Blue Velvet

The opening starts off with non-diegetic sound of a violin type sounding music, it starts off quite calm and quiet and then gets louder. This along with the first few scenes gives the reader a false sense of security as we see a typical suburban life in America. The music building up could represent what will happen in the film, it will build up to something drastic. A tilt shot is used first to reveal a nearly cloudless blue sky with a white picket fence and red roses, it looks like a perfect setting- normal community based home, like something out of a Disney film, this adds to the idea of everything being a bit too perfect and the viewer gets a foreboding feeling- as time goes on something will change this 'perfect neighbourhood'.

The red roses in the opening are significant as red represents danger and blood but as a contrast roses are meant to be seen as romantic and loving, this shows the contradictions throughout the film. The roses could also represent loss or a funeral, which again could be something that comes later on in the film.
In the next scene it is sunny still and we see and establishing shot of a house with a car parked on the drive, this shot is a bit darker showing how this house could be a negative impact on the film. It cuts to a man watering his garden and then to his wife sitting and watching television inside which has a gun on it, another foreboding feeling of death which it quite a contrast to the upbeat, happy music.

 We then see a few close ups of the tap and hose pipe the man is using, not working, the pipe twists which shows something is going wrong and the straight after the man has a heart attack which is very surprising as you would expect the it to be raining or the scene to be quite dark but it s not. there is then an establishing shot and a pan of the surroundings which look idyllic and there is water spraying everywhere, we also hear the diegetic sound of a dog barking and then see the dog and a child in the background, all of the combined with the still cheerful music makes the heart attack seem positive or normal. 

We then finally see a close up of a small insect in the grass, this represents the seedy underbelly of suburban life. And also how something like this death is nothing compared to the bigger picture as the insect is tiny compared to the rest of the grass.