The Corner Penthouse

Criterion is set to release the Blue Velvet (1986) 4K UHD + Blu-ray on June 25th. Read on to find out more about it...

[ SYNOPSIS ]

Home from college, Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) makes an unsettling discovery: a severed human ear, lying in a field. In the mystery that follows, by turns terrifying and darkly funny, writer-director David Lynch burrows deep beneath the picturesque surfaces of small-town life. Driven to investigate, Jeffrey finds himself drawing closer to his fellow amateur sleuth, Sandy Williams (Laura Dern), as well as their person of interest, lounge singer Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini) - and facing the fury of Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper), a psychopath who will stop at nothing to keep Dorothy in his grasp.

[ SPECIFICATIONS ]

The movie is presented in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio with a runtime of 2:00:31. The movie has been rated R. Audio languages include English. Subtitle languages include English SDH.

It needs to be noted that the movie on both discs does not have any chapter marks because director David Lynch doesn't want chapters in his movies on home media. He's had this done before with his other movies on various disc formats because Lynch believes that a film is meant to be experienced as a temporal whole in the time allotted and should not be broken up. Lynch believes that the experience of its running length itself is as important as the sound and image. Several of the lengthy special features (listed below) also lack chapter marks, but I doubt that had anything to do with Lynch's consumer-unfriendly beliefs.

[ SPECIAL FEATURES ]

All of the content listed below can be found the Blu-ray disc. The 4K disc only contains the movie. "Blue Velvet Revisited" is the only item to have chapter marks (20 of them).

• The Lost Footage (53:16) - Various deleted scenes and alternate takes.
• Blue Velvet Revisited (1:28:54) - German filmmaker Peter Braatz was invited to document the production in Wilmington, North Carolina in 1985. The program, which is described as a "meditation on a movie", features plenty of raw footage as well as various archival materials.
• Room to Dream (18:17) - An audio recording of David Lynch reading from "Room to Dream", the book he coauthored with Kristine McKenna in 2018.
• Interview with Angelo Badalamenti (15:41) - In this 2017 interview, composer Angelo Badalamenti discusses his career and his work on this film.
• It's a Strange World (15:57) - This 2019 documentary takes a look at the creation of the film, and also visits some of the filming locations.
• Mysteries of Love (1:10:45) - This 2002 documentary features interviews with Kyle MacLachlan, Isabella Rossellini, Laura Dern, Dennis Hopper, producer Fred Caruso, and cinematographer Frederick Elmes.
• Test Chart (1:16) - Vintage test footage done before the shooting of different scenes.

[ ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ]

An illustrated 30-page booklet featuring author Kristine McKenna's essay "A Suburban Romance, Only Different" (excerpted from the novel "Room to Dream"), and cast and technical credits, is floating inside the fold-out two-disc digipack case, which goes into a side-loading slipcase.

[ NOTES ]

Blue Velvet (1986) is available on 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and DVD. It's a weird film, and is not for everyone, but I liked it. Recommended to fans of David Lynch.

This item has been provided by the Criterion Collection for review on this site.