How Blue Vel­vet reflects the voyeuris­tic gaze of Rear Window

Tir­ty years on from the orig­i­nal release of Blue Vel­vet, in the cur­rent post-Snow­den era of mass gov­ern­men­tal sur­veil­lance rev­e­la­tions, it’s easy to feel nos­tal­gic for the days when you could sim­ply climb into someone’s wardrobe to learn what they get up to. Even in 1986, when David Lynch’s film was first released, spy­ing on ordi­nary cit­i­zens was becom­ing stan­dard prac­tice across cer­tain gov­ern­men­tal depart­ments, we just didn’t know it yet.

Cin­e­ma, of course, has been a voyeur’s game from the get go, with Alfred Hitchcock’s clas­sic 1954 film Rear Win­dow per­haps the purest dis­til­la­tion of this prin­ci­ple. It is in many ways an ide­al com­pan­ion piece to Blue Vel­vet. Owing to David Lynch’s fetishis­tic exam­i­na­tion of the ideals and con­tra­dic­tions of mid-cen­tu­ry Amer­i­ca, we can view Blue Vel­vet in this case as the urtext. But Rear Win­dow active­ly lives that peri­od, sly­ly tug­ging at the neat seams of 1950s soci­ety from within.

Through­out the film, every apart­ment that LB Jef­fries (James Stew­art) peers into offers a scep­ti­cal (if not whol­ly cyn­i­cal) look at rela­tion­ships. The new­ly­weds run the gamut from hon­ey­moon­er romance to mild resent­ment in the space of a week while the Thor­walds exhib­it so much resent­ment we, like Jef­fries, become con­vinced that one might be capa­ble of mur­der­ing the oth­er. On his own part, Jef­fries ini­tial­ly resists the lure of domes­tic­i­ty pre­sent­ed by his girl­friend Lisa (Grace Kel­ly), only relent­ing once she’s proven her worth by res­cu­ing a wed­ding ring – what else – from the Thor­walds’ apartment.

Blue Vel­vet sim­i­lar­ly presents the inno­cence of domes­tic­i­ty as noth­ing but a naïve fol­ly, the antithe­sis of the world’s strange­ness. Despite the sus­pi­cions this ide­al is observed with, it’s a state hap­pi­ly and eager­ly returned to after Jef­frey Beau­mont (Kyle MacLach­lan) has con­front­ed the dark, seduc­tive forces which threat­en to destroy the nuclear fam­i­ly. Smil­ing loved ones, wav­ing fire­man – the sheer Nor­man Rock­wellian nature of that hap­py end­ing is an acknowl­edge­ment of its seduc­tive arti­fi­cial­i­ty, as desired and unat­tain­able in 1986 as it was in 1954.

Both films also sug­gest that order is unat­tain­able in the mod­ern world. We must keep watch over one anoth­er because while our neigh­bours run amok, author­i­ty is unre­li­able at best. Rear Window’s police force proves use­less­ly dis­mis­sive until Jef­fries is left hang­ing from the tit­u­lar van­tage point, while Blue Velvet’s rev­e­la­tion that the Yel­low Man is a dirty cop under­mines the ide­alised notion of the thin blue line. Fam­i­ly, gen­der, author­i­ty: Lynch, Hitch­cock and writer John Michael Hayes all prod and ulti­mate­ly evis­cer­ate social mores from per­spec­tives only avail­able to society’s out­liers. And out­siders, as we know, are inher­ent­ly inclined to observe.

Though these sto­ries oper­ate in sim­i­lar ways and to sim­i­lar ends, the issue of voyeurism is depict­ed and reward­ed with marked dif­fer­ence. The nar­ra­tive thrust of Rear Win­dow relies on its cen­tral mys­tery. We’re nev­er more in the know than Jef­fries, and his obses­sion is fuelled by the ques­tion of what has hap­pened across the way. Blue Velvet’s Jef­frey is under no illu­sion as to what just hap­pened on the floor of Dorothy Val­lens’ (Isabel­la Rosselli­ni) apart­ment – it’s the why that draws him back. There’s an irony in the fact 30 years of change has changed very lit­tle. Actu­al­ly see­ing things has not quenched the voyeur’s curiosity.

Per­haps that’s because voyeurism is inher­ent­ly pas­sive. None of the films’ main char­ac­ters – the two Jeffs, Lisa or Blue Velvet’s Sandy (Lau­ra Dern) – are in any dan­ger until they tres­pass into the phys­i­cal space that holds their fas­ci­na­tion cap­tive, but ulti­mate­ly they are coaxed into harm’s way. See­ing isn’t enough. They have to know. Jef­fries express­es anx­i­ety when Lisa enters the Thor­walds’ apart­ment, despite urg­ing her to help him uncov­er the truth. Inevitably, she can­not resist the temp­ta­tion. It does help their cause, of course, but not before plac­ing them both in mor­tal danger.

When Jef­frey becomes an active play­er in the unfurl­ing of Blue Velvet’s strange tale, it is with some reluc­tance. He is dragged from Dorothy’s wardrobe – although he put him­self there – and he is dragged to Frank’s (Den­nis Hop­per) car hav­ing vol­un­tar­i­ly returned to Dorothy’s apart­ment. As a con­se­quence of this behav­iour he is beat­en, threat­ened and his nar­row world view shat­tered in an instant. The only rea­son he’s spared the ulti­mate pun­ish­ment is because he changes his mind about resolv­ing the Frank sit­u­a­tion him­self. This deci­sion saves him, both fig­u­ra­tive­ly and lit­er­al­ly, redeem­ing his ini­tial moral tres­pass and buy­ing him time to hide and final­ly defeat Frank.

Both Rear Win­dow and Blue Vel­vet find their Amer­i­can every­man, with min­i­mal con­sid­er­a­tion or hes­i­ta­tion, engag­ing in moral­ly dubi­ous activ­i­ties to solve crimes. Cinema’s long­stand­ing obses­sion with voyeurism ensures audi­ences are pre­dis­posed to for­give or at least mar­gin­alise ques­tion­able behav­iour from our heroes, lest we start feel­ing a lit­tle awk­ward about being com­plic­it our­selves. While Hitchcock’s film presents a pure refine­ment of the cin­e­mat­ic voyeur, with its neat lit­tle win­dows, frames and lens­es, Lynch’s grap­ples with a messier, ugli­er truth, one of frag­ile ten­sions between pas­siv­i­ty and com­plic­i­ty. A truth that says you can look – must look – but you can nev­er go back.