So, comrades, I am bringing into the light of our flashlight a film called Wild at Heart of 1990. This is an extremely unusually filmed drama with admixtures of a thriller and a road movie. With a great, incredibly diverse and beautiful soundtrack and killer style. Starring Nicolas Cage. In those years, he didn’t make faces like he does now, but he was already trying and realizing his potential. The rest of the cast is not far behind, I especially liked Willem Dafoe – he turned out to be even scarier than usual. And the director and screenwriter is none other than David Lynch.
In detail: based on the film of the same name by a certain Barry Gifford unknown to me, a film that looks great even without reading the book. For the sophisticated, it should be noted right away that Lynch did not like the original ending, and for the film he changed it, since it is this ending that more accurately reflects his vision of the character. To be honest, I’m not a bit of a fan of such endings, but coupled with the admixtures from the Wizard of Oz, it turned out very solid. And yet I’m still not sure if it was worth changing the ending. Yes, the fact that I do not know exactly how the book ends does not help me in any way to sort out my doubts.
But let’s leave it at that. In addition to references to the already mentioned Wizard of Oz, the film is also replete with allusions to the films of Elvis Presley. In general, the theme of the fifties and sixties, although not clearly visible in the film itself, is nevertheless very tightly inscribed in the characters themselves, who from time to time at least partially seem to be ghosts from the past. Laura Dern said in plain text that her character is a wild, sexualized Marilyn Monroe, and there’s nothing to say about Nicolas Cage with a slicked-back hairstyle and a snakeskin jacket. Of course, such a staging of the characters failed at the suggestion of the director, and it is to Lynch that we owe the fact that Cage sings Elvis songs in this film. On the other hand, it was Nick who decided that his character should wear a leather jacket. This very jacket has become a kind of calling card of the main character, and from time to time he gives out a very cool monologue, telling what exactly this jacket means to him. By the way, Cage himself described his character as a “romantic Southerner outlaw.”
And yes, the impurities I mentioned are road movies. A considerable part of the film takes place on the road, behind the wheel and in the cockpit of the car of the main characters, which is the Ford Thunderbird of the 65th. For some reason, the poster shows a completely different car… The antagonist of Ford’s main characters is the luxurious Cadillac Eldorado convertible of the 76th year of manufacture. And at the end of the film, just for a second, a few more vintage beauties flash by…
So this is an excellent film in all respects, created by masters of their craft, and therefore I advise everyone to watch it. The soundtrack is also attached: in addition to the aforementioned curiosity in the form of a cover of Elvis Presley performed by Nicolas Cage in two versions, there is classical music, some jazz, metal, the immortal Be-Bop-A-Lula by Gene Vincent and many more for every taste. You can download it here:
Everyone enjoy watching and listening.
