In a present-day film economy where director-screenwriter David Lynch can’t find funding for his next work, it feels like a relief that Blue Velvet got made when it did in 1986 (Ronnie Rocket, on the other hand, is evidently still ahead of its time). The mutedly colorful, quietly disturbing modern-noir masterpiece—which steps cautiously into the bosom of virtuous small-town USA, only to rip it apart with pulpy dollops of domineering sex, unspeakable violence, uncategorizable drugs, and pointedly anti-Heineken sentiment—is still as entrancing today as it was on the big screen nearly 40 years ago. From the uncertain savagery of Dennis Hopper’s Frank Booth to Kyle MacLachlan’s curious, corrupted innocent, to Isabella Rossellini’s…well, can we fully define everything that her Dorothy Vallens contains?—each actor and their daydream-turned-nightmare environment works to create the perfect, imperfect picture of suburbia at its most alluringly menacing.
So lustrous in its original incarnation, The Criterion Collection’s new 4K digital restoration with its 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack is like watching a gorgeous fresh sunflower turn golden, or a rose blossom into a deeper hue of red. And while an array of post-screening Blu-ray archival interviews and documentary extras—including a rare 2017 interview with the now-late composer and Lynch musical stalwart Angelo Badalamenti—are valuable, nothing in this Criterion package is more revealing than The Lost Footage, a 53-minute reel of deleted scenes and alternate takes assembled by Lynch that first reached the masses on YouTube before being bundled into Blue Velvet’s initial Criterion release in 2019. Like the search for Orson Welles’ pre-edited, full-cut of The Magnificent Ambersons, the rumors of additionally filmed but ultimately discarded scenes warranted one question: What could they look like as part of what we’ve come to know as Blue Velvet?
Rather than fill in those blanks, Lynch presents a curiosity closet filled with once-missing wonders—MacLachlan’s Jeffrey Beaumont getting his first glances at hidden horror before being called home to Lumberton, a silly subplot featuring his college girlfriend (played by Megan Mullally), a genuinely creepy bit featuring Jeffrey’s Aunt Barbara (Frances Bay) searching out termites, various nightclub scenes filled with lightbulb-pasty-clad strippers and hungry dogs—without specifying where the outtakes may have fit into Blue Velvet’s whole. When you consider a lengthy deleted scene of Frank Booth in a strip club doing his F-bomb-laden finest, it’s great to hear Hopper do his worst. But would more have been better within the context of the finished film? Watch it, then the edited-out bits, then the film again. I think you’ll find that Lynch masterfully sculpted what we know as Blue Velvet and left the fat—though tasty and fleshy—where it belongs: for us to savor as an optional dessert that never spoiled the main meal.
