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Wild at Heart (film)
Encyclopedia
Wild at Heart is a 1990 American film
written and directed by David Lynch
, and based on Barry Gifford
's 1989 novel Wild at Heart: The Story of Sailor and Lula. Both the book and the film revolve around Sailor Ripley (Nicolas Cage
) and Lula Pace Fortune (Laura Dern
), a young couple from Cape Fear, North Carolina who go on the run from her domineering mother (Diane Ladd
). Due to her mother's machinations, the mob becomes involved.
Lynch was originally going to produce, but after reading Gifford's book decided to also write and direct the film. He did not like the ending of the novel and decided to change it in order to stay true to his vision of the main characters. Wild at Heart is a road movie
and includes several allusion
s to The Wizard of Oz
as well as Elvis Presley
and his movies.
Early test screenings for the film did not go well; Lynch estimated that 80 people walked out of the first test screening and 100 in the next. The film received mixed to negative critical reviews and was a moderate success at the US box office
, grossing USD
$14 million, above its $10 million budget. The film won the Palme d'Or
at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival
, at which it received both negative and positive attention from its audience. Diane Ladd was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for both the Academy Awards
and the Golden Globes.
band Powermad
. At the club, Sailor gets into a fight with a man who accosts Lula, and then leads the band in a rendition of Elvis Presley's "Love Me". Later, back in the room, after making love again, Sailor and Lula finally decide to run away to California
, breaking Sailor's parole
. Lula's mother arranges for private detective Johnnie Farragut (Harry Dean Stanton
) — her on-off boyfriend — to find them and bring them back. Unbeknown to Johnnie, however, Marietta also hires gangster Marcelles Santos (J. E. Freeman
) to track them, and kill Sailor.
Unaware of all of the events happening back in North Carolina, the two are on their way until — according to Lula — they witness a bad omen: the aftermath of a two-car accident, and the only survivor, a young woman (Sherilyn Fenn
), dies in front of them. With little money left, Sailor heads for Big Tuna, Texas, where he contacts "old friend" Perdita Durango (Isabella Rossellini
), who might be able to help them, although she secretly knows he is under contract to be killed by Lula's mother. Inevitably, while Sailor agrees to join up with Bobby Peru (Willem Dafoe
) in a feed store robbery, Lula waits for him in the hotel room, being sick and pining for better times. While Sailor is out Bobby enters the room and tries to rape Lula, but at the last second laughs it off and walks out.
The robbery goes spectacularly wrong when Peru unnecessarily shoots two clerks, and as they leave the feed store, Sailor realized he has been given an unloaded pistol. Bobby then admits to Sailor he's been hired to kill him, but just as he is about to do so, the sheriff's deputies open fire on him; Peru accidentally blows his own head off with his own shotgun. Sailor is arrested and sentenced to five years in prison.
While Sailor is in jail, Lula has their child, her mother "vanishes", and upon his release she decides to pick him up with their son. As they pick him up in the car, he reveals he's leaving them both, having decided while in prison that he isn't good enough for them. While he is walking a short distance away, he encounters a gang of mostly Asian men who surround him. He thinks his bravado will carry him through, but they quickly knock him out. While he is unconscious, he sees a revelation in the form of Glinda the Good Witch (Sheryl Lee
) who tells him, "Don't turn away from love, Sailor". When he awakes, he apologizes to the men and tells them he realizes a great many things, then screams Lula's name and runs away. As there is a traffic jam on the road, he begins to run over the roofs and hoods of the cars to get back to Lula and their child in the car, with the film ending as Sailor sings "Love Me Tender
" to Lula on the hood of their car as the credits roll.
In the summer of 1989, Lynch had finished up the pilot episode for the successful Twin Peaks
television series and tried to rescue two of his projects — Ronnie Rocket and One Saliva Bubble — both involved in contractual complications as a result of Dino De Laurentiis
' bankruptcy, which had been bought by Carolco Pictures
. Lynch stated, "I've had a bad time with obstacles . . . It wasn't Dino's fault, but when his company went down the tubes, I got swallowed up in that". Independent production company Propaganda Films
commissioned Lynch to develop an updated noir screenplay based on a 1940s crime novel while Monty Montgomery, a friend of Lynch's and an associate producer on Twin Peaks, asked novelist Barry Gifford what he was working on. Gifford happened to be writing the manuscript for Wild at Heart: The Story of Sailor and Lula but still had two more chapters to write. He let Montgomery read it while the producer was working on the pilot episode for Twin Peaks in pre-published galley form. Montgomery read it and two days later called Gifford and told him that he wanted to make a film of it. Two days afterwards, Montgomery gave Lynch Gifford’s book while he was editing the Pilot, asking him if he would executive produce a film adaptation that he would direct. Lynch remembers telling him, "That’s great Monty, but what if I read it and fall in love with it and want to do it myself?" Montgomery did not think that Lynch would like the book because he did not think it was his "kind of thing". Lynch loved the book and called Gifford soon afterwards, asking him if he could make a film of it. Lynch remembers, "It was just exactly the right thing at the right time. The book and the violence in America merged in my mind and many different things happened". Lynch was drawn to what he saw as "a really modern romance in a violent world – a picture about finding love in hell", and was also attracted to "a certain amount of fear in the picture, as well as things to dream about. So it seems truthful in some way".
