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Originally Posted by demonrail666
I get the absurdity but not the hilarity. I mean there's the whole hokey Lumbertown stuff which is kind of funny but not enough to get me 'breaking out into full LOLZ'. Although admittedly there's only a handful of films that've had me doing that, period.
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Ok, well maybe absurdity is a better word. And I realize now tht I shouldn't have said the humor in the movie was "black." That term — "black humor/comedy" — is about the irreverent, counterintuitive glossing over of seriousness, violence, horror, etc., or a making light of something that we "should" think is appalling. This is not what "Blue Velvet" does... at all.
(A great example that always pops into my head when I think about the phrase "black humor" or "black comedy" is that scene in "Pulp Fiction" where the shock of Marvin's exploding head is immediately turned from an act of horror to pure slapstick thanks to the reactions of Vince and Jules. Y'know... "Oh shit I just shot Marvin in the face!" It's awful for all of a split second, then it becomes hilarious, not because Marvin's death is funny, or because the violence isn't horrific, but because of the tonal bait and switch.)
Instead, the humor in "Blue Velvet" comes from its innocent moments. Jeffery kind of humble-bragging and piling on the big-man-on-campus "flexing" when Sandy's around — shamelessly feeding the high school girl's picture of him as a cool, mysterious, grown-up college guy, despite the fact that he is very clearly a giant dingle; inexperienced, childlike, a little desperate and utterly unfamiliar and with what it means to be a sexual creature.
There's also plenty of humor in the overtly melodramatic performances of these characters when they're sleuthing around and, y'know, falling in love. Consider Sandy's explanation of her dream about darkness and sadness being beaten back by light exuded by "robins of love." The accompanying music and bizarre manic joy that overtakes her at that moment is delivered with a deft irreverence.
"There is trouble... until the robins come!"
