Blue Velvet
About this book
Lynch wrote two treatments of Blue Velvet at Warner's request, but they hated both versions. The film was dead until Lynch finished filming Dune, and was asked by producer Dino De Laurentiis if he had any projects he'd like to do next. Lynch pitched Blue Velvet, with one condition - he had to have final cut. De Laurentiis agreed in exchange for Lynch cutting his salary and the film's budget in half. Some questioned if it was wise for De Laurentiis to fund Lynch's new project given the poor box office of Dune. According to Paul Sammon, former DEG vice-president of special promotions, "Dino appreciated David's rather bizarre gifts, and besides, Dino's system was to always presell everything through his European and international contacts, so he never lost money."5With the project a go again, Lynch completed two more drafts of the screenplay to Blue Velvet. The catalyst to set the story in motion was Jeffrey's discovery of the ear. "The ear is like a canal, it's like an opening, little egress into another place...It's like a ticket to another world that he finds. If he hadn't found it, you know, he would have kept on going home and that would have been the end of it. But the fascination with this, once found, drew him into something he needed to discover and work through."6 It was on the fourth and final draft that Lynch finally came up with the ending to the film. "I was sitting on a bench and I suddenly remembered this dream that I'd had the night before. And the dream was the ending to Blue Velvet. The dream gave me (...SPOILER/ ending scenes...). I don't know how it happened, but I just had to plug and change a few things to bring it all together."7