Velvety Blue
Oh dearie old me, real life is getting way more than a tad too intrusive at the moment. We’ve had a whole inundation, a cavalcade, an avalanche of friends coming to visit; my supervisor is demanding results in a thinly veiled fashion; I have to understand a journal article that makes little-to-no sense before tomorrow morning, and learn all of the fundamental amino acids by tomorrow evening. Where’s all the time gone for writing up here?
Well, there was a bit of respite last nite (no, I can’t resist the double t-e thing) when my girlfriend performed a wonderful act of dinner, and then subversively persuaded me to watch Blue Velvet, instead of studying molecular biology. I love Blue Velvet. I love pretty much all of David Lynch’s stuff. What I had not realized on previous viewings – because they were more distant than quite recently – was that the Angelo Badalamenti soundtrack to B/V was Shostakovich inspired.
I noticed it first, when, while ignoring the biochemistry textbook in my lap something remarkably like the invasion theme in the 15th symphony (the doppelganger of the invasion theme in the 7th) crept out from the television. It’s right at the beginning of the film, when Jeffrey is going for a walk at night and his mother and aunt tell him not to go down by Lincoln street. I think it’s number 2 on the soundtrack
According to the wikipedia entry, Lynch had indeed been listening to Shostakovich 15 at the time, and asked for the soundtrack to be:
“like Shostakovich, be very Russian, but make it the most beautiful thing but make it dark and a little bit scary.”
Hmm. The bit about 15 is unsourced, unfortunately.
