Blue
Velvet 4K
(1986/MGM/De Laurentiis/DEG/Criterion 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray
w/Blu-ray)/The
Offspring 4K
(2009) + The
Woman 4K
(2011/MVD/Arrow/4K Ultra HD Blu-rays)
4K
Ultra HD Picture: A & B+/B/B Sound: A & B/B-/B-
Extras: A/B Films: A/C/C+
Now
for 4K upgrades of some creepy films, one of which you have
definitely heard about...
As
much as I'd love to use this space to dig into how David Lynch's 1986
masterpiece Blue
Velvet
(now on 4K disc from Criterion!) is a dry run for Twin
Peaks
- underlying darkness rotting the veneer of small town contentment,
soapy dialogue and community dynamics, dream talk, doubling, fire;
the movie is set in a lumber town called, get this, Lumberton! - it's
been done. And I could rehash the plot, but that's available
elsewhere on this site.
What
I think is worth discussing as the film nears its 40th anniversary is
how Dennis Hopper seems to have been marginalized by the cult of
Lynch. I'm as much a Lynchian as the next off-center nonconformist
(even if it's getting harder to separate the real party people from
poser Letterboxd-dwelling film nerd-fluencers). It's tremendous fun
to watch nearly everything he made from Blue
Velvet
through Inland
Empire
as a singular Twin
Peaks
project. (The
Straight Story
is, obviously, the outlier.) But while watching Criterion's gorgeous
4K edition of Blue
Velvet,
I was struck by how remarkable Hopper is - and how we may have
forgotten it. Or, at least, taken it for granted.
Hopper's
black-leather-clad, black-Challenger-driving, bolo-tie-wearing Frank
Booth is a singular weirdo villain. Chewing on a piece of blue
velvet fabric, a security blanket for a perverted Linus. Screaming
about the virtues of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Huffing on an oxygen tank in
lieu of orgasming. Smearing lipstick on his face and kissing people
while threatening to haunt their dreams until the end of time.
Frank's energy is volatile, radioactive, Chernobylian. Anytime he's
on screen is dangerous - to other characters, but also the film.
When Frank shows up it feels like Blue
Velvet,
the physical movie itself, is under threat.
The
fact that this high-key anxiety attack defines the second half of the
two-hour film is astounding considering how little screen time Frank
gets. He's like the shark in Jaws.
He lurks, emerges and attacks, then recedes back into the shadows.
Every time this cycle repeats, his menace grows. And there's only
relief when Frank's head is blown off by the nerdy wannabe cop in
over his head. (Seriously, this character could be Bruce Booth.)
Yet
anytime Frank is around you can't look away. That's due to Hopper
and his singular weirdo vibe. His hairline, his eyes, his nose, his
mouth, his chin - all of it is sending different signals. None of
them are good, but some seem to betray a long-lost humanity in Frank.
Every part of Frank is in conflict with itself, a bearing only
Hopper could pull off.
Like
so many other actors of his generation - the ones who actually made
it out of their youth, more or less intact - Hopper knew how to use
his instrument, and he knew that it was a tool shellacked with years
of experiences. The knife-wielding delinquent from Rebel
Without a Cause
is in Frank. So is the drug-addled nutso from Easy
Rider.
And the maniacal burn out of Apocalypse
Now.
And the mournful outcast of Out
of the Blue.
It's such a multifaceted, nuanced performance, despite how
incredibly big it is. No one has screamed obscenities or expressed
lust or promised death with such scene-chewing gusto. At the same
time, no one else could pull off the quieter, interior moments, like
the loopy wordplay of getting Kyle MacLachlan's Jeffrey to go on a
"joyride" or the absolute journey he takes while standing
there, nearly mute and motionless, watching Dean Stockwell's truly
singular Ben lip sync to Roy Orbison's "In
Dreams."
One
of the challenges to Hopper's legacy is that, like Al Pacino, once he
went "big" he seemed to get lost in the vastness. Yes he
took paycheck jobs (looking at you, Super
Mario Bros.)
and I'm sure he regretted some parts and decisions. But it's hard to
dismiss everything as a once-great master who has lost the muse.
Maybe his muse just communicated on a different wavelength - one that
most people can't, and probably shouldn't, try to tune into.
