'Blue velvet'

'Blue velvet' is a David Lynch film based in suburban America in the 1950's. The music sets the tone to be mysterious and the credits scene is dark and gloomy. After the opening titles a tilt shot is shown straight away of the typical white, picket fence with bright blue skies and a bed of red roses waving in front of it. The background music of 'blue velvet' is playing so the idealistic scene is set. This is then supported by the safety of the lollipop lady crossing the children over the road and the fire truck with the fireman waving to the community, proposing that everything is perfect and nothing bad could happen. The firetruck is also presented as driving along in slow motion as this emphasizes the perfect place to live. This then changes very quickly when the old man in his garden has a heart attack and dies. The irony used of the ideal place to live and the actual danger of the fireman standing on the side of his truck reflects that something bad was going to happen. The hose gets caught and then it tangles, slowly leading up to the bad event.

There are a lot of still images used which could be paintings, e.g the big american country house and the establishing shot over looking the city and a lake.There are close ups of the grass surrounding the house and then the camera goes further down and you see the bad side reflected on the city as there are beetles and mud. Background noise is also used to set the feeling of the city, the chainsaw on the radio showing the traditional Lumberton town as that is where they cut down trees.

The overall feeling is very mysterious and it imposes that things are not always as good as they seem. Overall, mise-en-scene, cinematography, sound and editing match the conventions of this film genre allowing audiences to fully understand the motives of the film.