WILD AT HEART "Wild at Heart" is never on streaming in US

Jordan Cole

White Lodge
Sep 22, 2022
725
1,132
Just catching up with this thread and shocked about all the negative and offended talk (or simply underwhelmed talk) regarding Wild At Heart. Wow. Did not expect that from a forum full of Lynch fans! Though of course you're all entitled to your opinions.

It's a great film! It's called Wild At Heart, of course it's going to have some offensive and insane stuff, that's kinda the idea. It's about going through Hell to get to Heaven. I mean, the dreaded F word? It's true to the world and those characters. These are not educated, sensitive NPR-listening liberals starring in this film, haha. It's a messy, passionate, mean, and also incredibly sincere and sweet film. That's what Lynch does, mixes all those emotions and tones together in a big violent blender that spins you around until you're so disoriented you don't even know how you feel about the thing you just saw. It's violent, it's weird, it's tragic, it's sexy, it's dreamy, it's WILD! My dog barks some!

In fairness, I didn't truly love Wild At Heart until I watched it a second and then third time. I also read the novel just last week so at this moment I feel particularly attuned to it. Responding to a post on the first page, I don't believe for a second Lynch is mocking Sailor and Luna or using them as some sort of ironic statement about white trash America (I personally think people are kind of off the mark when they think Lynch does this stuff) or anything like that. I think he FELL IN LOVE with the characters in the book and made a sincere attempt to do them justice. I think he truly loves them. After reading that book it's hard not to.

It's certainly Lynch's most grotesque work, but I think the explosion of weirdness and the somewhat stream of consciousness structure (like various vignettes, etc) is really important for the next step in his artistic journey. Elements of that from Wild of Heart would then be incorporated into all his future work. It is funny how even something as nightmarish and shocking as Blue Velvet can seem kind of accessible and mainstream compared to Wild At Heart! It's a candy colored explosion of a film.
 
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Cappy

White Lodge
Aug 4, 2022
545
538
The Shout Select version looks great, but I can't play it in the UK. Hopefully the film will get a decent release here at some point. The only version currently available is a German one from Universal, which I doubt is a Lynch-approved transfer!
I agree about it being the moment critics decided to go after Lynch. Sadly the film they used to put the boot in was FWWM. After Collateral, critics decided to go after Michael Mann, trashing Miami Vice. It's as if, en masse, critics decide to give directors a kicking periodically.
I really liked the Miami Vice film, although the ending underwhelmed. Not even that pretty Mogwai song could make up for it.
 

Mr. Reindeer

White Lodge
Apr 13, 2022
737
1,667
The cover of the recent blu ray release looks gorgeous. Was it painted by Bill Sienkiewicz? Thinking about biting the bullet and purchasing this...
BTW, you inspired me to check who the art was by (I doubted that Bill Sienkiewicz was doing Blu Ray art, but I appreciate the reference!). The art is credited to an Antonio Stella. It looks like he’s done a lot of cool poster/cover work for various releases: Tony Stella
 

Dom

White Lodge
Jul 10, 2022
654
667
I really liked the Miami Vice film, although the ending underwhelmed. Not even that pretty Mogwai song could make up for it.
Yeah, by all accounts the final raid was cancelled because Jamie Foxx was being an arse! It's odd because surely they could have shot the necessary scenes in the USA, doubling for the location. I effect, the ending was supposed to be a remake of the ending of the TV episode The Return of Calderone (much of the rest of the film was drawn from Smugglers' Blues). I still love the film: it has great atmosphere. It's been out of print in the UK for years, but there's a new release from 88 Films in December. I'm hoping the Director's Cut will be included, as it never received a UK release (although I have a copy I imported from the USA!)
 

Dom

White Lodge
Jul 10, 2022
654
667
Just catching up with this thread and shocked about all the negative and offended talk (or simply underwhelmed talk) regarding Wild At Heart. Wow. Did not expect that from a forum full of Lynch fans! Though of course you're all entitled to your opinions.
I don't think it's exactly 'negative' amongst us. I adored WaH at the time and still like it.