Lynch got approval from Propaganda to switch projects; however, production was scheduled to begin two months after the rights had been purchased, forcing the director to work fast. He had Cage and Dern read Gifford's book and wrote a draft in a week. By Lynch's own admission, his first draft was "depressing and pretty much devoid of happiness, and no one wanted to make it". Lynch did not like the ending in Gifford’s book where Sailor and Lula split up for good. For Lynch, "it honestly didn’t seem real, considering the way they felt about each other. It didn’t seem one bit real! It had a certain coolness, but I couldn’t see it". It was at this point that the director's love of The Wizard of Oz
(1939) began to influence the script he was writing and he included a reference to the "yellow brick road". Lynch remembers, "It was an awful tough world and there was something about Sailor being a rebel. But a rebel with a dream of the Wizard of Oz is kinda like a beautiful thing". Samuel Goldwyn, Jr.
read an early draft of the screenplay and did not like Gifford’s ending either, so Lynch changed it. However, the director was worried that this change made the film too commercial, "much more commercial to make a happy ending yet, if I had not changed it, so that people wouldn’t say I was trying to be commercial, I would have been untrue to what the material was saying".
Lynch also added new characters, like Mr. Reindeer and Sherilyn Fenn
as the victim of a car accident. During rehearsals, Lynch began talking about Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe
with Cage and Dern. The director acquired a copy of Elvis' Golden Hits and after listening to it, called Cage and told him that he had to sing two songs, "Love Me" and "Love Me Tender". The actor agreed and recorded them so that he could lip-synch to them on the set. At one point, Cage called Lynch and asked if he could wear a snakeskin jacket in the film and Lynch incorporated it into his script. Before filming started, Dern suggested that she and Cage go on a weekend road trip to Las Vegas
in order to bond and get a handle on their characters. Dern remembers, "We agreed that Sailor and Lula needed to be one person, one character, and we would each share it. I got the sexual, wild, Marilyn
, gum-chewing fantasy, female side; Nick’s got the snakeskin, Elvis
, raw, combustible, masculine side". Within four months, Lynch began filming on August 9, 1989 in both Los Angeles
(including the San Fernando Valley
) and New Orleans with a relatively modest budget of $10 million. Originally, the film featured more explicit erotic scenes between Sailor and Lula. In one, she has an orgasm
while relating to Sailor a dream she had of being ripped open by a wild animal. Another deleted scene had Lula lowering herself onto Sailor's face saying, "Take a bite out of Lula".
". He has stated "For me, it's just a compilation of ideas that come along. The darker ones and the lighter ones, the humorous ones, all working together. You try to be as true as you can to those ideas and try to get them on film." Similar to Lynch's previous Blue Velvet, the sudden idealistic ending of perfect happiness is so drenched in irony that ultimately Lynch seems to be suggesting that people who have the potential for violence struggle to find true happiness.
The film was completed one day before it debuted at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival
in the 2,400-seat Grand Auditorium. After the screening, it received "wild cheering" from the audience. When Jury President Bernardo Bertolucci
announced Wild at Heart as the Palme d'Or
winner at the awards ceremony, the boos almost drowned out the cheers with film critic Roger Ebert
leading the vocal detractors. Barry Gifford remembers that there was a prevailing mood that the media was hoping Lynch would fail. "All kinds of journalists were trying to cause controversy and have me say something like ‘This is nothing like the book’ or ‘He ruined my book.’ I think everybody from Time
magazine to What’s On In London was disappointed when I said ‘This is fantastic. This is wonderful. It’s like a big, dark, musical comedy’". The MPAA told Lynch that the version of Wild at Heart screened at Cannes would receive an X rating in North America
unless cuts were made, as the NC-17 was not in effect in 1990, at the time of the film's release. The director was contractually obligated to deliver an R-rated film. He made one change in the scene where a character shoots his own head off with a shotgun
. Gun smoke was added to tone down the blood and hide the removal of the character's head from his body. Foreign prints were not affected. The Region 1 DVD from MGM
contains this altered take of the shotgun scene.
on August 17, 1990 in a limited release of only 532 theaters, grossing USD
$2.9 million in its opening weekend. It went into wider release on August 31 with 618 theaters and grossing an additional $1.8 million. The film ultimately grossed $14.5 million in North America
, well above its estimated budget of $10 million.
