Every good story needs its severed ear
Why David Lynch’s “Blue Velvet” has the perfect inciting incident
Depending on how you like your art, David Lynch is either a maestro of surrealist noir or a purveyor of weird, indecipherable art. That division has only become more and more calcified over the course of Lynch’s career. This is, after all, the same man who made a short film for Netflix starring a talking monkey, invented the character of Dougie Jones, and tortured audiences with a 2-minute shot of a man sweeping a floor.
Yet however you might feel about Lynch, the man rarely gets credit for his mastery of traditional storytelling. Cornball humor and trollish floor-sweeping aside, the director knows how to build a narrative, particularly crime-centered mysteries that balance varying levels of Americana, trauma, and supernaturalism.
Lynch’s 1986 neo-noir Blue Velvet — a sort of darker, more fatalistic audition for some of the ideas found in Twin Peaks — is a masterclass for anyone looking to understand the essentials of a good story. The film boasts one of the best inciting incidents in any creative narrative of the past fifty years, and demonstrates a rare understanding of what defines compelling drama.
The hook is fairly straightforward. Faithful son Jeffrey (played by Kyle MacLachlan, natch) returns home to the arcadian town of Lumberton, NC after learning of his father’s stroke. While walking back from the hospital, he discovers a severed human ear in a field — partially rotten, teeming with ants, and completely out of place.
Fairly cut and dry, right? But also classically Lynchian. The ear-in-the-field bit, simple as it is, kicks off Jeffrey’s convoluted descent into the depraved, violent, and completely unhinged underbelly of Lumberton, highlighted by a most-unsettling karaoke of “In Dreams” by Dean Stockwell.
The ear is effective precisely because of its weirdness, piquing the audience’s curiosity while simultaneously revolting them. Why in the hell is there an ear there? Who does it belong to? Is the earless person alive, dead, or…worse? Contrast the vulgarity of the ear with Jeffrey’s behavior, as well: Like the upstanding Boy Scout that he is, he places it in a paper bag and takes it the police. Which, of course, just leads to more bizarre occurrences.
So writers (and artists) everywhere, listen up: Love him or hate him, Lynch understands that the core tenet of good storytelling is compelling your audience to keep turning the page (or, in his case, to keep watching.) Whatever you think of Lynch, you’ll be ruminating on that severed ear for a long time after you finish Blue Velvet, and that’s a lesson we should all pay attention to.
