STORY OF THE SHOT
Blue Velvet
THE INSIDE TRACK ON DAVI D LYNCH’S MOST TERRIFYING SCENE
WORDS ALEX GODFREY
THE ORIGIN
Blue Velvet lifts the lid on suburbia, revealing all of the underlying unpleasantness. And there is nobody in the film as unpleasant as Dennis Hopper’s psychotic, abusive, gas-glugging bastard, Frank Booth. Around 40 minutes in, Frank arrives at Dorothy Vallens’ (Isabella Rossellini) apartment, demands bourbon, calls himself ‘Daddy’, huffs a load of gas, and then calls himself ‘Baby’ while sexually assaulting her. He forbids Dorothy from looking at him, and punches her for doing so; that, explained Lynch, is because Frank doesn’t want to see his reflection in her eyes, to “come face to face with sickness”.