"Blue Velvet" and Cinematography

Paper Summary:

This paper examines the film, "Blue Velvet," directed by David Lynch. Specifically, it discusses mise-en-scene and cinematography in the film. It looks at how David Lynch is a master of the film noir, dark and brooding types of films that disturb, disquiet, and titillate, all at the same time, and how "Blue Velvet" is no exception. It discusses how the film is part blue porn flick, part girl-next-door love story, and part sadistic kidnapping, and how the elements all blend together to form a cohesive whole because of Lynch's masterful use of mise-en-scene staging and cinematography. "Blue Velvet," even with its happy ending, leaves the viewer wanting more, somehow and that, too, seems to be just what Lynch intended.

From the Paper:

"Mise-en-scene is a French term describing the "director's text" or staging of a film, and in "Blue Velvet," David Lynch's intricate and often surreal staging is an integral part of the film. He arranges space and time in the film with such dark and dreamlike qualities that the film can be nothing more than memorable and yet quite disturbing at the same time a true mark of Lynch's film and a tribute to his mise-en-scene. The most compelling visual motif in the film is of course the color blue. Lynch stages action around the color to keep it always in the memory of the viewers. The film opens with a sensuous scene of blue velvet fabric undulating on the screen, the theme continues from the background music to the clearly blue cigarette smoke issuing from the cigarettes of the characters, and in fact, Dorothy, the nightclub singer and sado-masochist, is known as "The Blue Lady" in her act."

More papers on "Blue Velvet" and Cinematography:

• Film Review # 52295 : "Blue Velvet"
• Term Paper # 100478 : "Blue Velvet" Motifs"
• Book Review # 95362 : "The Blue Hotel" and Mankind"

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