cool J, she's been here for years.) 

What follows is certainly film noir, but it’s also a rather bitter indictment of the film industry. It’s also a drama and a crime film and, at times, a very dark comedy. The performances are all top-notch. You have to wonder how anyone could mix genres so smoothly, but director and co-writer Billy Wilder was certainly capable. He even managed to take the oddest approach to voice-over narrative – having a corpse tell the story of what happened to him during the previous six months that led to his murder – and make it somehow make sense.

There's so much wonderful movie trivia associated with this film. Both von Stroheim and Cecil B. DeMille (who appears as himself in the film) really did direct Swanson during the silent era. In fact, the film that Norma and Joe watch is Queen Kelly (1928-29), a Stroheim-helmed film that was considered a box office flop upon its initial release. DeMille actually did call Swanson "young fellow" as a term of endearment back when they were making their earlier films, and she was prone to calling him "chief." Wilder did film on the actual Paramount Studios, and yes, that's the gate that you would enter from Melrose Avenue (although there's a much bigger gate now that you have to go through first). Schwab's is still in Hollywood (albeit in a somewhat different location), and many an aspiring actor tried their best to be discovered there the way that Lana Turner allegedly was. The mansion itself is the old Jenkins-Getty mansion – yes, THAT Getty – and the pool was to appear on film again a few years later in a pivotal scene in Rebel Without a Cause (1955).

The film pays homage to the silent era with lots of references and appearances by stars of that period in Hollywood. The so-called Waxworks who play bridge with Norma are all famous silent screen performers: Anna Q. Nilsson, H.B. Warner, and the great Buster Keaton, none of whom were particularly active in filmmaking at the time, certainly not at the level of their fame during the silent era. The film also features lots of references to other actors from the era, such as Rudolph Valentino and Wallace Reid. They even manage to get references to such contemporary stars as Tyrone Power, Alan Ladd, and Betty Hutton into a scene involving a pitch meeting. Hedda Hopper, who also plays herself in the film, was a failed actress herself (just don't say that to her face) who became one of the most famous gossip columnists in Hollywood. 

Sunset Boulevard also features some of the most famous and most quoted lines in movie history:

•  "Audiences don't know somebody sits down and writes a picture; they think the actors make it up as they go along."
• "We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!"
• “They’ll love it in Pomona.” “They’ll love it everywhere.”
• “No one ever leaves a star. That’s what makes one a star.”
• "The stars are ageless, aren't they?"
• "All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up."

I know that this film is a particular favorite of gay viewers, and those lines are at the ready for almost any occasion, but what movie lover doesn’t know these lines? It’s not restricted to those who view the film for its camp elements (although it certainly has those as well).

I have always found it interesting that the film reveals how much the transition to sound pictures affected performers, but not really anyone else. DeMille is still directing, the security guard at the Paramount gate is still the same, and the crew and supporting players seem to all be still active, don't they? It's a nice touch that during the scene in the movie studio, Norma's nemesis, the microphone, hits the feathers on her hat as it sails by. It's also quite intriguing that Wilder and co-writers Charles Brackett and D.M. Marshman Jr. chose to have the central performer be an actress rather than an actor. Perhaps they were commenting on the way that Hollywood treated/treats women as they age in the film industry. The montage showing Norma going through her beauty treatment preparations for a return to film would directly support that idea. Would a male actor need or want to undergo such scrutiny?

The film also comments upon issues of love and devotion. Max, Norma’s faithful servant, was a promising young director who gave up his career to be with the woman he married (before she divorced him for a second husband) and now keeps her distracted with fan mail that he sends to her. Joe begins to fall in love with Betty (Nancy Olson), the script reader who has aspirations to become a screenwriter herself, but he breaks her heart by telling her that he’s devoted to Norma and to being a kept man. There’s a lot of pain in these characters, and even with the darkness associated with their often-selfish behavior, it’s tough not to sympathize with them.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention one of my favorite aspects of the film, its production design. Norma Desmond’s mansion is spectacular. It’s filled with just what you’d expect someone from the silent era to include, like a tile dance floor because Valentino said that was better than using wood for the floor. Norma is also surrounded by pictures and portraits of herself, indications of just how narcissistic she is as well as how big a star she was, and watching her own films on her very own movie screen just cements that impression. Many years ago, I saw the stage production of the musical version of Sunset Boulevard (in Los Angeles before it made it to New York for its Broadway premiere), and the set received a standing ovation when it was revealed. It just perfectly recreated what we had seen in the film. The Oscar for art direction that the film received was well deserved.

Sunset Boulevard was nominated for eleven Academy Awards, winning three (Best Story and Screenplay, Best Black-and-White Art Direction, and Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture). All four of the principal actors were nominated for their performances, but sadly, none of them won. It was quite the year for Hollywood, what with All About Eve, Born Yesterday, Father of the Bride, King Solomon’s Mines, Caged, and so many more classics up for awards consideration. The three awards for Sunset Boulevard was second only to the six won by All About Eve. The film was among the first group of films selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress' National Film Preservation Board. It's regularly cited as one of the greatest films of all time and deservedly so.

Oscar Wins: Best Story and Screenplay, Best Black-and-White Art Direction, and Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture

Other Oscar Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director (Billy Wilder), Best Actress (Gloria Swanson), Best Actor (William Holden), Best Supporting Actress (Nancy Olson), Best Supporting Actor (Erich von Stroheim), Best Black-and-White Cinematography, and Best Film Editing