Wild at Heart has a rating of 64% on Rotten Tomatoes
and a 52 metascore at Metacritic
. It received mixed to negative reviews upon its initial theatrical release. Roger Ebert
wrote in his review for the Chicago Sun-Times
, "He is a good director, yes. If he ever goes ahead and makes a film about what's really on his mind, instead of hiding behind sophomoric humor and the cop-out of 'parody,' he may realize the early promise of his Eraserhead
. But he likes the box office prizes that go along with his pop satires, so he makes dishonest movies like this one". USA Today
gave the film one and a half stars out of four and said, "This attempt at a one-up also trumpets its weirdness, but this time the agenda seems forced". In his review for Sight & Sound
magazine, Jonathan Rosenbaum
wrote, "Perhaps the major problem is that despite Cage and Dern's best efforts, Lynch is ultimately interested only in iconography, not characters at all. When it comes to images of evil, corruption, derangement, raw passion and mutilation (roughly in that order), Wild at Heart is a veritable cornucopia". Richard Combs in his review for Time
wrote, "The result is a pile-up, of innocence, of evil, even of actual road accidents, without a context to give significance to the casualties or survivors". Christopher Sharrett in Cineaste
magazine wrote, "Lynch's characters are now so cartoony one is prone to address him more as a theorist than director, except he is not that challenging ... One is never sure what Lynch likes or dislikes, and his often striking images are too often lacking in compassion for us to accept him as a chronicler of a moribund landscape a la Fellini". However, Peter Travers
wrote in Rolling Stone
magazine, "Starting with the outrageous and building from there, he ignites a slight love-on-the-run novel, creating a bonfire of a movie that confirms his reputation as the most exciting and innovative filmmaker of his generation".
at the 1990 Academy Awards
and at the 1991 Golden Globes. She did not win either award. Frederick Elmes
was nominated for Best Cinematography and Willem Dafoe for Best Supporting Male
at the 1991 Independent Spirit Awards. Elmes won in his category. The film won the prestigious 1990 Palme d'Or
Award at the Cannes Film Festival
, and was the second of three consecutive American movies to be awarded the honor. (The other two were Sex, Lies, and Videotape
in 1989 and Barton Fink
in 1991.)
Cinema of the United States
The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...
written and directed by David Lynch
David Lynch
David Keith Lynch is an American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor. Known for his surrealist films, he has developed his own unique cinematic style, which has been dubbed "Lynchian", and which is characterized by its dream imagery and meticulous sound...
, and based on Barry Gifford
Barry Gifford
Barry Gifford is an American author, poet, and screenwriter known for his distinctive mix of American landscapes and film noir- and Beat Generation-influenced literary madness....
's 1989 novel Wild at Heart: The Story of Sailor and Lula. Both the book and the film revolve around Sailor Ripley (Nicolas Cage
Nicolas Cage
Nicolas Cage is an American actor, producer and director, having appeared in over 60 films including Raising Arizona , The Rock , Face/Off , Gone in 60 Seconds , Adaptation , National Treasure , Ghost Rider , Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans , and...
) and Lula Pace Fortune (Laura Dern
Laura Dern
Laura Elizabeth Dern is an American actress, film director and producer. Dern has acted in such films as Smooth Talk , Blue Velvet , Fat Man and Little Boy , Wild at Heart , Jurassic Park and October Sky...
), a young couple from Cape Fear, North Carolina who go on the run from her domineering mother (Diane Ladd
Diane Ladd
Diane Ladd is an American actress, film director, producer and published author. She has appeared in over 120 roles, on television, and in miniseries and feature films, including Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore , Wild at Heart , Rambling Rose , Ghosts of Mississippi, Primary Colors, 28 Days , and...
). Due to her mother's machinations, the mob becomes involved.
Lynch was originally going to produce, but after reading Gifford's book decided to also write and direct the film. He did not like the ending of the novel and decided to change it in order to stay true to his vision of the main characters. Wild at Heart is a road movie
Road movie
A road movie is a film genre in which the main character or characters leave home to travel from place to place. They usually leave home to escape their current lives.-History:...
and includes several allusion
Allusion
An allusion is a figure of speech that makes a reference to, or representation of, people, places, events, literary work, myths, or works of art, either directly or by implication. M. H...
s to The Wizard of Oz
The Wizard of Oz (1939 film)
The Wizard of Oz is a 1939 American musical fantasy film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed primarily by Victor Fleming. Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf received credit for the screenplay, but there were uncredited contributions by others. The lyrics for the songs...
as well as Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
and his movies.
Early test screenings for the film did not go well; Lynch estimated that 80 people walked out of the first test screening and 100 in the next. The film received mixed to negative critical reviews and was a moderate success at the US box office
Box office
A box office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through an unblocked hole through a wall or window, or at a wicket....
, grossing USD
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
$14 million, above its $10 million budget. The film won the Palme d'Or
Palme d'Or
The Palme d'Or is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival and is presented to the director of the best feature film of the official competition. It was introduced in 1955 by the organising committee. From 1939 to 1954, the highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du...
at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival
1990 Cannes Film Festival
- Jury :*Bernardo Bertolucci *Alexei Guerman *Anjelica Huston *Bertrand Blier *Christopher Hampton*Fanny Ardant *Françoise Giroud *Hayao Shibata *Mira Nair *Sven Nykvist...
, at which it received both negative and positive attention from its audience. Diane Ladd was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for both the Academy Awards
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
and the Golden Globes.
