Wild at Heart

Wild at Heart (1990)

Timing: 2:5 (125 min)

7.024/10
1545

7.14/10
26633

7.2/10
111000

All about film

Video 3

Photo 51

Actors and characters

Release date

1990-08-17

Country

United States

Production

PolyGram Filmed Entertainment, Working Title Films, Propaganda Films, Samuel Goldwyn Company

Genre

Crime, Thriller, Romance

Budget

$9 500 000

Revenue

$14 562 443

Website

Director

David Lynch

Actors

Nicolas Cage, Laura Dern, Willem Dafoe, J.E. Freeman, Crispin Glover, Diane Ladd, Calvin Lockhart, Isabella Rossellini, Harry Dean Stanton, Grace Zabriskie
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Producer

Steve Golin, Monty Montgomery, Sigurjón Sighvatsson, Michael Kuhn

Operator

Frederick Elmes

Composer

Angelo Badalamenti

Artist

Audition

Johanna Ray

Editing

Duwayne Dunham
All team (155)

• The film is based on the novel by Barry Gifford.
• Many actors (Sherilyn Fenn, Grace Zabriskie, David Patrick Kelly, and others) "came" to the film from the series "Twin Peaks" (1990-1991), which David Lynch was filming around the same time.
• The snakeskin jacket worn by Nicolas Cage's character belonged to Cage himself. After filming, he gave it to Laura Dern.
• Nicolas Cage sang in his own voice in the film.
• Nicolas Cage himself performed the songs in the film.
• During filming, Laura Dern (who played Lulu) smoked four cigarettes in a row at the request of the director and screenwriter David Lynch and fainted.
• Work on the film was completed just one day before its premiere at the 1990 Cannes International Film Festival. The premiere screening was met with enthusiastic applause from the audience. When the jury chairman Bernardo Bertolucci announced that the Palme d'Or was awarded to 'Wild at Heart', the roar of the dissatisfied audience almost drowned out the welcoming shouts, with film critic Roger Ebert acting as an informal leader of the disgruntled. According to the film's screenwriter Barry Gifford, there was a belief that the media wanted Lynch's film to fail.
• Director and screenwriter David Lynch knew in advance that the actors playing the main characters, Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern, would be participating in quite explicit scenes, and he wanted them to play completely uninhibitedly when they began to undress in front of the cameras. Before filming began in Los Angeles, he sent Cage and Dern on a kind of vacation together so that the actors would get used to each other's company. According to Cage, during those few days, he and Dern took a trip to Las Vegas.
• Accustomed to playing more 'intellectual' heroines, Laura Dern experienced some difficulties with the image of Lula, who is obsessed with physical pleasures. Dern found that chewing gum in her mouth helped her maintain the right pace when delivering her lines.
• The results of the first preliminary screenings were somewhat disappointing. According to Lynch, about 80 viewers left the hall after the first showing of the film, and about 100 after the second.