Blue Velvet Opening Sequence Analysis
The opening title fades into the blue sky, already linking itself with
the title, which pans down leaving red roses, a white picket fence and the blue
sky in the shot. A lot can be taken from these three items, for example. The
white picket fence promotes innocence and an ideal home; it makes us believe
that the neighbourhood is peaceful and is a paradise of sorts. The red roses
connote love and passion and are the typical item displayed in films revolving
around love and romance and Blue Velvet is the complete opposite of this. Also,
the colours of these items: red, white, blue, are the colours of the American
flag so it is suggesting that this neighbourhood is playing on the theme of an
‘American Dream’. These connotations juxtapose what is about to happen later on
in the opening sequence. The freedom associated with America in this film is bad as the freedom allows bad things to happen in the film and can be seen as a justification for some of the actions made by the characters.
The next
shot is a 1950s fire truck driving down the street whilst a fireman is on the
side, with his dog, waving at what we can presume would be residents of the
neighbourhood. The truck is in no rush to go anywhere and is just casually
cruising, further connoting this idea of a paradise. Following this is a
flowerbed, once more lined with a white picket fence, school children crossing
a road guided by what is a ‘lollypop lady’ to us and then it cuts to a typical
American home. All these connote innocence and perfection, setting up the scene
for what would be a perfect family film which is very much wrong as the general basis of the film is strange and twisted.
After this it cuts to an elderly gentlemen casually watering his freshly
trimmed and well-kept lawn with one hand in his pocket before cutting to the
inside of his house where we see a woman, who can presume to be his wife,
drinking tea and relaxing on the sofa watching television. It seems like
they’re living in an ideal work where she doesn’t need to the stereotypical
housework. On the television, she is watching a black and white film and the
only scene we see is that of a gun in someone’s hand which is foreshadowing the
event that is about to come. After this, the whole ‘perfection’ idea soon
changes. We see the tap where he is getting the water from not working properly
as it is spewing water out sideways rather than down the hosepipe. The pressure in the valve can be representative of the blood pressure of the man which is clearly raising as we can see him beginning to stress. The elderly
gentlemen begins to wrestle with this hose presuming that the lack of water is
due to the kink in it as it is also wrapped around a small branch. As he
struggles to free the hose he suddenly collapses making gargling sounds as he
falls to the only muddy part of the lawn having a stroke. All the fast cuts
between his hose, the knot in the hose and the tap/valve on the wall where the
pressure is increasing causes the tension in the scene to rise before reaching
its ultimatum.
Following this, a rather ‘comedic’ set of events occur. There is an out
of focus, slow motion shot, of the hose spraying water everywhere followed by a
long shot of the man on the floor whilst a little Jack Russel bounces up and
down on his groin area trying bit the water spraying out of the hose while a
baby innocently stumbles down the driveway with its gaze fixed upon the scene
taking place. To end this sequence there
is a slow motion close up of the dog ‘biting’ the water. This, like the gun,
foreshadows what will happen throughout the film as you see the dog snarling
and showing its teeth as it pounces onto the water with a lethal bite.
To end this opening sequence, we have what is almost a POV shot as the
camera tracks through the grass all whilst zooming in constantly onto what is
revealed finally as some cockroaches. Whilst this scene is happening there is a
typically disgusting sound of ‘creepy crawlies’ squelching and clicking as they
move.
There is a
non-diegetic backing track across the entire sequence starting off with the
song ‘Blue Velvet’ whilst everything is perfect and prelapsarian before fading
out into a more industrial sound as things escalate (the gun on TV, the water
spraying out of the tap etc.) before cutting to final scene with the diegetic
sound of the cockroaches moving around.
The whole
of the first part of the opening sequence is slightly out of focus and lit
softly. Along with the dissolves and other transitions this makes it seem a lot
like a dream or a memory rather than real life.
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