Classics Scenes #1: David Lynch’s “Blue Velvet”

Top10Films kicks off another new series with its first ‘Classic Scene’. This reoccurring feature will look at some of Hollywood’s most iconic, memorable, heartbreaking, horrific, frightening, awe-inspiring, death-defying, funny and, lets face it, bloody great scenes that live long in every audience that has witnessed them.

What better way to kick the series off with a tribute to late actor Dennis Hopper who passed away May 29, 2010. Of his many fantastic roles, few were as strange as his turn in David Lynch’s equally mind-boggling “Blue Velvet”. However, despite its strangeness Hopper was captivating in the role of sexual deviant Frank Booth. The character, without wanting to sound disparaging, seemed ready made for the Hollywood Hellraiser known for his rampant drug-taking, crazy and often violent antics, and promiscuous sexual habits.

In Top10Films Classic Scene #1 a curious Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) is the voyeur, hiding in Dorothy Vallens’ (Isabella Rosellini) closet as Booth inflicts another nitrous oxide-induced sexual act on Dorothy. Lynch, with the assured hand of a veteran director, paints a scene you are horrified by but cannot turn away from. We discover that Booth is keeping Dorothy’s husband captive in order to force sexual favours out of her. Dennis Hopper is the central focus of the scene – he’s foul-mouthed and violent, a sociopath with an anger that bubbles into uncontrollable rage.