Blue Velvet

THE INSIDE TRACK ON DAVID LYNCH’S MOST TERRIFYING SCENE

ALEX GODFREY

THE ORIGIN Blue Velvet lifts the lid on suburbia, revealing all of the underlying unpleasantness. And there is nobody in the film as unpleasant as Dennis Hopper’s psychotic, abusive, gas-glugging bastard, Frank Booth. Around 40 minutes in, Frank arrives at Dorothy Vallens’ (Isabella Rossellini) apartment, demands bourbon, calls himself ‘Daddy’, huffs a load of gas, and then calls himself ‘Baby’ while sexually assaulting her. He forbids Dorothy from looking at him, and punches her for doing so; that, explained Lynch, is because Frank doesn’t want to see his reflection in her eyes, to “come face to face with sickness”. Hopper loved the role, calling Lynch before the shoot to tell him, “I am Frank Booth”: as the actor later explained, he related to the character as he was “coming out…

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Empire (Digital) - 1 Issue, May 2025

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