If The Wizard of Oz was a road picture, maybe that explains the recurring references to wicked witches and the Emerald City in David Lynch’s road picture, Wild at Heart (1990). Then again, explaining one of Lynch’s films can be a journey down a bottomless rabbit hole. Among the bonus features on the new Wild at Heart DVD are interviews with Lynch, cast and crew; the director is described as shaping, sculpting and molding ideas as he goes along. He gives general directions and allows the material of the unconscious to surface.
And that material can get dark. If Oz had its treacherous patches, the America of Wild at Heart is Hades as blueprinted by a demiurge with a sense of humor. Violence is endemic and sometimes extreme enough to be comical. Even the protagonists, Sailor (Nicolas Cage) and Lula (Laura Dern), are bad but better than most. They have consciences and their love for each other. In an outstanding performance, Cage channels Elvis—a young and vital Presley—as a rebel delinquent with a hard-eyed code of honor.
Along with Oz and Elvis, Wild at Heart builds its allusions from the sort of hothouse Tennessee Williams adaptations produced in Hollywood during the 1950s and early ‘60s. Lula’s family is rich, Southern and perverse. Dern’s real mom, Diane Ladd, plays Lula’s mother like one of Oz’s wicked witches with a broomstick parked in “Dallas.” She’s an evil Dolly Parton or Tammy Faye Baker with poofy Nashville hair, gulping martinis in a single swallow, gazing clairvoyantly into a crystal ball and ploting to keep Sailor and Lula apart—even if she has to kill.
