"He put his disease in me."
It was sort of hard to narrow down my favorite moment of Miss Dorothy Vallens', but this one wins out basically because it's what makes The Laura Dern Face appear and who wouldn't love the progenitor of that amazingness?
Anyone that spurs on The Laura Dern Face should be given one of those enormous novelty checks with their name on it and a happy-face button. WIN.
Seriously though, I always give love to Dennis Hopper's Frank Booth character whenever I bring up Blue Velvet but this movie would be nowhere without Rossellini's fearlessly fucked-up performance as well. The moment preceding this one, with Dorothy suddenly appearing naked and beaten on the front lawn, is one of the preeminent cinematic images that have truly, deeply disturbed me.
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Is this the first appearance of "The Dern Face"?
No, I posted on it here.
The first cinematic appearance?
Oh, I don't know. I doubt it. I bet she whipped that sucker out when she did Smooth Talk, the adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates' "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been" that they made me watch in High Hchool English class; I just don't remember that film well enough to say. that was the year before BV though.
"...but this movie would be nowhere without Rossellini's fearlessly fucked-up performance as well."
Nowhere, eh?
Not to be dickish or nitpicky, but I think there's someone involved who might be even a tad more crucial than Rossellini even.
Lynch counted in the "as well"!!!
I remember one Christmas Eve when my sisters and I watched Blue Velvet, and we all tried to replicate The Laura Dern face. At the time we just called it "the figure eight mouth" or "the infinity symbol mouth". None of us could pull it off, but it was funny as hell!
One pic I posted in that Laura Dern Face post is actually from "Smooth Talk." The scene where she grips the phone to the taunting of Arnold Friend outside the screen door definitely prompts "The Face," so that's probably the debut.
The prototype for the Laura Dern Face was the flying stone head in Zardoz. It's true, check it out.
Good call!
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