Cinema in Quarantine: Wild at Heart

Last week I got together with writer and filmmaker Cameron Cloutier (@bodian26) to watch and discuss David Lynch's Wild at Heart in a live stream video. Cameron is the director of Queen of Hearts, an intriguing Twin Peaks-inspired film that explores characters Caroline Earle and Annie Blackburn, and through all this we discovered that we both really favor Lynch's late 80s/early 90s period that includes Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, and Wild at Heart.

My own personal experience of seeing this film for the first time was kind of interesting, at 15 I had to shut it off about halfway, but about a year later I muscled my way through the Big Tuna scenes and ended up really enjoying it. Unfortunately I was not able to see this in a theater, which would have been an entirely different, very visceral event (which Cameron describes). For anyone trying this for the first time, just know it's very violent, very sexual, and filled with jarring, intense moments that you just have to be able to go with. If you can make it through the conclusion of the Johnny Farragut situation about midway through the film, you'll probably be fine to the end. IMDB's official description uses the phrase "variety of weirdos" to summarize the film and the people in it, and while it's true, these people are weird and violence is at the root of the story, the film is a lot more than just that. For more on plot summary or character details you can read this review, also pretty informal, that I did ten years ago on this blog.

Sometimes when you watch a film you've seen multiple times, the experience can feel a little like you're just going through the motions or just serves as a setting where you can recite all the lines and feel comforted by the familiarity. Relaxing. Validating. This never really happens to me during Lynch films or Twin Peaks for two reasons.

1. Everything on the screen is so rich with detail---dialogs, composition, music, effects---there's almost always something each time I view that I notice for the first time. For instance, this time Cameron brought my attention to the music during the film's opening: its interesting shift from Badalementi's score to "In the Mood," to the aggressive guitars of Powermad during the first murder. Very disorienting but very fitting for introducing Sailor and Lula (while Marietta lurks in the background). Also Marietta's cute little pink bathroom with floral wallpaper. The furniture in the hotel lobby in New Orleans. And a random longhorn (we decided it may have been a light or decal with a florescent bulb along the underside) leaned up against one side of the bed at the motel in Big Tuna that was only there for one scene at night and then disappeared (!) Always something to see, hear, or think about.

2. The uncanny, somewhat incongruent elements (usually in the form of characters, but sometimes entire scenes or musical numbers) that pop up Lynch's work and speak to his brilliance and individuality as an auteur. I'm always on high alert when waiting for these situations, things like Marietta's mishandling of the lipstick, the woman sidestepping across the stage with her fingers flickering up by her cheeks at one of the New Orleans musical venues, the story of Jingle Dell, or the old men loitering around the hotel lobby where Johnny is supposed to meet Marietta (but has gone "buffalo hunting").

I've already said too much, but it was a fun couple hours reminiscing and hearing another fan's experience of it, too. Take a look, if you want to see/hear more, or better yet, turn on the film and watch along with us. Let me know in the comments what you think!

Leaving Las Vegas

Leaving Las Vegas, 1995, directed by Mike Figgis
Written by John O'Brien (novel) and Mike Figgis (screenplay)
starring: Nicolas Cage, Elizabeth Shue

"Ben Sanderson, an alcoholic Hollywood screenwriter who lost everything because of his drinking, arrives in Las Vegas to drink himself to death. There, he meets and forms an uneasy friendship and non-interference pact with prostitute Sera." (IMDB).

Nic Cage really hit it with this, clearly, but I happen to think that he's *always* this good. That said, the arms-thrown-up-in-victory-after-a-morning-gin-at-the-bar move, his shakes and dry heaves, his tears and emotional apology as he gets fired, the slurring, the sudden smoothness that comes when he gets a burst of energy and optimism from whatever he's been drinking---ALL of this, is so disturbing and sad but played extremely well. Best Actor Oscar went to Cage for this role, I still remember how pumped he was as he walked up to collect the statue; it was fun.

About the rest of the film: aside from the unsettling, disturbing subject matter of a man slowly drinking himself to death, there are many other dark and horrible things that happen here. Sera (Elizabeth Shue) isn't too happy with her life either, it seems (getting knifed by pimp, getting gang-raped and assaulted, etc.) so the relationship between them made sense, but most scenes were still really uncomfortable and tense. If you know someone with a drinking problem, which a lot of us do, *many* of Cage's scenes will be difficult. Getting canned from the screenwriting job and then going home to burn all his manuscripts struck a real chord with me, along with the violent outburst at the casino, ("I'm his father! I'm his father!") Not easy.

Liz? Looking Good!

The thing that I spent the most time thinking about this time around was actually the score---was anyone else at all jarred by it? It oscillates between different jazz genres, sometimes night club, other times like a Woody Allen clarinet kind of thing, and then there's also a Sting verse that seriously gets overplayed maybe 600 times . . . I don't know if it all really did much in the way of tying the room together, if you know what I mean. There are no uplifting moments in this film, maybe a few comical lines spoken (by Cage) but virtually everything else is a huge downer, and sometimes it felt like the music was going a little too far into Woody Allen-silly world, and not in an ironic way, either.

Thoughts?

8mm

I'm just going to go ahead and be blunt; I couldn't stomach this. I saw it in the theater when it came out in 1999 and was probably weirded out a little back then, but this time I wasn't weirded out as much as I was bored and annoyed. So I turned it off after about forty minutes and watched The Hangover instead, which while not exactly edgey is still a fine, fine film.

This was directed by Joel Schumacher. And while I give the guy credit for directing a boat load of good crappy films (I'll even argue that St. Elmo's Fire and The Lost Boys are great films, no crap involved) I think he missed the mark with this, big time.

1. If you are going to try to convince me that this private detective is plunging deeper and deeper into this dark world of pornography, and this film is supposed to be all dark and the dark subject matter and the darkness and everything, then you'd do well to adjust the dialogues to not be so fricking RIDICULOUS! Something cannot be dark when it's so silly that it makes me shudder and laugh. The phone conversations, no matter who they were between, were the cheesiest, lamest things in America. I can't even believe Nic Cage agreed to do them. I've heard better exchanges on Saved by the Bell.

2. I have a hard time believing that any new father (of a baby girl) would be tromping off getting more and more involved in this stuff, especially when it becomes clear that his own life and safety are on the line. Yeah it's horrible that this disgusting thing happened to the runaway girl and all, but jeez, man, just get the hell out and find a new gig.

3. So the steel tycoon's wife wants verification that the film is fake so her husband's reputation won't suffer? He had a snuff film in his locked safe, one where a girl is murdered by stabbing, or simulated as such. If this is what it takes for your ancient old man to get his rocks off, I don't think real or fake is going to matter much either way, you were married to a sick freak. End of story. (or as we say around here, old people #!@%ing is gross)

I had no sympathy for anyone. I squeezed the disk as if to do it harm when I set it out in the mailbox this morning. Boo.

hot, hot, HOT!

this is what i've been watching lately.