Richard Schickel's Review of Blue Velvet

I must say, I quite enjoyed reading Schickel's review of Blue Velvet. I think he accurately touched on the meaning of the movie and gave an entertaining review. I agree with him when he states that the story line is really of no importance. I like how he points out that there is no logic in the tale, but that its imagery will forever be embedded in my mind when thinking of this movie. For me, it was not that these images were disturbing, but rather the way they were created to satirize movies in general. I really liked how he recognizes the parody this movie makes on "fifty's teen romances" because that was one of the things that stood out to me as well. Like Schickel says, this movie forces us to remember that things have always been awful, but rarely were they ever portrayed that way. His qualifications as to why this is a parody greatly amused me, and I found it happened to be the same things that made me laugh during the movie. Take the scene where Dorothy is standing naked in Sandy's front lawn for example. As Schickel points out, this is "so traumatizing to everyone that they forget to throw a humane blanket over the poor creature, forcing her to stand around nude while the rest of the characters discuss what to do with her".

I think Schickel best sums up Blue Velvet by saying, "all movies become not representations of reality, but commentaries on it".