Plot
Lovers Lula (Dern) and Sailor (Cage) are separated after he is jailed for killing – in self-defense – a man who attacked him with a knife; the assailant was hired by Lula's mother, Marietta Fortune (Ladd). Upon Sailor's release, Lula picks him up at the prison where she hands him his snakeskin jacket. They go to a hotel where she reserved a room, make love and go to see the speed metalSpeed metal
Speed metal is a sub-genre of heavy metal music that originated in the late 1970s from NWOBHM and hardcore punk roots. It is described by Allmusic as "extremely fast, abrasive, and technically demanding" music....
band Powermad
Powermad
Powermad has been called "An innovative and often forgotten speed metal band...who infused progressive metal styles and European styles into abstract American speed metal." The band's intricate riff formulations were heavily influenced by thrash metal acts like Metallica and Testament, but vocalist...
. At the club, Sailor gets into a fight with a man who accosts Lula, and then leads the band in a rendition of Elvis Presley's "Love Me". Later, back in the room, after making love again, Sailor and Lula finally decide to run away to California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, breaking Sailor's parole
Parole
Parole may have different meanings depending on the field and judiciary system. All of the meanings originated from the French parole . Following its use in late-resurrected Anglo-French chivalric practice, the term became associated with the release of prisoners based on prisoners giving their...
. Lula's mother arranges for private detective Johnnie Farragut (Harry Dean Stanton
Harry Dean Stanton
Harry Dean Stanton is an American actor, musician, and singer. Stanton's career has spanned over fifty years, which has seen him star in such films as Paris, Texas, Kelly's Heroes, Dillinger, Alien, Repo Man, The Last Temptation of Christ, Wild at Heart, The Green Mile and The Pledge...
) — her on-off boyfriend — to find them and bring them back. Unbeknown to Johnnie, however, Marietta also hires gangster Marcelles Santos (J. E. Freeman
J. E. Freeman
J.E. Freeman is an American actor, often cast in tough guy roles.His first movie appearance was in the early 80s actioner An Eye for an Eye in which he plays a tow truck driver who minces words with Chuck Norris....
) to track them, and kill Sailor.
Unaware of all of the events happening back in North Carolina, the two are on their way until — according to Lula — they witness a bad omen: the aftermath of a two-car accident, and the only survivor, a young woman (Sherilyn Fenn
Sherilyn Fenn
Sherilyn Fenn is an American actress and filmmaker. She came to international attention for her performance as Audrey Horne on the 1990 cult TV series Twin Peaks...
), dies in front of them. With little money left, Sailor heads for Big Tuna, Texas, where he contacts "old friend" Perdita Durango (Isabella Rossellini
Isabella Rossellini
Isabella Fiorella Elettra Giovanna Rossellini is an Italian actress, filmmaker, author, philanthropist, and model. Rossellini is noted for her 14-year tenure as a Lancôme model, and for her roles in films such as Blue Velvet and Death Becomes Her.-Background and early life:Rossellini is a...
), who might be able to help them, although she secretly knows he is under contract to be killed by Lula's mother. Inevitably, while Sailor agrees to join up with Bobby Peru (Willem Dafoe
Willem Dafoe
Willem Dafoe is an American film, stage, and voice actor, and a founding member of the experimental theatre company The Wooster Group...
) in a feed store robbery, Lula waits for him in the hotel room, being sick and pining for better times. While Sailor is out Bobby enters the room and tries to rape Lula, but at the last second laughs it off and walks out.
The robbery goes spectacularly wrong when Peru unnecessarily shoots two clerks, and as they leave the feed store, Sailor realized he has been given an unloaded pistol. Bobby then admits to Sailor he's been hired to kill him, but just as he is about to do so, the sheriff's deputies open fire on him; Peru accidentally blows his own head off with his own shotgun. Sailor is arrested and sentenced to five years in prison.
While Sailor is in jail, Lula has their child, her mother "vanishes", and upon his release she decides to pick him up with their son. As they pick him up in the car, he reveals he's leaving them both, having decided while in prison that he isn't good enough for them. While he is walking a short distance away, he encounters a gang of mostly Asian men who surround him. He thinks his bravado will carry him through, but they quickly knock him out. While he is unconscious, he sees a revelation in the form of Glinda the Good Witch (Sheryl Lee
Sheryl Lee
Sheryl Lee is an American actress. She came to international attention for her performances as Laura Palmer and Maddy Ferguson on the 1990 cult TV series Twin Peaks and in the 1992 film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me...
) who tells him, "Don't turn away from love, Sailor". When he awakes, he apologizes to the men and tells them he realizes a great many things, then screams Lula's name and runs away. As there is a traffic jam on the road, he begins to run over the roofs and hoods of the cars to get back to Lula and their child in the car, with the film ending as Sailor sings "Love Me Tender
Love Me Tender (song)
"Love Me Tender" is a song recorded by Elvis Presley and published by Elvis Presley Music, adapted from the tune of "Aura Lee" , a sentimental Civil War ballad.- History :...
