“Blue Velvet”’s mystery of masculinity: How David Lynch’s masterwork reshaped American consciousness

Right about the midpoint of David Lynch’s 1986 breakthrough “Blue Velvet” — and given Lynch’s structural obsessions, it may literally be the midpoint — there is a brief sequence that captures this powerful, disorienting film and all its themes in miniature. It begins when Frank Booth, the psychotic, charismatic antihero played by Dennis Hopper, turns and looks at the audience (he certainly isn’t speaking to any specific person) and announces, “I&rs