But
it is true that, with the exception of Speed
and True
Romance,
Hopper never really connected with audiences again. Blue
Velvet
is a singular film. Frank Booth is a singular lowlife. And Hopper's
performance is a singular feat, one that's worth rescuing from the
cheap bombast and laugh lines film school students have consigned it
to.
If
Criterion's Blue
Velvet 4K
release can't canonize it, nothing will.
The
cache of extras included on the disc are the same as on the 2019
Blu-ray: The
Lost Footage,
53-minutes of deleted scenes and alternate takes; "Blue
Velvet"
Revisited,
a "meditation" on making the film shot during the
production; the 2002 making-of documentary *Mysteries
of Love*;
the 2019 documentary It's
a Strange World: The Filming of "Blue
Velvet;"
a 2017 interview with composer Angelo Badalamenti; Lynch reading from
his 2018 book Room
to Dream;
and a 30-page booklet.
It's
an exhaustive collection of material on an impeccable disc befitting
a stone-cold American classic.
For
more on
the film and to see the cover art, try this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/15472/All+About+Lily+Chou-Chou+(2001/Film+Movement
Andrew
van den Houten's The
Offspring 4K
(2009) and Lucky McKee's The
Woman 4K
(2011) have also been reissued in 4K, though that is a bit of a
surprise considering they are not as known as so many other films,
even within their genre. My fellow writer reviewed them on regular
Blu-ray from Arrow and I pretty much agree with him on these ones.
You can read more about them at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/15730/The+Offspring+(2009/MVD/Arrow+Blu-ray
Not
very memorable for me and no fan of McKee, whose 2008 Brian Cox
thriller Red
was co-directed, while van
den Houten has not directed since, doing some acting and a larger
chunk of producing. But the question is, do they really look better
in 4K? See below.
Extras
repeat the previous Arrow Blu-ray editions, listed at the link above.
Now
for playback performance. This is the best
Blue Velvet
has looked and sounded and probably ever will. Criterion released a
Blu-Ray in 2019 sourced from a Lynch-approved 4K digital restoration,
which is included in this package; see the link below, but the 4K
disc, which gives the source room to breathe and includes Dolby
Vision/HDR, is where you get your money's worth.Blue
Velvet
has an intentional and specific palette: vibrant primary colors for
the suburban homes and yards; muted earth tones for less populated
spaces; drab, washed out, almost gray hues for the bad parts of town.
And because this is Lynch, the film spends a lot of time in
darkness, both as a factual space and a setting for menace. The 4K
disc handles all of it beautifully. (When Laura Dern's Sandy emerges
from the dark, it's truly a holy revelation. I doubt it hit so hard
even on a pristine original print.) If there's a false frame here, I
didn't see it. Then again, I may have been too agog at how good this
film I know so well looks.
The
audio presentation is similarly exceptional. The 4K disc includes a
5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio (MA) lossless track, with the
original 2.0 Stereo Surround track also available in the same
lossless DTS format. I watched with 5.1 surround, and it does right
by Lynch's similarly intentional soundscapes. It immerses us in the
world of Lumberton, both the unexceptional everyday hubbub and the
terrifying horrors lurking on the fringes. The rattling garden hose
spigot and insect chewing that famously open the film have never,
ever sounded so primal or threatening. At the same time, it
illuminates facets of the soundtrack I hadn't appreciated before,
like how MacLachlan's scenes with Dern sound like they're talking on
a soundstage despite being on a real-life street. This is clearly a
function of post-production dubbing, but it adds an uncanny layer
that elevates the film.
The
2160p HEVC/H.265, 1.78 X 1, Dolby Vision/HDR (10; Ultra Ultra HD
Premium)-enhanced Ultra High Definition image transfers on The
Offspring 4K
and The
Woman 4K
somehow just manage to surpass the transfers on the older Arrow
Blu-rays from not that long ago and will never look better, while the
DTS-HD MA
(Master Audio) 5.1 and 2.0 Stereo lossless mixes repeat the
soundtracks from the prior releases and the films will still never
sound better either, so this is the way to go for the most serious
fans of the films and their makers.
-
Nicholas Sheffo and Dante Ciampaglia (Criterion)