" to Lula on the hood of their car as the credits roll.
Cast and characters
- Nicolas CageNicolas CageNicolas Cage is an American actor, producer and director, having appeared in over 60 films including Raising Arizona , The Rock , Face/Off , Gone in 60 Seconds , Adaptation , National Treasure , Ghost Rider , Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans , and...
as Sailor Ripley: The actor described his character as "a kind of romantic Southern outlaw". Cage said in an interview that he was "always attracted to those passionate, almost unbridled romantic characters, and Sailor had that more than any other role I'd played". Previous to being cast in the film, he had met Lynch several times at Hollywood eatery Musso & Frank GrillMusso & Frank GrillMusso & Frank Grill is a restaurant located at 6667 Hollywood Boulevard in the Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. Opened in 1919, it is steeped in Hollywood history, having been the hideout of a host of famous Hollywood celebrities from days gone by...
that they both frequented. When Lynch read Gifford's novel, he immediately wanted Cage to play Sailor. - Laura DernLaura DernLaura Elizabeth Dern is an American actress, film director and producer. Dern has acted in such films as Smooth Talk , Blue Velvet , Fat Man and Little Boy , Wild at Heart , Jurassic Park and October Sky...
as Lula Pace Fortune: Dern had starred in a supporting role in Lynch's previous film, Blue Velvet. For Dern, this was the first opportunity she had "to play not only a very sexual person, but also someone who also was, in her own way, incredibly comfortable with herself". When Lynch read Gifford's novel, he immediately thought of Dern to play Lula. - Diane LaddDiane LaddDiane Ladd is an American actress, film director, producer and published author. She has appeared in over 120 roles, on television, and in miniseries and feature films, including Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore , Wild at Heart , Rambling Rose , Ghosts of Mississippi, Primary Colors, 28 Days , and...
as Marietta Fortune: Lula's overbearing mother, who forbids Lula and Sailor's relationship, mainly because of her contempt for Sailor. Ladd and Dern are mother and daughter in real life.
Supporting cast
- Harry Dean StantonHarry Dean StantonHarry Dean Stanton is an American actor, musician, and singer. Stanton's career has spanned over fifty years, which has seen him star in such films as Paris, Texas, Kelly's Heroes, Dillinger, Alien, Repo Man, The Last Temptation of Christ, Wild at Heart, The Green Mile and The Pledge...
as Johnnie Farragut: a private detective and Marietta's boyfriend. - J. E. FreemanJ. E. FreemanJ.E. Freeman is an American actor, often cast in tough guy roles.His first movie appearance was in the early 80s actioner An Eye for an Eye in which he plays a tow truck driver who minces words with Chuck Norris....
as Marcellus Santos: a gangster and Marietta's other boyfriend. - William Morgan Sheppard as Mr. Reindeer: a mysterious crime boss in league with Santos.
- Willem DafoeWillem DafoeWillem Dafoe is an American film, stage, and voice actor, and a founding member of the experimental theatre company The Wooster Group...
as Bobby Peru: a criminal hired by Mr. Reindeer to kill Sailor. - Crispin GloverCrispin GloverCrispin Hellion Glover is an American film actor, director and screenwriter, recording artist, publisher, and author. Glover is known for portraying eccentric people on screen such as George McFly in Back to the Future, Layne in River's Edge, unfriendly recluse Rubin Farr in Rubin and Ed, the...
as Cousin Dell: Lula's mentally illMental illnessA mental disorder or mental illness is a psychological or behavioral pattern generally associated with subjective distress or disability that occurs in an individual, and which is not a part of normal development or culture. Such a disorder may consist of a combination of affective, behavioural,...
cousin who puts cockroaches in his underwear. - Grace ZabriskieGrace ZabriskieGrace Zabriskie is an American actress. She has appeared in many popular American films but, she is best known for her work in television. She is perhaps best known for her roles in the television series Twin Peaks, Seinfeld, and Big Love.-Early life:Zabriskie was born in New Orleans, Louisiana...
as Juana Durango: a criminal who works with Mr. Reindeer. - Isabella RosselliniIsabella RosselliniIsabella Fiorella Elettra Giovanna Rossellini is an Italian actress, filmmaker, author, philanthropist, and model. Rossellini is noted for her 14-year tenure as a Lancôme model, and for her roles in films such as Blue Velvet and Death Becomes Her.-Background and early life:Rossellini is a...
as Perdita Durango: a criminal who once worked with Sailor and is now partners with Bobby Peru. - Sherilyn FennSherilyn FennSherilyn Fenn is an American actress and filmmaker. She came to international attention for her performance as Audrey Horne on the 1990 cult TV series Twin Peaks...
as Girl in car accident - Sheryl LeeSheryl LeeSheryl Lee is an American actress. She came to international attention for her performances as Laura Palmer and Maddy Ferguson on the 1990 cult TV series Twin Peaks and in the 1992 film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me...
as The Good Witch: who appears to Sailor in a vision, telling him not to give up on love. - David Patrick KellyDavid Patrick KellyDavid Patrick Kelly is an American actor and musician who has appeared in numerous films, including some major roles.-Career:...
