"Back to Normal" Blue Velvet

This scene is the last of the movie and occurs 1hr. and 55min. into the movie. This is the scene after Jeffrey kills Frank in Dorothy's apartment.

This scene begins with the camera slowly moving down to the outside of Dorothy's apartment, where police and ambulances have gathered. There are people running into the building in a frantic manner, finally cleaning up the final remains of the perverse world Jeffrey encountered. As this is happening the love music that played when Jeffrey and Sandy first kissed is playing the background and then it shows Jeffrey and Sandy reunited, kissing in the middle of the Dorothy's hall, an obvious indication that everything will be alright because they have found each other throughout this entire ordeal. There is a bright light shown upon them that only gets brighter, which is an allusion to Sandy's dream in which she describes the darkness that surrounded her clearing with a bright light and robins. Lynch uses this light as a transition to the next part of the scene which is a close up of Jefferey's ear. This ironic, in the sense that this is how Jeffrey discovered the dark and grim world behind his house. Now it is being used as an opening to the scene titled "Back to Normal." The camera then pans out to let the audience see Jeffrey lying on a hammock watching the sky, which he looks up and sees a robin in a tree, a symbol of the peace and love that has now entered Jeffrey's life and an indication how he is back to the pleasant and safe world he has always known. Jeffrey is called inside for lunch, as he goes in we see that members of Jeffrey's family and Sandy's family are talking and enjoying each others' company. Lynch intentionally showed this as a reinforcement of the weirdly perfect lives these people lead, where every member of the family gets along and hangs out with each other. In the kitchen, Jeffrey's grandmother and Sandy are making lunch, when they see a robin at the window sill. Jeffrey and Sandy both know that the robin is, as in her dream, a symbol of love and peace that now resembles their lives in their perfect world. The camera zooms into the robin and we see that it has a beetle in its mouth. This was a very powerful symbolization, that the peace and love (the robin) conquered the dark and destructive forces (the beetle, which had appeared underground in the first scene when Jeffrey's father has a stroke). Then we see the same images we saw in the opening of the movie, the roses and white picket fence, the fireman waving. Another clear indication that everything is "back to normal." The scene then moves onto see how Dorothy is after all this. We see her son with the hat Jeffrey had found playing with Dorothy watching him, then embracing him. As this is running, the song "Blue Velvet" is playing, but this time it is Dorothy singing it. The intention of this, I think, was to ensure that Dorothy had also escaped and the good really did triumph over evil, and now she will only "see blue velvet in [her] tears," when she remembers what she escaped. The camera pans up to the sky and transitions to the blue, velvet curtains, as in the beginning of the movie.

Though there were too many annoyingly obvious evidence/symbols that everything was okay, I liked how the movie ended. Lynch had the intention of making everything too normal, so the audience, not only could get the clear idea of good defeats evil, but also to balance out the movie. I thought the close-up of the robin with the beetle in its mouth was a really interesting and strong symbol that Lynch used. It sums up the entire movie in one shot and it was what I remembered most about this scene.