Blue Velvet

I have been analyzing movies to some degree for around four years now and surprisingly am learning much more in a rhetoric class than I have in film classes. Blue Vlevet came across to me as a community based patriotic movie but I could not figure out what the real argument was until we discussed it as a group. It becomes cleas that the director really wanted to emphasis that below a seemingly proud community lurks a form of darkness or danger under even the most innocent of animals or ways of living. For instance, when the dog seemed to be playing with the fire hose in an innocent manner, it was no until the camera cuts in and tilts downward to a slow motion shot that we realize that this innocent creature comes across as a beast of nature. Until finally, the final shot of the opening sequence strongly emphasises, if there were any doubt left, that this cover up outer shell that appears to be a peaceful community contains not onlydanger, but a grotesque form of evil as demonstrated by the extreme close ups of the ants in the grass.