as Dropshadow: a hitman who wears the same military tattoo as Bobby Peru - Pruitt Taylor VincePruitt Taylor VincePruitt Taylor Vince is an American award-winning character actor who has made many appearances in film and television.-Personal life:Vince was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana...
as Buddy: a Big Tuna local in a cowboy hat staying at the same motel as Sailor and Lula. - Jack NanceJack NanceMarvin John Nance , known professionally as Jack Nance and occasionally credited as John Nance, was an American actor of stage and screen, primarily starring in offbeat or avant-garde productions...
as 00 Spool: a crazy rocket scientist Sailor and Lula meet at the motel. - John LurieJohn LurieJohn Lurie is an American actor, musician, painter and producer. He is co-founder of The Lounge Lizards, a jazz ensemble. Lurie has acted in 19 films including Stranger than Paradise and Down by Law, composed and performed music for 20 television and film works, and he produced and starred in...
as Sparky: one of Bobby Peru's associates. - Darrell ZwerlingDarrell Zwerling-Filmography:-External links:...
as Singer's manager
Production
Twin Peaks
Twin Peaks is an American television serial drama created by David Lynch and Mark Frost. The series follows the investigation headed by FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper , of the murder of a popular teenager and homecoming queen, Laura Palmer...
television series and tried to rescue two of his projects — Ronnie Rocket and One Saliva Bubble — both involved in contractual complications as a result of Dino De Laurentiis
Dino De Laurentiis
Agostino "Dino" De Laurentiis was an Italian film producer.-Early life:He was born at Torre Annunziata in the province of Naples, and grew up selling spaghetti produced by his father...
' bankruptcy, which had been bought by Carolco Pictures
Carolco Pictures
Carolco Pictures, Inc., Carolco International N.V., or Anabasis Investments was an American independent film production company that, within a decade, went from producing such blockbuster successes as Terminator 2: Judgment Day and the first three movies of the Rambo series to being bankrupted by...
. Lynch stated, "I've had a bad time with obstacles . . . It wasn't Dino's fault, but when his company went down the tubes, I got swallowed up in that". Independent production company Propaganda Films
Propaganda Films
Propaganda Films was a prolific and successful music video and film production company founded in 1983 by producers Steve Golin and Sigurjón Sighvatsson and directors David Fincher, Nigel Dick, Greg Gold and Dominic Sena...
commissioned Lynch to develop an updated noir screenplay based on a 1940s crime novel while Monty Montgomery, a friend of Lynch's and an associate producer on Twin Peaks, asked novelist Barry Gifford what he was working on. Gifford happened to be writing the manuscript for Wild at Heart: The Story of Sailor and Lula but still had two more chapters to write. He let Montgomery read it while the producer was working on the pilot episode for Twin Peaks in pre-published galley form. Montgomery read it and two days later called Gifford and told him that he wanted to make a film of it. Two days afterwards, Montgomery gave Lynch Gifford’s book while he was editing the Pilot, asking him if he would executive produce a film adaptation that he would direct. Lynch remembers telling him, "That’s great Monty, but what if I read it and fall in love with it and want to do it myself?" Montgomery did not think that Lynch would like the book because he did not think it was his "kind of thing". Lynch loved the book and called Gifford soon afterwards, asking him if he could make a film of it. Lynch remembers, "It was just exactly the right thing at the right time. The book and the violence in America merged in my mind and many different things happened". Lynch was drawn to what he saw as "a really modern romance in a violent world – a picture about finding love in hell", and was also attracted to "a certain amount of fear in the picture, as well as things to dream about. So it seems truthful in some way".
Lynch got approval from Propaganda to switch projects; however, production was scheduled to begin two months after the rights had been purchased, forcing the director to work fast. He had Cage and Dern read Gifford's book and wrote a draft in a week. By Lynch's own admission, his first draft was "depressing and pretty much devoid of happiness, and no one wanted to make it". Lynch did not like the ending in Gifford’s book where Sailor and Lula split up for good. For Lynch, "it honestly didn’t seem real, considering the way they felt about each other. It didn’t seem one bit real! It had a certain coolness, but I couldn’t see it". It was at this point that the director's love of The Wizard of Oz
The Wizard of Oz (1939 film)
The Wizard of Oz is a 1939 American musical fantasy film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed primarily by Victor Fleming. Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf received credit for the screenplay, but there were uncredited contributions by others. The lyrics for the songs...
(1939) began to influence the script he was writing and he included a reference to the "yellow brick road". Lynch remembers, "It was an awful tough world and there was something about Sailor being a rebel. But a rebel with a dream of the Wizard of Oz is kinda like a beautiful thing". Samuel Goldwyn, Jr.
Samuel Goldwyn, Jr.
