Blue Velvet opening sequence analysis.

Media – Blue velvet extract analysis.

At the beginning of the clip, the sound is non-diagetic; there is a piece of incidental music that goes with what is happening in the clip. The music is called ‘blue velvet’ and as it is being played, a title screen is shown with the name of the film, ‘blue velvet’ and the background of this title is also a sheet of blue velvet. The piece of music is very stereotypically 1950’s America, and this music plays throughout the first 1 and half minutes of the opening scene. It goes well with what is happening in the film, as we are being showed a stereotypical, happy, suburban, American neighbourhood. There is a transition at the beginning where the blue velvet title screen dissolves into a blue sky. The camera then pans downward to show a red rose bush behind a white picket fence, the colouring in this image, (red, white and blue) is again representing America, and the idea of the perfect, friendly American neighbourhood. Roses could also symbolize love, this could foreshadow what the film is going to be about. Shortly after this, there is the same blue sky and white picket fence, but this time there is yellow tulips instead of roses. Tulips are an indication of death; this could foreshadow what is going to happen in the film – death
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We get the feeling that something is not as it seems to be when a fireman drives past the camera on a fire engine with a dog. The fireman is waving to the neighbours and seems as though he is being friendly, (which again makes it seem as though it is set in Suburban America), but the fireman has no urgency about him which is unusual as usually if a fire engine was driving past, it would be for an emergency. This makes it seem as though it is not real/ something about it is fake. This could be suggesting that what seems to be a happy American neighbourhood is actually hiding something. There is also diegetic sounds such as birds chirping which make it seem

  There is also a medium-long shot of a woman (who we assume to be the man who is watering the lawn’s wife) watching television in her house. It is in a completely normal setting and she is drinking what looks like a cup of tea but when we see what she is watching on television, we see a person holding a gun. This is foreshadowing what is going to happen in the film

 

Suddenly, we see the man who is watering the garden fall to the ground (while the non-diagetic and contrapuntal music is still playing in the background). The hose that he is holding is still spraying water, and therer is a slow motion shot of  a dog drinking from the hose and jumping on the dying man while he is on the floor. The slow motion shot of the dog gives this part of the clip a comical aspect and again makes the happy, suburbia America seem fake. A baby then wanders into the garden as the man is dying, this reminds the audience of the innocence of the dog and the baby and how blissfully unaware they are.

The last shot in the clip is a close up into the grass where we see what looks like beatles or cockroaches, This final shot makes the audience want to watch the rest of the film to find out what is going to happen and what exactly it is in the grass., The whole clip suggests a metaphor that not everything is as it seems in suburban America.