Ian Kline on Blue Velvet

Why do you love this movie?

It reveals and embraces the underlying darkness in an environment which is uniquely American and one that is supposed to be tidy, put together, and safe. An environment that we are supposed to want and fall in line with. Through the darkness and uncomfortability Lynch also shows us there is light and beauty. You need the light and the dark, we cannot exist without the combination. There is a push and pull between innocence and corruption, Lynch shows us how murky the middle ground where we exist actually is, it’s not always black and white. Oh and Kyle MacLachlan and Laura Dern are hot as hell. 

How many times have you seen it?
I’ve lost count but probably somewhere in the low teens.

Do you remember where/how you first saw it?
I was 17 going into my senior year of high school, peak angst. I had been aware of Lynch through people referencing him in interviews, but I had never seen anything by him at that point. I’m not sure exactly what made me rent the movie this particular night, but I remember it was storming and dark, one of those end of summer storms, and I had this blue fuzzy chair in the corner of my bedroom that I never really used too much but I sat in it this night. After the opening scene in the yard where the father collapses and the baby is walking alone on the driveway I knew this movie was going to stick with me.    

If you could recast one role in this movie, which one and who would your replacement be?
Ok, I really tried to think of someone to at least humor you but I can’t imagine this movie with any variation in the cast. 

Favorite scene in the movie?
Heineken?! FUCK THAT SHIT. PABST. BLUE. RIBBON.

This is about to be Ian's local skatepark

Nominate this movie for a made-up Academy Award.
Most uncomfortable apartment scene. 

Is this peak Lynch?

Lynch has many peaks, this is one of them. Dune is not one of them.

Anything about it you don’t like?
That it is not streaming for free anywhere right now. 

Highlights?
Too many to list, but I do love the scene when Jeffrey (Kyle MacLachlan) stayed out all night in his car waiting to shoot photos of the man in the yellow suit with his makeshift hidden camera. I can empathize with that.  

Artwork by Holly Farrell

Can you be friends with someone who doesn’t like this movie?
I’d be interested in why they don’t like it, so yeah.

If you heard they were remaking this movie in 2020, would you be bummed?
I would not affiliate myself with any Blue Velvet remake.

Molly Ringwald was originally offered the Laura Dern role, but passed.  Conversely, Laura Dern auditioned for the role Ringwald would eventually play in the Breakfast Club.  Are you more of a Dern or a Ringwald?
Dern all day. 

This film takes place in Lumberton.  Twin Peaks centers around a sawmill and a log lady.  What’s with David Lynch and lumber?
It’s the American dream. A landscape built on labor that is specific yet universal to the construction of a blue collar, small town identity. 

Worst locals

If you found an ear in a field would you take an artistic photograph of it or would you focus more on capturing its context as a piece of evidence for the investigators?  Can you do both in the same image?
ACAB. I’d make a photo that felt like evidence but never served the larger purpose of useful evidence to law enforcement. An artistic photograph is evidence and evidence is an artistic photograph, the only thing that differentiates the two is the context in which the photograph is shown.  

How does the blind guy know how many fingers Kyle McLaughlin is holding up?
He is a prophet, Tiresias-esque 

Why isn’t that ledge in front of Laura Dern’s high school waxed?
David Lynch rolled his ankle pretty bad right before they started shooting the film. If it wasn’t for this he would have sauced it up and we woulda seen his infamous back smith in the extended cut. 

Have you ever uncovered a seedy underbelly?
I shouldn’t talk about this, for both of our sakes. 

At one point Helen Mirren was considered for the Dorothy Vallens role.  Is that movie better or worse?
It’s different. 

Lotta unseen activity in this one

Roger Ebert famously trashed this movie, but it clearly intrigued him.  Please read his 1986 review (https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/blue-velvet-1986) and tell me, what do you think of his take?
God I love a bad review, well maybe not bad but a critical review, I feel like they’re rare now, everybody wants to be nice and not actually say what they’re feeling even when everything should be held under a critical light once it is offered to the masses, that’s when it becomes so much more interesting. I get what he is saying but I also think he is being narrow minded. Yes, the movie is about these dark sexual desires and interests but that is really only part of it to me. Lynch needed to create this larger landscape of Lumberton filled with satire and varying narratives in the light to house the “darkness”, the counter to the white picket fence with a yard and 2.5 kids. The paint will always crack away from the fence.  

When Dennis Hopper first read the script he said “I’ve got to play Frank, because I AM Frank!” Does this make you want to hang out with him more or less?
I simultaneously want to hang with him and run away screaming. I’m intrigued by him.  

It’s never made clear when this movie takes place. Is this a period film?
I think it’s definitely a period film but small towns change slowly, if at all, so the period is one that actually represents decades.  

Was the Dorothy Vallens character always a masochist or did Frank turn her into one?
Masochism is everywhere, even if it is quiet in the corner, unassuming. Frank just pulled it into the light.