Samuel Goldwyn, Jr. is an American film producer.Samuel Goldwyn, Jr. was born in Los Angeles, California. He is the son of actress Frances Howard and the pioneer motion picture mogul Samuel Goldwyn...
read an early draft of the screenplay and did not like Gifford’s ending either, so Lynch changed it. However, the director was worried that this change made the film too commercial, "much more commercial to make a happy ending yet, if I had not changed it, so that people wouldn’t say I was trying to be commercial, I would have been untrue to what the material was saying".
Lynch also added new characters, like Mr. Reindeer and Sherilyn Fenn
Sherilyn Fenn
Sherilyn Fenn is an American actress and filmmaker. She came to international attention for her performance as Audrey Horne on the 1990 cult TV series Twin Peaks...
as the victim of a car accident. During rehearsals, Lynch began talking about Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, singer, model and showgirl who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful motion pictures during the 1950s....
with Cage and Dern. The director acquired a copy of Elvis' Golden Hits and after listening to it, called Cage and told him that he had to sing two songs, "Love Me" and "Love Me Tender". The actor agreed and recorded them so that he could lip-synch to them on the set. At one point, Cage called Lynch and asked if he could wear a snakeskin jacket in the film and Lynch incorporated it into his script. Before filming started, Dern suggested that she and Cage go on a weekend road trip to Las Vegas
Las Vegas metropolitan area
The Las Vegas Valley is the heart of the Las Vegas-Paradise, NV MSA also known as the Las Vegas–Paradise–Henderson MSA which includes all of Clark County, Nevada, and is a metropolitan area in the southern part of the U.S. state of Nevada. The Valley is defined by the Las Vegas Valley landform, a ...
in order to bond and get a handle on their characters. Dern remembers, "We agreed that Sailor and Lula needed to be one person, one character, and we would each share it. I got the sexual, wild, Marilyn
Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, singer, model and showgirl who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful motion pictures during the 1950s....
, gum-chewing fantasy, female side; Nick’s got the snakeskin, Elvis
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
, raw, combustible, masculine side". Within four months, Lynch began filming on August 9, 1989 in both Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
(including the San Fernando Valley
San Fernando Valley
The San Fernando Valley is an urbanized valley located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area of southern California, United States, defined by the dramatic mountains of the Transverse Ranges circling it...
) and New Orleans with a relatively modest budget of $10 million. Originally, the film featured more explicit erotic scenes between Sailor and Lula. In one, she has an orgasm
Orgasm
Orgasm is the peak of the plateau phase of the sexual response cycle, characterized by an intense sensation of pleasure...
while relating to Sailor a dream she had of being ripped open by a wild animal. Another deleted scene had Lula lowering herself onto Sailor's face saying, "Take a bite out of Lula".
Themes
One of the film's themes is, according to Lynch, "finding love in HellHell
In many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...
". He has stated "For me, it's just a compilation of ideas that come along. The darker ones and the lighter ones, the humorous ones, all working together. You try to be as true as you can to those ideas and try to get them on film." Similar to Lynch's previous Blue Velvet, the sudden idealistic ending of perfect happiness is so drenched in irony that ultimately Lynch seems to be suggesting that people who have the potential for violence struggle to find true happiness.
Distribution
Early test screenings for Wild at Heart did not go well with the strong violence in some scenes being too much. At the first test screening, eighty people walked out during a graphic torture scene involving Johnnie Farragut. Lynch decided not to cut anything from the film and at the second screening one hundred people walked out during this scene. Lynch remembers, "By then, I knew the scene was killing the film. So I cut it to the degree that it was powerful but didn´t send people running from the theatre". In retrospect, the filmmaker said, "But that was part of what Wild at Heart was about: really insane and sick and twisted stuff going on".1990 Cannes Film Festival
- Jury :*Bernardo Bertolucci *Alexei Guerman *Anjelica Huston *Bertrand Blier *Christopher Hampton*Fanny Ardant *Françoise Giroud *Hayao Shibata *Mira Nair *Sven Nykvist...
in the 2,400-seat Grand Auditorium. After the screening, it received "wild cheering" from the audience. When Jury President Bernardo Bertolucci
Bernardo Bertolucci
Bernardo Bertolucci is an Italian film director and screenwriter, whose films include The Conformist, Last Tango in Paris, 1900, The Last Emperor and The Dreamers...
announced Wild at Heart as the Palme d'Or
Palme d'Or
The Palme d'Or is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival and is presented to the director of the best feature film of the official competition. It was introduced in 1955 by the organising committee. From 1939 to 1954, the highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du...
winner at the awards ceremony, the boos almost drowned out the cheers with film critic Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
leading the vocal detractors. Barry Gifford remembers that there was a prevailing mood that the media was hoping Lynch would fail. "All kinds of journalists were trying to cause controversy and have me say something like ‘This is nothing like the book’ or ‘He ruined my book.’ I think everybody from Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine to What’s On In London was disappointed when I said ‘This is fantastic. This is wonderful. It’s like a big, dark, musical comedy’". The MPAA told Lynch that the version of Wild at Heart screened at Cannes would receive an X rating in North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
unless cuts were made, as the NC-17 was not in effect in 1990, at the time of the film's release. The director was contractually obligated to deliver an R-rated film. He made one change in the scene where a character shoots his own head off with a shotgun
Shotgun
A shotgun is a firearm that is usually designed to be fired from the shoulder, which uses the energy of a fixed shell to fire a number of small spherical pellets called shot, or a solid projectile called a slug...