I never got offended by the film either. I guess some people get offended by certain remarks more nowadays or analyse them for things that they didn't before. I was routinely beaten up and called a 'fag' and worse when I was at school in the 80s and 90s (I wasn't interested in sports and was obsessed with movies and books, which apparently meant I must be sexually attracted to men! What can I say?? My dream women were actually Audrey Horne and Laura Palmer and I most wanted to be like Cooper!! :D) so a character being threatened by a bunch of bikers and saying something rude to them had no affect on me.

I didn't really think about what Sailor said specifically: just that he tried to 'macho up' against some people who were clearly going to kick the crap out of him anyway! It's bit like Dennis Hopper's speech about Sicilians in True Romance: he knew he was going to be killed anyway, so he went out being as insulting as possible!

Curiously enough, WaH feels the most dated of the Lynch films, though. It's made at that point in the early 1990s that are still recognisably the 1980s (which probably went on, culturally, until around Terminator 2 in 1992). Lula's look and her hair, for example, is pure 1980s: it's the sort of hair you expect a mid-80s male heavy metal band member to have! :D Still, it's a crazy film and one I'll have in my collection as soon as a decent version arrives!
 

Dom

White Lodge
Jul 10, 2022
654
667
In this case, the Shout disc is Region A locked. Unfortunately.
Yes, Shout! material is always locked. As is Kino Lorber and Criterion (although Criterion put some stuff out in Region B as well, locked to Region B).
 

Cappy

White Lodge
Aug 4, 2022
545
538
Yeah, by all accounts the final raid was cancelled because Jamie Foxx was being an arse! It's odd because surely they could have shot the necessary scenes in the USA, doubling for the location. I effect, the ending was supposed to be a remake of the ending of the TV episode The Return of Calderone (much of the rest of the film was drawn from Smugglers' Blues). I still love the film: it has great atmosphere. It's been out of print in the UK for years, but there's a new release from 88 Films in December. I'm hoping the Director's Cut will be included, as it never received a UK release (although I have a copy I imported from the USA!)
The ending of Smugglers' Blues is great, with Tubbs jumping off that bridge onto the boat.

And if I recall... Calderone part 2 ends with Tubbs blasting Calderone by the pool, followed by Tina Turner's "What's Love Got To Do?" playing over the end credits... I thought I read that the film's original ending was supposed to involve a boating sequence?

Calderone part 1 is one of my fave eps, what with the donut chomping, coffee guzzling hitman. Some proto-shades of Peaks?
 

Mr. Reindeer

White Lodge
Apr 13, 2022
737
1,667
Some random Friday trivia for all you Wild at Heart fans: If you listen very closely, an instrumental of “My Prayer” is playing under all the Mr. Reindeer scenes in the film (it’s listed in the credits under its original French title “Avant de Mourir”). The version in the film is played by Shony Alex Braun, a Hungarian violin virtuoso who survived Auschwitz and Dachau. He also appears in the film as himself on stage in the scene where Marietta and Johnnie dine together (but he’s playing a different song in that scene).
 

Cappy

White Lodge
Aug 4, 2022
545
538
Some random Friday trivia for all you Wild at Heart fans: If you listen very closely, an instrumental of “My Prayer” is playing under all the Mr. Reindeer scenes in the film (it’s listed in the credits under its original French title “Avant de Mourir”). The version in the film is played by Shony Alex Braun, a Hungarian violin virtuoso who survived Auschwitz and Dachau. He also appears in the film as himself on stage in the scene where Marietta and Johnnie dine together (but he’s playing a different song in that scene).
Roy Orbison has a version of "My Prayer" as well -- I have to imagine Lynch half considered using that one in S3 before going with the Platters. Which was the right choice, imo.
 

Mr. Reindeer

White Lodge
Apr 13, 2022
737
1,667
Roy Orbison has a version of "My Prayer" as well -- I have to imagine Lynch half considered using that one in S3 before going with the Platters. Which was the right choice, imo.
It’s interesting, in light of The Return, that the original French title (before lyrics were written for it many years later) translates to “Before Dying”!
 
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