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DILLON ON FILM
Blue Velvet: 40 Years On
David Lynch’s 1986 crime mystery masterpiece remains a bracingly disturbing watch
Warning: Contains spoilers
My first exposure to David Lynch’s 1986 masterpiece Blue Velvet was during my A- Level Media Studies class at the tender age of 16. In those days (the early 1990s), UK higher education institutions such as the one I attended didn’t feel the need for legalistic adherence to the dictates of the British Board of Film Classification, which had granted Blue Velvet an 18 certificate (equivalent to R or NC-17 for American readers). It was felt, rightly in my view, that sixteen-year-old students who had elected to study media should expect to see a few shocking and challenging films, regardless of how the BBFC had classified them.
How times have changed. Back then, so-called trigger warnings, if issued, were issued with tongue firmly in cheek and greeted with snorts of derision from everyone in my year. I remember being warned by our beloved, now sadly deceased, Media Studies teacher that Blue Velvet was one of those films. Such collective bravado aside, I have to admit, I wasn’t prepared for the onslaught of violent kinky darkness that ensued. But I love films that scar, and Blue Velvet certainly left a few scars. We viewed the film in two halves…