. Gun smoke was added to tone down the blood and hide the removal of the character's head from his body. Foreign prints were not affected. The Region 1 DVD from MGM
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
contains this altered take of the shotgun scene.
Reception
Wild at Heart opened in the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
on August 17, 1990 in a limited release of only 532 theaters, grossing USD
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
$2.9 million in its opening weekend. It went into wider release on August 31 with 618 theaters and grossing an additional $1.8 million. The film ultimately grossed $14.5 million in North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
, well above its estimated budget of $10 million.
Wild at Heart has a rating of 64% on Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
and a 52 metascore at Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
. It received mixed to negative reviews upon its initial theatrical release. Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
wrote in his review for the Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
, "He is a good director, yes. If he ever goes ahead and makes a film about what's really on his mind, instead of hiding behind sophomoric humor and the cop-out of 'parody,' he may realize the early promise of his Eraserhead
Eraserhead
Eraserhead is a 1977 American surrealist film and the first feature film of David Lynch, who wrote, produced and directed. Lynch began working on the film at the AFI Conservatory, which gave him a $10,000 grant to make the film after he had begun working there following his 1971 move to Los Angeles...
. But he likes the box office prizes that go along with his pop satires, so he makes dishonest movies like this one". USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
gave the film one and a half stars out of four and said, "This attempt at a one-up also trumpets its weirdness, but this time the agenda seems forced". In his review for Sight & Sound
Sight & Sound
Sight & Sound is a British monthly film magazine published by the British Film Institute .Sight & Sound was first published in 1932 and in 1934 management of the magazine was handed to the nascent BFI, which still publishes the magazine today...
magazine, Jonathan Rosenbaum
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Jonathan Rosenbaum is an American film critic. Rosenbaum was the head film critic for the Chicago Reader from 1987 until 2008, when he retired at the age of 65...
wrote, "Perhaps the major problem is that despite Cage and Dern's best efforts, Lynch is ultimately interested only in iconography, not characters at all. When it comes to images of evil, corruption, derangement, raw passion and mutilation (roughly in that order), Wild at Heart is a veritable cornucopia". Richard Combs in his review for Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
wrote, "The result is a pile-up, of innocence, of evil, even of actual road accidents, without a context to give significance to the casualties or survivors". Christopher Sharrett in Cineaste
Cineaste
Cineaste is a film magazine published quarterly. It has been publishing reviews, in-depth analyses and interviews since 1967. The magazine independently operates out of New York City with no financial ties to any film studios or academic institutions...
magazine wrote, "Lynch's characters are now so cartoony one is prone to address him more as a theorist than director, except he is not that challenging ... One is never sure what Lynch likes or dislikes, and his often striking images are too often lacking in compassion for us to accept him as a chronicler of a moribund landscape a la Fellini". However, Peter Travers
Peter Travers
Peter Travers is an American film critic, who has written for, in turn, People and Rolling Stone. Travers also hosts a celebrity interview show called Popcorn on ABC News Now and ABCNews.com.-Career:...
wrote in Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
magazine, "Starting with the outrageous and building from there, he ignites a slight love-on-the-run novel, creating a bonfire of a movie that confirms his reputation as the most exciting and innovative filmmaker of his generation".
Awards
Diane Ladd was nominated for Best Supporting ActressAcademy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
at the 1990 Academy Awards
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
and at the 1991 Golden Globes. She did not win either award. Frederick Elmes
Frederick Elmes
Frederick Elmes, A.S.C. is an American cinematographer who has won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Cinematography twice, for Wild at Heart and Night on Earth....
was nominated for Best Cinematography and Willem Dafoe for Best Supporting Male
Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Actor
The Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Actor is one of the annual Independent Spirit Awards. Alan Arkin is the only winner to have won both this award and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor the same year.-1980s:...
at the 1991 Independent Spirit Awards. Elmes won in his category. The film won the prestigious 1990 Palme d'Or
Palme d'Or
The Palme d'Or is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival and is presented to the director of the best feature film of the official competition. It was introduced in 1955 by the organising committee. From 1939 to 1954, the highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du...
Award at the Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
, and was the second of three consecutive American movies to be awarded the honor. (The other two were Sex, Lies, and Videotape
Sex, lies, and videotape
Sex, Lies, and Videotape is a 1989 independent film that brought director Steven Soderbergh to prominence. It tells the story of a man who films women discussing their sexuality, and his impact on the relationship of a troubled married couple....
in 1989 and Barton Fink
Barton Fink
Barton Fink is a 1991 American film, written, directed, and produced by the Coen brothers. Set in 1941, it stars John Turturro in the title role as a young New York City playwright who is hired to write scripts for a movie studio in Hollywood, and John Goodman as Charlie, the insurance salesman who...
in 1991.)