Like the great filmmaker Guy Maddin said, there’s cinema before Blue Velvet and cinema after Blue Velvet.
"The last real earthquake to hit cinema was David Lynch's Blue Velvet,” Maddin said. “I'm sure directors throughout the film world felt the earth move beneath their feet and couldn't sleep the night of their first encounter with it back in 1986... But no one could quite match the traumatizing combination of horrific, comedic, aural, and subliminal effects Lynch rumbled out in this masterpiece.”
Agreed. After a brilliant opening scene that puts you right in the heart of a town called Lumberton, Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) returns from college and quickly discovers a severed human ear lying in a field. From there, along with fellow amateur sleuth and budding love interest Sandy (Laura Dern), Jeffrey falls into the orbit of lounge singer Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini) and the demonic Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper). Nearly 40 years after its release, Blue Velvet remains an unforgettable vision of innocence lost, and one of the most influential American films of the late 20th century.