Wild at Heart (film)
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Wild at Heart is a 1990 film directed by David Lynch. The film is based on the novel, Wild at Heart: The Story of Sailor and Lula by Barry Gifford.
Starring Nicolas Cage, Laura Dern, Diane Ladd, and Willem Dafoe, the film mixes bizarre almost supernatural events and off-kilter violence making it an atypical road movie which stands all the usual clichés of the genre on their head. It is an unusual homage to The Wizard of Oz.
The film won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
Plot summary
Lovers Lula Pace and Sailor Ripley are separated after Sailor is jailed for killing in self defense.
Upon his release they set out for California (ignoring Sailor's probation). Lula's psychopathic mother Marietta Fortune (who tried to have him killed originally) arranges for a private detective and underworld friends to find them and eliminate Sailor.
Unaware of this, the two enjoy their journey and themselves being together...until they witness a young woman dying after a car accident - a bad omen. After being stranded in a small town, Sailor agrees to join the loathsome Bobby Peru in a criminal venture.
Main cast
- Nicolas Cage - Sailor Ripley
- Laura Dern - Lula Pace Fortune
- Willem Dafoe - Bobby Peru
- Diane Ladd - Marietta Fortune
- Crispin Glover - Cousin Dell
- Isabella Rossellini - Perdita Durango
- Harry Dean Stanton - Johnnie Farragut
- Sherilyn Fenn - Girl in car accident
Origins
Dino De Laurentiis had control of several of Lynch's old projects and the filmmaker was in the process of trying to get some of them back when a friend of his, Monty Montgomery, gave him Gifford's book. Montgomery had purchased the rights to several novels, one of them being Gifford's in 1989. He optioned the book with the intention of directing the film and with Lynch executive producing. Montgomery gave Lynch the manuscript and after reading it, Lynch was so taken with the characters that he wanted to make the film himself. Montgomery agreed.Lynch remembers in an interview, "The book came along and I fell in love with Sailor and Lula. I love the way Barry writes dialogue and that and the title conjured up for me a whole world and sensibility. I saw Sailor and Lula in love in the middle of a crazy, violent, wild world and I wanted to go on that trip with them." At the time, Lynch was working on a screenplay based on a 1940s detective novel for Propaganda Films. They allowed Lynch to stop working on this project but only if he started Wild at Heart immediately. So, Lynch wrote the screenplay for the film in a week and began filming on August 9, 1989 in both Los Angeles and New Orleans.
Trivia
- The movie's promotional posters spell Nicolas Cage's name as "Nicolas" as well as "Nicholas."
- Nicolas Cage does his own singing.
- The snakeskin jacket Sailor Ripley wears in the film was actually Nicolas Cage's own.
- After filming was completed, Nicolas Cage gave Laura Dern his snakeskin jacket.
- After chain smoking a number of cigarettes, Laura Dern passed out on the set. She was awakened by David Lynch saying "Tid Bit? Are you alright?".
- The North American theatrical version was edited in the scene where a character accidentally shoots his own head off with a shotgun. Gun smoke was added to this scene in order to tone down the blood and cover up the removal of the character's head from his body. Foreign prints were not affected. The Region 1 DVD from MGM contains this altered (less graphic) take of the shotgun scene. Oddly enough, this scene in it's uncut form has found it's way onto recent airings of the film on the Sundance Channel in the U.S.
External links
| David Lynch |
|---|
| Feature films |
| Eraserhead • The Elephant Man • Dune • Blue Velvet • Wild at Heart • Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me • Lost Highway • The Straight Story • Mulholland Dr. • Inland Empire |
| TV series |
| Twin Peaks • On the Air • Hotel Room |
| Other work |
| Short films • Industrial Symphony No. 1 • Rabbits • Dumb Land |
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