Wild at Heart at the George Eastman House

Date published: February 17, 2005

It's that time again for me to post another review of another venture to the George Eastman House's Dryden Theatre wherein a Lynch film was screened. Last night, the film was Wild at Heart starring Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern.

When I walked into the theater, Mike Fisher came down from the upper part of the theater and motioned for me to follow. Low and behold, not only would I be sitting with Mike, but Janis and Jeremiah were there as well! It's always refreshing to see that I'm not the ONLY one I know that is interested in odd films like these.

I'm not sure how many times I have seen Wild at Heart, but it's always been my least favorite Lynch film. Maybe this is due to the fact that I watched it soon after the TV show Twin Peaks was canceled. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a huge fan of the show and currently run the Twin Peaks Festival. Anyway, I really loved the show, and being that Wild at Heart was filmed in the same year as Twin Peaks (1990), I assumed that I'd like Wild at Heart as well. Like I said, I didn't. The Wizard of Oz references were just a little too over the top and characters seemed like they were all forcibly weird. With Twin Peaks, you had quirky characters for sure, but it was a subtle quirkiness and not overdone.

That being said, this print was the best one yet. The problem with black seems didn't seem as obvious as the previous two films, and the color looked great. Oddly enough, after saying how much I never liked Wild at Heart, this film came as a pleasant surprise. I actually liked it! It's been some time since I'd seen it, and in retrospect, I may have actually been have asleep during previous viewing. Time seems to have changed my view of the film. Characters were quirky, yes, but this time it didn't seem as forced. The Wizard of Oz references, which are abundant, seemed more appropriate. It worked.

So my faith in Lynch is now more restored. Maybe it's my overexposure to Lynch that had caused me to be less inspired by his work lately. Don't get me wrong, I'm not someone who says "Lynch is a genius!" I don't tend to throw the word genius around that much. I just think that after watching all of Lynch's films so much, some of his recurring imagery can seem too common and overused. Anyway, I'm rambling a bit, my point is that something about watching this again gave me some good energy. Maybe it's just because the past two films didn't seem that great because of the shotty projection.

My one sentence summary? Wild at Heart is a violent road trip film about love in the modern world. That's about what Lynch had to say about it, tho it's not verbatim, so I figured I'd work from his quotes to create my one sentence summary. So there it is.

Oh yeah, two more things. First, it must be mentioned that Lynch won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival for this film. For those who don't know...that's like winning a Best Picture Oscar, except it's an international competition, not just American films with a few foreign ones added for flavor.

Secondly, and lastly, tho I mentioned that I was never really a fan of this film, I have always been a fan of a piece that Lynch did right before Wild at Heart. It's not a film really, it's more of a 50 minute performance art piece filmed in a theater. It's called Industrial Symphony #1: The Dream of the Broken Hearted. Because Wild at Heart was in the works when this performance piece was filmed, Lynch got Laura Dern and Nicolas cage to appear in the intro as the heartbroken woman and the heart breaker, respectively. It's a very abstract piece. I think the reason why I like it so much is because of the main character, the dreamself of the heartbroken woman. The character is played by Julee Cruise, and for most of the piece, she sings music from Twin Peaks. Her voice has an amazing angelic sound to it. Anyway, good stuff, if you're a fan of the more obscure.

Ok, I'm done writing in this journal for another week...only one more film to go, Mulholland Drive.